The Beginning (1960-1973)

Peter was born on July 23rd 1960 in Metzingen, Germany.

Went to elementary school Metzingen until his parents moved to Albstadt, 60km away. In his pre-teens he had a strong urge to build strange contraptions with his Legos. His interest in music was relatively weak, although he remembers liking the more obscure sounds coming from his mother's tube radio.

In 1969 his parents seperated and his father moved to Louisville, KY, USA.

Around 1973 his best friend Klaus Lorch received a super 8mm camera for Christmas and the two decided to make a science fiction movie. They had a script and many cool ideas but no music. At first they decided to use parts of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon but there was too little instrumental music on the LP and the few instrumental snippets had saxophone on them which Peter didn't like at such a young age. So there was only one option: record their own sound track. Klaus had fairly good knowledge of the piano through some lessons and could play J. S. Bach's C-major Prelude No. 1 from the Wohltemperiertes Klavier which impressed Peter to no end. Klaus also had a cheap acoustic guitar in his room. For the lack of any other instruments Peter borrowed that and tried to get a grip.

After learning how to tune the guitar Peter learned his first tune: The House of the Rising Sun, the butchered F-chord making his mother and siblings cringe. Then came a series of E-minor based tunes of which one (Horse With No Name by the band America) was performed on his very first public performance at his school, Progymnasium Tailfingen, including (dis-)harmonzing vocals by close friend Uwe Zugschwerdt. Not being overly bright or handsome this performance seemed to raise Peter's profile with the other gender, which, at age 13 was very important.

A long way to go (1974-1979)

A big milestone was the purchase of his first electric guitar, a Framus SG copy in December 1974. In very short order he played in a duo with his friend Klaus Lorch (on electric piano - and, yes, the movie got never made) and his very first band Sheila P. Parker. This band consisted of drummer Gisbert Weiss and bassist Jürgen Wiest in addition to Peter. A problem was that even though mediocre at best himself, his rhythm section was even worse. Consequently, on their first gig, a band from another part of town hung out in the audience, ridiculing them and eventually ending up taking over the instruments only to break into a earthy Blues tune. Even though no member of Sheila P. Parker had ever heard of the Blues it did sound like music (unlike what they were trying to play) and the embarassment was great. In the next music lesson in school, Peter asked his music teacher, Herr Raichle, about the Blues. Herr Raichle, by all means a skilled classical piano player and knowledgable in many sub-genres of the classical and contemporary body of serious music, played a Mozartian Alberti-bass accompaniement, doing the blues-like I-IV-I-V movements using pure triads, but leaving out the minor 7th or any hint at a flat 5th. To this day Peter wonders if this is where his 'white' approach to Blues and Jazz comes from.

At age 15 Peter found himself playing the Beatles' Yesterday in a duo with a female singer who happened to be his first girl friend. Not being able to find compatible musicians in his part of town he turned into a kind of musical recluse. He taught himself to read music and started to practice as much classical guitar music as he could get his hands on (or his slim allowance could afford). Ocassionally he played gigs with thrown together bands playing half-hearted versions of Rolling Stones tunes. One particular school dance had him play and sing on the Manfred Mann's Earthband song Father of Day, Father of Night.

In 1976 Peter met Andreas Hermonies who was working at a music store in town. Andy recommended that Peter listen to Jeff Beck's new recording Blow By Blow, especially to the track Good-bye Pork Pie Hat. Andy, himself an accomplished guitarist, invited Peter for a drink (yes, it is legal to drink at age 16 in Germany). They discovered they had many common interests and started playing music together. Andy and Peter soon had an eclectic guitar duo called Cocakienle and started touring the local bars and arts festivals. It was a triumphant day when Cocakienle played a gig at Peters school. The first concert, music he liked - mostly originals, and now, a much better guitarist, and a full house. The best part was to actually get paid (even if it was only 45.-- Deutsch Marks or so.)

Andy took Peter on trips to his hometown, Mainz, which was highly cultural and to Peter the people seemed very different and more open. He was now going out more often, since Andy had a car, and together they traveled to concerts in the region.

