Musician artist bio

Rob is an accomplished guitarist and vocalist of 25+ years who composes and performs music in a wide variety of genres including blues, folk, alternative rock, and Spanish classical. A multi-instrumental string musician, Rob also plays banjo, mandolin, ukelele, lap steel guitar, and shamisen among other instruments.

Rob began his music career in the early 2000s as a guitarist in Connecticut’s second wave punk/hardcore scene, where he played lead guitar in metalcore bands Inane and Quicklime. After relocating to the UK for college in 2005, Rob began exploring the mellower sides of music, embracing an acoustic folk sound. Through his interactions with international musicians living in London, Rob learned to play Flamenco and Spanish classical, also experimenting with Middle Eastern scales like Maqam Nahawand that he learned while making improvised music with his Arab and Persian university course mates.

From 2005-2007 Rob was lead guitarist for multinational rock band Stonehouse that featured members from Germany, Japan, and Turkey. In 2008 Rob spent a year in Japan performing at open mics across the country and honing his vocal abilities in karaoke rooms several times a week. Returning to London the following year, from 2009-2012 he was lead guitarist for UK-based Iranian alternative rock band Hermitage, which was featured on BBC World Service Farsi language television channel in 2011 for a live studio performance at BBC Studios in London on their program Kook. Rob composed most of the songs on the group’s debut album Shadow on the Wall.

Since relocating to Philadelphia, Rob has deepened his appreciation for Americana genres such as folk, country western, and bluegrass – recording an album in 2013 titled Next One’s on the House as one half of the funky-folky-bluesy-bluegrass duo The Thelonious Drunks. In this group Rob played guitar, banjo, and mandolin. Rob began his solo career as a singer-songwriter in 2014 when he recorded an album titled Yesterday’s Troubles. Rob also began hosting his long-running monthly open mic series at Tokio HeadHouse from 2014 until the pandemic began in March 2020, which emphasized collaborative improvisation among participants. 

During the COVID-19 quarantine years of 2020-2021 Rob composed, performed, and recorded an original soundtrack for Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation’s podcast series Look Toward the Mountain. The soundtrack features a blend of guitar and shamisen – the Japanese three-string fretless banjo. In the years since the pandemic ended, Rob has continued his practice as a multi-instrumental folk artist, bridging sounds that connect various cultures within his own heritage, and the many places he has lived and traveled.

Currently Rob is working on a suite of Mississippi Delta-inspired folk country blues songs for his brass tri-cone resonator slide guitar and three-string cigar box guitar, purchased on recent work trips to San Antonio, Texas and Little Rock, Arkansas where he is engaged in public history projects related to the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans.