:: Son Vo - Early History ::

I'm going to begin this autobiography with a basic timeline of events of my life. From there I'll go deeper into the depths of my memory & try to divulge what details I dare expose to the world. I figure it'll eventually be found out by some enquiring mind so I might as well beat 'em to the punch. This is, of course, a work that is constantly being updated, improved or added upon so please come back frequently to view such going-ons.

Born: January 14th, 1971, Saigon General Hospital. Mother, Vo thi Nyguet Van. Father, unkown.

Age 2: My mother left to the US to marry Frank Muccio, a Navy soldier & future stepfather, leaving my older sister & I behind for over a year in Saigon, unbeknownst to Frank until my mother reveals the news to him. My sister & I lived in separate homes in Saigon; she to a poor family with as many as 4 older boys & I to an upper middle class family as the only child in the household. I was given special treatment because I was the male.

Age 3 1/2: My mother comes back to retrieve my sister & I. We move to Wells, Maine & live there for one year. My mom has two more kids by now, Franky & Zeland Muccio.

Age 4: My older sister & I are taken away from our home by the Dept. of Human Services due to neighbors' reports that abuse was taking place in our house (they apparently see my mother chasing my sister around the house with a butcher knife & screaming obscenities, which is all true - my sister had cut my eyelashes, which threw my mother into a fury). Our mom was taken to the hospital & diagnosed with a severe brain tumor, causing her to behave erratically & lose control of her emotions. She was allowed to keep her two younger offspring since they were Frank's kids but she could not keep Hien (my older sister) & I. We were sent to Harrison, Maine to live on a small farm with Phyllis.

Age 5-13: Lived with Phyllis, then did a young teenager stunt, got sent away to a Little Brother's Shelter where I had the oppurtunity to leave Phyllis' home & did.Phyllis was quite physically & verbally abusive although she also had many great attributes - a complex woman who tried to do her best but also was a victim of her own past abuse. I moved to South Portland, Maine with Henry Wagener & Judy Plano's (and their two kids Jael & Kyla) home at 13, going to a new high-school, new everything, knowing not a single soul.

Age 14: Began formal lessons on drum set. This was my first, true passion, the one thing I said to myself that I'd be doing for the rest of my life. I practiced 4-6 hours on weeknights & 6-12 hours on weekends. I neglected homework just to practice.

Age 16: Left Dick & Judy's due to some 'house rules' that I disapproved of. I Moved in with Terri & Maureen Hannigan (my first savior whom I called upon to help me from my current crisis - being homeless & a runaway), the true beginning of my soul's liberation from past pains.They took me in & raised me like their own, nurturing my mind, spirit & music. I opened up & began discovering how fun life actually was.

Age 17: I quit South Portland High School & moved into my first apartment with Regis McNicholas, my best friend at the time. We started a band (I was a drummer), Low Tolerance w/Greg & Sean Kinney. We placed 2nd in a battle of the bands, recorded our first 2 singles for the 1988 Rock-Off Challenge, Portland, Maine. We had our one roommate, Billie ( musician bassplayer who was 40 yrs. old ) move out, then we filled it with Matt Beal & someone else who's name I forgot but he was in the Portland High-School Circle. I had my drums set up in my bedroom & would practice a few hours a day. The woman downstairs would bang on the ceiling to have me stop. It was funny.Ii had them set up on top of two plyboards that were on top of two bedspring mattresses.

We eventually got evicted as young teenagers can. I moved out to Peak's Island with Regis & my band, Low Tolerance, who's members lived under one roof, Shaun & Greg Kinney (brothers), Shaun being 21 & Greg 18 (He looked like a young Pete Townsend). Shaun was a really skinny bassist who played with the very popular punk band Skull 69. We eventually were being called the Skullhouse by people I knew. It bugged the piss out of me. I spent A LOT of time alone in this house. Nobody was ever home. I worked at the Chef's Table as a dishwasher inland. I eventually moved out in the winter back inland, above a variety store on Danfoth St., in the West End. It was cold in the wintertime but hell, I was only paying $75 a month. It was with some hippies that were really shady...really shady. Life kind of sucked but oh, well.