From his days with his old friend Klaus Peter had a liking for certain Jazz styles. Klaus had a live recording of Take Five by Dave Brubeck. With Andy Peter was finally coming back to that style, now able to at least partially understand what the musicians were doing there. Listening to one of the late-night programs on the regional radio station did the other part. Back then radio wasn't as compartmentalized and that particular show would introduce new LPs of the most different groups of musicians such as Miles Davis, Weather Report, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Joni Mitchell and many more. Luckily Peter was able to tape much of what was played on that show. Not unexpectedly many bands he heard back then are still on his favorites list today.

In late 1976 Peter went along to a drum lesson of his friend Gisbert. The teacher was Fritz Rollbühler, who also was drumming for the local rock matadors, the Maggoos. Gisbert hadn't practiced that much since his Sheila P. Parker days so Fritz showed him fairly basic stuff. However, when Fritz played the drum groove of Pink Floyd's Money Peter got goosebumps. After the lesson a friend of Fritz', bassist Christian Liedtke, showed up to jam. Peter stayed around and finally asked them if he could bring his guitar next time around to jam along. He didn't own an amp yet but since this was the Maggoos' rehearsal room there was plenty of equipment. The next visit to that rehearsal room became one of the turning points in Peter's life. Not only could he play through a state-of-the art H&H guitar amp (complete with illuminated control panel) via a MXR Phaser but he could play with people who were better than himself. They were only jamming for a few hours on this first encounter, but it was the beginning of a new era for Peter. Until then the only successful collaborative music making had been with Andy in a duo and sometimes with his friend Manfred Brietzke. The trio with Fritz and Christian played a few gigs in the region - mostly opening for better known local bands - and managed to blow the main act out of the water with their minimalistic compositions which turned into 20 minute jams.

Then in 1977 Fritz moved and Christian and Peter were without a drummer. Christian had recently auditioned for one of the region's more prestigous bands, the Kurt Renz Group. He had gotten the gig and Peter started to go to the rehearsals with him. Kurz Renz Group was a quartet of guitar, Fender Rhodes, bass and drums playing all original music inspired by all sorts of influences from Charlie Parker to Soft Machine. This was clearly another step up from what Peter was doing and he knew he would stay a spectator of that band since they already had a guitar player (In fact, Peter was trying to build his own synthesizer at that time and Kurt Renz had told him if that ever got finished he could join the band as a 'sound guy' - knowing, perhaps, that it would never get finished.) But fate had it that their guitarist, Gerd Siedler, was killed in a motorcycle accident. Peter had been borrowing Gerd's Framus jazz guitar. Now it was his by this sad turn of events. The Kurt Renz Group fell apart after the tragic accident. But the drummer, Christoph Wagner, bassist Christian Liedtke and Peter formed a new band: Super Susy. Some of Kurt Renz' tunes were worked on, even some music from the very first trio with Fritz was pulled out. The premier gig was at a Rock festival in Balingen. For that event Fritz came back to play drums and Christoph played percussion. Super Susy was playing one long composition, written out on one, 6 meter wide sheet of paper, lying on the floor.

Fritz had to leave again and Christoph lost interest so Chris and Peter were left as a duo again getting together several times a week, practicing jazz. Then another drummer was found: Martin Novak. Super Susy started up again and this time for real. Chris and Peter were busy writers and it wasn't hard to put together a repertoire for the band. Super Susy played very actively and even traveled.

Peter was now 17 and had decided, after having to repeat 10th grade, not to go on to the Gymnasium in Ebingen, but to persue some musical learning path. With Andy he had traveled to Munich repeately and met some of Andy's friends. This was a circle of people who played with a famous German band called Embryo. One group coming up around that time, out of the same pool of people, was Missus Beastly. Some of these players were students at the newly founded Jazz School Munich where they wanted to learn how to play 'real' jazz. That was where Peter wanted to go next. It was not an easy decision. Moving 280km away from home. Severing all musical threads in his hometown. But the move to Munich was made on September 3rd 1978. As by sheer coincidence that was the morning when the big earthquake hit Albstadt. Peter's mother had to move out of her appartment because the house was too damaged to live in. It was like leaving Albstadt behind in ruins. In Munich Peter lived together with three great musicians. A guitar player who couldn't cook spaghetti but played along with John McLaughlin's lines on Shakti, a saxophone player on drugs and a stellar keyboard player with a knock-out girl friend who was having dates with a young Pat Metheny whenever he came through Munich.

