by 11th grade, paul was infatuated with the work of andres segovia, and decided to begin the study of classical guitar. armed with $10 per week and an old nylon stringed folk guitar, he made his way to brighton music and his first classical guitar instructor.

classical training provided paul with the discipline that he craved and presented him with many new techniques and tools that he would later adopt as his own.

graduation came and paul headed off to hiram college where he continued his classical training and became involved with the jazz ensemble. jazz opened many new doors for paul's music, giving him fresh ideas about structure and discipline. in his classical work, paul learned pieces by villa-lobos, bach, giulianni, carcassi, smith-brindle, and various others. somewhat daunted by the intensity of college-level guitar studies, paul shyed away from practice and began feeding his love for free improvisation.

during his time at hiram, paul played and sang many a friday night at the campus coffee shop, the b-side. his repertoire was comprised mainly of bob dylan, leonard cohen, u2, and green day songs. comfortable with developing chord progressions and riffs, paul spent some time working on his own lyrics--some of which he plans on revisiting in the near future.

during his senior year, paul took two courses that have continued to influence his craft. one of those classes was a 20th century music history independent study where he was introduced to the works of steve reich, john cage, and philip glass.

driven by his love for minimalism, paul enrolled in a composition class where he wrote "passage of rites," a piece based on a poem by his close friend dan gudgel.

after college, paul was introduced to the world of electronic music. now in a new city with a 9 to 5 job, there was little opportunity for paul to play with other musicians. he began seeking new ways to expand his creative energy. it began as a search for an easy to use drum machine program for his home computer. it turned out to be the beginning of a lasting relationship with electronic music production.

the drum machine that he found was hammerhead. the programmer was bram bos. soon, paul was introduced to the other two siblings in mr. bos' family of programs: moonfish and tuareg.

unable to stop himself, and unhindered by the 2 GB hard drive in his computer, paul downloaded music programs to his heart's content, filling what little space was left on his hard drive. having recently purchased a 4-track tape recorder, he soon learned the ins and outs of multi-tracking. he filled tape after tape with beats, weird synth sounds, and screaming guitars.

it was also around this time that paul was introduced to the book zen guitar by philip toshio sudo. the philosophy stuck with him and encouraged his work as well as his outlook on everyday life.

paul earned a master of divinity degree in may, 2004. he lives in san rafael, california where he works as a chaplain, practices zen, and is a member of this church.