A complete and utter music junkie, having been introduced to it primarily through a brother seventeen years his senior before he even talked, Jeff was first exposed to Japanese music (after a longtime in the culture) in 2000, when a friend played for him a copy of L'Arc~en~Ciel's "ark". That album proved to be the spark that ignited an addiction that continues to this day, as Jeff greedily snatches up just about and all Japanese music he encounters to supplement an already healthy diet of English-based rock and heavy metal, or entirely too elusive good pop. Jeff began playing guitar a year later at the prompting of a cousin whose band never actually came together long enough to need a second guitarist, and Jeff considers guitarists like L'Arc's ken and X Japan's hide and Pata to have had a tremendous impact on his playing style. (Alongside more familiar to Western audience faces like Ritchie Blackmore, Randy Rhoads and Tony Iommi).

Jeff is presently a college junior majoring in Japanese and minoring in History, and is reasonably certainly the entirety of the third floor of his dorm now knows the refrain to "Dive to Blue" as a direct result of him living there. L'Arc remains his favorite Japanese artist, followed closely by Luna Sea, X Japan, and Janne da Arc. He plans on spending next fall studying abroad in Nagoya.

Author's Note: It sounds really pretentious to write about yourself in the third person. Particularly the way I do it. All seeming instances of ego or an exagerrated sense of self importance are in actuality a product of the mentalist emperor penguin in the corner.