Hi, my name is Paul and this is my musical home.
I've been playing instruments since I was seven years old, when I used to sneak playing on my mother's nylon string guitar. I thought it was the coolest thing and dreamed of being a rock star one day. I soon got to take guitar lessons and that just ignited my fire. When I was eight, I was forced to take piano lessons, and that almost extinguished it.
At ten, I learned to play clarinet. I wanted to learn saxophone, but a friend convinced me to learn clarinet since it was lighter and would fit into a backpack. It had the same fingering and was in the same key as a tenor sax, so it would be easy to switch later my friend argued. I fell for it and never switched to sax - until I had to play a part in a song I wrote 25 years later. Lesson learned.
I played in the junior high band through ninth grade. I always ran sound for every school event. There was a bass guitar at the school and I would stay late and try to figure out the bass line for BTO's "Not Fragile" and Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water".
Some guys formed a rock band and convinced them they needed a keyboard player. I got in the band, then I bought a used Farfisa Compact Deluxe organ with money I earned at a summer job picking cherries in central Washington. We played at the final assembly of ninth grade to a screaming crowd. We were rock stars.
In my senior year of high school, I ditched my Led Zeppelin records and started listening to punk rock - Iggy & The Stooges, Generation X, The MC5, The Sex Pistols. I went to college and met guys who played music. Again I played keyboards because it was a way to get a gig.
I met other guys who played and joined bands named The Lonesome City Kings and The Cowboys. The Cowboys were pretty popular and I was recently reminded of that when our lead singer passed away and we packed a Seattle club for a memorial, more than 20 years after the band split up.
I got tired of lugging around keyboards and amps and started playing a lot more guitar (again) and started other bands, including one called The Swine, which also had a TV show in Seattle. Now I have started another band. We are keeping the name very simple: the Paul Brownlow Band.
Music has allowed me to experience a lot of interesting things and meet and play with a lot of great people. Some are famous. A lot are not. I could have worked at Microsoft in 1983 but chose a job that allowed me to play music. I never regret that decision.
I once played Bo Diddley's rectangular guitar when he left our dressing room once, much like I would sneak playing my mom's guitar. Shhh. I never told him, just like I never told my mother.
Come on in and take a look around and listen to some of my music. The history lesson begins here. The latest music will be found here.
Contact: www.myspace.com/paulbrownlow