Scott Finch tells it all. Scott Finch, born Scott Michael Jaenecke - June 23rd, 1950 in Milwaukee, WI, USA, the younger of two brothers here recounts his musical career. "Born into a musical family, I was influenced at a very early age by my mother�s piano playing every night for hours after we would go to bed. When my brother, Tom, was 7 years old he started piano lessons and was doing very well. I was 3 1/2 at the time and would watch him practice and try to play like him. I soon asked my parents if I could take lessons too. My parents were not wealthy and insisted that we practice every day to get our moneys worth out of the lessons. Sometimes I would quit for six months or a year and then would start lessons again. Having the option to quit and start lessons again was an important factor because music never became tedious or stressful." Guitars and Bands. When I was about 10 years old I became interested in guitar because my uncle Bill Kretlow, who was an excellent jazz guitarist, (he played briefly with Woody Herman in New York after WWII ) would entertain us at family gatherings. He taught my brother and I a few basics and my parents bought me a $29 Silvertone acoustic guitar. I became frustrated by the huge gap between my guitar playing and my Uncle Bill's and other greats like Les Paul's playing. I could not imagine ever crossing that gap so I quit guitar and kept it under my bed until 1964. I was fourteen and The Beatles were on the Ed Sullivan Show. They made me wish I had continued playing the guitar. A few weeks later the Dave Clark 5 were on the show. My brother and I watched carefully and realized that with a little practice we could play like them and cross the gap into professional musicianship. We put our first rock band together that week with our friend Dan Dougherty. Dan had never played before so we put him on bass. He was a quick study and within a few months we had a very good band together. It was called The Palmettos (my mom came up with the name because we all lived on Palmetto Ave. on Milwaukee's northwest side). We went through a few different drummers and settled on Tim Dessereau. He was very steady and made the band sound professional. From that time on I practiced the guitar constantly. I would walk around the house with a guitar all day and night. I would fall asleep in bed practicing and I remember one time my dad waking me up and telling me I was playing in my sleep. The ability to play guitar from within a dream state would come in very handy 20 years later. My guitar still is a 1962 Fender Stratocaster. The Gypsy stuff was all played thru a Fender Superchamp ampli and some homemade 2-10" cabinets. The Bluehand projects were played on an Ampeg Jet or a Vox AC30 thru a 4-10" Marshall cabinet." The Sixties: great muses. The most exciting thing about growing up in the sixties was The Beatles. When the disk jockeys on WOKY would announce the release of a new Beatles song; we would sit by the radio with our tape recorder and wait sometimes for hours. Every song was so new sounding, like nothing ever heard before. Within an hour or so of the songs first airing I would have all the parts figured out and that night the band would learn it. When we played out we only played the songs that best suited our style and abilities but at practice we played them all. Around this same time I started taking jazz piano lessons from Tommy Sheridan. He was quite famous in Milwaukee having been on national and local television with Lawrence Welk. He really put the whole music theory thing together for me which helped me figure out other peoples music and start writing my own. Also Chuck Berry and Dave Brubeck had a lot to teach. The Moby Grape came to Milwaukee in 1967 and played at Pious high school. My brother Tom and our friend Dan met them when they arrived and helped them load in. They got to hang out with them before the show and were blown away by their energy. We bought their first album and learned every song note for note. All of my country rock licks are from Jerry Miller on that album. In late '68 a good friend of mine, Gary Horowitz, stopped over with a new album he was very excited about. It was Axis Bold as Love by Hendrix. It was so trippy. It was so heavy and light at the same time. The story telling aspect of it was like nothing I had ever experienced. And then of course there was the guitar. It starts out imitating a flying saucer, then the first wah-wah I ever heard. Then the next song is the coolest R&B; licks ever, and it just kept coming. There was more guitar ideas in that one album than in everything I had ever heard. Gary left the album with me to learn until I got my own copy. If I were to put that album on right now, within the first couple minutes I would find something new to learn. There seems to be no limit to the guitar licks hidden in that album. Cream�s Disraeli Gears album came out at around the same time. That was another �must learn every note � album for me. The last of the early influences was Electric Ladyland. I had that on a reel to reel tape that I listened to every night while I was falling asleep for about 6 months. I�m sure that had quite a profound impact on my subconscious mind. I didn�t get to see a lot of live shows in bars before I was 21 years old despite the fact that I had been playing in bars since I was 15. So I missed Cream and Hendrix first time through Milwaukee but I did get to see Taste with Rory Galleger and Blind Faith at the Midwest Rock Festival in 1969 and Hendrix at the Milwaukee Auditorium in 1970. The highlight of that show really came before the curtain opened for Hendrix. We could hear a small sound check going on, hitting the drums, a few notes on bass etc. Then we heard just 3 or 4 notes on guitar. I still get chills thinking of it. It was so unmistakably Hendrix. The crowd went wild. How could anyone put that much of a �vibe� into just a couple of soft test notes? In the studio he was perfectly in tune, in time, he never left a bad note hanging. He had a vibe that induced visions and in any given 10 seconds played at least a couple of things that no one had ever played before. I became obsessed with figuring out those unique moments Although my guitar playing was most influenced by Hendrix, I think the songwriting was more influenced by The Beatles probably because of the volume of material I learned from them as the songs were coming out." Seventies up to date: travel companions. After 1970 I was more influenced by the musicians I was playing with than anything. I joined Palmer House blues-boogie band in 1971. This was one of the most popular blues bands in the state. They hired me because I was a strong rhythm guitar player and I could double on piano. Micky Milewski was the frontman lead guitar and vocalist. I had seen Micky play in other famous local bands for years and was very pleased to be in such good company. When Palmer House broke up in the mid 70�s I got married and took my one and only �straight� job. Neither of those lasted very long and I was on the road again with White Lie. Gregg Slavik, then known as Gregg Sabre was the drummer. He was the most straight ahead and even tempo (not to be confused with even tempered) drummer I had ever played with. He was perfect for White Lie because that band was a very straight ahead 5-member pop band a with a female vocalist. We recorded an LP titled True Confessions. It wasn�t until almost 10 years later with Gypsy that I realized what a �far out� drummer Slavik could be. We formed Gypsy in 1986 with Joe Steil on bass. Our only project The Goddess was released, along with some demos, far from the majors-controlled scene. We continue to work together with Gregg today in Bluehand and other recording projects. Most of the released and unreleased material from the two bands went out in the two previous works on Horizons (Haze of Mother Nature and The Velvet Groove). My association with Peter Alt, the current lead singer in both the Blues-O-Delics (that recently toured Italy featuring drummer Dave Braun) and Bluehand also goes back many years. I first saw him sing in �72 with the Bo Conlin Band. I have never been more impressed with any singer. In 1993 when Bo brought him in to my studio to record a demo for the Walzing Tunas project, I was able to finally snatch him up as my lead singer. I feel very fortunate to have him as lead singer in both my current projects. We are currently recording an all new project for Comet Records scheduled for completion sometime in 2002.

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