When I was a kid I was taught by Buddy Rich, what better influence than that...huh? Yea I was 8 years old and I loved drums then as much as I still do now ;-) and I had a teacher, he was a guitarist also his name was Hal Columbo this guy was awesome on a guitar, well anyway we have (or had) this place in Philly called the River Front Dinner Theatre well Hal loved the way I played for my age he took me to see this guy he called Buddy (I was 8 -9 and didn't know a star if it fell on my lap) which it did... I watched this guy play Hal told him he would be impressed with me..So the guy said hey kid "Lets see what ya got!" So I climbed up on his kit and remembered what he did a few moments ago and played it back, he looked at Hal and said thats unbelieveable, hey kid know wipe out? so I did the wipe out roll, he told Hal to bring me down during the week, so I went down again during the week and he had 2 drumkits set up, he led & I followed.. he did some cool rediments and I answered his leads then I opened up on him, I went so quick I looked like I was playing in slow motion, Then I played lefthanded (ambidextrous, can play a standard left or right handed kit) He jumped up and screamed he loved it. then he remembered my name Frankie Pereira. Well to me he was just my teacher (still didn't realize that this was a famous drummer) just my teacher that I thought was pretty good Hal taught me weekly but 2x's a month I went to the theatre. I met Frank Sinatra (Buddy teased, are you 2 related? cause of the baby blue eyes), and most of the Rat Pack from this guy, Played on the Jerry Lewis Telethon and all then finally he went on tour with Mr Sinatra after a couple years, So I kept the Buddy Rich drum books and rediments he gave me and I practiced at home with Hal while I played with a jazz band I played at Cozy Moorleys, Did Al Jolson with Mike Gallo, Then I met Tito Puente (excellent showmanship, remember I'm spanish, My Pop was from Espania and got into latin rythyms, rumba, reggae, etc. I played with a band called Bourbon and did the stringband thing with Marc Ciacia his brother inlaw John from UA stringband, so did that a couple years doing big band and dance music then at a Greater Kensington Stringband Practice my buddy Marc played 2 hand touch football, fell and died (17) so I lost interest in playing for a little while. And ya know what? I didn't realize Buddy was famoust till my mid teens (Marc pointed it out to me) when I seen a lot of stuff that he was on and said hey thats my old drum teacher, the old heads would say if he took the time to teach you then you must be one hell of a drummer, I would reply with "I was his kid prodigy, he told people" He was an awesome person also, would mess with the best, a real kidder. (lol) More on Buddy Rich here Now, all this before I did Rock drumming (I fell in love with the Double Bass Concept). I continued the rock music with Bob Livingston, George Garcia (George also played in Bourbon with me - Awesome baseman) and Huey Breslin w/ Steve Robinson and the tall dude Joe with bad nerves yea Nervous Joe LOL, from the age of 14-15 or so (a side project when I played with Bourbon). I also jammed with a band named Eternity after that project! That was a trip! packed my bags and drums told my parents I was moving, they thought I was kidding and soon found I wasn't and I moved to Long Island New York (Off & On for 5 yrs)LOL, OMG Please! that ROCKED!!! I lived with the bass player Chuck and lead/rythym gutarist Bob in Flanders (whom I met and jammed with in Philly from Bob) Oh Yo! the Partys, waking up and lightly steppin over sleepin gorgeous bodies from the jams the nights before, tryin to get a spot at the bathroom where chicks were still lined up at 9-10 am (ahhhhh! they were the days, living on the beach) We played the Boardy Barns, The Mad Hatter, Mad Mad Hatter, Hell we even opened up for Dee Snider (Twisted Sister).... Now party with these guys till 9:00 am the next day (aahhhhhh The Memorys) Dee was as crazy then as he is now (tamed a lot since 25 yrs) but can still dish it out!) I rapped with him this summer on our rock radio station WMMR, in a reminiscence of the good days of ROCK! (The days when Zebra thought they ruled the island, But Dee had it all wrapped up in my opinion! ;-) ) Now back to Bob Livingston (Oh Yea, I met Bob and Chuck from Bob Livingston) Now and then jam with him, Bob & myself jammed with Vic Loughery and Richie Doerr (been jamming a lifetime project)Bob gets in touch once in a while but we haven't jammed together in a while since Rich moved, I jammed with Doug Jervis and Tom Flemming (Wabbit) in an original project with KillRoy called Simon Catholic which faded out after a year or so due to us drinking on gigs. I also jammed with Steve Breslin and Doug Jervis in a band named Afrayed that was a trip.... I jammed with Dave Eisenhower (passed 2007) doing original music Dave wrote awesome stuff , damn drugs screwed up everything!!! after a while also started jammin with Guitar Mike (Mike Margiotta) and Kip (Kevin M) in Trip-Hammer we were doing a few covers and some originals lots of SHRED and that went south so then I was jamming with Noni and Steve from Great Scott band, the guitarist is awesome his name is Steve Dreisbach and we had a cool chemistry to our playing (brings back memories) I dont normally click that well with a musician (most are to opinionated), I just do my job, but this guy is cool as hell, same as the other members of my band Noel Diaz, vocals,drums & many instruments and Leif Dunn on bass. I met these guys through another drummer and my friend... Ted Madden (See my swf tribue for Ted) Ted and I used to practice together remeeting through our friend Kevin Smith , I met Ted years before through another guy I jammed with Victor Loughery but I moved from the city with Vic back to LI NY. Ted whos life came to a tragic end a few years ago, was their drummer so I kinda stood in for my friend for a couple years...but I lost intrest of doing covers and the bar scene and the not many gigs, my stomach was making me nuts - a unbilical mass/hernia - created by carrying stuff (so I stopped playing for 2 years, lot of pain could concentrate without getting tanked to get past the pain) started a project with Queen Helene (awesome lady) but I could not cut it with the pain so went and had to have surgery to remove it and patch me up since a fall which made it grow 8/10 inches, I had it done (Sept 2007) Since that, Then 2008 (and playing better than ever) I was jamming with Jim Mitchell & The Repeat Offenders figured I see how the country part goes lol Well people these are all my influences in Classic - Oldies - Motown -Classic Rock - Rock - Metal - Shred - Reggae - HipHop - Latin Rythym - R&b - NOW! Which is Country, Country Rock known as Honky-Tonk & Southern Rock.
And lately I have a few kits and things could be going on but in the spare time working on www.phillymusiczone.com keeping all the musicians linked up!