Highlight Reel
Live Performance
2013 Nominee – Mark Vigil Male Singer/Songerwriter of the Year – 23rd Annual LA Music Awards
When I was a very young child, my mother was the church organist and pianist for the choir, and my father was in a barbershop quartet. They would play records from musicals like Oklahoma and West Side Story. My older brother would play The Beatles, Queen, and JethroTull. Then there was the day that my brother put the huge Realistic headphones on me and played Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode”… Everything changed… Just like when Rudy Mejarado and I discovered Doctor Demento… Just like when Robert Hammerschmidt played Frank Zappa for me… Just like when David Dorough played Van Halen 1 and The B52s first album to me in one sitting… Like when I first heard the Clash, The Kinks, The Knack, The Ramones, and a bunch of other stuff for a penny (thanks Columbia House!)… And Just like when it all came full circle, and my brother took me to Ventura to see the Grateful Dead!
I had played some piano as a kid, and my dad taught me how to play ” Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue” on the ukulele, but my first guitar came at age 17. It didn’t have a brand name, just a “Made in Taiwan” sticker. Still, I got serious and took four lessons before giving up on that direction and just playing the punk out of it!
I met Marcos before he was my brother-in-law, when he joined The JJ Wilson Band. I went to high school with Brian, but really got to know him when he joined the JJs as they turned into The Well. I knew Brandon from playing with Head Change. We got together to see what would happen and it happened!!!
I currently play a Gibson SG through a Mesa Boogie Combo. I play Lee Oskar harmonicas, and a 1940s Supro lap steel. I also play banjo and bouzouki in an Irish folk band called The High Grade Pats, as well as performing solo acoustic gigs around town.