tonestones
(Steve Stone)

Bio:
My name is Steve Stone. I live in the San Francisco bay area, originally from Louisville, Ky. College at Indiana University. My focus in school was between music, math and computer science.

I played music professionally off and on during the early to mid-70's. My day job is in the field of computer system design and system software (operating systems, compilers). I've been involved in many silicon valley startups, including MIPS, NeXT, TiVo and a few you've never heard of. Since TiVo (I was there from the very beginning for 6 years) my career has been focused on embedded media processor technology, with a focus on HDTV and internet media.

My love of music has been life-long. I picked up the drums early in grade school by disassembling coat hangers for sticks and beating the sh*t out of my mother's hat boxes. That didn't last long. My mom bought me a slingerland drum set. I played it constantly in the basement of our house. My father desperately wished I would take up the harmonica (or anything else but the drums). My circle of musical friends at the time included a few drummers and guitarists, but no bass players. I had been playing double bass in the orchestra and percussion in band so I decided to take up the electric bass. My father was happy. I usually practiced without an amp, doing finger exercises for hours.

I took up the guitar in early high school, but never considered myself a decent guitar player until college. I played professionally as jazz/rock bass player for several years, but never had the feeling it was my career calling. Computers clicked with me and I saw great potential in combining computers with music. There weren't many career opportunities in the 70's for computer music so I started doing systems design.

Throughout my career I've done some interesting things in musical instruments (worked for Emu for a while and did some digital audio at NeXT) and I have had a substantial digital home studio for a long time.

I love writing and playing. Most of my music falls into the progressive rock genre, but I try to stay very diversified. I love rock, jazz, bluegrass, classical and many other forms of music and try to utilize elements of them when I create my own.

Musical Influences:
- Old: Frank Zappa, Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Miles Davis, Gentle Giant, Genesis, Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Corea, Return to Forever, Yes, ELP, Eric Clapton, Traffic, Steve Winwood, Cream, Jack Bruce, the Who, Santana, Jethro Tull, Pat Metheny, Spirit

- Recent: Spock's Beard, Dream Theater, Frost, Flower Kings, Steve Vai, Mike Stern, Adrian Belew, Allan Holdsworth, Dave Matthews, Nickel Creek, Chris Thile, Derek Sherinian, Disturbed, Echolyn, The Jelly Jam, Kiing's X, Neal Morse, Porcupine Tree, Thought Chamber