 The first guitar Jonathan picked up was a fake. Carved meticulously from cardboard and painstakingly adorned with masking tape, he strapped it on for his stage debut with Zit, a band of seventh-grade lip-synchers whose spot-on pantomime of Grand Funk Railroad's "We're An American Band" was good enough to take third-place in the school talent show.
 A few months later, still drunk on that first taste of rock and roll stardom, Jonathan had scraped together enough money to buy a Fender Mustang and was hard at work assembling his first real band: Phobia. With a repertoire of three songs—each featuring multiple lengthy guitar solos—Phobia played its first professional gig at a poolside political fundraiser in Washington, DC. The band wasted no time selling out, changing the lyrics to Cale/Clapton's "Cocaine" to "Champagne" so as not to outrage the upper-crust partygoers...and to secure their $75 payday.
 At
14, grizzled and road-weary, Jonathan announced that he was
"done with cover bands," and took to composing original
material. Indeed, it was a demo of his early pop nugget "(What's
Going On) In the Back of Your Mind?" that landed him on Newsbag, a short-lived children's television variety show that aired at 6 o'clock on Saturday morning. The artist's younger brother—the only family member who got out of bed to watch—thought he was great.
 Jonathan spent his high school years copping Jimmy Page guitar riffs, rehearsing in basements and garages, and performing with any number of bands at parties, dances and self-benefiting fundraisers. By the time he went off to college at The University of North Carolina, he was well prepared in the ways of putting rock before school. As a sophomore English literature major, he founded The Shake, a spunky new wave combo that ruled the Chapel Hill fraternity circuit for several years. The Shake's 7-inch, 33 rpm EP
Clear A Space  was a hit on regional college radio and attracted the attention of such "new Southern pop" icons as Don Dixon of Arrogance, Mitch Easter of Let's Active, and producer Steve Gronback. Packed into an olive green 1975 Dodge Dart Swinger and pulling a U-Haul trailer, The Shake gigged tirelessly along the I-85 and I-95 club circuit, and word of the band spread. In fact, then New York-based pop tunesmith Marshall Crenshaw wrote Jonathan this gushing note about
Clear A Space: "I'm not sure who you are or why you sent me this record, but thanks. It's good."
 Emboldened by the accolades, Jonathan flung himself headlong into the pursuit of music upon graduation from college. He took a job writing and editing arts reviews for a local magazine so he could pay the rent on an 1830 clapboard farmhouse in Durham, NC, and there he built a small recording studio and began working up new material. Reeling in some of the area's best players, he formed Jo Jo Ex-Mariner,
a hard-rocking combo whose big guitars and stadium-ready
refrains quickly won over audiences, even while befuddling NC's old-guard community of 12-string janglers. An upstart independent label liked what it heard and signed Jo Jo, sending them first into the studio to record  A Fine Line, and then on the road in support of the CD release—which, alas, never came. Just months after the band had relocated to Atlanta to capitalize on its growing fan-base, the label went belly-up, leaving Jo Jo with a sharp-looking touring van, a punishingly loud PA system, 36 boxes of
tour T-shirts, an endorsement deal with a hair products company...but no CDs.
 Jo Jo soldiered on. Living and rehearsing together in a dilapidated mansion that once belonged to Mother's Finest (remember "Mickey's Monkey"?), Jonathan and his mates built a reputation as one of Atlanta's strongest live acts, headlining clubs and small theaters throughout the Southeast, and sometimes sharing bills (okay, opening for) the likes of World Party, Robyn Hitchcock, Adrian Belew and the BoDeans.
Dogged by legal wrangling over the rights to their songs,
though, Jo Jo ran out of gas before they could secure another record deal.
Following a farewell summer concert in the famous Washington Monument
bandstand—before a crowd of 10,000—the band split. (A limited
edition of A Fine Line was released in 2001 by Major Label Interest.)
 After a lucrative (and ludicrous) stint playing in an "unplugged" duo called The Clark Brothers—which held down regular gigs at Hooters and a Mexican restaurant chain called La Cazuela in Atlanta—Jonathan, smelling deeply of tacos and chicken wings, moved to San Francisco to make a fresh start. Living in the Haight-Asbury district, he signed on with a local radio station to produce jingles and musical parodies for the market's top-rated morning show, occasionally contributing record and concert reviews to the West Coast music press, including
BAM, Mix and SF Weekly. Having just married and started a family, Jonathan put aside his songwriting for a few years and just lived. And learned.
 In 2002, encouraged by a friend to put music to some lyrics she'd written for a children's song, Jonathan wired up his recording studio again. The experience was revitalizing—and not only because the five-year-olds in the neighborhood seemed to dig the XTC-inspired multi-tracked guitars. All of a sudden, song ideas were coming like nobody's business. And Jonathan was happy to keep it that way. He spent the better part of two years writing and recording, mostly alone, with no intention of letting anyone hear what he was doing, and no desire to package it for the "industry." But as the songs began to take shape and a story began to emerge, he decided he had something worth sharing.
  Any Good Heaven is the first release by Mudd. It's 12 great pop songs about love, loss and real life, driven home by smart guitars, punchy rhythms and laid-bare vocals. Performed, recorded and produced by Jonathan with Seattle bassist Andrew Luthringer (Jessie Turner, Monica Pasqual/Blame Sally, Percy Howard), North Carolina guitarist Terry C. McInturff (Safehouse, Debra DeMilo), and mixed and mastered by  Steve Gronback (Black Crowes, Rain Parade, The Connells, Cry of Love, Tommy Keene), it marks the arrival of an artist who's been around for a long time...but has only just arrived home.
