Steve Prokai's Musical History

I first held a guitar when I was about 7 years old. I had to have one and thankfully, when I was about 11, my parents obliged with a steel string Yamaha acoustic. I took lessons after school from a local guitar teacher. A groovy kind of guy who was a master of many instruments. I was pretty good and was front row in our school concerts playing John Denver and the like. Then I heard Rush's All The World's A Stage and realized that Summer Breeze was not gonna cut it! Now I needed an electric guitar. My parents reluctantly obliged. I remember that day vividly.

We went to the Mahopac Music Store on Rt. 6 and there it was, a bonefide electric guitar that even came with an amp for about $100. Don't remember the brand, but it was awesome and I was so excited. Well, that cheezy little amp didn't have any distortion or any other rock effects and trying to play along to Rush was an abomination! That set up bit the dust and my acoustic went in the closet for many years after that.
I took my acoustic to college with me figuring it would give me something to do. I met lots of other musicians at college and one guy named Tom Latimer really impressed me. He was a keyboard player and could play some guitar and bass, but best of all he had a 4 track. I had never even seen one of those things before. I sat in on a recording session with about a dozen drunk folks and recorded a super nasty version of Jumpin' Jack Flash. I still have that tape.

My junior year I traded a small Swiss army knife for a Peavy Patriot and borrowed my friend Brian's Max12 amp. I really got into it and started learning how to play. That summer I worked my ass off to buy a Kramer Stagemaster Deluxe 1. It is a great guitar and is still my main axe. I did some recording's with Tom and many others under the name of The Grateful Dudes. Mostly joke songs and parody stuff, but some of it is great, including Boner For Your Love. I played bass for a band sometimes known as Free Beer, other times known as The Last Kind. We did 70's and 80's classic rock stuff. We played in bars and Fraternity/Sorority parties

After college I went to live and work in Japan and I took my guitar and Brian's Max12 amp with me. It totally sucked carrying 200 pounds worth of stuff across the globe in the middle of summer. Anyway, I had never received a pay check from a "real" job before and I was so tickled pink when they handed my $2500 cash that I went immediately to the local music store and bought effects, a crappy little drum machine and a Tascam PortaTwo MiniStudio! Wow did that change my life.

I started recording tons of stuff. Not songs, but just noodling. That was 1990. Now it's 1999 and I have recorded the 25 songs offered here as well as many, many song fragments that someday will be fashioned into real songs. Now I use a top of the line Mac, Digital Performer 2.6, a synthesizer, my two guitars and a Fender P-Bass Plus to make music. There was no internet in 1990 and I never, ever intended to release this music publically let alone to the WWW. If I would have known, I might have made a little better effort to re-record the blunders. Consequently, many of the songs are riddled with mistakes, bad notes, bad bends, bad timing, bad recording and bad mixing, but some moments are golden.

I have provided some brief info about each song. I hope you like them.


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