Jeff Burk Photography

My Musical Background

    I grew up in a musical household. Both of my parents played instruments, sang in a church choir and taught music. I loved listening to records. Seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show when I was 8 years old turned me into a fan of rock n roll. My first instrument was cello, starting in fourth grade. In my teens I began to play bass guitar in a string of rock bands. I grew to love performing in the small groups, the electrical power of the instrument, and the excitement of the audience. I gave up the cello.
    When I went to KCAI, I quit playing music to devote myself to studying photography. But then a semester in Chicago, where I saw the Ramones perform, convinced me to get back into a band to play a more vital type of music. I joined fellow art students Mikel Rouse and Rob Shepperson to form Tirez Tirez, which played its first gig as an opening act for the Talking Heads at a 1978 Kansas City concert.
    As the band's music progressed, Tirez Tirez self-released two albums and a single, played some shows in Chicago, graduated from college and moved to New York City in 1980. There, we recorded a third album, “Etudes.” that was released on a label in Manchester, England. In time, I grew wary of the direction the band was going and quit. For about a year after that, I joined a friend, JP Jones, in a band called John Train. In 1982 I decided to return to the Midwest for graduate study in photography at Indiana University. (During this time, I continued to provide album art for the regenerative Tirez Tirez)

    After gaining a graduate degree I moved to Chicago. The rock and roll bug bit me again and I played in a number of respectable but virtually unrecorded bands, including: Beat Generation, Will See and Happyland. Eventually, I became interested in the aspects of recording and live sound. When these bands dissolved, I got involved with some friends to build a recording studio, Soundworks (now Rax Trax), where I learned to engineer. I produced early releases for a number of local bands and started a label, No Cigar Records, in 1997. I found that running a record label by oneself can be extremely taxing - especially if you don't have a lot of cash to sink into it. I decided to shut the operation down in 2006.

The last time I played bass in a live band was in 2001.