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The first guitar Jonathan picked up was a fake. Carved meticulously from cardboard and painstakingly adorned with masking tape, he strapped it on for his stage debut with Zit, a band of seventh-grade lip-synchers whose spot-on pantomime of Grand Funk Railroad's "We're An American Band" was good enough to take third-place in the school talent show.
A few months later, still drunk on that first taste of rock and roll stardom, Jonathan had scraped together enough money to buy a Fender Mustang and was hard at work assembling his first real band: Phobia. With a repertoire of three songs—each featuring multiple lengthy guitar solos—Phobia played its first professional gig at a poolside political fundraiser in Washington, DC. The band wasted no time selling out, changing the lyrics to Cale/Clapton's "Cocaine" to "Champagne" so as not to outrage the upper-crust partygoers...and to secure their $75 payday.
At
14, grizzled and road-weary, Jonathan announced that he was
"done with cover bands," and took to composing original
material. Indeed, it was a demo of his early pop nugget "(What's
Going On) In the Back of Your Mind?" that landed him on Newsbag, a short-lived children's television variety show that aired at 6 o'clock on Saturday morning. The artist's younger brother—the only family member who got out of bed to watch—thought he was great.
Jonathan spent his high school years copping Jimmy Page guitar riffs, rehearsing in basements and garages, and performing with any number of bands at parties, dances and self-benefiting fundraisers. By the time he went off to college at The University of North Carolina, he was well prepared in the ways of putting rock before school. As a sophomore English literature major, he founded The Shake, a spunky new wave combo that ruled the Chapel Hill fraternity circuit for several years. The Shake's 7-inch, 33 rpm EP
Clear A Space 
was a hit on regional college radio and attracted the attention of such "new Southern pop" icons as Don Dixon of Arrogance, Mitch Easter of Let's Active, and producer Steve Gronback. Packed into an olive green 1975 Dodge Dart Swinger and pulling a U-Haul trailer, The Shake gigged tirelessly along the I-85 and I-95 club circuit, and word of the band spread. In fact, then New York-based pop tunesmith Marshall Crenshaw wrote Jonathan this gushing note about
Clear A Space: "I'm not sure who you are or why you sent me this record, but thanks. It's good."
Emboldened by the accolades, Jonathan flung himself headlong into the pursuit of music upon graduation from college. He took a job writing and editing arts reviews for a local magazine so he could pay the rent on an 1830 clapboard farmhouse in Durham, NC, and there he built a small recording studio and began working up new material. Reeling in some of the area's best players, he formed Jo Jo Ex-Mariner,
a hard-rocking combo whose big guitars and stadium-ready
refrains quickly won over audiences, even while befuddling NC's old-guard community of 12-string janglers. An upstart independent label liked what it heard and signed Jo Jo, sending them first into the studio to record 
A Fine Line, and then on the road in support of the CD release—which, alas, never came. Just months after the band had relocated to Atlanta to capitalize on its growing fan-base, the label went belly-up, leaving Jo Jo with a sharp-looking touring van, a punishingly loud PA system, 36 boxes of
tour T-shirts, an endorsement deal with a hair products company...but no CDs.
Jo Jo soldiered on. Living and rehearsing together in a dilapidated mansion that once belonged to Mother's Finest (remember "Mickey's Monkey"?), Jonathan and his mates built a reputation as one of Atlanta's strongest live acts, headlining clubs and small theaters throughout the Southeast, and sometimes sharing bills (okay, opening for) the likes of World Party, Robyn Hitchcock, Adrian Belew and the BoDeans.
Dogged by legal wrangling over the rights to their songs,
though, Jo Jo ran out of gas before they could secure another record deal.
Following a farewell summer concert in the famous Washington Monument
bandstand—before a crowd of 10,000—the band split. (A limited
edition of A Fine Line was released in 2001 by Major Label Interest.)
After a lucrative (and ludicrous) stint playing in an "unplugged" duo called The Clark Brothers—which held down regular gigs at Hooters and a Mexican restaurant chain called La Cazuela in Atlanta—Jonathan, smelling deeply of tacos and chicken wings, moved to San Francisco to make a fresh start. Living in the Haight-Asbury district, he signed on with a local radio station to produce jingles and musical parodies for the market's top-rated morning show, occasionally contributing record and concert reviews to the West Coast music press, including
BAM, Mix and SF Weekly. Having just married and started a family, Jonathan put aside his songwriting for a few years and just lived. And learned.
In 2002, encouraged by a friend to put music to some lyrics she'd written for a children's song, Jonathan wired up his recording studio again. The experience was revitalizing—and not only because the five-year-olds in the neighborhood seemed to dig the XTC-inspired multi-tracked guitars. All of a sudden, song ideas were coming like nobody's business. And Jonathan was happy to keep it that way. He spent the better part of two years writing and recording, mostly alone, with no intention of letting anyone hear what he was doing, and no desire to package it for the "industry." But as the songs began to take shape and a story began to emerge, he decided he had something worth sharing.
Any Good Heaven is the first release by Mudd. It's 12 great pop songs about love, loss and real life, driven home by smart guitars, punchy rhythms and laid-bare vocals. Performed, recorded and produced by Jonathan with Seattle bassist Andrew Luthringer (Jessie Turner, Monica Pasqual/Blame Sally, Percy Howard), North Carolina guitarist Terry C. McInturff (Safehouse, Debra DeMilo), and mixed and mastered by 
Steve Gronback (Black Crowes, Rain Parade, The Connells, Cry of Love, Tommy Keene), it marks the arrival of an artist who's been around for a long time...but has only just arrived home.
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