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dave.king1
21-04-2017, 09:01 PM
No not that you silly sausage, the musical ones.

We seem to have quite a strong leaning towards heavier blues and metal on the forum and I was wondering what music informed us and made us who we are today.

In my case.

Still in high school Cliff & The Shadows were a big thing so my first foray into guitar was learning tunes such as Apache and other stuff from the 1962-63 period.

I studied music as a certificate subject studying classical composition at high school and began playing guitar in 63 and moved to bass in 64.

The English invasion happened here in Oz in 64 so it became all Beatles & Stones ( The Beatles in 64 was my first ever concert )

All the pop stuff came and went, Seekers, Hermans Hermits, The Troggs, Easybeats etc

Then there was Cream, Hendrix & the whole West Coast hippie stuff.

Prog rock followed around 1970 - 71 and the band was quite frankly unbelievably good but let down by a certain bass player ;)

Somewhere along the way we fitted Sabbath, Deep Purple & Wishbone Ash in there as well. https://soundcloud.com/suthol/03-so-far-from-home

Then in 1973 - 74 I met a singer songwriter who I am playing with again today and moved into country music of all sorts from boots & saddles to the Eagles and went from working on Saturday nights at local halls to playing every night of the week for 10 years in the licensed clubs around Sydney and surrounds for what was then serious money.

Today I am informed by everything that I have played in the past and will happily listen to Johnny Cash or King Crimson or Rory Gallagher ( my guitar hero ), not much of a fan of modern country but there are some very good players there.

I don't get rap at all ( although some of M&Ms music is very clever and well structured ), and the various sub genres of metal particularly the drop tuned stuff out of the nordic countries turns me off completely.

So there is my soul laid bare, where do you come from

Kick
21-04-2017, 11:04 PM
Great topic!

For me my musical life began when I was about 14 years old. My younger brother was into epic moviescores from Star Wars, my younger sister played Arrival from Abba all day long and I just discovered the album 'Who do you think you are' from Deep Purple. So my parents got nuts :)

I started drumming on barstools using the sticks from our parrotcage (poor parrot as I think of it now...). I was asked to join a band as a drummer and we played all kind of covers from Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and stuff like that. Later we wrote our own songs and we called it 'swamprock'. It sounded like a mix from heavy bluess/rock with CCR and other Southern bands.

Unfortunately, life went on and we had to split the band. I became the guitarist/singer in a trioband but my singing wasn't good enough and made me feel uncomfortable so that was it.

Nowadays I'm a 'home guitarist' without any band but thats ok for me now. I mostly listen to bands like Muse or The Devin Towsned Project. A couple of years ago I discovered female rock voices and especially Anneke van Giersbergen (also known from The Gathering, The Gentle Storm and now with her own band Vuur). But I also like Nightwish!

And then I really love the greatest rocksinger ever; Graham Bonnet!! An aussie so you should him (or The Marbles for that matter)

Graham became the singer for Rainbow, Michael Schenker Group, Impelliterri and lots more and now has his own band. I love that guy!

So, that's my story ;)

corsair
22-04-2017, 05:38 AM
Oooohh, here's a rabbit hole to disappear down...:cool: .... early years were formed by my eldest siblings listening to the Beatles, Stones and anything else they could afford to buy on 45s plus the radio, so plenty of early NZ bands like the La de dahs and Simple Image. After that, glam rock in the early 70s - Sweet, Slade, T Rex and Bowie et al - with a smattering of other stuff like Uriah Heep that my Form 3 and 4 friends were listening to.

The seismic shift came when I heard and saw 2 songs on a late night TV show Radio with Pictures where Lazy by Deep Purple was played - there's the Ritchie influence! - and A farewell to kings by Rush, which absolutely took my breath away as it was a live take and the musicianship, showmanship and obvious fun being had onstage shone through in spades!! The die was cast!! I was lucky enough to see both bands live - DP in Christchurch in 1974, and Rush in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 2011 - amd both gigs were mega, the Rush gig especially so as I took my then 9 year old boy who had an absolute belter of a time!!