Age 18: Moved to New York City, slept on a couch at Christopher Whitting's apartment in Queens, another savior-figure whom I owe a lot of debt to, spiritually & financially. Worked for Greenpeace, going door-to-door, asking for donations unsuccessfully. I got fired & got a job distributing flyers on cards (dial-a-porn cards, i.e. 970-BOOB, 970-WHIP, 970-KISS, etc. you get the idea. This job was tough. I went into some knarly neighborhoods, usually with anther non-white person due to the potential harm they might receive. I left after two months of that job.

I moved back to Maine, lived on a couch for 4 days. Then I moved in with my close friend, Matthew Beal, in South Portand. I got a job at Cap'n Newick's Lobster House as a fry-cook, etc. guy. Hung out a lot with Brendan Hayes & Matt, driving around in Portland's West End & smoking lots of weed in his navy blue 76' side-step Chevy pickup. We were classic teenagers. Played video games, got older people to buy us beers, although I had a few places that never carded me. We would walk around Cape Elizabeth & drank beers at the lighthouse, etc. talking about life & what we wanted to do. Brendan was a good friend. I hung out a lot with Matt in his house. I actually stole a guitar, a black Les Paul, from a friend of mine whom I had worked with at the Blue Moon, Adam, who's band I was to be playing in called Twisted Roots. I was caught about 5 hours later. Adam & his friend came in, asked me about it, I confessed, they took my guitar & smashed it then smashed my room up, I was out of the band & I'll never know why the hell I did that. I was humiliated & felt so stupid, which I was. Adam was a really nice guy too.

I got in touch with Regis then decided to move out to Madison, Wisconsin to begin playing music with him. We lived on the first floor of a house. I lived in a room that i soon found to be very cold in the wintertime, although it was loaded with windows. It was great, snuck between two parks & train tracks. I found a job as a clothes presser, of which I did for two months. Then I quit & got a job in a new recycled paper distribution warehouse. It was a fairly good job. Then I worked part-time there & part-time at a pizza & deli joint. Good pizza. I worked there for a month then left Madison Wisconsin. But that all doesn't start happening until I turn 19. More details below.

Age 19: Regis & I try to start a band but it seems too hard. I buy a drumset but have no cymbals. We tried to start a band but I became too restless. I didn't like the vibe out there as well as the really cold weather. I hitchhiked back to Maine in 3-4 days in early March. It was colder than all hell (still trying to figure that phrase out, anyways) & I missed my friends. I moved in with Terri & Maureen for a month or two before I found a place with Tony Frallicardi & some other Deadheads on Dow St. in Portland, Maine. I got a job as a busboy at Cap'n Newicks again. Believe you me, this was one of the funnest years of my life - reckless abandon, real teenager fun applied. My first girlfriend as well, Sarah Darling. Lots of partying & playing music. I lived in an apartment with Tony Frallicardi on Dow St. I believe 6 guys rented the 2 bedroom apt. on the 3rd floor. I had my drumset in the living room, beside the couch. It was pretty friggin funny. Lots of events happened this year. I left my job at Cap'n Newick's in September because of panic attacks, then we all decided to leave the apartment. I stayed with Tony Frallicardi for a month then I moved back in with Terri & Maureen for the winter. It was weird as I didn't want to have to rely on them. It was ok because they loved me, I just wanted to moved on for myself though at that age. I also got my GED that year. I worked at Barber Foods in the wintertime. A very hard job as I biked to work in the snow on a fairly busy road.

Age 20: I was living with Terri, Nicholas (her son) & Maureen, having finished working many odd winter jobs. I lived there until September. I practiced guitar a lot, worked when I could find work & trying to deal with my panic attacks. I just met up with Phoebe & getting over Sarah Darling. I moved in with 3 other guys, Neil Carroll, Shawn Brilliant & Chris Henry. Neil Carroll & I were starting a band called Tao Jones. Just a great guy all around. Shawn Brilliant was a classic Mainer with a 100 lb. black labrador named Gus. I have a story about Gus in a little while. Chris Henry was a stock, burly, funny & cool dude who played a nasty guitar. He's one of the best players out there - I really respect his musicianship. A hard autumn. Broke up with Phoebe, no steady job, went on unemployment & food stamps, very embarrassing for me. Also went to food banks. It helped. I worked on the docks come December at night with Neil. That turned into other work into the later winter months.

