Donavan Cotton

                                - Drums & Percussion

Donavan, a self-made entrepreneur, ‘don’t want to work, he just wants to bang on d’ drums all day!’  He was orphaned as a baby when aliens abducted his parents during a cruise to the arctic.  Rescued and raised by a colony of Sea Lions, he was inculcated with his unique rhythm style derived from the flipper-flapping mating rituals taught him by his Sea Lion family.

Nick Wirtz - Song Writer, Vocals, Guitar, Mandolin, Fiddle, Percussion

Nick loves Jesus, his family, guitars and motorcycles.  He plays a hot-rodded Stratocaster named Draco or his trusty PRS 509, Vladimir.  When he’s not busy playin’ and singin’ in SiRiNGo, he can be found at various other musical venues, talking about Jesus, or flying by on “Dragon Fly”, his custom green Electraglide.  (Adendum: in 2016 a deer tried to hop on for a ride while Nick & Dragon Fly were doing 60 on 260.  Dragon Fly went to Harley Heaven, the deer went to Deer Heaven . . . But Nick is still with us, and still riding another Harley.)

“Deak”  Deitrich

Deak, a frequent special guest of the band, started out life as Fred Farnsnarble.  After almost graduating from Junior High School in the late 60s, he secured work in a pipe-cleaner factory as an apprentice “fuzz sticker-on-er” (carefully inserting each fuzzy fiber, one at a time, into the pipe-cleaner wire).  When the boss wasn’t looking, he’d string long pieces of the wire between his work bench and a nail in the floor and twang it along to cassette tapes of “Donnie & Marie”.  One day while “twanging” the wire, he accidentally brushed it against a frayed high-voltage cable on the side of his bench and blew-out his finger nails, toe nails, mind, and . . .  Hair!  His co-worker rushed to him yelling, “Fred, speak to me, SPEAK!”  He thought he was calling him “Deak” … and so the name stuck.  While now slightly less intelligent than before (which no one thought possible) he soon discovered one part of his brain that had exploded beyond genius.!  He discovered that whenever he walked by a Fender guitar it would jump from wherever it was straight into his hands.  As soon as his now nail-less fingers touched the strings the guitar would launch into incredible song.  Since then the greatest guitarists the world over have made the pilgrimage to fall back in awe of the Grand Master of everything Fender.

Darrell Birtcher

We’re really not sure just exactly WHERE Darrell came from.  He just showed up one day . . . Like the stray cat that just shows up and lets you know that “This is MY home now!  I expect you to let me in when it’s cold outside and leave me a bowl of food of which I never have to see the bottom.”  Since he’s bigger than any of the rest of us, none of us ever had the nerve to question the legitimacy of his presence.

He does have extraordinary powers; He NEVER is out of tune and he ALWAYS plays the right notes.  He credits this to what he calls “talent on loan from above”.  (Again, as he towers over all of the rest of us, who are we to disagree!)

Darrell brings all manner of bass, guitar, banjo, and pedal steel to SiRiNGo . . . And does so  with style and precision.  So we have agreed to keep his food bowl full and never cause him anxiety by having to see the bottom uncovered.

As to his talent, which all agree is extra-ordinary, we have been wondering of late if it might actually be . . .

. . . Extra-terrestrial?!

is

 Some of Siringo’s friends and welcome guests are

  Steve Tussey

                   - Vocals, Keys, Guitar

Steve, dropped on his head as a young child, went through his childhood the butt of other children’s cruel belittlement because of his flattened skull where he suffered the impact.  “You just wait ‘till I am big enough to wear a 10 gallon cowboy hat!”, he would scream back at them.  In the mean time he pounded and flailed angrily at everything in sight . . . Until one day when he pounded a piano. . .  

Today Steve enjoys a successful solo career as a singer and songwriter and leader of   STEVE TUSSEY AND THE MOONDOGS, as well as pounding piano and guitar for SiRiNGo at many of their events … And he finally found that cowboy hat!

   Jim Beck

     - Vocals, Sax,  Electronic Wind Instruments (EWI)

In addition to his musical interests, Jim is a nationally renowned graphic artist, photo realist, and licensed illustrator for Harley Davidson.  He has never worked a “nine to five” in his life as he continues to make his living as an artist and musician.  Along with helping out SiRiNGo from time to time, he performs with his own band, BLUE TATTOO.

Lisa Young - Drums & Percussion

Lisa grew up with her dad, and twelve older brothers in a one-room log cabin in the Northwest Territories.  Father and sons ran a quite successful bootleg whiskey business from a very large still on the tundra a few miles from their cabin.  Being the only girl in such a small cabin, Lisa always longed for a space of her very own.  When she was small, she would crawl inside one of the empty whiskey barrels and pretend it was her “bedroom”, but it never lasted, as one of her brothers would always unceremoniously dump  her out so that the barrel could be filled with product.  Then one day, her dad brought her home a surprise:  In the bed of his pickup was a huge barrel.  “It’s yours Lisa” he told her.  Dad cut a hole in the top and put in a door for her.  She couldn’t wait to occupy her very own bedroom!  And best of all, she found that it made the most wonderful sounds when she tapped on it with a stick.  Ever since then she has been making beautiful sounds by hitting all kinds of things with sticks.  Today, she has brought her “bedroom” with her to the White Mountains and has even adopted more “older brothers” from SiRiNGo.

Paul Pickering

    - Vocals, Keys, Guitar, Lap Steel, Resonator Guitar

Paul, the only member of the band to speak “Proper English”, is as precise with his musical prowess (which is formidable) as he is with his diction.  Growing up on an Alabama pig farm, his Southern Drawl was quite thick, even to the ears of folks around Dothan.  It was a combination of the colloquialisms of the Dothan area and his uncanny ability to converse with the pigs he and his father raised.  Nobody, not even in Dothan, Alabama, had ever heard or seen the likes of this southern boy’s ability to communicate with pigs.  He would have been a celebrity, if anyone beside the pigs could have understood a word he said.  And therein lies the driving force behind Paul’s rise to stardom.  Isolated so, he had a deep yearning to be recognized, heard, and understood.  Since people couldn’t understand his words, he turned to communicating with music instead.  Any musical instrument he could put his hands on, he devoured and conquered . . . And so began to “communicate” in ways that drew people (especially girls) into his thoughts.  Over time, he worked hard to improve his speech until, with music, he eventually became an effective communicator.  Now he leads seminars on how to escape the captivity of “Animal-Centric Communicative Deficit Syndrom” for others like him.  While, if you listen carefully, you can still hear a bit of his former “pig-drawl”, what really stands out is what he brings to SiRiNGo - the sheer force of will and talent to play anything that is somehow not already covered by the rest of the musicians in SiRiNGo