Randy

RHYTHM & SLIDE GUITARS / VOCALS

Randy is from Syracuse, NY and is an avid SU fan. At the age of 10, he began taking guitar lessons so he might emulate his older brother who was playing in a rock band. How he and his brother had any musical talent is a mystery. Their parents were completely non-musical and it is believed their father is technically tone-deaf! Two years later when his dad wouldn’t pay for him to take “rock and roll” guitar lessons, he continued to learn by ear and eventually found himself playing slide guitar. His early influences were Duane Allman and Lowell George.

After playing in basement and garage bands through high school, Randy left for college at the University of Vermont and began performing solo at on and off campus venues. Soon he met Chris Votos, a musician and former child actor who was performing in Burlington as well, and they joined their acts as FLAT BROKE, an acoustic duo.

Following college, Randy moved to West Palm Beach, Florida to pursue a career in Film and Television and formed an acoustic/electric duo (and then, a band) called PRIME TIME with guitarist Rit Johnson. When a job offer in Washington, DC came along, Randy packed up and moved to Maryland, where he almost immediately returned to performing solo in local bars.

The original FILM AT ELEVEN began in 1985 as an impromptu jam session for a party. The resulting performance was really good and four of the five players embarked on the arduous journey of trying to keep together a band made up of busy and otherwise gainfully employed folks. They all liked the music of the old WHFS-FM and FILM AT ELEVEN became the vehicle for the band to play their favorite music. The band performed regularly at clubs in DC, Maryland, Virginia and the Delaware Beaches until 1995. The “Black Pond Sessions” was a collection of demos made on a shoestring budget, just to get gigs playing local clubs. They turned out to be some memorable snapshots of the original FILM AT ELEVEN. The band took a break in 1995 and life just took over. Fast forward to 2012 when Randy got the bug to start playing music again and was able to bring together a great group of players for the reincarnation of FILM AT ELEVEN.

Randy plays an Alvarez-Yairi acoustic guitar and a Guild Songbird acoustic as well as a 1967 Fender Stratocaster, a 1991 Strat Plus, a 2011 Gibson Les Paul Traditional and a 2006 Gibson '61 Reissue through a Line 6 POD-HD500X effects processor and a Mesa Express 5:50+ amplifier.