The Story with Gus & Neil: Neil had the misfortune of throwing a stick to & running downhill, Gus had caught the stick in such a way that the weight of his body helped to plunge the stick through the back of his mouth & puncturing it. let's just say Gus wasn't feeling good at all. What's worse is that Shawn had told Neil to not throw him sticks. Whoops. So when Shawn came back from whatever weekend trip he had, he was so pissed. Gus was hurtin & ripping mad at Neil.

There was also a ghost in this house. Shawn & I were witness to it because the other two were apparently out. We were watching the TV & we heard one of the upstairs bedroom doors creaking open. Then we heard footsteps start to come down the stairs. We both just assumed that Chris was home but only to find out later that he was not. So the footsteps kept coming down. As I said earlier, we were both watching the TV so we weren't looking behind us, where the staircase was. We both started talking to Chris as the footsteps were coming down, saying " waking up from a nap, huh? ". Then the footsteps started to the basement door. As I looked back, I didn't see anyone opening up the basement door & the footsteps stopped. I looked back at Shawn & said, "I think we have a ghost", & he said "yuuuuhh!" - we were in agreement. We went back to watching the TV, never speaking of it again, at least I don't remember.

Age 21: Working for a shrimping & scalloping business at 3 in the morning until noon, one food break. My strangest job I had to date. I hated it & was fired two months into it because of nodding off at the clenaing line. It was cold in there. Just sucked. Shortly thereafter, I got my job back at Cap'n Newick's as a busboy. It was a great job. Brendan & I worked there together, fun times. We stole a lot of beer from that walk-in, Heineken cases. It was a good summer of work & music playing. I also got to play music with a Grateful Dead cover band for about 3 months. Was playing drums for a project who's name I forgot. We lived at the house until September. I moved into a smaller apt. with Regis on the West End. We lived there until January of 1992. IN October or November, I started guitar lessons with Valtimar Mollineux, a man who's hands I've yet to see the likes of on any other man. They were the perfect guitarist's hands - all the same size, really. He was a cool dude, full of the chuckles with me. I think it was just our connection, he liked my seriousness yet my innocence that I emitted, unbeknownst to me. He used to shine shoes as a kid for the musicians who performed at the Apollo Theater. I studied very hard with him.

Age 22: Evicted from the apartment with Regis. I moved in with this Vietnamese guy named Hung in this old & huge apartment building in downtown Portland, about half a mile away. I helped him move his girlfriend out of that apartment, unload her stuff into her new apartment, load my stuff into the truck then into the new apartment. She was basically leaving him & i was a witness to it- very sad. All this on Super Bowl Sunday & it was snowing like crazy out. I walked to 3 Dollar Dewey's & watched the 2nd half from there. The Cowboys won. The rent was cheap there, Hung was a nice guy. I started work at a coffe shop my friend, Jim, was opening up. I worked there from February until July, walking out in a storm of rage - a fight between time conflicts on Portland Art Walk Day. I started dating Rita, moved out of Hung's apartment in say, September? I got a job at the YMCA as a maintenence guy, mopping floors 2, 3 & 4 at the living quarters. It was a truly creepy, desolate, loner type of job. I had lots of time to think. I eventually switched to an evening shift, no music, just work - Rita was pregnant & I needed to raise money for us to move back into Rita's mom's house in Bingham, Maine. I lost the oppurtunity to play in Austria with RSOS (Rhythm Section of Shame) because my re-entry permit didn't come on time.

Age 23: I was officially now working night shift at the YMCA, very creepy at night. The floor I had to mop was red, the locker rooms were always creepy. i had to keep the music on no matter what, and all the lights as well. The job was nifty. i cleaned as fast as I could which was about 5.5 to 6 hours of work. Then I'd sit back in the men's locker room, go into the back showers where there was a draft on the bottom of the back door where I could exhale all the potsmoke. Then I'd go back into the men's locker room & watch cable TV on the big screen (about 47"), mostly history channel about warplanes of WWII. Rita & I moved into her mom's home in Bingham. We went on food stamps & I had no work for the winter. in the springtime, I got a job at Crabapple Whitewater as a maintenence guy, lawn care, errand boy, etc. It was a beautiful job. Rita & I moved into a cabin, then back down in the small town on the 2nd floor of a house. It twas nice for a couple months but I still wanted to desperately bail. I did in early September. I asked Matthew Beal to pick me up. He did. I was guiltridden for over a year, lived with Matt & his family for the fall & winter back ion Portland, Maine. I worked temp jobs again, riding my bike all around. I eventually got a job at the Victory Deli as a dishwasher, which I hated a little bit. I also started a band, The Off Beatniks. We played my originals & some great covers. It was a badass band. Max Kay, Justin & Jason. Wow. I also started playing drums for Go Button, a fun, swanky, lazy country band. It was fun - Peter Wolf & Karen Jenkins & Dave Soul. Fun times.

