I only knew Dino for 4 years, but he is truly an unforgettable person and he had a great impact on me. When we first formed the band, I was a green and slightly ornery and hardheaded kid out of college and I could always count on Dino for some advice. I could always count on him to set me straight when I got too bigheaded also. Dino sort of became an older brother figure to me.  Alas, I never told him how much I appreciated him.

It’s a shame I never shared those words with Dino and I’ll have to accept that and learn from it but I do thank whatever force brought us together because he was a very influential person in my life. The drummer/bassist bond is usually a strong one, like ours was, but our bond as people was stronger. As I said, I never fully expressed how much of an impact he had on me musically and personally and I’ve lost that opportunity. In another sense, he taught me to seize that opportunity from now on whenever it presents itself.

I’ll leave you with a video of Mirror Image performing “Some Other Life” at the Rock-It Room in San Francisco on March 24, 2007.  At 2:26 or so, I play a triplet fill to kick us back into the final choruses to end the song. For some reason, he always had a bit of trouble nailing the last note of that fill but he would always give me a head nod and a smirk when we nailed it perfectly.