Since 1973/4 I found the likes of Rory Gallagher, SRV, Swamp rock, Aussie pub rock, and the whole gamut of rock music which had the obvious affect on my own playing where I would steal phrases, licks and patterns from the likes of Ian Moss, Dave Dobbyn, the Brewster brothers and a worthwhile range of lesser known - but immensely skilled - guitarists and incorporate those into my own playing! Hence, I never really had a sound of my own...

Then I discovered Laurence Juber accompanying Al Stewart and went in the acoustic direction for ages after listening to the stylings of Joni Mitchell, LJ, James Wilkinson - a NZ player who just blew me away - and then re-discovering the Stones and their acoustic tunes!!

Along the way, there is 30s and 40s swing, 50s rock'n'roll, 70s punk, 80s New Wave, 90s über guitarists until we reach today, and my iPod has about 5,000 tunes on it - no albums, just songs from the 20s to this year!!

It has been - and very much still is - a fabulous adventure, but my playing - once I realised I was never going to open at the Rainbow or Hammersmith Odeon.... or even the Wagga RSL! - has got quite rusty because I simply don't play enough to keep what chops I had in some sort of order. These days, I just fiddle around enough to know that whatever mods I've made to my instruments work as intended... or not!!

However, the player I have tried to emulate would probably be Jeff Baxter; a guitarists' guitarist - had the chops, and knew when to use 'em; would happily solo over any chord progression, or would equally happily sit back and let something else ride on top! He also plays a mean pedal steel, and looked like he was having some fun up there!!

The solo that bent my ears - and my brain - is Amos Garrets' Telecaster in Midnight at the oasis; quite the classiest playing; still trying to work that one out!!

The song that always brings me back to accessible, solid musicianship... Smoke On the water. Why? Simple progression, well played with enough happening to keep most players interested!

Keyboard and bass influences are a whole other story....;)

dave.king1
22-04-2017, 08:00 AM
NZ bands like the La de dahs

That soundcloud link I put in the first post was recorded at EMI Studio 301, the La De Dahs were recording Goin To See My Baby Tonight in the session before us, they were running over and got kicked out for a bunch of absolute nevilles ( us ) :D

king casey
22-04-2017, 11:31 AM
'So Far From Home' sounded pretty good for a bunch of Nevilles.

The follow up 'Brown Bottle' reminded me of this old ditty;


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z73jc1VFjM

edit: RIP James Cruikshank

cheers, Mark.

ILRGuitars
22-04-2017, 12:07 PM
Has KB spoken to you since?? ha ha ha

That soundcloud link I put in the first post was recorded at EMI Studio 301, the La De Dahs were recording Goin To See My Baby Tonight in the session before us, they were running over and got kicked out for a bunch of absolute nevilles ( us ) :D

dave.king1
22-04-2017, 02:36 PM
Brown Bottle is a current work in progress, did more production edits on it this morning, I threw the chords to Max and he wrote the lyrics and sings it, I am responsible for all of the instrumentation such as it is.

Quite possibly not C&W for a change

dingobass
23-04-2017, 08:32 PM
Grew up in a house where Dad played records from the '50s and Mother played tne Beatles...
Loved the rawness of the old rockers such as Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and co...
Then one day I heard Tim Buckley's Greetings From LA and fell in love with the Bass playing of Chuck Rainey
The rest, as they say, is history.. but it is due to Chuck Rainey that I ultimately became a Luthier.. well, Chuck and the fact that I totally suck at playing :D

Dedman
23-04-2017, 08:50 PM
Had a radio to my ear from age 5 in the mid 60's, messed about on bass in the early 80's, got interested in guitar again due to Brian Setzer and Jim Horton in the 90's but was too busy to do anything about it till a couple of years ago. My musical tastes....there are 2 kinds music, music I like and music I don't like. Genre has little to do with it. Ex and I both working for Record Market I got used to hearing so much different stuff that I can't say what my fav is, somewhere around surf/garage/psycobilly I guess. I don't have any real guitar hero's , Setzer and Horton both kick arse, Saki from Mary's Blood is blisteringly fast in the Metal area, Keme from Kinoko Hotel/Tokyo Killers/Piggy Banks I think is a fantastic all-rounder playing anything from folk to trippy garage/experimental jazz to great surf stuff. I think I build better than I play but as I have no aspirations to be in a band it's fine with me. :)

wazkelly
24-04-2017, 07:16 PM
Some interesting stories already told.

