Playing Level/Playing Experience: When I first started playing, a Cougar was car manufactured by Lincoln Mercury, and the Beatles were still a band. At that point I was mostly self taught. I started playing paying gigs in 1975. I moved from Pittsburgh to south Florida in 1979, I played everything from dive bars to high end hotel bars. I made decent money at the time. I had a bad motorcycle accident in 1991, had to start from scratch. I took lessons and used drumming as physical therapy. I was living in Pittsburgh again. I played in an oldies cover band band through the nineties until 2003. I got transferred to the Washington DC/Baltimore area in 2003 for my day job. I gigged a bit during the next five years, but not as much as I'd have liked. I had a demanding, high stress job. January 31, 2008 I had a major stoke. I was a mess. It took me a while to recover, and once again become a functioning member of society. Again I used drumming as part of my recovery. I retired from my day job in September of 2009 at the age of fifty, and moved back to Pittsburgh. I started gigging again in 2010. Mostly as a cover band drummer, some times as a bassist or hand percussionist. I stayed busy until the fall of 2019 I was in the midst of starting in a new band when Covid-19 interfered.
Style: Over the past forty-five years years I've played... Classic rock, when it was new music in the seventies. Country, Pop/Disco/Lounge, whatever made sense in the hotel bars of Miami to West Palm Beach in the eighties. Mostly I played oldies in a show band throughout the nineties. For the past twenty years I've played mostly in Rock or Blues cover bands. I did record a CD and and gig with an Americana originals band from 2010-2013 as a hand percussionist. I played in a busy rock and soul cover band from 2013 through 2019, and a pop covers band from 2014 through 2019.
Dive Bars?: Sure, I've played in dive bars at different times over the course of the past forty five years.
Other Venues: I've played in every thing from horrible dive bars to a lounge in the Fountain Bleu Hilton, corporate gigs, and festivals.
Paid? Playing hotel bars four nights a week in the eighties I made between $100 and $150 per night, which was pretty good pay at the time. As of last year I was making the same, no longer decent money.
I have put a lot of what I've made over the years as a drummer back into drum gear. As such, I own some pretty cool gear.
Have you taught? Other than teaching the basics to two nephews, no.