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The Funky Blue Devils Line Up:
Toney is one of Northern California's premeir blues guitar players. His gut wrenching, soul pounding lead guitar riffs will have you on your feet and cheering for more.
Mark's groove oriented, bass pounding style will have you out of your seat and dancing before the first song is done.
Toney "Tonemeister" Perez – Guitars and Vocals Toney was born in Roseville CA. in 1958. He started appreciating music at a very young age because his whole family loved music. His mother used to play harmonica and tap dance as early as he could remember. "I used to look up at her and see how much she enjoyed playing that harmonica and the rhythm she had was amazing."
His brothers were huge music fans too, they listened to a lot of R&B and blues. Toney's first blues concert was BB.King. "It changed my life forever. What a performer! I had goose bumps for 2 hours! I decided right then and there I was going to play guitar." It wouldn't be long until Toney would be mastering some of the great blues songs that he had been listening to. Toney's influences include Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robin Trower, Pat Travers, Danny Gatton, Wes Montgomery and Jimi Hendrix just to name a few.
His first guitar was purchased at a now defunked store called Grants for about 30.00 dollars. Now, hundreds of guitars later, "I have found my sound." Toney says. He started going to a lot of blues festivals with his brother when he was about 15 years old and soon he started practicing very hard to understand the note bending aspects of the blues guitar style. After ruining hundreds of good blues albums and many sets of strings he started building his own uniquely wonderful blues style
"My first band was named Stiff!!! :0 with an amazing drummer named Bill Roy." Since then some of Toney's previous projects included: The Bottom Line and Marshall Wilkerson and Brown Sugar. Along his musical journey he has shared the stage with the likes of: Jerry Martini from Sly and the family Stone and Dave Chennell and The Fryed Brothers.
Toney has played practically his whole life, and now? Well, now as Toney says "I'm ready to share my enjoyment of MY music with everyone else. I hope you come along for the ride!"
Mark "Marky Mark - The Bulge" Bulger – Bass and VocalsMarky Mark - The Bulge - Bulger (born Markus Braden Bulger; 21 July 1948 in London, England), commonly known by his former stage name Izzy Stevens, is a South African musician. He is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, philanthropist, and prominent convert to Buddhism.
His early 1970s record albums I'm a free man in a small box were both certified as one of the most entertaining local albums to come out of the Sacramento area; his 1972 album Catch a cold for me sold 2000 copies in local music stores. He has also earned two local songwriting awards in consecutive years for "The First Cut Bleeds Alot More Than the Second One, which has been a local cult hit single for four different local artists.
Mark converted to Buddhism at the height of his local success, in December 1977 and adopted his Buddhist name, One Hung Lo, the following year. In 1979, he auctioned all his guitars away for charity and left his music career to devote himself to educational and philanthropic causes in the Buddhist community. He has been given several awards for his work in promoting peace in Sacramento. He returned to his music with The Funky Blues Devils in 2007. He now goes professionally by the single name Bulge. (This bio is just a spoof).