Editor’s note: Throwback Thursday is a new feature highlighting important elements in the lives and careers of local musicians. This week, Mark Mullins of Bonerama discusses his earliest musical influences in his own words:

(Photo Credit: Stuart Dahne)

Raiding my dad’s record collection was fun as a 10 year old Metairie kid, not even realizing how close many of those records were recorded from where I was sitting. Stuff like Fats Domino, Little Richard, Louie Armstrong, and this one old original Dukes of Dixieland record recorded in “High Fidelity” that jumped out at me.

That record sounded great. And it had this trombone player on there that played with a fire I had never really heard before at my age. Man, I wanted to be able to play those licks, and I couldn’t. Pissed me off bad.

So what’s a boy to do? I sat down with loose leaf paper and a pencil and scribbled out my own little method of writing each note down on paper that he was playing, and learned it slowly. I went note by note, off a record album. Measure by measure, song by song, until eventually I had the whole album transcribed in my own little unorthodox way. I still couldn’t play the faster runs like he did, but I was trying.

That trombone player was Fred Assunto. Died at the age of 36, a year before I was born.

As a teenager, I’d bring my tape recorder to Bourbon Street and stand in the doorway of the Famous Door taping guys like Joe Prejean on trombone. Just tearing it up every night playing different stuff. I’d go home and try to learn his stuff too. That’s how I got my start.