Buz plays bass in Ask Your Mom – a position he has held since joining the band in August 2006. He is also an emergency room physician and has treated every member of the band (and many family members) as part of what he calls “The World’s Most Exclusive HMO.” He is also an avid mountain biker and can be found on trails throughout Westchester County.
Buz (one “z”) is a solitary fellow – an attribute not lost on (nor discouraged by) his lovely wife. As a medical professional, he works long and ridiculous hours followed by long stretches of time off which he dutifully spends in the studio warming the air with low frequency sound waves. A trained musician for many years, Buz actually knows about scales and relative keys and all that theory stuff that makes the rest of us glaze over in awe. To whit: a song that we had been playing for several months before Buz joined the group – on our first play for him he said “That’s a great tune. You’re playing it wrong.” He was and is right about these things often enough to be annoying and comforting at the same time.
Buz has an eclectic taste and passion for music that transcends genres and styles – to the point that he is somewhat of a musical anthropologist. Where a less gifted listener might hear chords or tempo or lyrics, Buz hears the musical DNA – the fabric of the music – the sui generis. Everything old is new again – a new song by a young band might be awesome to us but to Buz, it’s just a Duke Ellington tune wrapped in reverb and overdrive. While Rob’s sense of music originates in the late 1970s and early 1980s, for Buz that is “the Dark Period.” From 1977 -1984 our Buz was out of the country and had virtually no exposure to popular music in that time. When a band member brings in a tune from that period it’s likely to kindle fond memories for four of us – but for Buz, it’s all new. To put it into perspective, when he left the country (for “medical school”) the number one song was “Got To Give It Up, Part 1” by Marvin Gaye. When he got back (after his “residency”), Marvin was dead and “When Doves Cry” was at the top of the charts.
(as told by Rob)
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- Buz bouncing.
