 Although Kira and I had been making music together for over two years, this is the first photo taken of us together. It was March 1998 at Waveburner Recording during a session for "April Fool".  Waveburner brochure
 Providing my two cents at a session for "Your Little Tune", "My Elegant Way" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" at Waveburner Recording in June 1998. For more photos taken at Waveburner during the Frank's Closet sessions see Kira's gallery. Because I was playing more and taking it more seriously, I felt it was time for a gear upgrade. Throughout 1997, I bought three new guitars and, because I was rehearsing and playing in different places, I needed a more portable amp. These new guitars and amps are seen in the photos below
 I gave my old "no name" acoustic to Kira
Kira and I were also recording so many demos which I would take home and embelish but my old Fostex X-18 wasn't quite cuttin' it. So, I bought a new Tascam that had a lot of nice tricks to it.  Tascam PortaStudio 414 4-track cassette Recording for Frank's Closet was finished in June 1998 . During the summer, at a local café, we played our first live gig on July 5th. This was simply an acoustic set with just the two of us and consisted of just original Kira & Chazz songs (I think we might have also done "C'mon Billy" by PJ Harvey). No Worm songs were performed. We did a few more acoustic gigs that summer but we never seriously considered continuing this type of presentation..   July 5, 1998 Our first gig. It was just us with our acoustics in a small local café. 
July 22, 1998 This was our first advertised gig.  Wanting to get some of our recorded product out, our first EP-CD, April Fool, was released that summer. In general, Kira is the focus of our projects.She typically writes the lyrics and I arrange the music however, our first CD's title song, "April Fool", was the rare occasion when I wrote the words and Kira did the music.  1998 - April Fool EP As the summer of 1998 drew to a close, Kira and I had been going at it heavily for about a year and a half. We decided to take a little hiatus. We still wrote and played but not nearly at the pace we had been. After the year-end holidays, the music resumed in earnest in February 1999. Utilizing my mobile unit, we set up rehearsals, oddly enough, on Kira's front porch.   February 16, 1999 rehearsal on Kira's front porch Although a couple of new songs had been written hot on the heels of the Frank's Closet project (and one was even during but never made it on the album), these rehearsals were the beginning of the second album Although the recording of Frank's Closet was finished in June 1998, some minor editing, mastering and artwork took another year and in late 1999, it was finally released.  Remembering the live gigs of the previous year, we soon set about to do some more. However, this time we wanted a full band. We first went to Dalton, who had produced Frank's Closet, to play drums and Bill Stadler, who also worked on the album as musician and engineer, to play bass because they were familiar with our songs. We christened the band "Partners In Crime". We played one gig with the initial personnel. Dalton dropped out of the project and Bill took over the drummer's seat. Now we needed a bass player.
Maintaining the Partners In Crime name, we played one gig with Robin Dulac on bass but that was only a last minute favor on Robin's part. In the end, we recruited an old friend of Bill's and Dalton's named Tony Papas to play bass. Tony would remain as the bass player for the duration of the band's existance.               July 17, 1999 Bill Stadler - Drums, Robin Dulac - bass 
These were a few additional pieces that I added to the studio.
 Casio MT-500 This unit is nice because it has large remote drum pads. Used in conjuction with the Yahama unit above and my Yahama DD-7 I virtually had an electronic drum kit. To back up a bit, to around 1995-1996, I met an acquaintence of my brother. Edna Floretta was primarily a graphical/visual artist but dabbled in a variety of artistic endeavors as well as having an arts degree. After some discussion, because her art was primarily visual and mine was aural, we had serious considerations for collaboration. However, nothing initially materialized. Then, in 1997, around the same time Kira and I began to record Frank's Closet, Edna and I began to finally produce some work. We began by making abstract, avant-garde, "art piece" (call it what you like) videos which essentially consisted of audio/video collages. We would employ and experimant with a variety of makeshift and professional techniques. While I partook and provided equal contribution into these efforts, the end product was destined to be used as stock for Edna's further artistic exploits. I do expect that, at some point in the future, I'll likely utilize some of the material for projects of my own.   Edna Floretta (circa 2000) As time passed, Edna would become a close friend to me as well as a mainstay and frequent collaborator/contributor in my growing group of artistic friends. Also, in 1997, I stumbled into the acquaintence of Seraph Jordan who had a serious artistic bent. Like Edna, Seraph's work had primarily been visual in nature. her expansive mind provoked many possibilities and although some ideas had been tossed about, we didn't begin any sort of real collaborative effort until late 1999. From that point on, as she to began hang around more with Kira and myself as we were making music, Seraph's desires to make music were fueled. Seraph would also become my 'computer guru' so to speak. Her creative computer experience and expertise preceeded mine by about two years providing her a knowledge that I was able to tap as computers entered my life. It was Seraph who provided my initial tutorial on how to create web pages and has continued to provide assistance for my internet exploits..   Seraph Jordan You might notice that, for this section of the journey, I haven't mentioned any music that was influencing me. The reason? I was so involved with my own artistic endeavors that I had little time to explore what new stuff was out there. I was still buying music but I was drawn toward older albums that I had passed on in the past or new CD versions of older vinyl albums I already had in my collection. I still bought new stuff by artists already established as my favorites but that was about all the new music I was buying. Due to the amount of music I was recording which, of course, needed to be listened to, I had little time to listen to anything else. However, due to the major artistic influence my female collaborators had on me and to enlighten my future avenues, I began to explore music made by women. To this point, my primary music listening experience had been male dominated. I had many favorite female artists (Janis Joplin, Crissy Hynde, Debbie Harry, Donnette Thayer, Lisa Germano, Linda Ronstadt, Exene Cervenka, Marti Jones, Kim Gordon, Scrawl, Belly, Throwing Muses, The Bangles, The Go Gos, The Breeders and, of course, PJ Harvey) but my musical world had been primarily male. Ever since working with Mick in the late 1970s and Lisa in the late 1980s, I've always always felt that a female mind and voice can add incredible versatility to music. In 1993, PJ Harvey really lit the fuse of my interest in female artists however, that interest sort of just simmered until I met Kira, Edna and Seraph. The new introductions that would become perenial favorites for inspiration and listening pleasure are noted below. These ladies opened my eyes to a whole new world of musical possibilities. Aside from those male artists that had already established themselves as my favorites, I don't think I bought anything by anyone new to me during the late 1990s and even today, I don't hear much interesting new music by guys that does anything for me. Most guys seem to be simply emulating older influences. How many of today's male artists sound like nothing more than clones of Pearl Jam or Nirvana? Not that the fellows are bad. They just don't seem to be doing anything inovative. On the other hand, women artists are doing all sorts of amazing things and, if you can dig beneath the male dominance, they have been for quite some time and I don't think they get their due credit.
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