I put myself through college working in record stores 48 hours a week. Eventually I dropped out of college to manage a record store and eventually became the import buyer and ran the warehouse for a DC chain of stores called Waxie Maxies. In 1979 I quit that job and bought an Arp Odyssey synthesizer. In a few months I was performing at dc space in Washington, D.C. with Tiny Desk Unit. Shortly after Tiny Desk Unit imploded in 1981 I joined Impossible Theater Kirby Malone, one of the founding members of this Baltimore collective asked me to write music for a production that was to open in a few months. I had never written any music before but I said yes. I worked on a Synclavier II courtesy of my friend Nick Koumoutseas. Nick owned a studio that Tiny Desk Unit had recorded in and he let me work in the studio late nights when no one else was around. I wrote music for these amazing and original multimedia productions with some very talented artists from Baltimore. Some of my best music was written then. I'm still rummaging the archives and eventually will put up some of that" Impossible" music. In fact NPR did a story on my music, an early piece using sampling technology in 1983 that imagined the history of sound from the beginning of time to the end of time. Impossible Theater put that music along with a slide installation in the Smithsonian Museum of American History. In 1988 I quit my TV production job and went to NPR looking for work. I showed up every day hoping I could make radio. In about a year I was somehow directing All Things Considered. At the end of the last century I started NPR's online music show All Songs Considered. After 18 years of directing I am now hosting All Songs Considered full time for NPR. I've been making music with electronics for about 30 years. The new songs find me writing lyrics after so many years of instrumental music. Tiny Desk Unit reformed briefly in 2007. Michael, Susan and I wrote an album for the RPM Challenge (the make-an-album-in-a-month challenge) called Sputnik Fell on my Birthday. I've been making music with Tiny Desk Unit guitarist Michael Barron also for the RPM Challenge under the name Danger Painters. We've now made 5 albums together.