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brother, and he got me into the rock and roll and the Jimi Hendrix. So I had a mix of
all three.

BiTS: That's wonderful. That's wonderful. When did you start to play the guitar?
What age were you?

MD: I started playing the guitar when I was eight years old.

BiTS: Wow, that's really young.

MD: I started actually playing the drums. I started on the pots and pans before I
could even talk, and then I made a drum set out of like, you know, the waste basket

and the oatmeal boxes, and then they say, oh, we're going to get you a drum set. I
was about five. I had a drum set. Then I tore that up, but my grandmother gave me
a guitar when I was eight years old. I've been picking ever since.

BiTS: I guess that was probably one with an action that was far too high and very
difficult to play. Tell me something about how you got into the music. I mean, you
had a lot of good music in

your house. Did you start
to practise along with
artists of various kinds?

MD: Well, like I say, it
started with my brother
in 1972. He woke me up

one night. My parents
were out, and he said

check this guitar player
out, Mike, and it was Jimi
Hendrix playing at
Woodstock. And so my

eyes were like glued to
the screen and I saw this
Jimi Hendrix Performing The Star Spangled Banner,
black dude up there
Woodstock, 1969
rocking out on guitar left-
handed, you know, and he was screaming and doing the firebombs, and the national
anthem!. I'm like, that's what I want to do. That's what I want to do because I had

just started playing. So I just got totally into Hendrix, and we went to California, used
to go on vacation, and I was like ten years old, and my dad we went to this factory.

There used to be an ad in the comic books for a guitar and an amplifier for $15, and
we drove all around California and he finally found it. He came back and gave it to
me. It was my first guitar as a three-quarter size length, a small, Les Paul copy, and

I learned how to play on that, and I got blisters, and my fingers were bleeding, and
the strings were rusty. I learned how to change the strings, and one of the strings
broke off and poked me in my arm. It was a learning period. I eventually got better,