A true dilettante whose knowledge is miles wide & inches deep, I have a million interests that all seem to keep me from focusing enough on any one of them to become truly expert. Sigh.
I’ve always considered myself firstly a musician, but have never made a true living at it. I play the electric bass. It has always been a side hustle, though for a while in the 90’s, it was a good side hustle that provided a fair portion of my income, playing in cover bands Kid Stuff, The Fax and in this century, Wallstreet. Have worked on a couple tribute projects including The Dukes of Simpleton, playing the music of XTC, and The Yes Men, playing the music of Yes. My original projects in the 80’s included an array of lesser-known Austin acts: Avatar, The Jets, Friction City, The Beat Meters, The Whores and Hurlo Thrumbo. I have also been the bass player for other acts– Buzzie, David Spann, Julianne Banks, Douglas Greer, Kathy and the Kilowatts, The Zone, Fever, The Tommy Hall Schedule, and once went on live TV with no songs and an hour to kill, with my friends Dennis Bruhn and Fred Mitchim as The Atomic Energy Commission. As a session player, recorded with Iain Matthews. Also, many demo sessions at Congress House with Mark Hallman producing in the late 80’s. & member of a couple blues house bands around central Texas. Current projects are The Coffee Sergeants & free-form Space Jazz trio Carbon 7. I dabble in audio recording & production, having engineered & mixed 22 Carbon 7 sessions in Logic Pro.
I used to cook in restaurants, including Chalet Suzanne in Lake Wales Florida & Green Pastures in Austin, learning a variety of cuisines over a 10-year span, in my youth. I’m probably glad I don’t cook professionally any more.
Professionally, I am a screen printer. I’ve focused my career on t-shirt printng & have won national awards for my four color process work on fabric. Longer bio here at my screen printing blog Art-Wear.
When I am outdoors, I am usually underground in caves in Texas or Mexico. I came to caving casually, but it is an amazingly inter-disciplinary avocation, and I travel & cave with educated people who work & study in the areas of geology, hydrology, paleontology, biology, archeology and more. I pay close attention when these people talk, and am what my wife calls a “rock nerd.” I love limestone, AMA, I might know!
I tend to carry a camera around. Photography is also a lifelong passion, in which I am woefully under-trained & unskilled, but I abide by the ethos of overwhelming my subject with exposures, and somehow it works out. I started carrying cameras into caves in the mid 1990’s and developed a specialty skill around lighting the underground using multiple flashes. I also enjoy landscape & architecture photography, with an interest in historical & abandoned structures, as well as cemeteries. I am terrible at portrait photography, but am trying. It’s hard, whether it’s posed or candid.
I’ve been married since 1998 to Louise Meeks, artist, plant lover and erstwhile museum person. I have grown children, Erin and Jacob, and a step-daughter Tara who also has a daughter, Esme, so I’m formerly “Hey Jacob’s Dad,” and now known as “Papa Chris.” Erin is an engineer at Lockheed, Jacob is a waiter at Kerbey Lane Cafe and Tara is a carnivorous plant specialist & full-time mom.
1/1/22. I’ll be adding links to this in-line as time presents itself.