The first thing you should know about Jim Heetmann is that he refuses to write about himself in the third person. There’s usually only one of me around at any odd time.
Like so many others fated to a lifetime of music making, I come by it honestly. My mother taught piano lessons from our home. Believe me, time slows to a crawl when waiting to hear the note a student cannot find. Being the kind and caring type, she did not force me to study the instrument, as it was hard to divert my attention from riding my bike and burning things.
My father was a violinist, and saw nothing wrong with keeping me in on Saturday mornings, trying to impart his great knowledge on a semi-willing 9 year old. This turned pretty quickly into lessons at school (which freed up my Saturday mornings for bike riding and arson), and playing in the school orchestra. I liked playing in the orchestra, but somewhere around the age of 13, I noticed a distinct lack of women lining up to meet me after the last notes of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik had vanished into the evening air.
These were the heady days of Twisted Sister, Poison, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, and a new band from Los Angeles called Metallica. The electric guitar (and all it represented) was not initially welcome in the house. But it was apparent that my heart was in it, and so it was.
I started my formal studies on guitar in eighth grade, with a used sparkle-blue Memphis Strat that weighed approximately 1-2 tons. A very patient man named Rod Doble taught me pretty much everything I needed to know within the first few lessons, including the solo to “Stairway to Heaven”. He even shared with me (in great confidence) the “Berklee College of Music Simplified Theory of Jazz Guitar”, which is to play all the notes IN BETWEEN the notes you know. HA! He had to pay for four years of college in Boston to learn this; I got it for $14. To this day, I have not deviated from “The Theory”.
But where were the chicks?
I joined up with a couple of repressed catholic school boys, and we started a metal band called Line of Fire. We played very loudly in the basement; loudly enough that we thought surely SOME chicks SOMEWHERE would hear us, and come running. You can probably guess how that went.
Our first gig was at a town park, which my orthodontist booked for us. Not knowing exactly how loud a live performance should be, we decided to err on the side of generosity, and used every watt available to us. Even now when it is very quiet, I can still hear that show in my left ear.
I needed a better instrument, (one that the chicks would dig), so one fine day in December of 1988, I put a down payment on a BC Rich Ironbird. This was a guitar that looked of like a cross between a lightning bolt and a battle axe. That evening, I went to my first real rock concert, which happened to be Ozzy Ozbourne’s 40th birthday concert at the New Haven Coliseum. The band Anthrax opened the show. During their third song, I was brained by something very heavy, probably a bottle. It was off to Yale New Haven hospital for stitches; I never did get to see Ozzy.
Yes, some chicks were impressed by the scar on my head and the tale of how I got it. But not that many.
Undeterred, I continued my studies with Al Ferrante (a former member of one of the later incarnations of Edgar Winter’s White Trash), who taught me a kick-ass solo jazz guitar version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. It still comes out on stage, when I need to stall while any other member of the band is having equipment trouble.
And so, it being time for college, I landed at the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford, studying composition. I guess I just wasn’t satisfied with the “Berklee College of Music Simplified Theory of Jazz Guitar”. During my time at Hartt, I also studied jazz guitar with Rich Goldstein, who showed me that, in fact, there was QUITE a bit more to know about the instrument, and the genre. Too bad “The Theory” is so much easier!
In college, I played in a band called Hitmen. We thought we were really something, in the Hartford music scene, circa 1995. We even recorded an album, which I still think is fairly good. The height of our fame was opening for Spyro Gyra at The Sting in New Britain. We also opened for the opener for Tower of Power, if you can believe that. Pretty cool, but not many chicks go for guys who open for an opening band. Mainly the “Ms. Wrong” type.
After college and a brief hiatus for parenting and working in the private sector, I met Chris Marolda. Chris has pretty well covered the pertinent history of Boondoggle and FBI in his bio, bringing us up to date. Notice that he has mentioned nothing about chicks at all. I wonder why.
See you at our next show!
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