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 Photo: Serge Rajevic (KRUG) |
Chris was born in Pittsburgh and by the age of 10 had lived in three states and five different cities. We suppose that makes him the true "gypsy" of the band. Before you start getting any ideas about all the moving around, let's set the record straight: his parents weren't in the military, they were lefty academics, real-live socialists, which is where he got his radical politics. Chris comes from a family where everyone is a musician who plays at least two instruments. His grandfather was a jazz drummer in rural Indiana. If you think that's a contradiction, you haven't heard Dixieland. Chris' first instruments were drums, piano and viola. After sitting last chair in the viola section of the orchestra for a couple of years, Chris realized that drums held infinitely more "rock-star" potential and made a fortuitous decision to focus on percussion. |
Attending a small liberal arts college in St. Paul, Minnesota, Chris played in about 20 different bands, drunkenly performing at area house parties nearly every weekend and thoroughly neglecting his academic studies. Through one of his music professors he discovered African music and lived in Ghana for a brief period in the mid-Nineties. After graduating with a degree in Biology, he trekked through the jungles of Bolivia for two years, chasing monkeys and all other manner of tropical megafauna. After surviving a near-death encounter with a mountain lion and numerous unpronounceable parasitic infections he retired to the relatively safe confines of the Pacific Northwest and the comfortable and financially lucrative career of freelance musician. Continually restless for adventure, he skirted the U.S. embargo of Cuba, enjoying a two-month sojourn in Havana near the end of the century.
Chris' interest in all things Brazilian led him to Rio de Janeiro in 2002, where he lived near the beach and enjoyed the sublime pleasures of Brazilian culture. Madly in love with a Brazilian woman but running out of money, he returned to Seattle, where he hatched plans to move back to Rio.
It was at this time that he met Gino at a friend's party and the two talked about the possibility of Chris joining Kultur Shock. Knowing little about odd-time signatures and even less about Balkan music, Chris managed to learn a handful of Kultur Shock songs without really understanding what he was playing. There's actually a video of the the first time Chris played with the band and he has begged us not to release it on Youtube.
Soon he was faced with a choice, move to Brazil for love or stay in Seattle to play with Kultur Shock. It won't be revealing too much to say that obviously he made the WRONG choice, and here we are 7 years later. In 2007 Chris decamped for New York, where he enjoys a comfortable lifestyle sleeping in a cardboard box and panhandling on the subway.
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