Jazz School Munich was a mixed bag for Peter. On one hand it did help that much of what he already knew was finally put into a structured system. Counting and clapping rhythms and singing triads and scales, at first embarrassing, proved incredibly useful later on. But it didn't go forward fast enough and by Christmas '78 Peter ran out of money and interest. Surely the fact that his guitar instructor told him that all of Peter's heroes, such as John McLaughlin, John Abercrombie, Pat Metheny, Ralph Towner, etc. were not real Jazz guitarists and that he should listen to Barney Kessel, Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery instead didn't exactly inspire in him what it was supposed to and contributed to the need to leave the School.

Having no other place to go he returned to Albstadt to his mom's appartment. He didn't have his own room and was living on the couch. All his former friends from school were now at the Gymnasium getting ready for College. But Super Susy was resurrected and the newly acquired knowledge came in handy. In the Spring of 1979 Peter found an appartment and once again moved out from his mother's place. Luckily the local music school was in need of a guitar teacher and he applied at the right time. Teaching 20 students per week made enough money to live decently and to have enough time to practice and do other things - such as drawing Sciene Fiction comics, which he had started doing in his last year in school. Also Peter's writing for classical guitar became serious at that time.

A 'pro'? Oh no! (1980-1988)

Super Susy had recorded a demo tape at Musicland Tonstudio in Albstadt and was getting real serious with the inclusion of flutist/saxist Gunnar Sommer from Kehl. In the meantime Albstadt had become a little smaller for Peter. His friend Andy had moved back to Mainz. In the fall of 1980 Super Susy started to relocate to Kehl (which is just across the river Rhine from Strasbourg, France) because they were playing there more frequently. Then, just before Christmas, the band started playing a steady gig at a fancy restaurant, the Weberstüble, in Strasbourg and Peter moved to a suburb of Kehl called Sand, together with Gunnar. Every weeknight and twice on Sunday they played a four hour show. Super Susy started playing Real Book tunes because their normal fare of very creative but to the average listener 'free' sounding Jazz didn't go over that well at the place. This was to be the next big turning point for Peter - playing music for money, every day. Learning new tunes, every day. Having people like Dave Brubeck and the british band Yes stop by for food (if not for the music).

In the Spring of 1981 Peter bought his first real good guitar: an Ibanez George Benson GB 10. Then in April the band lost the gig - the Weberstüble had been closed down by police because a drug dealer ring had been operating there - that explained why the band had been stopped every night coming back through German border control.

Super Susy tried to tour again, bought a band bus, printed fliers. But the kind of creative improvisational jazz they were pursuing was just not an easy sell at that time in that area of Germany. By summer of 1981 Gunnar and Peter had to give up their house in Sand and Peter moved to Mainz where Andy generously offered him a corner in his one bedroom appartment. It wasn't easy to get a job doing anything, even back then, without much of an education. Peter had some students in Mainz, found a place on his own late in the summer and finally got a job as a guitar teacher at the community college - but through an unfortunate chain of events he was thrown out of his appartment the night of his first gig. It was time again to pack the bags and return to Albstadt.

That fall of 1981 Peter worked his only regular job. Getting up at 5am to get some guitar practice done before work at a book binder's. It took until Christmas '81 until all the debts were paid back and he was able to go on a part-time schedule filling the other half of the day with practice and teaching. In March of 1982 he found an appartment in Ebingen and was once again leaving his mother's couch. Peter and Manfred Brietzke started their first foray into having a full-blown fusion band. It featured them both on guitars plus Lothar Landenberger on bass and Uwe Schulz on drums. The band was called Satisfiction and played tunes by Billy Cobham, Mahavishnu and others.

