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Here's a little bit about EKKO.
About Johnny:
Born in El Paso, TX... Johnny grew up in the deserts of New Mexico and West Texas.
Johnny graduated with honors in Orchestra throughout grade school and high school winning state competitions in both Violin & Cello. Immediately after high school, he went on the road with working bands as a hired musician performing five to six nights per week year round, visiting hundreds of venues and stadiums across the country, rubbing shoulders with artists such as George Straight, Charley McClain, and Sylvia. At one point, Johnny was the youngest member of the North American tour of Harry Chapin’s last work, Cotton Patch Gospel. Johnny has also been hired to work in films and TV commercials.
He has been writing songs for himself and others for three decades. Johnny formed and managed his own band in NYC, titled The Johnny Walker Band for seven years where they performed at venues throughout NYC with his favorite gigs being outdoors at the Seaport, Street Fairs, & Central Park. He wrote and produced an album in 1990 titled Shoes which received two Billboard Songwriting Citations and was housed nationally at HMV, Tower, and Sound Warehouse. Johnny has studied music with the French Conservatory of Music at Carnegie Hall and played violin in several concerts there with a small orchestra to raise money for children’s school programs.
Throughout the years of musical endeavors, Johnny has worked in record warehouses, music retail partnerships, violin instruction and repair, and rack jobbing in “the old days”. While working as a full time sound and lighting technician in New York City and across the country, Johnny began working as a booking agent, booking entertainment for several venues in New York City, working bands in Dallas, and had even a brief stench of booking actors for commercials.
He has produced five music videos featuring his own band through the NYU Film School. Over time he began designing sound for hundreds of top-notch artists and projects such as Katie Curic, Kaye Ballard, Richard Belzer and the Belzonics, HBO, Last Comic Standing, Dateline NBC, PFLAG, Larry Gatlin, Bebe Neuworth, Lillias White, AOL Time Warner, Jimmy James, Miramax Films, and Carole King...to name a few.
Johnny spent two years working with Ralph Lauren and his media services team at the world headquarters on Madison Avenue in New York, where the team scouted and designed music and sound production for the Ralph Lauren fashion shows.
Johnny spent a few years in Nashville, TN, while taking working trips to New York either as hands on tech or as a consultant for sound design and production projects. In the summer of 2008, Johnny returned to where his heart is; New York City.
An accomplished musician and published songwriter, he became a published author in 2006. Johnny currently pens EKKO sequels from his home in NYC.
About EKKO
...EKKO is meant to be fun.
The series revolves around the main character, CJ, who is an audio/video aficionado. He lands a great job touring with a chart-topping band, allowing sound design to become a major part of his characters persona. He’s well seasoned and can easily avoid the common calamites of stage production, but his unearthly adventures bring about a different set of circumstances.
A numerous amount of semblances are brought in at various times, which leads to a few ancient composers, adding a touch of historical fiction to the series. At the advice of the first editor, I was told not to end this story with one book, so the adventures carry on and become much more diverse as the series progresses, with each city providing a new set of obstacles, battles, and phantoms…all leading up to a mind-bending stage show. The cities in the series have been researched and chosen for their historical value, which adds a little reality to the present day setting of the story line.
CJ has a unique way of contacting the ghosts and working out deals with them, which then brings in a dash of Sci-fi. Some banshees are cooperative…some are not. CJ has to keep things private because he just couldn’t explain what he does, and if he did; people would think he’s nuts. That said; there are a few people trying to figure it out anyway, adding a spicy edge of deceit and manipulation to CJ’s daily diet. He’s a good guy with a strange addiction to the unknown, always searching for bigger and better ways to blow the concertgoers away.
For an example of what the series involves, here are some keywords that have been used to describe EKKO throughout various Websites and Blogs.
Paranormal fiction, Time travel, Sound design, Live music, Stage show, Historical fiction, Frequency, Sci-fi, Fiction Adventure, Fantasy, Savannah, New Orleans, Charleston, Richmond, New York, Boston.
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EKKO wasn’t written to overcomplicate the English language, or apply interpretations of hypothetically exigent truisms that create speculations from vaguely defined axioms...resulting in the mandatory reliance of a dictionary to decipher the conjectures in order to develop a coherent and lucid hypothesis for each sub-section. (what the...?)
For 'youz' doom-seekers hoping to read about heads being chopped off and body parts flying around the room; or brains being splattered across the wall by a gun...EKKO might not be for you. There's nothin' but some good 'Ol ass-whoppin goin' on in this series. Entering the paranormal world and communicating with the spirits can bring about some hefty battles; placing the humans and phantoms of EKKO in and out of danger at the drop of a hat.
The involvement with spirits is more action based than creepy, intended to provide the reader with a sense of excitement, adventure, and mystery ...as a network of characters within a working rock-n-roll tour keep it together--dispite the mind-bending curve-balls. What some might consider a hindrance, others see as an opportunity;at least that's how CJ sees it,.
Toss in a semblance here and there and you've got a soundman with a full plate. Now...Sprinkle a little Sci-Fi onto the stage, and well...CJ can tell you about all of that.
While our audiovisual protagonist likes to keep things affable, he seems to be his own worst enemy at times. Like a kid in a candy store; he can't seem to stop himself from interacting with the spirits, and there are plenty of them remaining in the venues and theaters where they met with death.
For the characters with a heartbeat; the road is a bitch, but it can also be a blast. Everyone's adrenalin pumps at the same rhythm, though; keeping the crew in high gear. On the business end; crossing paths with crumb-snatchers is nothing new in the music business, but they really come out of the woodwork when they see what CJ is up to.
Hopefully... your imagination will run free as you follow EKKO to some pretty unique places.
The reason for EKKO
The hundreds of venues and old theaters that Johnny's worked in have led him to see and hear things that he just couldn't keep ignoring. When working behind the scenes, the sound designers and crew find themselves in these venues late at night, inside rooms and corridors that people don't even know about...and most times, alone.
Some venues know about the phantoms that linger around, but the employees won't talk about them. Other clubs and theaters embrace their ghosts and even give them names. Many people refuse to discuss the phantoms all together because they feel that the semblances are listening, or because of possible religious repercussions. All wrapped up though, people will definitely admit that there is a presence at times, whether they talk about it or not.
That said...EKKO isn’t trying to impress the reader with a vast knowledge of gremlins and goblins. EKKO was written for those who enjoy pushing the envelope just a bit. After all, if anyone really had first hand knowledge about a dead person's routine, they wouldn't be around to write about it-would they?
It's not a question whether semblances exist or not; but why get creepy? Let’s have fun with it. Each character in the series has a personality and humor matching his era and background; living or not. Interaction is the key to all situations and EKKO was written with a variety of individual identities and circumstances in mind. Hey...you might even be one of them.
Coming up:
Look for Book III: EKKO, 9 teen 12.
Blogs and Groups I follow and support...
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