A Wisconsin native, Jeff built his first amplifier from a schematic in the RCA tube manual. A brief career selling mid fi gear ended in 1981, when he told a customer to take his big check up the street to the local Levinson dealer for some really cool equipment.
After a long stint as an award winning commercial and fine art photographer, working for Miller Brewing Company, Porsche, Ducati, Chevrolet to name a few. His knowledge in digital imaging led to a career shift, writing about digital imaging and photography for Macworld, Cnet, Studio Photography and Design, The Robb Report and numerous others. Along the way he has also been a consultant for Adobe, Epson, Roland and Olympus Cameras.
A year spent at The Absolute Sound, convinced Dorgay that there was a place for a new high end audio magazine that placed music on an equal footing with the gear and TONEAudio was formed in early 2005.
Jean’s early studies of fine art and marketing were spent at the University of Southern Oregon. She later moved to the Southwest to work on her tan and finish a degree in design at the University of Arizona.
Her 25 years worth of art direction and design for a string of Fortune 500 companies along with high end prepress skills provided the necessary background to create the look and feel for TONEAudio. Every pixel of the magazine falls victim to her watchful eye.
When she’s not digitally designing, you can find Jean at the local gardening shops looking for cool things to add to her garden or dreaming about living in Tuscany.
How do you properly introduce a legend? Many of you know our new music editor, Ben Fong-Torres from the many articles he wrote as the former senior editor of Rolling Stone magazine, others know him from his place in the movie Almost Famous. As an insider who’s seen and done just about all of it, he continues to stay busy in all aspects of music media.
A music critic for more than a decade, Bob Gendron is a frequent contributor to the Chicago Tribune and the author of the 33 1/3 series book on the Afghan Whigs’ Gentlemen album. He formerly served at the music editor for The Absolute Sound for the last 11 years and has written for Rollingstone.com, Downbeat, The Source and various other outlets.
Liza joined TONEAudio for issue 2, and has been supplying us with comic relief ever since. She has been a staff cartoonist for The New Yorker since 1982 and has worked for other publications including American Photographer, National Lampoon, Cosmopolitan and the New York Times.
She has written a number of children’s books and has shown her work in numerous exhibitions around the country. She lives in New York with her husband and two daughters. More information about Liza, her work and appearances can be found at: www.lizadonnelly.com
Jaan Uhelszki was one of the founding editors at Detroit’s legendary Creem magazine. Since that time, her work has appeared in leading publications including USA Today, MOJO, Uncut, Rolling Stone, Spin, NME, Guitar World, and The Village Voice.
Currently the editor at large at Relix, she is the only journalist to have ever performed in full makeup with Kiss. These days she only feels compelled to put on Serge Lutens kohl black eyeliner and Dior mascara when she goes out to grill rock stars over an open pit.
Bob brings over 25 years of newspaper experience from the Arizona Republic as a feature editor to keeping the gear side of TONEAudio ship shape. He currently writes for the Speed Channel online, and has written for numerous luxury publications including the Robb Report over the years.
A native of Philly, Golfen attended senior band in high school with Todd Rundgren and Daryl Hall, but currently endures the heat in Phoenix, Arizona traveling the world over for the Speed Channel, covering very cool automotive events. His son Joe Golfen is also a staff writer here at TONEAudio.
Yeah, she’s married to that Rundgren.
Michele is a self professed “has been”, having been a trapeze artist, a singer & dancer on Broadway, a member of The Tubes as well as being a back up vocalist (and brood sow) for Todd Rundgren. She has also appeared many times on MTV and the David Letteman Show.
She is currently writing a musical and a play while bouncing between San Francisco and Kauai, taking care of business. As Michele likes to comment, “Someone has to live in paradise, I voted me!”
You can keep up with her busy schedule at: www.michelerundgren.com
Jacob Heilbrunn lives in Washington, DC, where he is a senior editor at the National Interest, a foreign policy magazine. He also writes regularly for the New York Times and the Huffington Post as well as contributing to The Absolute Sound.
