Eric Blecher, bass guitar
Eric graduated from Cleveland State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree including a teaching certificate from the state of Ohio. This was a very creative time in his life. As a financial means to put himself through college, Eric pursued his interest in music and the studio arts at a professional level. Playing nightly at parties and clubs, music allowed him to indulge his pursuit of a career in the arts. He played continuously during this time in multiple bands in the Cleveland area and occasional venues out of state.
As his musical career was nearing an end, there was more emphasis on the studio arts. For example, his work was accepted to the Cleveland Museum of Arts “May Show” two times and was also exhibited at prestigious national juried exhibitions. Eric continued his education at Eastern Michigan University where he earned a Master’s of Fine Arts degree, with the intent to become an instructor of Studio Arts at the college level. In the same time frame, Eric met his wife and was offered a position in his father’s construction business who was retiring.
He decided to choose the construction business rather than a sabbatical replacement position in Texas. He reimagined the family business into a Home Building Company which provided an acceptable financial and creative lifestyle. His beautiful wife provided him with two children who are living the American dream. He Is the proud grandfather of two and is now living in Florida.
Jeff Bloom, guitar & backup vocals
Jeff Bloom grew up in Ohio and was in TSALW while he was at Case Western Reserve University (B.S. in Physics, 1970). After graduating, having enjoyed being in TSALW, he formed another band and pursued writing and producing music. However, in 1973, he accepted a fellowship from University College, Cardiff in Wales, moved to the UK and did research in Psychoacoustics, receiving a Ph.D. in Physics in 1977.
Following that, his interest grew in digital audio recording and processing and he was invited to pursue research at the (now) University of Westminster in London. His work resulted in many published research papers and he also developed and patented a computer method for automatically aligning the timing of one recorded voice with another, to lip-sync film actor’s re-recorded dialogue. This led to forming a company to develop commercial systems first used to lip-sync the dialogue in Dune and The Goonies. After the company was purchased, he also helped develop a touch-screen based digital audio workstation released in 1990.
Today, his subsequent company, Synchro Arts (founded 1994 and now part of LANDR Inc.), continues to develop audio editing software for the music, TV and film industries, and he has received a Technology & Engineering Emmy and a Technology & Scientific Academy Award and two Queen’s Awards.
Jeff now lives in Surrey, UK with his wife, Muriel, has two fabulous daughters from his first marriage and is finally taking piano lessons.
Les Bloom, alto sax & flute
Les graduated from Case Western Reserve University in 1971 with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. He is a cofounder and President of DocuMed, Inc., which has developed a multi-patented electronic medical records system, marketed nationally to ambulatory medical clinics.
In 1988, Les cofounded Clinical Information Systems, Inc. (CIS) where he was Vice President of Research and Development and a board member until its acquisition in 1996. He was one of the principal design architects of the CIS anesthesia information management system, the company’s primary product, marketed to hospital operating room suites nationwide.
From 1982 through 1987 Les was a principal at VSP, Inc. where he was Director of Engineering and board member of this venture capital financed firm. At VSP he managed the engineering development of medical and industrial imaging products. There he obtained two patents for his hardware designs in electronic imaging.
Prior to 1982, Les served 11 years in various engineering management and design capacities developing enterprise-wide networked computer systems at Northern Telecom, Inc. and at NCR, Inc., which, at the time, were both large multi-national corporations.
Les has never abandoned his love of music and continued to play alto, tenor and soprano saxophones in numerous jazz, rock and jazz-rock fusion bands throughout his life. He maintains a website of his music at https://www.lesbloom.com. Les and his wife Dianne live in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
John Bogo, drums
John Bogo currently lives in Douglasville, GA with his wife Nancy. They have been married for 44 years and have four children.
John left TSALW in October 1969 to continue playing basketball for the (Case) Western Reserve University Redcats. (Until the 1971-72 school year, CWRU had two separate basketball teams because of contractual obligations with the other schools in the PAC.) In his senior year he was elected captain of the team. He finished with four varsity letters in basketball becoming only the sixth player in Redcat history to accomplish that feat.
After graduating in1971 from Case Western Reserve University with a BA in English, John enlisted in the US Army. He eventually was stationed in Berlin, West Germany as a Russian interpreter. From 1975-1979 he taught English at Wickliffe Jr. High in Wickliffe, OH. He and Nancy moved to Douglasville, GA in 1979, and he taught English and Russian there until he retired in 2010.
Along the way John earned a Russian diploma from the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA in 1973, and an MA in Humanities from Central Michigan University in 2000. He currently works as an adjunct instructor teaching Humanities at West Georgia Technical College.
John continues to play the same drums you hear on the recording. One band he was in, FM-109, played in the Atlanta, GA area for over 25 years.
Lee Branst, lead vocals
Coming soon.
Dave Featheringham, lead vocals
Coming soon.
Bill Jaros, organ & piano
Coming soon.
Mike Kaplan, vibraphone
After graduating from Case with a bachelor’s degree in computer & systems science, Mike remained at the school to pursue a master’s degree. Following the breakup of The Same As Last Week, Lee and Mike started another local cover band, Hot Knife, in the summer of ’70. Mike continued on vibraphone, branching out to play an RMI Electra-Piano, too. Hot Knife played around the Northeast Ohio area until 1972.
Mike earned a Ph.D. in Systems & Control Engineering in July ’75. Leaving Cleveland for good in August 1975, he moved to Boston. He had spent the summer before his senior year in high school in Boston while attending Berklee College of Music. As an analyst with a social science research firm in Cambridge, he developed software and performed statistical analysis for a number of government contract research projects, considering environmental management, transportation planning, welfare reform, and energy development.
Shifting gears, career-wise, he moved to the financial services industry in 1982. For the next 16 years, he developed econometric forecasting software and analytical packages for the world’s largest provider of economic and financial information. He then spent 18 more years developing portfolio accounting systems for several of the most well-known global financial institutions, critical to the management of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Retiring in 2016, he and his wife of 43 years now live on a small island, off Boston Harbor. They have two daughters and one granddaughter. Combining his interests in technology and music, Mike is starting to investigate creative applications of generative AI.