Jeff started his musical ambitions in Edmonton, AB, playing bass, guitar and keyboards in two very well known bands: OFFICE and VOICE before starting his own project called The SAVAGE NURSES with members of VOICE and another well known band: DARKROOM. Seeking something new, Jeff and his drummer Sherri Leigh were asked to relocate to Vancouver to become the rhythm section for then unknown SARAH McLACHLAN. Jeff wrote and performed on SARAH's debut album TOUCH on NETTWERK RECORDS in 1988. After two years of touring and production of SARAH's second album, things did not work out as planned and Jeff left to pursue other desires. Jeff was recently recruited to play bass for the rocking sounds of SOL 3. Check 'em out here on Project Opus. UBERBELLY is a project that has been 5 years in the making, culminating in an eclectic mix of pop and rock music that is constantly evolving. Enjoy!
And if you'd like to check out the darker side of my electronic and ambient music take a listen to 13th Pillar

• amazing
•  You are a good boy~
•  Thanks for adding Rouxbe Music!
•  Nice!
•  atmospheric

Biography
From Grandpa I got my storytelling. His visits were rare, as he and grandma lived in St. Catherines Ontario, and we lived just outside Calgary, Alberta. They spoiled all 8 of us children (according to my dad) but the biggest gift Grandpa always gave us was to tell us bedtime stories of the “olden days”.

Grandpa’s stories usually involved exciting stuff like runaway teams of horses, shooting at wolves, or somebody getting body parts torn off. His tales were filled with gestures and sound effects. He really had a way of bringing them to life. And he listened when a kid told him a story. He made you feel your stories were important.

From Mom and Dad I got music. My Dad and my other Grandpa were both musicians. Grandpa Hubele (of whom I knew very little) was a very good organ player. My dad played fiddle in his early years, touring around southern Alberta with a country dance band. He and Mom would, very occasionally, play duets on fiddle and piano when we were little kids.

I can remember waiting til my parents went out. Since I was the oldest, I often babysat my brothers and sisters. I would sneak into Dad’s fiddle case to take out the fiddle and play it. Except I was always trying to make it sound like a guitar, and I played it like one.

We moved back and forth across the country, from Ontario to Alberta and back many times as I grew up. Dad kept trading up for jobs, and I was in a new school almost every year. I became a loner and a rebel. I turned to humor to make up for my small size. I’d find the biggest kid in class, figure out how to make him laugh, and I didn’t have to worry about the rest of the bullies. It pays to have friends in high places.

I believe I had an undiagnosed hearing problem caused by a trauma (now confirmed as a severe hearing loss). I never could quite understand the lyrics on the radio which was always on in our house, so I made up my own.

My earliest memories were of crossing the big empty fields which made up the neighborhoods of my youth, singing at the top of my lungs and making up words as I went along. My mom says she could pick me out of the flocks of kids coming home from school. I’d be waving my arms and singing to myself as I walked across the prairie.

I started writing songs in a serious way when I was 21 years old. A friend, who had been showing me how to play guitar, and I went out to live on the beach on Vancouver Island at Pacific Rim Park. I was picking away when a simple line kept repeating itself in my head. I wrote it down, and in ten minutes I had a song. It seemed to open flood gates, and for the next 2 or 3 years I wrote a song or two a week. I average about a song a month now. But, they are better songs.

(over)

Biography, page 2

To write successfully, I usually have to be alone, have all my chores done and time on my hands. Words and melody most often develop at the same time. It takes from 10 minutes to 1 hour to write a song. It takes me two weeks to learn it. I like to wrap a song around a good story line. They always come from my own experiences.

I was fascinated with the blues from the get-go. I came in through the back door. J.J. Cale, then Hot Tuna. Then B.B. King, Freddy King, and Muddy Waters.

When I heard Bonnie Raitt play slide guitar, I was gone. I had to learn how to do that. I followed her trail back to Mississippi Fred McDowell. “You want rock, you gonna have to put me in a rockin’ chair. I plays the straight and natural blues.”

I also paid attention to the songwriters, my favorites being Paul Simon, Harry Nillson, Willie Dixon, and Tom Waits.

My interest in jazz developed through my association with other musicians like Calgary’s late Chuck Tracy, a gruff, funny, kind of crazy lounge musician. He introduced me to Tom Waits, Mose Allison, and Fats Waller amongst others.

As well, it became a habit to listen to the great Alberta radio station CKUA on Saturdays. Bill Coull’s Jazz Show was a fifteen year course in ‘Everything You Should Know About Jazz’.

I also have a life-long addiction to comedy movies and comic books. One of my Dad’s jobs was as a projectionist in a small town. Once a week on Saturday night the local community hall was turned into a theatre. I was very young (3 years til 7 years old) but those old black and white 16mm movies of the Marx Bros, Chaplin, and W.C. Fields remain deep in my psyche.

