Kids Incorporated

Back in the showcase studio, Capitol Punishment -- the moniker Dumm's outfit has chosen -- is interacting on a song of its own. Dumm does his best to keep the rockers-in-the-making focused. Between takes, Devon, a precocious youngster in a black wig, stares at himself in a mirror across from the stage and practices his poses while he solos indiscriminately. Anchoring the other side of the stage is Jonah, a twelve-year-old wunderkind who doles out pinch harmonics that would make his hero, Zakk Wylde, proud. And then there's the group's vocalist, a kid named Teddy who's still finding his way as a frontman but is already quite the character. Clad in a sportcoat, fedora and mirrored aviators, Teddy oozes charisma. Listening to the practice, I finally understand how my folks must have felt when I first took up the guitar and played the only riff I knew for hours at a time.

In a smaller studio across the hall, Solzberg is coaching his brood, a trio of shaggy, hard-rocking middle-schoolers from Boulder who've dubbed themselves Mugshot. The trio has a fondness for Rose Hill Drive that was easily detected even before I spied frontman/bassist Dylan's RHD T-shirt. "Think Warren Haynes," Solzberg says. "Think space. Definitely keep the high hat going. Think of the softest you can play and then play half of that."

Like all of Dog House's instructors, Solzberg is great with the kids, full of zeal both for music and for helping mold young musicians. A native of Queens, New York, he bonded immediately with Lennox. The in-demand session player also teaches at Bridge School in Boulder and performs with more than twenty local acts. But when he's not on the road, he devotes time to Dog House.

"I grew up playing music," he says, "and I didn't have anything like this. Here you can turn it up as loud as you want and you know there's somebody else who's been doing it to help you. If I would have had someone saying 'Don't do this and do this' ten years ago, I would've been that much further."

Maybe he could've toured with the Stones.