Being the youngest of 4 and the only boy I had to put up with listening to what my older sisters were into and from late 60's was fed a healthy dose of Deep Purple's Fireball, Joe Cocker's Cocker Happy, CCR's Cosmos Factory plus all the usual lollypop top 40 stuff at the time.

Fast forward to 1977 when I finally got my 1st guitar and started learning riffs from Led Zep, Deep Purple, Rush's albums up to 2112. Unfortunately one of my guitar playing buddies took off on the punk thing happening at the time and I became a massive Kiss fan. First band was full of learners so we sucked really bad and wrote originals as we struggled to do covers. Early 80's saw me involved in many different lineups trying to find the right bunch of players only to be let down by someone leaving, hence why I became a Bass Player because guitarists were easier to find at the time.

Played mostly top 40 covers of that era featuring Angels, Mondo Rock, Sunny Boys, Divinyls, Models, The Cars, Pat Benatar, plus many more of those sorts of genres. At one stage joined a bunch of heavy metal head bangers at Wynnum who called themselves 'No Class' and they certainly lived up to that name. Only stuck it out with them for 3 months as rehearsals were louder than any time I had played onstage where I mostly had the Marshall on '1' but had to kick it up to 2 or 3 just keep up with the guitarists. Ears were ringing for up to 2 days after each rehearsal or gig and figured I would end up deaf if I stuck around.

Got married in 86 and sold off way too much gear and as kids have grown up and since left home I can now afford to indulge myself with this new found hobby (or obsession as my wife puts it). Enjoying building too much and seriously need to make more time to practice and enjoy what I have already built. Hopefully will bump into some others with similar tastes in music and see where that might end up.

Gotta agree about the current mainstream radio rubbish. Just got back from NZ where the son & his wife were tuned into all the so called R & B shite and what also seemed to be a never ending amount of Ed Shearen sounding stuff. Small amounts are OK but we od'd on the trip.

These days I like to listen to pure guitar driven stuff and gravitate towards Slash, Acca Dacca, The Living End, Foo Fighters, Bon Jovi and even some Muse is OK too. The youngest son has also introduced me to Alterbridge and other similar stuff but not quite as big a fan of Death Metal, no matter how fast they can play.

dave.king1
30-04-2017, 05:26 PM
Come on guys time to fess up, there is a cast of thousands on this forum and everyone has a story to tell.

Please share them with us because it's good to know your mates and makes it easier to understand where we are all coming from when discussing our builds and what we want to achieve and why.

One of my old drummers has an amazing wall of custom shop Fenders, Gibsons, Grestch & PRS, all right handed guitars but he is left handed and can't play a note, each one of those guitars is hanging on the wall with an engraved plaque that tells the story behind the build and what inspired the purchase so being a non player is not a sin.

Kick
01-05-2017, 01:11 AM
I agree with Dave; share your stories ;)

Chuck
01-05-2017, 05:10 AM
For me it all clicked into gear in '77/'78 with the emergence of punk - pretty funny for a 14 year old good private school boy from the leafy suburbs of Sydney's north shore!! Picked up the bass to start playing in bands and away we went. That punk sound is still something very close to my heart, but as with my two musical idols - Paul Weller and Elvis Costello - my tastes have broadened. I got right into the blues through SRV, and loved the whole Britpop movement, and the classic pub rock of our fine land. The surfer in me got right into the surf revival movement as well as the Jack Johnson kind of thing. All of those are still favourites, and there's not much I don't like, although I never got into metal.

From a playing perspective my band experience is very much aligned to the punk thing - and most recently played in a punk covers (think Me First and the Gimme Gimmes stuff) band - and my bass playing style reflects that! My big thing these days is writing and recording rather than performing and interestingly I can't write simple rock/punk stuff to save myself! The kind of stuff we are writing draws from a lot of genres so I feel like I'm going through another discovery phase chasing inspiration and ideas. Ah, music. It certainly has been wonderful sustenance for my soul over the years.

