Quick Bio

Education
1988 Classical Piano at South Shore Conservatory
1993-1994 Bass Instruction at Music Unlimited
1994-1996 Jazz Bass Instruction at South Shore Conservatory
1994-1996 Jazz Big Band Ensemble at Northeastern University
1994-1999 Bachelor of Science in Music Industry from Northeastern University with Honors
          Topics included music theory, piano, historical traditions, audio recording, and artist management
2004-2008 Studied via correspondence and online with Adam Nitti, Cliff Engel, and Anthony Wellington 
          of the Victor Wooten Band
          Topics included Jazz improvisation, advanced slap concepts, and chops builders
 
Jobs
1991-2009 Associated Engineers of Plymouth - Crew Manager
1994-1995 Wurlitzer Music in Boston MA - Guitar Repair
2006-2008 Taught electric bass privately
2009-current - Wisdom Archive - Digital Audio Archiver
2010-current - EMS Academy - EMT Lab Instructor

Notable Bands
Past Bands
Stick Figure Stanley - Ska rock originals
Confusion External - Funk/Hard rock originals
Second Audio Program - Modern rock originals
Fishing with Fredo - Rock cover band
Get Up - Funk/Soul cover band
Spank - Rock cover band
Current Bands
Ley Lynes - Jazz/Fusion project with George Stavropoulos and Jeff Armstrong
Groove Juice - Cover and original band
The China Shop Bulls - Cover band

Favorite Artists
John Patitucci, Victor Wooten, Marcus Miller, Jaco Pastorius

Favorite Bands
Jamiroquai, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones


The whole story

Mike, a native of Plymouth, MA, began his passion for music on a relative's old beat up acoustic guitar at a very young age. As he grew a little older he put the guitar away and began taking Classical piano lessons at the South Shore Conservatory in Hingham, MA. He found the piano to be an enjoyable instrument but not quite for him.

So his parents bought him a new acoustic guitar and he began to teach himself how to play it again. It was not until high school that he bought his first electric guitar from a friend. After teaching himself how to play the electric guitar, he joined a garage rock band in which he sang and played guitar with some of his neighborhood friends. Then one day one of his close friends brought a short scale Fender bass to practice. Mike had never even played a bass before but immediately fell in love with the deep low end a bass was able to deliver. His life would never be the same! His good friend quickly realized Mike's passion for the instrument and let him keep the bass at his house for him to play. Mike again began by teaching himself the basics of the instrument through available instructional books and listening to the modern rock great bassists like Flea and Les Claypool. It only took a short time for Mike to decide that this was the instrument he was meant to play. With this decision he began formal training at a local music store where he spent a year or so laying down a strong foundation for his future development.

While taking lessons at the local music store he discovered the bass greats Jaco Pastorius, Stanley Clarke, and John Patitucci. He could not get enough of Jaco's infectious grooves, Clarke's slap style, and Patitucci's horn like soloing. That was when he made the decision to enroll in the Jazz bass program at the South Shore Conservatory. Back at the Conservatory he studied under a great upright bassist first on his modest Yamaha fretted bass and then on the same bass with an added custom fretless neck. Of course the fretless neck was a result of listening to Jaco until his ears bled. His teacher had him transcribing tune after tune from great traditional Jazz bassists Paul Chambers and Ray Brown. Now with a mentor in the Jazz genre and some killer musical influences he began to develop his style.

During his attendance at the South Shore Conservatory he started a Ska Rock band with some friends. Some of which were regionally top players at their instruments. This was great for Mike since he was in comparison fairly new to the bass. This band became known as the very popular Stick Figure Stanley. They headlined and sold out many clubs and halls across Massachusetts over a period of three years. They were even named the band of prodigy musicians by many fans. Their ages ranged from 15 to 18 so they were pretty young for their success.

Stick Figure Stanley eventually disbanded when the majority of the members including Mike decided to attend college. So Mike was off to Northeastern University where he entered the Music Industry program. While in this program he studied music theory with Allen Feinstein, musical historical traditions with Judith Tick, audio recording concepts with Leon Janikian, copyright law with Bruce Ronkin, computer music, artist management, and a whole lot more including a barrage of business classes. Mike also joined the Northeastern University Jazz Big Band under band leader and notable Jazz tuba player William Lowe. William Lowe is also the co-producer and featured performer for Boston's John Coltrane Memorial Concert. Mike admits he certainly got his chops busted by Bill at first but with some time well spent in the woodshed Mike was performing great Jazz tunes like one of Mike's favorites, Charlie Parker's Confirmation.