~ Excerpts of Son Vo ~ Never Finished.

I was born January 14, 1971 in Saigon, Vietnam. I believe it was Saigon General Hospital. I was 6.5 lbs, apparently healthy.

When I was a couple years old, my mom went overseas to marry an American soldier, Frank, my soon-to-be step-father. My older sister, Hien (pronounced HEE' un) & I were placed into separate homes; she to a poor family & I to a middle class one. We still saw each other occasionally. We were born to two different fathers - Hien's father was a Cambodian man wwhile mine was an American Air Force pilot of Mexican/American descent - so I was told.

My mother apparently hadn't told Frank that she had left behind her two kids in Vietnam, out of fear that he might reject her & she wouldn't get her freedom. When she finally told him about us, he was surprised, to say the least. So after much discussion, he laid down his life savings that he had at that time & told her to get us back here to the United States.

So my mom flew back over to retrieve us with bribe money (checkpoints), documents signed by Kissinger himself & plane tickets in hand. It was really days before the fall of Saigon when we left the city & there was frantic activity all about. Many confused, screaming, desperate & disparate faces seemed to fill the streets. My mom had a tight grip on our hands, otherwise we would've gotten lost in the mayhem. I only remember a couple checkpoints where we had to wait to be cleared - we got through them then entered the airport & flew away - back to the US of A.

The Cricket Fight & Gambling

I was 2ish' years old, my sister & I were walking through the busy market streets when I noticed we were headed straight towards a huddling mass of men looking at something that I had to see as well. So trying to lose Hien, I crawled underneath all their legs until I got to the source of all their curiosity. I looked in front of me & saw a small cage with two crickets inside it, one on each side. It was a cricket fight the men were betting on. A cricket fight starts with a common cricket from Vietnam, placed into a cage approximately 10"W, 10"H, 14-16"L, with a small bamboo pole running across the middle of the cage lengthwise. The crickets will walk on this pole & fight one another. Each cricket is on opposing sides, lengthwise. Each side has a platform where the crickets are stationed. When the bookee calls it, the crickets start battling each other. The cricket who injures or kills the other cricket wins.
So there I was, watching a cricket fight & watching men bet money on them. It was very strange to watch two animals battle in a cage to the death. The stranger thing is that this brings to mind a story that was told to me by my mother. It was something passed down to her by an unknown source. As a caution to many mothers, you might want to read this story before you consider sharing it out loud to your kids. Here's the story that was passed down to me (it was suppposedly a folk tale to scare the kids into obeying their parents).

There was a young, little, deaf boy who was walking back home from school on the train tracks. He was carrying his prized cricket that he brought for 'Show & Tell' at school. He was very proud of this cricket. It had won many fights & was considered a prized cricket, having made a lot of money for the family.

Well, as this little deaf boy kept on walking down the train tracks, he tripped & dropped his box carrying the prized cricket. The box opened up & the prized cricket jumped down the tracks. So the boy chased after it. The boy was so engrossed in his effort to capture his prized cricket that he didn't feel the train coming up from behind him. The train blew its whistle but to no avail. It hit the unfortunate deaf boy, killing him & severing his body into many parts. Soon thereafter, a haggard, starving woman came out to see what happened. She saw the boy's body parts, quickly picked them up & brought them home with her. Because her family was so poor & hadn't eaten in a week or two, she had to use the boy's to make a soup. She fed the family for many weeks with this boy. The cricket was never found.

You tell me the motto of that story. Can you believe it? My mom told that to me when I was 4 yrs. old! Just like that too but in Vietnamese. I guess Grimm's Fairy Tales are just as morbid in parts. My mom would also haunt my sister with a story about a woman with her long, black hair in fromt of her face & hands outstretched walking towards her. My mom would actually reenact that to my sister. That image still haunts my sister to this day.

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