Dikkybee007
01-05-2017, 09:49 AM
Started when I was very young in the early 60's as my Dad was always whistling a tune of some sort and then he started to sing what he whistled so I learnt the words to what he was whistling. Most was from the 30-40's and most were almost Spike Jones sort of with a George Formby being the first song I knew from start to finish. I loved that period as some of the best singers were from that period, Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald with lashings of Andrew Sisters. Now this was before iPods so the only music you had was what you made yourself and that period music was easy but R&R was not as it is hard to whistle so it wasn't until we got our first modern record player, probably around mid 60's I heard the likes of Bill Hailey and Elvis as most of the records we had were old 78's, which I still own most of them with various players. In the mid 60's my dad was given a cornet and a mandolin, which I still have, and he taught himself how to play by ear which I was gifted to have the same ability. Mid to late 70's I found Deep Purple, AC-DC and the Angels as I was going to Tech school and then early to mid 80's I found Jimi and Canned Heat. It was around this time I found the drums and while I have never played in a band it doesn't mean I cant but I just play for me as I know what sounds right and if it sounds right then it is right. Due to my early music introduction from when I got my first paying job I then started to add to a record which then became a CD collection. I own every form of music, whether it be classical, heavy metal, disco, R&R, punk, techno, rap, country and western you name it, I have it. If its got a beat then I have it. My best album is a vinyl master copy of the greatest album of all time, Dark side of the moon, which I got on my 21st birthday. I didn't get into the guitar until about 2008-2009 as I liked more to listen than play which meant I have a fantastic sound system which for early 80's meant Pioneer as I could afford that on the money I was earning. Have upgraded my amp a couple of times but I use my original amp for recording my vinyl and making MP3's out of them. Once I had my first strat I then wanted more styles of guitars, which then lead me to my first bass. Found they did kits which were my more my style as I love building things as I was a Toolmaker for just over 38 years and was made redundant so now I have heaps more time to build but no income, such is life. I learnt how to play and setup my guitars from the internet and while I have a long way to go I have made huge progress which unfortunately the one person in my life I wanted to share with, as he gave me my appreciation of all music, passed away in 2010. I hear a piece of music with a lick in it and I have to work out how to play it or look it up on the net, but some tabs are way off so I keep trying until I get it right. Saw the trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy and heard part of a Fleetwood Macs, The Chain and I can now play that bass lick. The last album I bought last week was Hot August Night as I wanted to play the intro to Crunchy Granola Suite and now I can. My mates tell me I cant play and yet they all know the song lick I am playing. I learnt a piece when I was away with my mates, la cucaracha, and they hated me cause once you hear it its in your head and you cant get it out.My favourite music to play is classical, Green sleeves was the first song I played as it is way harder to get right on an acoustic than to pump out some distorted Smoke on the water. Don't get me wrong, an amplified tune is great but to make sure my technique and timing are right I play a classical piece and again if it sounds right, it is right as my timing from when I played the drums is smack on and I have the play by ear which was handed down from my Dad.

Guvna19
01-05-2017, 06:41 PM
Exposed to Parents music in the early 70's - J O'K, Chuck Berry , Deltones , Neil Diamond ,any more.

started liking rock and blues as a pre teenager , ACDC , most 80' rock , Muddy Waters , Cream , Stones, Hoodo Gurus ,Violent Femmes
Angels
followed by several years getting heavier , Led Zepp , Deep Purple , Sabbath, Iron Maiden , too many more to remember all at once.

Went on to Punk and Ska, Reel Big Fish , Sublime, Blink 182 , Mighty Boss Tones , Me first and the Gimme Gimmes, again so many more bands. Rage against the Machine Ben Harper , Jack Johnson
Loved the Aussie bands Triple j played in 90's - Spiderbait , Grinspoon ,Living End , Regurgitor , John Bultler Trio , Killing Heidi , Cruel Sea - many others. Powderfinger , Frenzal Rhomb , Bodyjar , Hilltop hoods, The Grates
Still go back all the time and revisit past fav's - allways liking new bands , must of missed dozens of favs.
Went to 11 Big Day Out's back in the day - couple of Vans Warped Tours - Seen Matt Taylor live at the Bridgeway a few times in the frontbar which was gold. Blues festival at hahndorf - The Bennies at the Gov
Just love live raw Music of most kinds.
lately liking Violent Soho , Smith Street Band , Kingswood , ahh brain is hurting too many to mention

