The first band I was in was an oldies band with my brother and some friends, I was 12 years old. It was pretty cheesy and we just played from the chords in a fake book. My brother played drums and I played bass, which, with some direction from my dad, is how I learned about music and rhythm - that and being blessed with an early music education where I grew up in Pt. Charlotte, FL.

After that my dad found a guitar player in town that could really play the blues and we formed a blues/rock band called 'Midnight Lightning'. We played mostly covers, everything from Hendrix to B.B. King and some original stuff as well, we did a lot of shows at bars around town and even played the state fair, for being so young it was a great experience and I picked up quite a bit from the guitar player (Lance Lopez), including how to correctly string my bass which I had been ignorant to among other things, I consider those days to be extremely important in the development of my understanding of music as well.

Eventually Midnight Lightning fell apart and we were getting to the teen years and discovering new music so it was just as well. Things were dormant for a while until our friend Bobby convinced me to play in a "punk rock" band, I wasn't even sure what that was at the time. The band was called 'Herbal Tea and the Breeze', a five piece punk band with a female singer named Kathy who now sings and plays bass in the band 'Circle Takes the Square', a far cry from those early punk/ska days but I'm pretty sure I inspired her to play bass, ha! I recall them picking me up after middle school to go to practice so I guess I was around 14-15 at that point. The project was short lived and I was kicked out of the band after our first show, I was pushing to get my brother to play drums and it caused static with the drummer so they kicked me out - but my time there was not in vain. It was the first band I ever did any serious recording with (I think we had an 8-track that we borrowed and recorded a demo album), Kathy also made me a copy of the first punk album I ever heard - Lagwagon's 'Trashed' and it changed my life for the following years along with being introduced to OpIvy and all the early Fat Wreck Chords bands and such thanks to my brother and his friends, it was cool to hear kids our age singing about things that we could relate to, and made me realize that there's all kinds of music out there we had yet to discover.

After leaving Herbal Tea my brother and I were in a few short lived bands, namely 'Homer and The Blockheads' with our friend Bobby, 'Last Chance' with friends Mike, Bobby, and John Struble; neither of which ever played an actual show - just a good excuse to hang out and make some noise really. We played a show with John and ourselves under another name I can't recall just before my parents moved us to Dunnellon, FL. For a while we just jammed together in our garage until Marq met a guitar player Jeremy Collet and we started a punk band called 'The Golden Girlz'. We did some shows around Ocala and recorded two albums (cassette tape in those days) that were actually pretty decent looking back, myself playing bass and Marquis Dee drums and vocals, though after a while we started sharing the vocals according to who wrote the song and that's where I got my first experience singing (if that's what you want to call it, ha). We added a second guitar player Tim Allison which came at a great time because shortly after Jeremy left the band after missing an important gig so we were back to the three-piece with Timmy A. We eventually bought a Roland VS-880 virtual studio and recorded some tracks in Tim's parents' barn which were never officially released but I think came out pretty good considering the equipment we had to work with and that my stoned ass was playing recording engineer. Eventually after high school we all moved apart and went on to different thing but never officially disbanded so I'm still waiting for the reunion tour, ha! Our most notable shows were with 'Less Than Jake', 'Against All Authority', 'The Independents', 'Swank', and 'Out of Order' who were famous for being in an Airwalk commercial - all great experiences but I think we'll be best remembered for throwing out porn and sex gadgets at underage shows... good times!

After leaving the nest and the Golden Girlz I skipped around from apartment to apartment shacking up with various friends which I now consider to be the most confusing yet important part of my youth. In this period I experienced all of the things positive and negative that a young man needs to experience including losing some close friends to drugs, and in this time the only music I had to make was an acoustic that I can't even remember where I aquired it. I started writing songs about all the crazy things that were going on around me and it seemed to be a sort of personal therapy that I still rely on to this day. After a couple of years of messing around with that I ran into some musicians including Chris and my good friends John and Joe in Dunnellon and we would get together to jam at my trailor when we could. We never did anything serious as a band or even planned out for that matter but it was great to be playing with other people again. We also used to jam at my friend Kyle's house and sometimes record it with my Taskam 414mkII 4-track. One night we were talking about starting a serious band and we joked that it should be called 'Stevie D and The No Shows' because I'd be the only one who would make it to practice and I'm not sure why or how but it somehow stuck over all these years (reluctantly I admit). Not long after that Joe passed away in a car crash, John following him two years later in the same manner, and the name took on a whole new meaning, so it is really in their honor that I moved to Gainesville and decided to really get serious about playing music again.

Over the past three years here in Gainesville I recorded two acoustic albums with Rob McGregor (Goldentone Studios), which helped me to understand what I needed to work on as a singer and guitar player while at the same time those albums got a pretty good response from friends and a few locals nice enough to listen to what I have to say. I also played countless live shows around town which has been a great experience given that this town is pretty cynical towards musicians so you can learn alot about what you're doing wrong quick. I had a fun time and a great run playing acoustic solo shows, the most notable of them being with 'Drew Danburry' , 'Cory Branan' , and 'Dan Potthast' (formerly MU330). I re-met Jesse when I first moved to town (we both grew up in Pt. Charlotte but didn't really know each other well), and he had been playing bass with 'No More' for years (also friends of ours from Pt. Charlotte currently in Gainesville). We became good friends and eventually he just casually learned a few songs from the acoustic recordings and we started jamming them together. I have to admit I was apprehensive at first but hearing some of the sounds that were always in my head come to life was exciting and to be able to start all over with a good friend seemed like a good idea. Somewhere in that time Jesse left No More and we decided to find a drummer. We jammed with Marquis Dee once and it sounded great but he was in Ocala at the time and had a lot of things going on and it seemed like it would be hard to practice regularly. One day at work Chris popped into my head and though I hadn't been hanging out with him regularly (he was still in Dunnellon/Ocala) I still had his number and decided to ask him if he wanted to try it out. He drove out for practice every weekend and eventually moved up here to Gainesville so the transformation was complete - again giving new meaning while at the same time reinforcing the meaning behind the name of the band. It makes sense really because if I decide to do an acoustic set without the band nobody should have any reason to be dissapointed given the monocre. We've been playing together for a little over a year now and of course just finished recording our first studio album 'Something's Wrong' in the Fall of 2008. We have a long way to go as musicians, as I mentioned it's a bit like starting over again but that's what has always attracted me to music in the first place - a constant departure with no visible destination. It's good to be with friends that I trust on this next leg of the odyssey, can't wait to see where we end up... is that a little too doogie howser?