Todd Houck is a native West Texan who got his first guitar at age 6.  Growing up in Midland, Todd played in garage bands with friends from school, later playing around West Texas while in college at Texas Tech University.  He moved back to Midland in 2000 and began teaching at Midland College, completing his doctoral work at Tech in 2004.  Todd married his beautiful wife Marihya in 2005 and began playing guitar in Church for many years.  When his son Tripp began playing guitar in 2020 after a Kiss concert, Todd and Tripp started going to open mic nights together and began hosting their own open mic at Rooster’s Backyard in 2022. Eventually Todd and Tripp started playing gigs in local clubs under the name Five Years Apart and later as Side Effects.  They have also performed as an acoustic duo as well.  Todd retired from MC in Summer 2025 to focus on helping Tripp pursue his musical dreams.