David’s involvement with dreamspeak could be said to have begun in Junior High School where he and Tommy met on the Student Council, when he was taking pictures of Willy & Tommy’s bands in High School, when he saw them back Sean’s duo (Pure Instinct) at a bar on Long Island with Doug & Avram, or when they played a party in his basement with Matt on August 3, 1985 - the first show they performed as dreamspeak.
What is certain is that David became the band’s first lighting tech at the beginning of 86, building the lighting board and lights from scratch. The band had made their first demo and even had a couple of clubs on Long Island and in Westchester that they could play regularly, but other than frat parties and the Inner Circle, NYC was largely tabula rasa. David took the list of clubs they had sent demos to and started making calls. One thing led to another and within a few months he was “promoted” from lighting guy to manager.
David saw the band from those first few small NYC club gigs to playing such well known venues as CBGBs & The Bottom Line, headlining some of the earliest sold out shows at Wetlands, a west coast tour, and headlining college festivals on the East Coast before he and the band parted ways in the summer of 1989.
After a brief stint as a writer for Traffic Magazine, where he co-authored a regular column with Billy as well as co-authoring the first published interview with Blues Traveler and some other features, he opened his own company, Normanagement, where he managed The Melted Americans, briefly co-managed God Street Wine, and booked & operated the 712 Club. In 1992 David relocated to the Bay Area, where he started Straight Up! Management, managed Feed & Apricot Jam, booked Liquid Sunshine, was the booker for the Last Day Saloon & Club Boomerang, and provided occasional logistical support for The Mother Hips. David left the music business in 1996 to return to his “first love,” I.T.
Today David is back on the East Coast, where he manages the Network Broadcast Scheduling & Media team for ViacomCBS in New York. He lives in Jersey City, NJ with his dog Dobby, who arguably has the bigger Facebook following of the two.