Nick D'Virgilio (aka NDV) was born on this day in Whittier, California in 1968. He knew from the age of 4 that all he ever wanted to do was play the drums and that's exactly what he does along with a few other instruments he's mastered along the way, and vocals might I add - born with the music in him. He's a hard working drummer and a huge Genesis / Phil Collins fan - currently signed on as a fulltime member of Big Big Train (since 2014). Amongst other gigs he previously worked with Roland Orzabel and Tears for Fears, has played live with Steve Hackett, co-founded Spock's Beard (which is no longer) and also worked with Cirque du Soleil's TOTEM for some years performing in 1,400 shows with them - he never missed a single one. Oh and he has credits on a Genesis album (if you could call it that)
Calling All Stations. He's released a handful of solo albums too.
What I've chosen to listen to is his recentish side hustle with Neal Morse (various prog type of outfits) and Ross Jennings (of Haken, some of whose stuff I don't mind despite it being so called prog metal). Anyway - they made an album titled
Troika which is not too shabby, and is nothing like any of the above - it's more folk rock inclined with a 'sounds like' recalling CSN. Yup - pretty nice harmonies the three of them make, unlikely as it might seem!! And they appear to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. Here's an NDV penned and vocal led track from that one -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ5b_xgIZh0.
They've also released a second album under DMJ called
Sophomore which eludes me at present. I did find a couple of videos though ...
"Anywhere the Wind Blows" ...
And "Tiny Little Fires" ...