I think this was a great influence on my writing. Most of my songs have a little humor and a strange twist to them.

I have worked as a laborer and heavy equipment operator and truck driver since leaving the University of Calgary after 4 years of unrelated courses and wandering interests. Previous to that, I had worked at the CPR as a ticket clerk. I began working at age 14 at the steel mill where my father worked. I did not graduate from high school.

I have written songs for 32 years. Recording began for me in 1978 with the Acme Sausage Company with Holger Petersen broadcast on CKUA. Since then, I have been on countless radio and tv programs. I have recorded 6 albums of original material, and I just finished recording my demo for the 7th, and most exciting, CD - ‘Down In Davis Bay’.

•  Somewhere down the midnight cafe

THE SHORT
********
-the man cable- is the pseudonym that I use in my guise as a music producer and electronic music artist. For my drumming gigs, I usually just go by Robert Cummings.

In recent years, I’ve worked deeply with Steinberg Nuendo, my current favourite audio platform in the digital realm. My expertise includes mixing (digital/analog) and mastering, group and vocal tracking, live and studio drumming, drum programming, arranging and editing. I also have contacts to a wide range of pro musicians around the world. The music projects I’ve worked on or performed with have ranged from electronics to rock to jazz to everything in between ... even childrens’ CDs!

THE LONG
*******
Born and raised in winter-blasted Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada, I began drumming in 1983. I studied privately there until 1986 when I moved to the mild coastal climes of Vancouver, BC. After studying with jazz drum instructors there (Jim Chivers), I gained initial playing experience with touring/recording acts such as People Playing Music and Juno award-winning Alpha Yaya Diallo from Guinea, Africa. After an intermediate stop in Paris, France, I moved to Berlin, Germany in 1992 where I continued working as a drummer/percussionist in several groups.
In Berlin, I recorded percussion on two CDs by Genetic Drugs (”Karma Club” in 1993 and “Karma Pharma” in 1996) and became interested in the possibilities of electronics in music through work with Janek Siegele (Jayrope, Hardman, Girls United, The Sighs, klikklak records). The two co-founded the half-live, half-electronic avant pop band Rope in 1996 and completed “Rope Hotel” in 1997 for Alec Empire’s Geist imprint. A follow-up CD, “It’s No Fun To Compute”, was released in 2000. In the meantime, he started his solo project as the man cable and released a debut CD entitled “derouting” in 2000. This project continues to this day and a new release is planned for 2005.
From 1999 to 2001, I performed and recorded as drummer/percussionist with the renowned Die Geschwister Pfister, a comedy and music act that played to full houses throughout Germany, Austria and Switzerland. “The Voice of Snow White” was released in 2000 on Traumton records. During this period, I also contributed live electronics to the well-known 17 Hippies on their project The Sexy Ambient Hippies. This culminated in the release “17 Hippies Play Sexy Ambient Hippies” (Hipster Records/ Soul Food) in 2003.
I joined Klaus Janek’s electro-acoustic jazz-dancefloor project DeeQ in 2001 and worked on the CD “Fresher Than Air” in 2002. Also in 2002, I started production on Alpendub—a wild mixture of German alpine sounds with dubbed-out grooves that has aroused interest throughout the world. Alpendub has two releases thus far: “the man cable presents Alpendub” in 2003 and “Jo-Delay” in 2004.
I perform live on a regular basis as a drummer/ percussionist in settings ranging from jazz trio (Matias König Trio) to cajun/zydeco (Colinda) to straight-of-the-saddle country (The Maplewood Boys) to live electronic collaborations (the man cable vs. NBI) to crooner swing jazz (The Swingin Bohemians). As of fall/winter 2006, I will be performing with Denis Fischer in Six Strings That Drew Blood.

With life spinning out of control on tour in the UK as "The Ryecatchers," Danny and Mark decided it was time for a change… Returning to Vancouver, Danny bumped into an old flame, Shannon, and after a few drinks she decided she would rather be in a band than a relationship with him. Danny reluctantly agreed, phoned Mark, and formed Danny Echo in the fall of 2005! Since then the Vancouver music scene has embraced the incredible vibe of Danny Echos’ rock and rollio presence. “Half the audience knows the words better than I do,” Danny said at a recent Railway club show. And even if they don’t know the songs, audiences still get into the energy and sounds of Danny Echo. With influences drawing from the greats like The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Beatles, Radiohead, Oasis, and U2, Danny Echo reverberates with all that is melodic, all that is catchy, and all that is rock and roll. As Mark observed, "it's all that it should be, damn it!! In between rockin' out around Western Canada and playing around Vancouver, a 5 song EP has been recorded and is now available for download at dannyecho.com. The full length album is currently being written and arranged, and will be out in time for Christmas - but only if you behave yourselves, you spoiled little brats!