Around that same time Christian Baumgärtner had returned from Bloomington, IN where he had finished his degree from Indiana University. Christian was a drummer and he was good. Peter had played with him briefly together with Christian Liedtke a year earlier but then Baumgärtner went back to Bloomington. Now there was somebody in Albstadt who was good and knew things. It didn't take long for Peter and Christian to have a band together. After jamming in different configurations they ended up with Ralf Gugel on bass, Thomas Bauer on keyboards. Everybody in that band had connections and the band played great originals so it didn't take long to set up a steady stream of gigs. While at first going by the name of Thomas Bauer Quartet when playing in Bavaria, Thomas' area, or Peter Kienle & Friends or something like it when playing on Peter's home turf they soon decided they needed a real name. Everybody seemed to be reading The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy at that time and the name Beeblebrox was picked unanimously. For extra drama the postfix Spectacular was added. This started a barrage of compositions for the new band and the first one of the new tunes was called Beeblebrox Spectacular.

Soon Thomas Bauer lost interest and the three hour drive from Regensburg didn't help either. Beeblebrox needed a new keyboard player and found one in Stuttgart by the name of Uli Möck. Uli was a real jazz player and for the short time he played with the band he brought many new colors to the mix. But then Beeblebrox fizzled out as everybody involved became busy playing in cover bands making 'real' money - except for Peter. Through Chris Baumgärtner he was able to work in the now expanded 24track studio at Musicland in Albstadt. Peter played on recordings, learned how to use the board and the newly acquired Kurzweil K250 MIDI keyboard. Chris and Peter worked together on ads and jingles and in the free studio time Peter started to record his own tunes.

That is also the time when Peter started to work part-time in a friend's computer store. The Commodore 64 was the up-and-coming machine at that time. Since there were not many patrons at the store Peter had lots of time to try out computers and software, finally ending up with his own. Many nights spent playing Burgertime and Caverns of Khafka, learning Superbase and Simon's Basic and then 6502 assembly language show that another fundamental change in Peter's life was taking place.

Through Musicland, the largest musicstore in the area, Peter had many students and at times taught as many as 40 a week. Together with his old friend Manfred Brietzke he had a guitar duo, started in 1982, doing concerts. The duo was later expanded to a trio via inclusion of Peter's ex-student Ulli Fischer and renamed The Real Guitarists. This trio had many successful gigs in the area and kept Peter's musical goals in perspective as they were making no compromise in what music they played - and audiences liked it. The Real Guitarists were playing originals and also tunes by John McLaughlin, Larry Coryell, classical adaptions such as the Sabre Dance and whacky Christmas tunes including three part harmony singing.

With the original Beeblebrox Spectacular dormant but an urge to play in a full band Peter set up a gig for the band. It was to include Peter and Manfred, both on guitars, Elmar Sieber on bass, Ekkehard Rössle on sax (who had to be picked up in the 90km away Stuttgart, and returned there after the gig) and Jörg Bach on drums. The first gig they played didn't go over very well since the bass player was out of his element by playing electric bass instead of his main axe, acoustic upright. The next event took place in 1985, again with Manfred and Peter on guitars, Ralf Gugel on bass, alto saxophonist Klaus Graf (who later went on to become pretty famous in Germany), and Uwe Schulz on drums. This was a smoking band except that the drummer didn't have much experience in the kind of music they tried to play. Finally Manfred and Peter agreed that an all new band was needed. Peter started to play bass, Manfred stayed on guitar, they found Jörg Bach for the drums - and finally Monika Herzig on keyboards. There were many rumors that Monika was picked because she was the only keyboardist who owned her own two keyboards. But the truth was that she could read music and Peter and Manfred were able to write keyboard parts that she actually could and would play - of course, the fact that she had two keyboards helped, too. At that time Peter was living with his then girl friend Carmen not at all thinking that Monika might become his wife in just a few years' time.

