About Dobrocat

Dobrocat comes from a line of musicians. His grandfather hosted a mid-20th century radio show, and his father—a Chet Atkins–style finger-picker—taught guitar and played with Jerry Garcia before the Grateful Dead had a name. Music was always in the air: he began on alto sax in elementary school, shifted to tenor, and eventually found his voice on guitar and, later, inspired by his dad's resophonic work, moved to dobro.

In high school he joined the on-stage band for Godspell, covering drums for Act I and guitar for Act II—chiefly because he was the only student who could nail the guitar solo in “On The Willows.” At San Jose City College he immersed himself in jazz improvisation, practicing six to eight hours a day alongside talents such as Rich Turnoy and Chris Cain. Those years also saw him gig with the college big band led by Dave Eshelman, coach musicals at his alma mater, and front a blues outfit called Snailbelly that never quite took flight.

The dobro entered his life in his thirties playing Atkins-style face to face on Sunday sessions with his father. Observing his father's playing through the years led him to acquire a nylon-string guitar, apply dobro tuning and play it with a pipe. It all fell into place as if by osmisis...once he proved to his dad that he “got it,” he was gifted a Regal dobro. Open-mic appearances followed, where fellow players dubbed him “Dobrocat.” He served as a house sideman and later joined several bands, most notably -ISH—a multicultural ensemble blending Turkish and Indian percussion, multilingual vocals and harmonies, and his triplet-rich dobro lines. The group’s shining moment was a standout live show at Stanford before dissolving.

From 2006 to 2008 he recorded international collaborations on a self-built DAW. Public performances tapered off after 2016, though a series of Facebook “10-Day Riff Challenge” episodes yielded a handful of candid dobro videos that remain the last active record of his playing.

When his father passed in 2018, Dobrocat inherited his Gretsch Country Gentleman and his dobro which was gifted to him by Garcia. The loss quieted his impulse to perform; music had always been, in part, a dialogue with his dad, and that conversation was now complete.

His hands-on career was as varied as his music. During the 1980s he worked as a front-of-house sound engineer, stagehand, construction tech, and finally a prepress technician in the printing industry. The 1990s took him into plumbing, installing water heaters for a pioneering specialty-plumbing company; he earned his California plumbing-contractor’s license in 2004 and ran his own firm until 2008.

A pivot to IT followed. Starting from the ground up, he grew into a security and compliance analyst with a focus on email forensics, secure mail flow, PCI-DSS governance, and regulatory mapping (SOC2, NIST, CCPA). He earned his CISSP in 2020, and approaches technology the way he approaches music: listen closely, respect the structure, and know when not to overplay.

Today he lives more contemplatively, rooted in the Slavic tradition of Orthodox Christianity as he edges his way towards being a catechumen. His personal prayer rule—anchored in the Jordanville book and enriched by the Jesus Prayer, chant, and Akathist melodies—keeps his ear tuned, though to silence more than applause. Two dobros, two guitars, a flute, and a violin remain within reach, awaiting whatever comes next.

For now, this site serves as an archive of the years when music, memory, and craftsmanship wove together in one long, resonant song.