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First of all, I won’t claim to be one of Mike Culotta’s best friends when I wasn’t.  I barely knew him…. other than the fact that he was a voice that I practically grew up with on the radio.  He was only a few years older than me, but it seems like his voice has been a part of my life since childhood.

As a DJ for 92.3, and later 97.1 on the FM dial, it’s hard to remember a time when I wasn’t hearing him talk to me between the great classic rock tunes.  Sometimes I would call into the station to request a song, but like many people, I was really only calling to make a connection with the voice I was hearing on the radio.  It was usually a very brief encounter, in which I would nervously choke out the name of the song I want to hear… usually a Led Zeppelin tune… and hear a click after a quick “okay, thanks for calling….”

One time I had the experience of hearing Mike actually say my name on the radio… “here’s a request for Stairway to Heaven going out to Lee…”  Hearing my name on the radio was one of the coolest things in the world.

Once I began to hang out at the local clubs, which was a little before I should have (I’d get in by carrying one of Mike Cromer’s guitars as a roadie for my favorite local band, Little Sister), I would often see Culotta  hanging around with the prominent local musicians of the time at clubs like the Moby Grape, Main Gate, Kracker’s, Club Rock, and several others.

Of course, with my shyness, I never had the nerve to approach people like him… or Freddie Woods, Lark Williams, Big Marty, or the other DJ’s of the time.  They were as much rock stars as the real rock stars.  Sometimes I would find myself crossing paths with them, and in the course of trying to appear cool and composed, I would say something really stupid like a star-struck teenager and walk away feeling like I made a fool of myself.  But then, even Mike Cromer, Rachel, Dave, and the rest of the band had that effect on me (as much as people respect me for my playing, I am very open about the fact that Cromer was one of my biggest influences on the guitar during that very impressionable period of my life).

Over the years, I developed a familiarity with Mike Culotta, and he became a bit familiar with me under my stage name of Raven Storm.  I would often see him around town, and became much more comfortable approaching and talking to him as time went on, and I found him to be a very cool guy with an incredibly endearing personality.  I found that he was always engaging in a conversation, especially if you bring up the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Even though I am a Rams fan, I once had a wonderful conversation with him about how his team beat mine in the Super Bowl of 1979, and the irony of the movie, Heaven Can Wait, which came out the year before and featured a story line about the Rams meeting the Steelers in the Super Bowl, but with a different outcome. Technically, the Steelers were my second favorite team, since my Dad was Seneca Indian from Oil City, Pennsyvania, north of Pittsburgh.   For a moment, we were just two guys talking football, and he was so cool and personable that I forgot that he was the voice I had been listening to on the radio for most of my life.

In October of 2009, I was performing with Fallen Grace at Bailey’s Sports Bar in Las Vegas, and my bandmate and close friend, Davyo, told me that Mike was supposed to be showing up.  DavyO, being a legitimate local celebrity in his own right, and a great musician as well… enough to intimidate the hell out of me when I began playing with him in Tarah’s band… had been very close friends with Mike for many years.   I was pleasantly surprised that Mike recognized me and ended up sitting directly in front of me for the show… which made me incredibly nervous.  The last time he had seen me play was 20 years earlier when Little Sister allowed me on stage to play Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll,” and I turned it into a ridiculous arpeggio-fest in my adolescent need to impress.  Of course, it was hearing a recording of that performance afterward that made me realize what the phrase “too many notes” really meant (in the words of actor, Jerry Jones, in the movie Amadeus).  Needless to say, I changed my approach to playing guitar that very night, with Cromer’s incredibly tasty and melodic style that I admired so much, as an example of the direction I should go.

It was my first show with Fallen Grace that night last year… Laurie Swain’s birthday party, as a matter of fact… and I was more concerned with playing the songs correctly and kept the solos quite basic… mostly improvised as I hadn’t had the time to work many of them out. Culotta honored me with some incredibly meaningful praise, especially considering who he was and his experience being around great musicians, and later backed it up with a personal message on Facebook that I’ll never forget, as well as a post on his own page regarding his opinion of the show (which can still be seen with a search back to October, 2009).  I looked at that night as the possible beginning of a new friendship with him.  The star-struck kid who eventually befriends a person he admires.

I never got to express the feeling I had of him mentioning my name on the radio so many years earlier, or even the Little Sister jam at the Grape.  I doubt he would even remember… but I feel very fortunate to have had that time of hanging out with he and DavyO, hearing some of the stories between them,  my brief moment of impressing him, and the kind words he had for me afterward.  He never made it to another Fallen Grace show, although I personally invited him to several of them.

I hate that my shyness prevented me from possibly becoming friends with him earlier.  It’s a curse I’ve had my entire life.  Even DavyO, whom I have seen around town forever, I never really got to know until joining Fallen Grace, and I feel very fortunate to call him one of my closest friends now, along with Tarah and Danny.  I know that trait of shyness has sometimes been mistaken for other things… things that may make people hesitant to approach me.  There are many faces I’ve seen around Vegas over the years I have yet to meet and get to know. Some of them may be reading this, and  I hope those people realize it’s not a matter of being aloof or arrogant…just shy, and a bit unable to get over that hump of the initial, “hey…. I’m Raven.  Nice to meet you…”

It doesn’t help that I have a terrible memory.  I remember faces, but I rarely remember where I know people from.  So many years of so many gigs, it’s very hard for me.  Even when working at Sam Ash, I would often see familiar faces, but not knowing where they’re from would make me feel foolish in approaching them.  When I’m recognized, I do my best to remember, but rarely make the connection unless someone brings up the event or something to trigger the memory.

Mike Culotta is an example of a friendship I missed out on, and now it’s too late.  To anyone who sees me around Vegas next time I’m in town… at Feelgood’s, Tommy Rocker’s, or anywhere else… please don’t hesitate to say hi.  If I’ve met you before, but I seem to not be sure, please help me out my reminding me, and please don’t be offended if I don’t remember right away.  It’s pretty hard to dig memories out of this black hole I call a brain…

As I wrote on the wall for the new Mike Culotta Tribute page:

Someday, somewhere… a child will be born, and he will have the gifts of a great voice and the ability to touch thousands of people with it.  He’ll know music…. great music.  He will have a great vibe about him, and a warm spirit, and people will be drawn to him… great people…. and a few nuts like DavyO. He’ll have a strange passion for the Pittsburgh Steelers, even if he’s from Australia.  He’ll probably feel a strange connection to a place called Las Vegas.

Wherever that child is, the people he meets and attaches himself to will be very lucky, just as we were. Have a good rest, Mike… and I hope to be one of those lucky people in the next life.

~Raven Storm
(or… a kid named Lee)

Culotta, Mike