BIO
I stand before you
New and Improved
I was born in the suburbs of Boston, Ma., in 1953.
An early fascination with nature sounds and an interest in music and writing led me to study music. When The Beatles .debuted in America in 1964, i became a drummer and musician overnight and forever.
Throughout high school, I stayed focused on music, and played in a surprisingly popular cover band,Yankee Dog, which, along with my very first band, an all originals duo,The Boston Rocker, was the template for the rest of my creative life. What was cutting edge at the time would become classic rock..We lived it in real time.I began writing original music and poetry, also experimenting with weird sounds. I loved every minute of all of it. .Everything was new and very exciting.
I studied music and the arts, took drum and piano lessons, smoked a lot of dope, made a lot of love, read a lot of books, took some trips, explored the wild places near my home, protested the Vietnam War, worried about the draft,enjoyed the company of an amazing group of like minded friends, and generally had some of the best times of my life.Winning some contests and awards in art, music and writing along the way, while getting a good education, I also worked for awhile in the office of my mom's music mgt and booking agency, in order to learn some of the business side.
In my mid twenties, reveling in the swirling counterculture lifestyles, music, politics and expanded consciousness of the era, infused with an inheritance, and hungry for creative collaboration and success, I co-founded and largely funded Rainbow Passage Farm in New Hampshire. It was a bold attempt at establishing a utopian rock n 'roll community, a beach head for the New Age consciousness emerging globally and locally During the next four years, I played with two bands, one a general business top 40 band, and one - my first love - a full on psychedelic project. We played all manner of clubs, weddings, festivals on the East Coast.
All the while, and for years to come, I went out of my way to experience live music by every living artist who made an impact on our music and culture. Some people went to college for their education; i went to clubs and concerts....what i wanted to learn was, after all, not yet being taught in the schools of the 1970s!
After Rainbow Passage Farm faded, as so many similar , idealistic experiments of that era did, I lit out for the San Francisco Bay Area, in search of pot, music and girls, and a deeper understanding of myself. I needed to retool, rethink, and reflect upon my successes and failures, and to reinvent my life .Living there, close to my spiritual and creative inspirations, primarily the Beats and Hippies, immersed in the rapturous beauty and spirit of that magical place, and far away from the pressures of those who thought they knew me, all of this was for me liberating, healing and it generated a renewal my battered spirit. One measure of that is that I wrote my first new, quality song in years - Mountain Song - soon after my move to San Francisco. I also created an interactive audio collage using favorite clips of music, comedy, etc from my vinyl collection. The idea was far out for 1979: you, the listener, could easily create a different experience each time you played it, eliciting a variety of ideas and emotions.
.You'll hear both of these pieces here on this site, at a later date.
Two years later, i had an offer to live in Marin county, which i accepted and never regretted. My first trip from cold and foggy San Francisco across the glorious Golden Gate Bridge was a sign of things to come..emerging from what is now the Robin Williams Memorial Tunnel into sunny Marin, a double rainbow greeted me as The Who played Baba O'Reilly on my radio.
For some years, I explored playing music with a variety of bands while gradually seeking out, and then building on, a solid community of long term friends.
I then decided to stabilize my life by accepting a new business opportunity offered to me in 1992.
I bought and, for 23 years, owned and operated Music Spectrum Rehearsal Studios in Marin County, later expanding to a 2nd location in Sonoma County, and serving multiple generations of musicians, from amateurs to rock stars.
I continued to write songs, record, and perform live, while developing my abilities as a singing drummer - a rare bird, indeed - and exploring new vistas of music on my evolving , hybrid electric acoustic drum kit, which i had dubbed "The Chameleon". With the advent of high quality, portable, compact recording devices, i began on-the-go recording and archiving of the better projects i was involved in, which is where some of the music found here comes from.
I call it, "Jfroth Mobile".
In 2015, my studios were forced out of business, like so many others, thanks in large part to the financial crashes of 2000 and 2008, coupled by the soaring cost of living in the Bay Area with it's attendant and dramatic cultural shift.
Nevertheless, I persist.
I am in the process of creating new music, starting/joining new bands, and launching a new and better, one stop shop music studio business complex.
In 2019, after 4 years of living together, and realizing my dreams could no longer be realized in Marin, my beloved Eileen and I decided to move, with our dog and cat ,to Reno, Nevada...Reno?!?..
Yes, Reno!! It is way better than I expected. In fact, it's a lot like the Bay Area was before it was ruined by tech culture: It is fun, soulful, diverse,,creative, relaxed, friendly, progressive, and although it is growing fast, much less crowded than the Bay Area.
I see new possibilities!
So, here begins my new creative, musical life.
And ya know, as Neil Young said,
"It's a victory for the heart
Every time the music starts"
So, strap yourselves in, people...
Things are about to get interesting!
I stand before you,
New and Improved.