Steve
and Barri moved to San Francisco where Steve attended the graduate program in
Poetics at New College of California. He studied with a group of poets
including Robert Duncan, David Meltzer, Michael Palmer and Diane DiPrima.
Steve’s first child Lenne was born as he was finishing graduate
school. Lenne, from her earliest days, fit right into the San Francisco scene,
hosting a party of poets on her first birthday.
After grad school Steve rejoined the S.F. music scene as lead guitarist for a world beat band known as the Beat
Freaks. Life became richer, and a little more complicated, with the birth of
Dane. From his earliest days Dane was a regular at band rehearsals. One of his
favorite places as a toddler was inside the bass drum.
When the Beat Freaks broke up, Steve formed Body Politic, a vehicle for his own
songs. The band showcased these in a trio he fronted. The band was never intended to be such, but, as Steve
put it, “We just couldn’t find
anyone else who fit.”
Steve quit playing live after Body Politic folded in 1991. He taught himself recording
engineering, set up a studio at home, and began writing song demos. He began
playing all the instruments himself and moved into the singer-songwriter groove,
"a purgatorial state for ex-rockers," he says.
In 1994, he began writing Packwood.
Drawing on his folk roots from New Orleans and Montreal, he constructed Packwood
as a unified contemporary folk album, where all the songs addressed a single,
larger, theme—the disappearance of rural life from the American Midwest. Working “more slowly
than geology,” he finally released the album in 2001. During the making of the
album one hiatus took so long that he nearly completed his follow-up album,
Vanishing Point, released in 2003.
Vanishing Point addresses the "unsolvable
problems of romantic entanglements." It showcases his electric side and features
Lenne Klingaman on vocals.
Steve is a contributing writer of music reviews for
the webzine Minor7th.com and serves on the artists advisory courncil for
efolkMusic.org.
He has four releases; two CDs, a cassette EP, and a 45 rpm single available from Humuncules Music.
