Newark New Jersey, The Brick City, as it is often lovingly referred to by its residents, is a beautiful place. Throughout it's history The Brick City has been shrouded in a mix of fame and infamy,  fortune and poverty, pride and disgrace. It has survived the greatest of tragedies and lived the greatest of renaissances. It has been the home of remarkable  peacemakers, and insidious evil doers. It has been the capital of innovation and the capital of crime.

I was born and raised in Newark. And the fabric of our home was a weave of prayer, food, baseball, love and heartache...and music. It was in Newark that I have my earliest memories of my Pop strumming the old guitar that was always a fixture in some corner of our apartment. My Pop wasn't a great musician, nor was that old guitar a fine instrument; probably a Kay or Harmony likely purchased at the McCrory's department store in downtown. But those early experiences laid the groundwork for many a passion I would soon develop throughout my life. Hence my passion for the thing, the machine, the instrument, that is the guitar.