User:TheCrossroads777

Mike Vlahopol Guitarist, band leader, almost vocalist, producer, song writer, radio and TV personality, session musician, Mihail (Michael) Vlahopol - half Greek - is well known as Mike or “Sharky”.

Mike was born in the winter of December 1970.

He started to play guitar when he was 15 and a half (1995 - 1996) when his father brought home a 7 string Russian guitar for  50 LEI (about 3 US dollars - old times 1985-1986). He started to learn guitar on his own due to the lack of books and teaching materials. After a year or so he started to make good friends between some of the best musicians in Romania when he was encouraged by them to make a band.

He started to play in the first band during high school. First hard rock and later on, he evolved to Heavy Metal and Progressive rock. Only late in 1996 "he got to the crossroad and met with the blues" when he was invited to jam with some bands due to Christmas and the New Year's Eve.

Mike is an imposing man with remarkable stage presence, at six foot and fourteen inches with a cool American look on stage. Due to his craziness, on stage Mike is able to make people – most of the times – to stand up dance, jump on tables and feel good. Having technical possibilities on rock, blues, and pop performances helped him over the years to become a regular fixture on Romanian television, radio and news papers as a figure of national celebrity. He has appeared in feature articles, not only in the music press, but in the biggest news papers Romania has such as: “Romania Libera”, “Evenimentul zilei”, “Evenimentul Muzical”, “National”, “Libertatea”, “Cotidianul”, “V.I.P. – magazin”, “Capital”, “Vox Pop Rock” and few others.

With 15+ years of professional experience in various top Romanian popular music groups, Mike made a move on his own as a bandleader back in 1993 with “…Of The Lord!” the first Christian rock band in Romania that made it to the Romanian mainstream with no changes or compromising, after only five months of existing.

The band at that time has debuted as a support band in the Manic Depression Tour for Schnitt Acht and Garden of Eden.

Right after the Romanian revolution while he started some other bigger projects sounds and frequencies captures his attention and due to his good English he managed to be the stage coordinator for almost all the shows in Romania when a foreign artist toured Romania.

1993:              Backstage Coordinator for THE SCORPIONS

1994               Backstage Coordinator for Uriah Heep

1995               Backstage Coordinator for Deep Purple

1996               Backstage Coordinator for MICHAEL JACKSON “History ‘96 World Tour”

1997:              Backstage Coordinator for WHITESNAKE ‘97 “Restless Heart Tour”

1999:              Backstage Coordinator for JULIO IGLESIAS

2000:              Backstage Coordinator for STEVE VAI – “THE ULTRA ZONE - tour”

Probably the most happy earthly moments of Mike’s life were when he personally met and spent personal time with Jennifer Batten (guitar player of Michael Jackson), David Cloverdale (Whitesnake) and Steve Vai.

Jennifer and Steve have encouraged Mike to keep up the good work he even had time to get some guitar technical input from two of them.

Even more Steve took time to sign Mike’s Ibanez guitar with a screw driver (Steve really enjoyed doing that)

Becoming well known Mike had an opportunity to have once a week his own radio show for over a year on the best radio of that time Radio Total.

Another interesting thing is that Mike during the communism times when it was impossible to get a decent instrument of any kind as a young graduate in industrial design Mike started to make his own electric guitars. He was only 18 years old and you have to believe that his first guitar had more of a contrabass feel, not keeping the tuning right and few other bad things, but...you know what?

He didn't give up. He continuously kept measuring instruments and keep build them with - believe it or not - no special tools.

After a while when asking a famous guitar player of that time if he could measure his guitar (a decent copy of a Fender Stratocaster) he got an idea of how the joint is made between the body and the neck.

He started all over again by buying old guitars keeping the neck and the machine heads only building everything else from scratch; body, metal parts, tremolo systems. after a while he even started to make pick-ups. After 2-3 years all the musicians in Bucharest and not only would come up to him for guitar adjustments.

This goes on even as we speak. Many guitar players call him for an advice or for some adjustments.

In 1996 he managed to get all the materials he need it to build the first guitar from scratch. With the help of a friend which had some electrical tools he started to build his first guitar neck.

He even made his first improved floyd rose tremolo system.

For that he used Grover machine heads, Jumbo frets, Fender knobs, switch and pots, one Fender Strat single coil, pick-up, a Shadow and a Mike hand made pick-up (a little more powerful than the most powerful Dimarzio pickup).

A French guy after he heard the guitar during a gig he offered Mike 2,000 U.S. $ for the guitar. Mike didn't sell it.

Here Is a list with the most important bands I have played or recorded for since I started to play.

1986 - 	SAFIR (my first band) 	- hard rock 1988 - 	SOLARIS 	- hard rock 1990 - 	REQUIEM                      	- heavy metal 1991 - 	HOLD-UP 	- heavy metal 1991 - 	AQUILA                         	- heavy metal - progress 1993 - 	OF THE LORD 	- hard 'n heavy, progressive - the first Christian rock band 1998 - 	FOISORUL DE FOC 	- pop dance 1998 - 	SPLIT BLUES BAND 	- blues 1999 - 	KARISMA                       	- pop rock 2000 - 	TEAMSTERS BLUES BAND 	- blues, country, rock'n roll 2001 - 	CONTRAST   	- pop rock 2001 - 	HARVEST OF SOUL 	- blues, hard-rock 2001 - 	TZ's COTTON BLUES BAND 	- blues, country, rock'n roll, rock 2002 - 	PHILADELPHIA   	- pop, rock, blues, country, rock'n roll 2002 - 	S.O.S   	- alternative 2002 - 	ANIMAL X 	- freestyle (the biggest tour of whole Europe's history) It was an Anti Drug Tour - CNN TV station declared the biggest social movement meant to expose the bad effects drugs has on people. We did counseling in all the cities we went. 2002 - 	SOLO PROJECT 	- my first instrumental album & the 3rd on the Romanian market - country rock, blues.. 2003 - 	PHILADELPHIA   	- pop, rock, blues, country, rock'n roll 2003 - 	TRUE WEST 	- blues, country, southern-rock, 2004 - 	EXIST 	- CHRISTIAN ROCK MUSIC 2004 - 	AD-HOC 	- blues, rock'n roll, rock, country