Ian Luke, Drummer

In the back lurks the quiet rumbling of Ian Luke punctuated by frequent delightful, groan producing one liners. Twenty years of playing have taught him nothing as discipline, with A.D.D. and M.O., his mind often goes A.W.O.L. Proof is in his attire. Nevertheless he has single handedly become the expert drumset player for the hottest Arabic fusion ensemble and is much saught after for instruction on technique and rythms for those interested in the genre.

Ian was a late bloomer in music. He didn't get his first kit until he was 17: didn't have his first lesson until he was 39. Luckily he surrounded himself with a wide variety of musicians that kept him quite busy, helping his skills evolve slowly.

Born in Larkspur, California, he grew up in Marin County until being whisked away to his first culture shock, Marietta, Georgia in 1977. Three years later, Ian packed up again and headed to New Jersey. Another three years and he was in Florida. And three years after that, found himself full circle back home in Northern California.

Night Prowler was his first project out of New Jersey in 1982, a clanky, raucous ensemble with best friend / neighbor Pete Mancuso. From there, CTO was formed in the bowels of Florida in the summer of 1983 with friends Roger Wood and Dave Bowser. This band was so bad they would record B-sides of obscure 45's and send them to clubs to get gigs. When the band showed up, they announced they would be playing all new material. About halfway through the show, the club would catch on and out they'd go. This is where their motto, "You can play anywhere at least once," came from.

1986 brought Ian back home to California. With the help of his newly found counterpart, Timothy "Tuna" Barbour, they strung together four successful bands over a nineteen-year period. The first band was Hot Spell formed in 1986: A classic rock / top 40 cover band which played every weekend until it's break-up in 1988. Tuna and Ian then formed Stiff Kitty which released two demos (Roadkill-1988, and Hit 'em Again-1989). High powered 80's rock.

In 1992 the band switched bass players and changed the format to shock rock bringing forth the nightmare known as Lesbian Tendencies. This proved to be one of the weirdest projects. With theme show specials such as "Panty Clause" and "The Keister Bunny", splatter matter became the bane of nightclubs throughout Northern California. As all good things must do, this too ended. Whew. Little Big Mouth grew form the rubble and forged a full length CD, Widget-1994 and still gets together every once in awhile for kicks!

Other projects included Power Lounge, a five-piece band with a female front, Toby Dubes and duel drums. Guitar player / singer / songwriter Tully Buckner collaborated with Dubes to write the 1997 album, Reconciliation Day. Piling it on, Ian did a short stint in 1997 with San Rafael based, Warm Bones Cold. 1998 brought another collaboration with friend Buckner called Circle of Fifths. Joining this project were former DJ Burns artists, Jeff Burns and Eric Poole.

In 1999, Ian hooked up with solo vocalist, Sadie Sonntag, to help create drum tracks for her solo piano pieces. The collaboration went so well, the two married and released a CD project three years later under the name of Sadie, called Everland-2002.

In late 2002, the final project with friend Buckner brought about a jazzy, bluesy Grateful Dead sounding band known as The Rolling Blackouts. This band released several CD's. Ian contributed to two of the CD's called Smokin-2003 and Ring of the Lords-2003. In 2004 Ian also released a CD with The Van Winkle Experience called Wasted Days.

In 2003, Ian was approached by Tony Lemeiux to join the very successful blues band Mudslide where he met guitarist John Crowhurst. Through John, he met multi-instrumentalist, Angelena who invited him to be a part of Boudicca. Terrified, he accepted and the rest is history.

Feel free to explore the web pages from Ian's other projects (if you dare):

Sadie: http://www.universesadie.com
Little Big Mouth: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/littlebigmouth