Volker Strifler is a stunningly unique and creative guitarist who has an innate understanding of the language of music and plays with the clarity and drive of Duane Allman, which when blended with keyboards, saxophone, and trombone, become innovative explorations into rock, jazz, and Latin rhythms.

He is probably best known as the OTHER guitarist in Robben Ford’s band. Though not exactly a household name (yet), Volker Strifler should be. As a longtime associate of
the famous Ford brothers (Robben, Patrick and Mark), Strifler has proven his mettle as a guitarist and singer a long time ago and has become increasingly popular on the Northern California circuit. He states “My goal is to give the listener a sense of hearing something they won’t hear anywhere else.”

Those requiring any convincing will find all they need in the funky Allman Brothers-like opening tune “Going to Brownsville” on his new CD Let the Music Rise which includes some splendid horns and keyboard, and then in a nice sway from the gentrification of the Blues, the breezy "Redemption" with its Island strains and all the gusto of a Barenaked Ladies tune, to the slow, New Orleans style blues of "It's Getting Late" and the Beatles-esque take on Fleetwood Mac's "Jigsaw Puzzle Blues" (with tuba!).

“Volker Strifler is a beautiful singer and a powerful guitarist” states Robben Ford. Strifler takes a risk with a freedom in his music that pushes his musicianship in an innovative direction, drawing from a broad palate of musical color to experiment with the Blues – taking the listener to the outer limits of the genre.

Dave Gonzales is a veteran guitarist and a local legend. He learned the guitar at the age of 5, and has since held the respect of his peers. Basically, a blues/rock guitarist and vocalist, he has also toured with Country artist and Grammy winner, Bobby Bare, and one of the world's best harmonica players, Charlie McCoy. He was nominated for a CMA award in 1979. Then on to touring with the reggae supergroup Inner Circle, who performed the theme for the show "Cops" called "Bad Boys". And on to working with Gregg Allman and Friends.

Back to his blues roots, "My most memorable experience would have to be having the privelege of playing "Hideaway" on stage with Freddie King before he left us." Bay Area music lovers may remember him from The Jackson St. Band, Andy Just Blues Band, Little John Chrisley and the Howling Iguanas, Gary Smith Chicago Blues Band, Nick Gravenites Band, The Alameda Allstars, and many others.

Dave Gonzales met Volker Strifler at the Allstar Blues Guitar Show at the Club Fox, where they discussed some of their guitar roots. Peter Green was a common interest of influence and respect. From that conversation came the formation of what will be one of the best tributes that you will be able to see and hear. Covering Peter Green's music from "The Supernatural" with John Mayall, "Black Magic Woman" with Fleetwood Mac all the way through to "Oh Well". The other musicians in the line-up are Tony "Macaroni" Lufrano on the keys, Endre "ET" Tarczy on the bass, Paul Revelli on drums, and performing on the first set of early blues material will be the horn section headed by Vic Cortez, whose son is the guitarist for Tower Of Power, Jerry Cortez. All in all, you won't want to miss this one.

Born in the sixties, native San Franciscan Paul Revelli has been playing drums for most of his life. Diverse skills, a passion for playing and listening to all genres of music, and his intuition as the consumate sideman are at the heart of this drummer's beat. As a member of the eighties rock group Red 7, Revelli recorded two albums with the band, both on MCA. The first, Red 7, was produced by Mike Rutherford of Genesis and Mike and the Mechanics fame. A second album entitled When The Sun Goes Down was released, followed by extensive worldwide touring before the group disbanded in 1987. In 1989, Revelli joined Joe Louis Walker and the Boss Talkers, recording four albums with them: Live at Slim's, Vols. 1 and 2 (Hightone), Blues Survivor (Verve) and J.L.W (also on Verve). Additionally, he recorded a track on B.B. King's Blues Summit album (MCA) for Joe Louis Walker's duet with the blues legend.