In 1986 the new band was in full swing. To break all ties with the original Beeblebrox Spectacular it was decided that the band be called Bubblegun. Bubblegun was an ambitious group, especially after Ekkehard Rössle joined on saxophone. Once again Peter played in a group that played music far too hard for them - even though the tunes were all originals. One challenge of course was that he played bass now. Bubblegun was very original and creative, but rehearsals were frequent and sometimes ended in shouting matches over trivialities.

In the late summer of 1987 Peter's girl friend Carmen moved out. They had been together since late 1981 but the crisis had been coming for a few years.

In the fall of 1987 marimbist Bill Molenhof from New York came back to Germany for a tour. He had recorded an album at Musicland earlier. They couldn't find a bass player who could read and was available. Peter got the gig and after a few days of intense rehearsals the Bill Molenhof Trio started the tour. Of course Peter was nervous, not being a bass player in the first place and essentially taking the place of Bill's regular bassist, Kermit Driscoll of Bill Frisell fame. But the tour went well enough that another one was planned for the Spring of 1988 (although Bill made Peter promise to leave his fretless bass at home).

In the meantime Bubblegun also evolved just as tensions in the band grew. Real Guitarists had fallen apart due to Ulli Fischer's departure and Peter's new girl friend, Monika Herzig, keyboard player with Bubblegun, made plans to spend a year in the US after having finished her college education in Weingarten. Confused at first, Peter, decided to come along. In the Spring of 1988 Peter did another tour with Molenhof, Bubblegun played its fairwell gig and Peter and Monika sold most of their belongings at various flee markets - they would be traveling light, on a one-way ticket to Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Which way is America? (1988-2008)

While Monika went to the University of Alabama Peter had just come along. The U of A Jazz Ensemble didn't have a guitar player and even though not a student Peter was invited to play with them. It was a new experience because Peter by now was 28 years old while many of the band members were around 20 but could play rings around him. This triggered a new urge to practice and learn new techniques especially since there was not much else to do.

Having no musical connections except to the students he played with the U of A Jazz Ensemble became the pool of players he asked to join his new fusion group: BeebleBrox. Remember that in 1988 the style 'Fusion' meant not much to the interested audience. Jazz had turned away from the loud bands of the 70s - such as Weather Report and Mahavishnu Orchestra - and was very mainstream again. The first Alabama incarnation of BeebleBrox had Greg Riley on tenor sax, Robert Dickson on bass, Woody Williams on drums, and Monika and Peter. Many of the old BeebleBrox and Bubblegun charts were updated and rehearsed and sounded better than ever before. Their first gig was in late Fall of 1988 in front of hundreds of screaming teenagers at the U of A concert hall.

Peter soon learned that in the US good jazz musicians are in demand which means they have a hard time comitting to a band with many rehearsals and few paying gigs. One year after their arrival in Tuscaloosa BeebleBrox was very much an unstable entity and players were hired on a gig-by-gig basis. By that time Peter had met some of the players in Birmingham, AL, one hour to the east. He was particularly impressed by guitarist Mark Kimbrell. Soon the two formed a guitar duo and Peter was playing bass in Mark's band when the regular bass player couldn't. The spring of 1990 BeebleBrox once again emerged with a stable line-up. This time with Don Davis on drums, Robert Dickson still on bass and Greg Chambers on sax and EWI. This particular band played fairly regularly at Grundy's Music Room in Birmingham and local musicians (and sometimes regular people) were checking them out. From these performances also exist a whole catalog of recordings.

In the summer of 1990 BeebleBrox recorded the first cassette, Entropy in drummer Don Davis' guest bedroom. Many of Peter's originals of the very first hour ended up on that tape, including the 20 minute Anti-Matter medley. The tape sold out quickly and reprints were made plus plans to record even more. Peter and Monika were finally playing regularly with their own band and other people started calling for gigs.

Early in 1991 Peter composed the Three Sonatas for classical guitar during the height of the first Gulf War. In the Spring that year it became clear that Peter and Monika would leave Tuscaloosa. Monika had gotten a positive reply from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana - she would pursue her doctorate there. Before they left Tuscaloosa BeebleBrox recorded their second tape, The Thing, in their living room directly to DAT.

