Scot Apathy

A note from the site developer:

I’ve been a student of Jim’s for 30 years. Our friendship began in 1986, when I met Jim through a group of friends who were working with Dave Shogren at Atomic Audio, the studio that used to occupy the ground floor of Jim’s Showcase Music Institute in Campbell, California. I was young and a bit arrogant, but thankfully, my ears told me that I had a lot to learn about singing, and fortuitously, help was just a stairway’s climb away.

Learning to sing is a trying experience when you start out, as you know your vocal instructor is enduring horrible audio atrocities as you try to learn the fundamentals of controlling your voice. It takes a level of trust from the student and patient kindness from the instructor. In Jim, I found not only a foil for my learning, but a lifelong friend, and a musical mentor beyond reckon; he is a Master Musician and a skilled and talented teacher.

There have been long periods where I did not work with Jim regularly, either for geographic reasons or time constraints, but even after long absences, he’s always met me with welcoming words and a positive demeanor, even when he was going through some of the more difficult of life’s experiences; I can only hope that my presence has been a positive for him during those times.

Not long ago, I was struggling with a vocal during recording sessions, and returned to Jim to ask his help in figuring out a better approach. Since then, we’ve spent many hours listening to my developing tracks, practicing martial arts and just hanging out. Some of my most interesting conversations and observations about music have been shared with Jim in his office. During our conversations, I’d heard snippets about Jim’s early musical career, but only in short missives. He would fondly remember something about the Nitecaps era, share with me a brief memory, and we would move on, but clearly, Jim carries a lot of pride in the accomplishments of the Nitecaps and the people that shared the experience and worked with him to make it all possible.

When Jim asked me to help him build this site, I imagined a small site with a few pages and old photographs – a vanity site of sorts. What we’ve actually built is far more than that. It’s a rare snapshot of a musical era gone by, told by those who experienced it firsthand, and I want to thank everyone involved for allowing me the opportunity to work with them on this project. I’ve been privy to private stories of the characters involved, have shared laughter with Phil, Robert, Kevin and Jim, and have seen first hand how much the Nitecaps meant to them.

I hope that people from all eras enjoy this site. Even for those too young to be there, or those who simply missed the experience during their youth, there is much to be learned and enjoyed by reliving the history of one of San Jose’s historic bands, and if you get a chance to see Jim, Phil, Kevin, Robert or any of the other Nitecaps members perform, do it. These guys can really play.

Did you like the Site?

I’ve been producing and developing websites since 1995, and in the past 20 years, I’ve had the good fortune to work with some of the world’s best-known brands and artists while working with some of the best developers in the Silicon Valley.

But here’s the thing – it’s projects like this one that really bring personal enjoyment to my professional life. A lifetime of memories, relationships and music have been captured, catalogued and presented for those who wish to take a look…the images and sounds no longer trapped in limbo, sitting in a forgotten folder on a hard drive or worse yet, relegated to the top shelf of a closet.

Shameless Plug time….

I am always looking for meaningful and fun Web projects like this. Did you or your friends or a family member do something really special? Something worth sharing and archiving on the Web? Fill out the form on the right and let me know about it, and I’ll get back to you to talk about it.

Thanks!