During his five years with the Boss Talkers, Revelli toured the United States, Canada, Europe and Scandinavia several times over. Along the way, he has shared festival stages with some of the greatest names in Blues and R & B, an incredible journey to say the least. From there, Revelli worked with roots rock artist Chuck Prophet and can be heard on three of Prophet's releases: Feast of Hearts (China), Homemade Blood (Cooking Vinyl) and The Hurting Business (Hightone). Formerly of the band Green on Red, Prophet's reputation in Europe found Revelli once again playing some of the great festivals and venues there as a result. Now as a freelance musician, Revelli maintains a healthy schedule working in the studios on album dates and playing live with a list of artists that has included Angela Strehli, Lou Ann Barton, Tracy Nelson, Marcia Ball, Bonnie Hayes, The Court and Spark, Howard Tate, Charlie Musselwhite, Tom Heyman, Maria Muldaur, Annie Sampson, Linda Tillery, Elvin Bishop, Bo Diddley, John Vanderslice, Roy Gaines, Rusty Zinn, Los Mocosos, Pinetop Perkins, Phil Guy, John Nemeth, Tom Rigney & Flambeau, Mighty Mike Schermer, The Pinder Brothers, Earl Thomas and Mark Hummel.

Tony 'Macaroni' Lufrano is a San Francisco-based keyboardist, songwriter, arranger and producer.

Tony's professional career started with several coast-to-coast tours of the Chittlin' Circuit with Old School R&B legends, The Whispers. Highlights included a number of shows at the world-famous Apollo Theater in Harlem. During his stint with The Whispers, Tony was featured on their recording of 'A Song For Donny', a Soul Christmas perennial. He also placed his original composition, 'Can't Stop Loving You Baby' on the Whispers' album titled 'This Kind Of Lovin.'

Since then, he has worked with artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Boz Scaggs, Huey Lewis & The News, Robben Ford, Bill Champlin, Taj Mahal, Zigaboo Modeliste, Elvin Bishop, Steve Miller, Joe Satriani, Little Anthony & The Imperials, Todd Rundgren, Carla Thomas, Otis Clay, Booker T. and many, many more.

Tony has produced studio projects for a variety of Bay Area artists. The track 'Intros' on this page contains short clips from some of them, all produced and arranged by Tony. (Used with permission)

He recently wrapped up production of an album project at Garth Webber's Red Rooster Studios for singer/songwriter Kaye Bohler, which features guest performances by noted Blues guitarists Robben Ford, Tommy Castro and Garth himself. The two partial tracks on this page are from Kaye Bohler's CD 'Like A Flower.' (Used with permission) 'Like A Flower' is available now at CD Baby.

And at long last Tony has started recording his own project, 'Tony Macaroni & HEAVY FRIENDS: The Vanity Project.' The first track (entitled 'I Got Skills') features Tony's HEAVY FRIENDS, Robben Ford on guitar and Glenn Walters on vocals. A partial audio clip is on this page. Stay tuned for further developments!

Tony is also booking singer/songwriter demo sessions in his demo studio, TONY'S ROOM. The demo tracks on this page were produced at TONY'S ROOM for various clients. (Used with permission)

Multi-instrumentalist Endre T. Tarczy (aka E.T., E. Tibor Tarczy, E.) is primarily known as a bassist and stunt-vocalist. He was born in San Mateo, California January 8, 1966 to Hungarian parents, who had emigrated from Endre TarczyHungary to escape the 1956 revolution. Growing up with a mother who, along with homemaking, sang on her own weekly Magyar/gypsy-folk music radio program, he remembers her rehearsing at home in preparation for concerts, radio shows, or family parties, which were lively events that would have everyone singing not only Hungarian tunes, but Romanian, Yugoslavian and current American pop songs. An older brother and sister introduced Endre to rock music like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and the Doors at this very early age of six. (His favorite Stones' song was “Paint it Black”.)

Endre soon began piano lessons, studying classical and boogie-woogie. At the same time he taught himself to play guitar by playing along with records, songbooks, and watching the Monkees and the Banana Splits on TV.