Zandit75
01-05-2017, 07:29 PM
Spent my childhood listening to Dad's country music collection. My Mum enjoyed it too, but she had some of her own preferences.
I was told recently that Dad would test me with lyrics on certain albums. He'd start a song, then hit the lever that raised the needle off the LP, and ask me what the next lines of the song was. Apparently I had Merle Haggard's "My Love Affair With Trains" memorized at the age of 3 or 4! I just remember sitting there looking at all of the pictures in the fold out album cover with all the model trains on it!
I didn't start getting my own taste in music until my early teens when I started listening to the top 40 lists on the radio, and watching Rage of a Saturday morning.
I never really found one genre that I got stuck on. Pop, Country, a little Heavy Metal here and there, even some classical style music once I started playing the Trombone in High School.
Once I started playing the guitar in College, I started going back to Country, and easy listening ballads etc.
Today I'll listen to anything, except Rap, Punk, Goth and Miley Cyrus!!

DrNomis_44
01-05-2017, 08:53 PM
My parents always had some kind of music playing on our home stereo, my mum tended to favor a lot of 70's rock, on the other hand, my dad preferred German Oktoberfest music, Hungarian music, music from Latin America, African music, Musicals, Classical, etc, but both my parents used to like Moog Music too (music played on the Moog Synthesizer), both of my parents were into recording and they also liked organizing barbecues where they would invite the family friends over, my parents would go through the record collection and record songs from them onto reels of tape so that they'd end up with a party mixtape that would play for hours, there's too many artists to name as possible influences on me.

Simon Barden
03-05-2017, 11:49 PM
A bit mixed. I played the trumpet from 10 to about 14. Played in the school band and orchestra and the local area wind band. But I'd fallen over and damaged my top lip when I was 11, and it became harder and harder to play or get any better. Plus I wasn't very interested in the music I had to play at the time, so I gave it up.

Then my best friend and I decided to learn to play a bit of guitar, so we'd sit around a basic book about guitar playing and learnt some chords. My friend had cousins up north whose whole family went and performed at folk clubs, so that got me interested in folk music (though it was more folk-rock that I was listening to). A chance borrowing of some tapes from an older friend then got me hooked on prog rock (especially Yes and Camel), whilst other friends got me into Genesis, Status Quo, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Led Zepplin. But I also liked some of the electronic bands, like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream and Vangellis.

Then a couple of guys we knew from our youth club started a band playing some simplified Thin Lizzy, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bread numbers (quite a weird mix), so at the beginning of 6th Form college (16-18 year old period), my friend and I, plus a couple of other chaps we met at the college decided to start our own band, so we all went out and bought our first instruments (or rather, persuaded our parents to buy them for us). We very quickly usurped the playing prowess of our inspirational friends, but never managed to create enough of our own compositions or covers to actually perform in public.

Then it was off to University. First term I was in lodgings so didn't have a guitar, but then moved into halls so annoyed the rest of the floor with my practising. In the second and third years ('80 '82) I joined a band where we re-worked some of the singer and bassist's previous band's songs, from new-wave style into a rocky style, though still with some new-wave elements to it. You could almost call it grunge (but it was before grunge existed). We played quite a few gigs, got a good name in the locality and were lucky to find another student who had his own PA, lighting rig and transport, who provided his services for free! And this was a big multi-cab PA from the '70s, not the neat tops and subs systems you get nowadays.

Here we are, posing for a publicity shot (I'm 2nd right).

19119

Shortly after coming back from Uni and getting a job, some of us put together a one-off band for a charity gig, called One Day Heroes. Mainly classic rock numbers and a very loud hired-in PA with a rather drunk mixer in a small church hall. It was great fun. But then half that band formed their own group, whilst the rest, including me, did a lot of practising in semi-formed bands with fluid line-ups that rarely performed because the main singer had lost his confidence and didn't want to gig.

Then 10 years after the One Day Heroes gig, we decided to put the band back together for another charity gig (One Day Heroes - the Second Day), except this time the band grew and added two trumpets and a sax, plus three backing singers and a percussionist and the music changed from rock to soul/R'n'B. If it was on the Blues Brothers or Commitments soundtracks, then we played it. It went down so well that the band stayed together (after changing its name to Rough At The Edges) for 13 years, with a few personnel changes. Two lots of couples that the band threw together eventually got married and had kids. This eventually led to the demise of the big 12-13 piece band as it became impossible to get all the band to a rehearsal (we only rehearsed every other week) and it took ages to learn new songs.

