Mike Cook's 'First Contact' album is loaded with instrumentals. By listening to the album from beginning to end, the music tells you a story. Opening with a hopeful beginning and ending with...well, you'll just have to listen to it and hear for yourself. Enjoy! Guitar player, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer living in Potrero Hill area of San Francisco, Mike has been making music as long as he can remember. His dad gave him his first guitar at age 14, forever changing his life. Growing up listening to such diverse music as Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, The Beatles and the 'Oldies but Goodies' radio stations playing all music from the 1950's, Mike grew up with an appreciation for all types of music. His mom taught him to play the piano. His dad loved music and had many types of instruments all through out the house. Everything from an Autoharp to Accordions. During this time he also learned how to play the saxophone, but it was his first hearing of KISS, Iron Maiden and Dio that changed everything. From that point on he was determined to learn how to play guitar and be in a heavy metal band. His first band was actually a Punk band. After only playing guitar for about 3 months, that was the easiest way to get up on stage and play as loud as possible. The drummer for this band was Jason Eklund who is now a well respected singer/songwriter of folk and country music. While learning how to play guitar himself, Jason introduced Mike to music from Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and all of the great blues players such as John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, BB King, Albert Collins and Buddy Guy. Mike is forever grateful to Jason for this. After playing with one more punk band for a couple of months, he left the punk scene and began to learn how to really play the guitar. Mike would spend as many as 12 hours a day doing nothing but practicing guitar. Especially after discovering Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Joe Satriani and Pink Floyd. After high school, Mike was torn between heading to L.A. for GIT (Guitar Institute of Technology) to study music or joining the military. As much as he wanted to follow his dreams to L.A., the fact that he had no money, no reliable transportation and no realistic way to support himself in L.A., he decided to join the military. His plan was to be in the military for four years, save as much money as possible then get out and move to L.A. to study music. Fast forward 10 years later and he's still in the military. Traveling and living all over the world in the military didn't stop Mike from doing what he loved the most, playing music. He was in many bands through out his time in the military. In 1995 he was stationed at a military base in Northern California just outside of San Francisco. Finally, in 2001 he decided to leave the military and settled down in San Francisco. Playing in cover bands was the normal routine for many years. After tiring of playing other peoples music he began to focus on writing original music and presented it to the band he was in at the time. The result of these sessions were guitar driven music and lyrics that reflected personal issues that he was dealing with at that time. (Note: Plans are in place to rerecord this music and release a CD in the very near future). In addition to being influenced by guitar players and guitar driven music, Mike has also been heavily influenced by electronic music. Everything from Jan Hammer, Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode to Art of Noise, Paul Oakenfold, Daft Punk, Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Crystal Method and the list goes on and on. His most recent projects have been primarily electronica focused. The two CD's that are available 'Organica' and 'First Contact' are heavily influenced by electronic instrumental music. Mike is enjoying the freedom of being a solo artist but is also looking forward to collaborating with other musicians when he begins working on his next project which will be primarily guitar oriented music.