Bazza is a musician and songwriter whose work spans garage rock, electronic music, alt.country and folk. He is associated with western Michigan and Portland, Oregon, and his career centres on extremely large-scale self-recording and home production.

Career

After an early period that produces eighteen reels of original music and around six hundred songs, Bazza’s music stops for a time. He later returns to making music after buying a four-track recorder, and begins an extended period of continuous recording. He travels from Boston to Portland, Oregon, while fronting electronic and alt.country folk bands.

He also spends time making visual art, producing several hundred acrylic paintings before founding a new project on Halloween night called Nice Lawn. That group is described as western Michigan’s most exciting garage band, with Bazza as frontman under the name the Begonia Bomb. The band is a trio and is compared to a mix of David Bowie and Gang of Four. After the group ends, he continues recording on his own.

Recording output

Bazza’s catalogue is large and heavily self-produced. He has made two hundred cassette albums containing three thousand original songs. He also releases six studio CDs over a seven-year period and works with Northwest jazz, folk and country musicians.

Selected releases

Among his later releases are two double CDs. Freezer is a folk opera based on the book Freezer Burn by Joe R. Lansdale, and Bazza Goes Up North sets twenty-nine poems to music from the book of the same name by Barton Johnson and his extended family.

Reception

He is described by music critic S.P. Clarke of Two Louies as Portland, Oregon’s best kept secret.