Way back when ( "Back in the Day" - That's When ! ) Shufflemonster used to ask the village wise men how one learns to play drums. The response was usually one of a few common cliches ----

Cliché #1: "Just keep practicing the rudiments" -
Cliché #2: "Forget everything you ever learned and just blow!" -
Cliché #3: "It can't be learned, You have to be born with it!" -
And Cliché #4, the real kicker of them all, the ever so vague and elusive, "If you love it enough, it will all come!" ----

Shufflemonster dug in real deep, got real serious and determined - earned a Bachelor of Music Ed and a Master's of Education - hit the streets (the local full-time professional music circuit), took a few intense musical road trips - spent decades in Independent Study, transcribing the extraordinary drumming of Elvin Jones, then chronicling his own phenomenological and existential perceptions of and reactions to his encounter with Elvin's drumming.

Even after attaining a vast amount of knowledge, skill, and experience, with which to shed light on the learning process, and basically demystify and demythify those previously mentioned dated and discouraging clichés, Cliché #4 , "If you love it enough, it will all come!" continues to haunt Shufflemonster --- He sure enough loved it, right from the first note. He remembers 'clear as a bell' the first time he heard Elvis' voice. Shufflemonster embraced a life in music. He prioritized the Music and sacrificed as necessary. And he never ever let go of the dream to hold onto the music and be a Drummer!

What seems to have "--all come--", however, is not so much all the razzle-dazzle drum technique that he once sought, and certainly not the fame and fortune. Something more elusive seems to have taken hold---- some type of powerful MOJO ---a growing and glowing KARMA --- as if, just maybe, all Shufflemonster's love of music and drums took on a life of its own and blossomed. He finds himself, in this new millennium, on a Quest, drawn ever so strongly BACK to the songs of the 50's and 60's --- as if he is discovering them for the first time, or rather, maybe, discovering something meaningful INSIDE the songs, a type of 'Karmic Headroom', an unfinished (Karmic) business --- beckoning him.

Shufflemonster seeks and finds untapped vintage KARMA in Rhythmic American Roots Music, which he then reinterprets and alchemistically converts (transposes) into organic, contemporary GROOVES, with resultant Exuberant Karmic Abundance. And then, in some inexplicable way, Shufflemonster finds himself quantum leaping to the Spiritual center of a song, and then, on to the Karmic center of the dance floor --- encountering, channeling, looping, regenerating, sharing Karma with Band and Audience, and, well, engaging in his ---- GROOVEQUEST--- PERFORMANCE ART---- the culmination of a long, varied, and ever so PASSIONATE career in Music.