I love to work with new music and new people, so I'm always looking for quality projects to help out with. I'm a quick study, can read chord charts easily and take direction well. I'm most comfortable with rock, pop or country, but I can walk over and play jazz changes, too and am looking forward to playing bass on some hip-hop stuff soon. Odd time signatures are no problem. I can sight read, but I'm pretty slow at it. If you need somebody to just listen to what's on tape and come up with parts from there, that's no sweat. I can do the parts where you're working or record them from home; all I need is an MP3 of a rough mix to get going. Some of these links don't have mp3's yet; I'm still encoding them. - Billy

Lead Guitar

I'm better at writing solos than improvising them, but sometimes I get lucky winging it, especially with fills and smaller parts.

- Guitar solo on "Candle Light", by Miracle Vendor

- Guitar solo on "Jerky's Guilt Trip", by The Geckos

- Intro solo on "Nothing Left", from Good Smart Bear

- Guitar solo from a demo of "Without You"

- Outro solo from "Heaven", from The Geckos' CD

- Lead guitar fills during last two choruses of "Leaving This Town", from Good, Smart Bear

- Guitar solo from "Great, Big Love" 

- Guitar solo from a demo of "Just One Thing"

- Guitar solo on "Thousand Days Away" from Good, Smart Bear

Rhythm Guitar

- Electric, picking part on "Blood on my Hands", from Jefferson Thomas' Man From '64 CD

- Spacy & flanged guitars on "One Day Wiser" (Miracle Vendor)

- Acoustic and telecaster rhythm parts over "Mean Streak", from Good, Smart Bear

- Electric rhythm guitar over the bridge of "My Latest Lunacy", from The Geckos's CD

- All guitars on "You Don't Convince Me", from Good, Smart Bear

- Spacy guitars on "Angels and Energy", from Miracle Vendor's CD

- Jangly electric on "One Day Wiser" by Miracle Vendor

Bass

Bass parts are often simple, solid foundations that don't make for a terribly impressive demo, especially over computer speakers. The clips below are therefore some of my shinier moments. I always try to pay close attention to what's going on in the song and listen carefully to the drums so I can play something rhythmically appropriate, whether that's a no-frills, bottom layer, an interesting line or a solo.

- Bass solo from "Man From '64", by Jefferson Thomas  (I played the twangy bass solo - the fretless bass underneath was a synth part that Jeff played)

- Intro bass line from Sugarland's demo of "I won't cry for you" (starts out with little tremolo bass doodle)

- Bass doodle/line on "One Day Wiser" by Miracle Vendor

- Fretless line/small solo on "Wave", by The Geckos

- Bass line on "Angels and Energy", by Miracle Vendor

- Fretless bass on "Honeymoon Pie", by The Geckos

- Bass on intro of "Be It All" by Miracle Vendor (I was trying to demo what I thought would end up as a synth line with my bass and a wah pedal here, but we all liked how it turned out on bass so we just left it.)

Keys

- Organ on "One Day Wiser", from Miracle Vendor's CD

- Synth on "Close Encounters", from The Geckos' CD

- Rhodes piano (we ran it through a tremelo hoping it would sound like a Wurlitzer) from Sugarland's demo of My Heart's Broken, Too

- Organ on "You Don't Convince Me", from Good, Smart Bear

- Organ on "Candlelight" by Miracle Vendor

- String arrangement at the end of "Bed and Breakfast" by Nillah (you'll only hear the strings)

Backup Vocals

Backup singing is one of my favorite things to do in the studio. I blend well with baritones, tenors and altos. My range is a tenor. I'm quick with parallel harmonies and also have good luck coming up with vocal counterparts.

I've been asked if harmonizers or pitch correction were used on any of these vocals; they were not. I just overdubbed each part one at a time until everything was finished. And if it sucked, I re-did it!

- All backup vocals and counterparts on the choruses of "My Latest Lunacy", from The Geckos' CD

- All vocals on the demo of "Sugarland"

- "Beneath the Stars", from Miracle Vendor's disc--I sang the harmony above Jack's lead vocal and the little counter parts

- Harmony over the lead on "Angels & Energy", from Miracle Vendor's CD

- All the feathery backup voices behind Scott's lead on "Wave", from The Geckos' CD

- All the backup & countersong vocals on this verse and chorus of Honeymoon Pie, from The Geckos' CD