So it stripped down to a 4-, then 5-piece (when we added a keyboard player) blues/blues-rock band (called Stormy Waters), which rehearsed every week. We became pretty good at playing but weren't that good at getting gigs.

I got into home-recording about 13 years ago, and have a reasonable set-up and collection of mics, but unless I have a specific purpose, like recording a friend or attempting some band demos, I rarely record any new stuff, but end up re-mixing the older tracks I've done, using new plug-ins and better techniques that I've learnt from others.

Ill health (I have a currently-mild form of leukaemia which weakens my immune system, so I picked up every bug going whilst commuting, but isn't bad enough in itself to require treatment) plus associated stress at work eventually stopped me playing with the band about 4 years ago. It was a 40-minute drive to rehearsals, plus setting up and packing away time either end of a two hour rehearsal, so that and the round trip after work was o wake up at 5.30 the next day) as I felt I was becoming unreliable so didn't want to slow them down. They added a female singer and went a lot poppier in their material, so although I am now feeling a lot better than I was, it's not easy to rejoin them in my old role.

I stopped working about 3 years ago, as I eventually became too unreliable to continue, so now get my income via an insurance policy (though officially still on my company's books). So having a go at building kit guitars is now one of my new hobbies, and not working is the main reason I post so much here!

I did play half a gig with the old band a few weeks ago doing some of the old stuff, as it was a more performance orientated gig, and occasionally mix for them, but would like to get back into gigging more regularly. If I could sing, I could probably set up my own band, but I can't sing, so that's unlikely to happen.

As I've grown older, my musical tastes have broadened, so I now like a fair bit of jazz and classical, some electronica, blues, rock and folk but am not keen on modern metal, rap, hip/hop etc, though I can appreciate the technical side of those idioms through meeting people who've worked in those areas. And I like a good tune regardless of genre.

dave.king1
04-05-2017, 05:51 AM
Nice tale Simon, good luck with the illness.

The not being confident enough as a singer to front a band is the reason I stopped when I did, we were doing an incredible amount of work and the rest of the band wanted to do more and having just started my second marriage I wanted to do less so in the interest of us remaining friends I dropped out.

Chuck
04-05-2017, 07:35 AM
Great story Simon, except the illness part of course - I sincerely hope it all pans out okay. It's interesting how we all get thrown various challenges along the way yet the music, once you've found even a small part of it, remains with us forever.

dave.king1
04-05-2017, 08:14 AM
once you've found even a small part of it, remains with us forever.

Music like all of the arts finds us, we may find our place in it but it finds us ;)

pablopepper
04-05-2017, 12:23 PM
Grew up listening to my parent's record collection. Stones, Beatles, Dire Straits, the Jackson Five and Simon and Garfunkel were pretty popular in my household. At age 8 I started piano lessons. Hated the lessons, really dug the theory (wish I kept that up), but loved messing about and making up stupid songs. At age 10 I discovered Def Leppard and decided electric guitars were the coolest thing on the planet. Not much has changed since then, ha!

I began playing guitar on an el cheapo 60s classical acoustic which originally belonged to my aunt. It had three strings because the rest of the tuning machines had broken off. I got a book from the library about guitars and learned to tune those three strings off the piano and I was away. A year or two later when I started high school, I also swapped piano lessons for guitar lessons with a borrowed classical with a full complement of strings. I cannot tell you how much I hated it. Spent a whole year relearning scales and theory when all I wanted to do was jam out on some chords. Gave up and returned the guitar.

At 15, I had my first proper job and a little bit of cash of my own to burn. Bought myself a bright red Falcon brand stratocaster copy (never heard of them since). It was a piece of crap, plywood body, crackly electronics and a bend in the neck that could launch arrows, but I loved it. This time, no lessons, just sat in my room and played along with my stereo. A few friends showed me how to play barre chords and that was it. In love. It was a good time for this to happen, early 90s, hair metal virtuosos were on the way out and grunge was starting to make an impression. All of a sudden being in a band was a possibility without having to have the skills of a shred demon. My first band Talon(ugh) was comprised of like minded fellows from my scout group with the added advantage of being able to use the scout hall as a rehearsal space. We played the local 'battle of the bands' circuit for a while playing covers of whatever was popular at the time (ie. lots of Nirvana, etc), never had a reliable drummer so fizzled out after a couple of years.

