Jeff Trott Trott began dabbling in music as a child, taking trumpet lessons in the fourth grade but soon showed more enthusiasm for his sister's nylon stringed spanish guitar. It became a more serious pursuit later on as an outgrowth of his work in stage production for a fringe theater group in his native San Francisco, where he says he "went from painting sets and sewing buttons to becoming a junior musical director." He cites punk-era bands such as Wire and such experimentally minded precursors as Roxy Music and Brian Eno as his prime influences, though he's become aware of the effect George Harrison had on his aesthetic - - his penchant for slide guitar, kaleidoscopic backgrounds and Eastern instruments. He started out playing with the early 80's art-punk band The Lifers and by the mid-1980s, joined the highly-regarded band Wire Train. Subsequent touring led him to become a well sought-after sideman, valued for his way with the resonant riff and the electrifying solo. "I'd always been meaning to do my own record," he admits. "but kept getting sidetracked by playing in all of these different bands." So after moving to Portland, Oregon around 1997, he began to formulate an artistic vision of his own. HAVING perfected his intriguingly textured take on classic rock and pop, he then enlisted Keith Schreiner, of Portland-based electronic darlings Dahlia, to add an even more impressionistic element. Schreiner and other players FROM Dig Up the Astroturf, including drummer Jeff Anthony, bassist Nate Query, and Everclear's touring keyboardist James Beaton, recently have come together as the core of Trott's superb live band. What he has delivered now is Dig Up the Astroturf, an uncommonly bold, beautiful and fully-realized debut album.