Hi, my name is Mike Favinger. I don't have a preference to Mike or Michael. When I talk to myself I'm usually Michael.

I started playing drums as a nine year old in 1963. I was impressed by the Beatles as were most people 25 years old and under. I wasn't getting much done as a drummer but at least I was exercising my timing. Within the year I recognized the limitations of drumming, particularly when it came to writing songs. I had been entertaining myself with "home made" songs from the time I was 3, and I needed more to work with. I started playing guitar at 10 when my sister who was left handed let me use her acoustic guitar. I was a right handed player so the strings were reversed but I didn't care. I had found what I wanted to do. A few months went by and she decided to get another guitar so I inherited the first one. Right away I changed the strings around to suit a right handed player. I had to relearn about twenty five songs but it went by quickly. Now, I was on a mission. For two years I played six to nine hours a day, 7 days a week. I started to feel as though I was connecting with the music at a much more intimate level than most of my peers. I formed a band in my twelfth year and the junior high school gave us a sound proof room to practice in. I noticed that the music teacher was listening in on some of our rehearsals with much interest. I ended up firing my first drummer and upon replacing him, the band took off.

My first gig was in front of over two hundred class mates. It was like a scene from a movie. When we came off stage we were surrounded by other kids wanting to know who we were. I had arrived. It was all about the music. Throughout my high school years I played in progressive bands with dreams of grandeur. We were all learning what our place was in life and making great music was important to us as we figured out what each of us were going to be. My inspiration came from The Beatles, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin and Stephen Stills. High school ended and I began pursuing how to make a living playing music. I wasn't much of a business man and I wore my heart on my sleeve with whoever I was involved with. I started performing in bars when I was nineteen.

By the time I was 22, I was making a living but I wasn't thriving. From that point on, I played in a couple of my own bands, show bands and Jersey club bands that all had moderate success. I wanted control of things again so I developed a high tech duo with my wife Lisa. The history of that duo was the longest tenure I had ever known. We made decent money for nine years until 1996. I suffered a personal crisis and the resulting breakdown caused me to leave performing behind until October of 2007. A good musical friend Al Bien invited me to do a set of originals at his new coffee house. It was like stepping into a time machine. Here I was at 53, feeling the way I did when I was 18. I knew I needed to play again.

My story isn't filled with record deals gone bad, band members dying or plane crashes. Music is just my journey through life. It has come and gone and come back again. I love to hear great guitar playing and singing along with great song writing. I always hope to be associated with that class of musician but I also know you can't make everybody happy all the time.