BIOGRAPHY

My name is Mike Nicolen. I was born August 12, 1967 in Wauseon Ohio. I grew up on a farm just west of Zone, Ohio. I have been playing guitar and singing to anyone who would listen since I was 14 years old.

My first on stage experience was at the Wrangler/Dodge Trucks Country Showdown in Defiance Ohio. I took 3rd place in the preliminary round and 4th in the final round. After this I knew that the only thing I wanted to do in life was sing and perform in front of people. I entered many more music contests, and even got to open for Loretta Lynn at DJ Country Buck Lake Ranch when I was 17!

In high school my friends and I formed a band called "Short Notice" which performed for a few assemblies and had the dubious distinction of being barred from playing Eagles Clubs due to lying about our ages! We went through numerous member changes and played about every bar and animal club (Moose, Elks, Eagles, etc) in Northwest Ohio.

After the band split up I continued to work in a factory and played in a polka band called "The Polka Chips" until I decided to take the plunge and make music my life and profession. This I did by moving to a town where a man could make a living playing country music, Clare, Michigan...

After moving 200 miles away, I put together the first edition of "The Lost Sidemen", which was an Alesis HR16 drum machine. I soon found out that my competition were using sequencers with full instrumentation for background music, something I could not afford at the time. So I added a bass player and another guitar player and a little later a real drummer and we became "The Old No. 7 Band". The name was a take-off of the Jack Daniels Whiskey label, the (unofficial) sponsor of all our shows. After everyone else in the band was instructed by their probation officers to find another line of work, the band disbanded.

I next formed "The Rounders", named after one of my songs. As usual, the band went through numerous member changes and even moved to the big city of Grand Rapids, Michigan for a short time.

Then in 1993 I started playing on the road with a 3 piece band called "Midnight Special", making four to six week long tours from Michigan to Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas. Around the beginning of December, 1993, we played at a hotel lounge called " The Dobytown Lounge" at the Fort Kearny Inn, Kearney NE. There I met a band leader who needed a singer and rhythm guitarist for his band " Blue Mesa". I left him my number in Michigan and continued with my plan of forming my own road band until I get a call from Nebraska. After hearing the details, I packed everything I owned and moved to Kearney, Nebraska for what turned out to be a five-and-a-half year stint with the band and a year in a band called 'Snapshot'.

That pretty much brings us up to the present state of my musical career. I thank you for reading this long essay and I hope you enjoyed it.

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