At 14 his life changed when he discovered and met San Francisco 60’s guitar great John Cippollina (Quicksilver Messenger Service). He had been to a couple of concerts, but can vividly remember the moment he became hooked on becoming a professional musician- seeing the Cippollina/Gravenites Blues Band open for Roy Buchanan at the Stone in San Francisco, a legendary club. He went to every gig he could to see John play, sometimes listening from outside the club (being under age).

Endre started meeting other fellow musicians, jamming and playing in little bands with friends from school like talented Kevin Gilbert (Toy Matinee, Sheryl Crow). After high school he continued on at the College of San Mateo, taking all the music theory/ jazz improvisation classes he could. He focused on playing piano in the day while playing guitar at night. On weekends he played some of his originals in his first professional band The Gaslighters. (Drummer Martyn Jones would go on to play in the surf-psych trio The Mermen.)

At this time, finished with school and working odd jobs here and there, he began playing bass in the local blues scene. He met and played with a whole new school of musicians, starting with organist Deacon Jones (Freddie King, John Lee Hooker), and then harmonica whiz kid Little John Chrisley in a bandRndre Tarczy called The Howling Iguanas. Also in the Iguanas was the amazing Randy Hayes, who was the most exciting drummer Endre had met or played with, and local guitar hero John Wedemeyer, who was unlike any guitarist he had heard. They started playing together, and soon “we all felt a definite chemistry”, says Endre. “It was so exciting and fresh. We could play for hours, and had a lot of fun together”. Little John’s father was booking and managing the band, and it felt like they were about to embark on to greater things and set sail. It was not in the cards, however, and Chrisley soon left to tour with Tim Cary.

At this point the remaining three members decided to soldier on, with Endre contributing originals, and they all started playing stuff they loved, like the Yard Birds, Cream, the Beatles, and Nick Gravenites. Over the next seven years they would go on to play as much as possible. They entered and won San Jose’s KOME radio station’s battle of the bands contest, and recorded a 7-song album, eponymously entitled W.H.A.T (Wedemeyer, Hayes & Tarczy, with Lyle Workman wearing the producer’s hat). They were briefly managed by Count Five (the song “Psychotic Reaction”) member Kenn Ellner. W.H.A.T. still plays on and off and is currently working on another album when tour/work schedules for the three busy sidemen allow.

Around this same period of time, Endre released a solo album written, played, produced, and funded on his own. The resulting bedroom masterpiece entitled OURANG-OUTANG was released in the cassette format to resounding indifference and obscurity.

Also around this period Endre saw a life-changing live show, NRBQ. (“If I could sell T-shirts for them on tour and learn how they do what they do by watching them, that would be ok with me”, he says.) Endre reconnected with his piano roots and began woodshedding several hours a day for about 9 months. He ended up taking an offer to tour the states with WC Handy award-winning San Jose-based blues-savant Chris Cain. He went from playing in his bedroom to traveling across America, with a couple of shows in Germany. He learned a lot and refined his keyboard technique considerably, playing and traveling in a van for weeks at a time.

Currently living in Campbell, California, he supports his wife Amy and daughter Ella solely from performing and recording session income. He is currently writing his next album (saying that if he had the money, he would release it on vinyl and make it a double album), working as a freelance musician playing in an endless circle of talented and un-talented bands, working on studio album projects, and teaching music.

His influences are: Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention, The Beatles, NRBQ, blues & jazz, almost anything 1960’s, psychedelia, freakbeat, british invasion, pop, TV themes, country & western, J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Igor Stravinsky, Alban Berg, Ennio Morricone, John Barry, Henry Mancini, Bernard Herrmann, Brian Wilson, Tom Waits, Jason Falkner.

Endre has encountered/played with: Gregg Allman, John Lee Hooker, Robben Ford, Buckethead, Lyle Workman, Napoleon Murphy Brock (Zappa), Chris Cain, Coco Montoya, Mick Fleetwood, Frankie Lee, Larry “Arkansas” Davis (Texas Flood, The Sky Is Cryin’), Zigaboo Modeleste (The Meters), Tommy Castro, Dave Meneketti (Y&T).