In August of 1991 they left Tuscaloosa for Bloomington. Again, the new-musician-in-town-blues hit. Luckily Monika had an assistantship and so at least the rent was paid for. Already in the fall of 1991 they had put together the new version of BeebleBrox. Again they were lucky to hook up with the best players available - Jon Paul on bass (he ended up in Fareed Hague's band a year later) and Dan Vonnegut on drums (related to the famous writer Kurt Vonnegut).

Just before the move Peter had found a way to run the music notation program Finale on his Atari ST computer. From the very first days of his computer experience one of his goals was to use the computer to notate music. On his old C64, way back in Germany, he used a small paint program, later he wrote a Logo notation program for the Atari ST. Of the three years in Alabama he spend half of his time writing a full-blown notation program in assembly language for the Atari ST - so that using the computer would actually be faster than doing it by hand. When he was finally able to use the 'real' thing (Finale) the BeebleBrox book was updated and he realized that other people might have use for such a service. In the Spring of 1992 he had his first customers. Since then he has been steadily working for David Baker, Bill Banfield, Fred Hersch, Jamey Aebersold and many others.

In the summer of 1992 BeebleBrox recorded their third tape. This time in drummer Dan Vonnegut's basement - again on Peter's old Yamaha Four track cassette. This recording was called Bloomingtoon and featured tunes by Peter, Monika and the title tune by drummer Dan. The band was now in full swing. Of course all came to a stop when Jon Paul was leaving for Chicago. After trying out various bassists Peter finally started to play bass for the band, and so BeebleBrox became a trio. At that time Peter and Monika started playing Monday night's at the Chatterbox in Indianapolis - a gig they until October 2008. When BeebleBrox played their premier gig at the Chatterbox it was a great success and they started to play there regularly making the Chatterbox a homebase for the band.

Playing in Indianapolis finally brought some connections with other players. In 1993 Peter played his first gig with violinist Cathy Morris. In the summer of 1994 BeebleBrox recorded their first CD Raw Material. Since at that time there was no stable line-up, but a constant stream of gigs covered by a variety of players Raw Material features many different players: Dan Vonnegut and Pete Wilhoit drums, Jonathan Paul and John Huber bass, Cathy Morris on violin, Russ May and Larry Calland on percussion. Despite fairly low production values (it had been recorded in Russ May's basement on Peter's old Yamaha Four track) the CD received praises from reviewers in Cadence magazine and Jazziz.

Late 1994 bassist Jack Helsley joined the band and completed the first steady line-up in years. Preparations began for the recording of a second CD. In early 1995 Quantumn Tweezers was recorded at Airtime Studios in Bloomington. For the first time saxophonist Tom Clark had joined the band and for percussionist Russ May it was the last recording with the band. BeebleBrox now became a regular player on many regional festivals and in many venues such as Bloomington Parks & Rec., Indianapolis Jazz festival, Jazz Kitchen, Elkhart Jazz Festival, Indianapolis Zoo, Eiteljorg Museum, Children's Museum, Art Museum. To give the recordings a proper home 'acme records' was founded together with Kevin Kouts of the band Mathematicians.

In the late summer of 1995 Peter and Monika bought a house a little north of Bloomington - they finally became Hoosiers. Peter started playing countless gigs with Cathy Morris and Oliver Nelson, jr. BeebleBrox also started to play out of town in cities such as Dayton, OH, Toledo, OH, Lousiville, KY, Chicago, IL, etc.

With BeebleBrox Peter could be seen on local TV and not so local TV when the band was the musical guest on the Reggie Miller Show. BeebleBrox shows at the Jazz Kitchen in Indianapolis were videotaped repeatedly and broadcast through local public TV. In late 1998 BeebleBrox was featured on Bloomington's WTIU B'Town Sounds and on CATS TV where several of their Jazz In July performances were often requested.

In 1997 Peter and Monika took their then rhythm section of Paul Surowiak on drums and Danny Kiely on bass on a two week tour of Germany. They were joined by award winning saxophonist Peter Lehel.