His interest in all things audio dates back to his childhood, listening to 10″ Jelly Roll Morton LPs while munching on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches during lunch hour. He studied trumpet at Oberlin College before plunging into the political fray. His book They Knew They Were Right: the Rise of the Neocons appeared in 2008 and was named one of the 100 best books of the year by the New York Times.
Anne brings a wealth of knowledge from both keyboards. When she’s not teaching jazz technique at the USC Thornton School of Music, she’s out performing and has worked with Harry “Sweets” Edison, Johnny Griffin, Jaki Byard and Herbie Hancock.
She has a monthly column for concordjazz.com and has contributed to All About Jazz-Los Angeles, Jazz Notes, Windplayer and Billboard. You can pick up her CD, Saturday Morning, from your favorite online CD vendor.
Terry Currier is one of TONEAudio’s walking musical encyclopedias. The owner of Music Millenium in Portland, Oregon, he attends over 200 live shows all over the world every year. It’s virtually impossible to go to a show in Portland and not see Terry there. If that wasn’t enough, Currier is a strong advocate for the Coalition of Independent Record Stores as well.
On the rare occasion that he’s not doing something involving music, you might just catch Terry riding wooden roller coasters somewhere in America’s heartland. (In the front car with his hands up in the air!)
A Native New Yorker, Tom is our other musical encyclopedia and a discerning audiophile to boot. A devout Jimi Hendrix collector who has “everything but Jimi’s casket”, Tom brings a wealth of knowledge to the staff. If it has anything to do with popular music from the 60’s or 70’s, he’s got it and usually has at least 20 different pressings to compare. (And he’s got a pretty awesome collection of GI Joe’s too!)
Tom lives in the suburbs of Atlanta with his family and his collections.
Joe Golfen also lives in the Valley of the Sun and currently writes for the Arizona Republic, the New Times and a number of other entertainment related magazines and websites in Phoenix.
Though our youngest staff member, Golfen has a depth of music knowledge well beyond his years and plays a pretty mean guitar when he has the time.
Chris is the publisher of the Computer Audiophile site and while a bonafide audiophile, his heart is on the music server/iPod/computer side of the fence.
As we feel that a bigger percentage of the high end audio market is going down that path, he is a great addition to our staff. Fortunately, Chris is as big of a music lover as computer audio nerd! You can read more of his work at: computeraudiophile.com
Another Pacific Northwest resident, Kurt owns Echo Audio just outside of the chi-chi Pearl District in Portland, Oregon. He has been in the audio world most of his life and in addition to being one of the friendliest audio salesmen you will ever meet, knows more about Nakamichi tape decks than just about anyone on Earth.
If that isn’t enough, Kurt is an outstanding chef as well. If you need to find a great piece of used gear, check out Kurt’s site at: echohifi.com
Our publisher can’t remember if he first met Jerold at a Badger game at the University of Wisconsin or standing in line waiting to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show on Milwaukee’s East Side.The staff hermit, Jerold now also resides in the Pacific Northwest where he listens to a lot of 60’s and 70’s rock music, restores old BMWs and vintage tube amplifiers. He is the only member of the staff that does not own a TIVO.
Our Club Mix editor, Scott keeps the computers running for the world’s largest advertising agency by day, but is a big music enthusiast, with an eight terabyte NAS full of club music. Because his job takes him all over the world, his buddies keep him on top of the coolest new music in all of the clubs in Europe and elsewhere. Incidentally, he and our publisher first met working in Milwaukee’s infamous Safe House spinning records many years ago.
Todd has been doing audio production and live concert sound for over 30 years. Todd has worked with a number of bands over the years, mixing at some of Milwaukee’s bigger venues as well as Summerfest, one of the country’s largest music festivals. Another Midwestern native, he is the one responsible for getting our fearless leader involved in the world of high end audio at the ripe young age of 11.