While at Northeastern Mike started up the popular funk influenced hard rock band Confusion External. They performed at many notable clubs across Boston including the now closed Mama Kin which was owned by the band Aerosmith. They also recorded an album live at Mama Kin by use of the club's state of the art recording set up for live bands. For Mike the highlight of this band was when they played a gig with members of P-Funk in Worcester, MA. Unfortunately this was one of the last gigs for the band because their singer was moving across country. Needless to say the band soon fizzled out due to failed attempts with other singers.

Now that Mike had a solid foundation both on his instrument and the business side of music he decided it was time to take his bass playing to the next level. He ended all musical projects in order to spend a couple years in the woodshed honing his craft. Mike diligently studied the popular bass greats including Jaco, Clarke, Patitucci, Hamm, Sheehan, and many more (check out his links page for a comprehensive list of his influences). But the biggest influence on him was Victor Wooten. He still remembers the day he was sitting in the car and popped in a Flecktones album for the first time. At that time Mike was trying to widen his knowledge of bassists and started to listen to cats like Marcus Miller, Victor Bailey, Gary Willis, Michael Manring, Bill Dickens, and Victor Wooten. The list just goes on and on but after hearing Wooten's Sinister Minister on that Flecktones album Mike could not comprehend how the bass could play so much music with so much groove. Obviously Mike was floored by Vic's unhuman chops but Vic also had an amazing sense of groove. Vic's groove was the funk that was missing in Mike's life! So Mike began serious study of Wooten's techniques. He bought all the Flecktone's CDs, Wooten's solo CDs, and Wooten's instructional videos in order to gain insight into Vic's style. After about two years of several hours a day of practicing Mike emerged with some fresh musical ideas. He had mastered most of Vic's techniques and was capable of performing many of Vic's pieces including the mind blowing Classical Thump but more importantly Mike had transformed his style into a serious Funk Fusion player. Mike's groove and slap styles were no doubt highly influenced from Wooten and Miller. But his solo style was more influenced from John Patitucci. Patitucci's horn like solos will never escape Mike and he is constantly striving to achieve that level of depth in his solos. That is one of his focus's today.



So What's New Today

Today Mike continues to study the bass on his own by studying one of the largest collections of bass instructional books and videos you'll probably ever see. On top of that he studies under world renowned bassists such as Adam Nitti, Cliff Engel, and Anthony Wellington via online classes at the Music Dojo.  Mike is also a private student under Cliff's Lessons by Correspondence with concentrations in Jazz Soloing, Jazz walking bass lines, and sight reading.

He also continues to attend many concerts from Jazz and Funk to Rock and Progressive in order to learn as much as he can about music. He has even been privileged enough to meet and talk with some great musicians over the years like John Patitucci (solo bassist), Wayne Shorter of the Wayne Shorter Quartet, Stanley Clarke of the Stanley Clarke band, Stu Hamm of Joe Satriani, Michael Manring (solo bassist), and of course all the members of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones including the great Victor Wooten numerous times.

Currently Mike performs in many projects including Ley Lynes with Jazz Rock guitarist George Stavropoulos. Ley Lynes is primarily an instrumental Jazz Fusion band with a funky edge. The project is co-led by Mike and George and they use a network of great musicians when performing live or recording.

Mike has his own solo project called the Mike Shaw Project where he lets it all hang out. The styles range from Jazz to Progressive to Experimental and the bass is often the lead instrument. He has a few short clips of some of these tunes on this site. He also had a solo project named Momentary Paragon which consisted of mixing his bass loops with old analog synth loops, symphonic loops, and much more into some very strange and unusual pieces.

He has also started a couple cover bands to perform across Massachusetts that have since disbanded. Fishing with Fredo which was a modern/classic rock/top 40 cover band that played classic rock covers like Sweet Home Alabama by Skynard, great 80s hits like Pour Some Sugar on Me by Def Leppard, and modern hits like Harder to Breathe by Maroon 5.

Get Up was Mike's Funk/Soul/Blues cover band where he played smokin' tunes like Brick House by the Commodores, Get Up by James Brown, and even some bass hits like School Days by Stanley Clarke.

Mike has also been in numerous smaller projects with a lots of other great local musicians over the years including Altered Effect with singer songwriter Kenn Medeiros. Altered Effect was an Industrial Hard Rock studio project where Mike wrote and performed the bass, keys, and guitars while Kenn contributed his vocals and secondary keys.

For information on Mike's latest projects please check out the News page. He always has something new in the works!