In 1997 Jack Helsley initiated the recording of the first 3rd Man CD. Together with Pete Wilhoit on drums and Jack on bass Peter recorded the project on two afternoons. It features tunes by Peter as well as ex-Freesome bassist Dave Bruker. The CD was released in 1998 and received very positive reviews. The band 3rd Man was actually formed after the CD was done and played only infrequently as all members were so busy with other things although a second CD called Freed Men was recorded in 2003 and as of 2013 the trio is still active.

1997 also saw the release of BeebleBrox' third CD: Indianapolis Intergalactic Spaceport. This recording featured various versions of BeebleBrox including bassists Hans Sturm, Danny Kiely and Jack Helsley and drummers Paul Surowiak and Pete Wilhoit. This disc was not received very well by critics but curiously contained a few of Peter's favorite tunes. The following year, 1998, BeebleBrox released Dominant Domain, featuring tenor sax great Bob Berg on three tunes. This recording also contained an updated version of the tune Raw Material, recorded on the very first BeebleBrox CD by the same name. In 1999 BeebleBrox went to Germany on their second tour. The same year Freesome, now with Jack Helsley on bass and Danny Deckard on drums started playing their furious versions of well known standards on many gigs. Also Peter started to play with drummer Steve Davis who had just moved to Nashville, IN from New York. And in September 1999 Monika and Peter's first daughter Melody was born and changed everything.

In late 1998 Peter had bought a used Chapman Stick from Dan Immel, who briefly played bass with BeebleBrox. Always a slow learner, it took Peter two years to find out that he had a left-handed instrument (which didn't matter as he had no clue at first how to hold it or tune it). In early 2001 he became a little more serious with the Chapman Stick, seeing its potential as a live instrument that could awe people - if played well. To that end he had the instrument adjusted and outfitted with a MIDI pickup. Later that year Peter's first Stick band played at the Chatterbox for the first (and last time for a while). This band included Dave Fink on bass, Cathy Morris on violin and Danny Deckard on drums - but even musicians of that caliber couldn't cover for Peter's weaknesses on his Chapman Stick. Then Peter changed the tuning on the bass side from the standard fifths to fourths. This made a big difference as now the tonal range was less in the bass and the low strings could be used for chording. It took until the fall of 2002 before the Chapman Stick came out again in a band context. This time it was an all new electric jazz band: Kwyjibo. 2002 had seen the release of the last BeebleBrox recording, a double live CD, recorded live at the Jazz Kitchen a year before. It did show BeebleBrox at its best. Then, at Indy Jazz Fest 2002, BeebleBrox played their last performance in front of an enthusiastic crowd. BeebleBrox had been a fixture of the central Indiana jazz scene for well over a decade but Monika, the main booking agent wanted to pursue her own projects. Paul Surowiak had moved away from Bloomington, as had bassist Jack Helsley. Rehearsals were impossible, also in light of Monika's and Peter's second daughter, Jasmin, who was born in January 2002.

From March 2003 Kwyjibo was playing around the area but lost some steam as original bass player Matt Everhart moved away. Due to time constraints of various band members Kwyjibo ceased operations in May 2008. In the summer of 2008 Danny Deckard and Peter put together a new quartet with fresh material and called it Splinter Group. Together with saxophonist Tom Clark and bassist Jeremy Allen Splinter Group has been building a small but dedicated following.

After the crash (2008-????)

In August 2008 Peter finally recorded his first 'solo' project fittingly entitled Peter's Money. It featured many of his favorite players including long time collaborator Jack Helsley on tuba. This was also the year Peter decided to try out a seven string guitar. Since then he has been working to integrate the added low B-string into his playing and writing (many of his new tunes are in B minor these days, rather than E minor.) The purchase of an inexpensive seven string classical guitar has also lead to deep explorations of the brazilian music genre.

2008 was also the year Peter became increasingly interested in many areas of science leading up to the building of a 3D-Printer and various other smaller projects. After letting his programming skills slip for many years he works now on plugin development for Cinema 4D (C++) and Apple OSX/iOS development.

In 2012 Peter adapted J. S. Bach's Two Part Inventions for seven string guitar and released them through Level Three Music.