After high school finished, I joined up with a few lads who had gone to my school, but never really mingled with, and formed PDA (it stood for Please Don't Ask, hilarious right?). My first proper originals act. Heavily REM/Pixies influenced, it was a sort of alternative/folk/punk thing. Lots of vaguely angsty songs sometimes with piano and violin! Thanks to early shifting lineups, we found ourself at one point with three guitarists and no bass player. That's when I took the plunge and started as a four stringer. Bass, for whatever reason, felt a lot more natural to me and I fell into the groove and never looked back. A few years, a bunch of gigs and a lot of fun times later that band imploded due to internal tensions.

Spent a while trying to start something else up, but nothing ever seemed to gel. I got heavily into funk music. Bootsy, Parliament, James Brown. Also discovered Zappa. Weirdly, these influences led to an off hand, rather intense conversation at a party with a guy who performed the raps on my brother's band's (Hot Rubber Glove) records. A few days later I got a call to come and audition for a band he was putting together. This band ended up being my taste of the real music scene. Schoolfight was hip hop/rock outfit with ambition. In my time with the band, we put out 2 eps, a studio and a live album, we toured all over Queensland and a bit of NSW, headlined sold out shows at venues I had only dreamed about, played with bands I admired, got national airplay on multiple radio stations, had music featured in short films and a few dirtbike and snowboard videos and placed in the top 15 of the 4ZZZ Hot 100 twice. All things I really never thought possible. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with that band, but as a new father discovered that I did not have the time or will to dedicate to family, full time work and full time band, so I quit. The band is still around 10 years later, and I still go see them play once a year or so.

After that I lost interest, packed my gear up and didn't look at it for about 3 or 4 years. When I finally did find the will to get back in to it, I found my guitars needed work and I didn't want to pay for them to get set up (thanks to bad experience with a tech telling me my guitar was "unrepairable" AFTER they had charged me $100. The truss rod was stuck, I fixed it myself), I decided to learn to do it myself. Not long after that I came across a post about kit guitars on Reddit by Adam which led me here, and I've been here ever since.

http://i.imgur.com/xuhlZdZ.jpg
Valley Fiesta show at the Zoo in Brisbane 2005 or 2006. I'm the one with the bass, duh.

king casey
04-05-2017, 02:38 PM
Some common themes here.
As I posted in my intro post, I started on guitar @ 12 (my twin brother started on bass the same day).
The Beatles and Stones were the main offenders.
Alice Cooper & Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd when in high school.

Reached 16 and dumped the guitar in favour of saxophone.
Set myself up as a busker, with a view to getting gigs...a sideline in CD's.
Being doing that now for 7 years.
A few months back now I got back into learning the guitar.

Meanwhile my brother hasn't done too bad.
I got a mention on his wiki page :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyn_P._Casey

cheers, Mark.

pablopepper
04-05-2017, 02:45 PM
Holy crap, the Triffids, the Blackeyed Susans and the Bad Seeds! That's a hell of a career.

wazkelly
04-05-2017, 02:54 PM
Some really good back stories here.

@ Simon, hope your health remains good so that you can get back into building when the weather fines up over there.

Simon Barden
04-05-2017, 04:47 PM
Thanks. I'm really not bad at all most of the time - especially as I can now generally control who I meet with and avoid people who have colds/flu etc. Whilst there are never any guarantees in life, what I've got is one of those things that often doesn't get any worse - it's certainly stable at the moment - and I suffer more from my depression (though that's normally OK) than my CLL.

wazkelly
04-05-2017, 08:09 PM
Hopefully this forum helps you find other things to keep you occupied and therefore keep the blues away.

Simon Barden
04-05-2017, 09:18 PM
Sometimes it's just too tempting to keep sitting by the computer and not getting on and doing things. I've got an old DIY kit monosynth that I took apart to replace all the key contacts on. A$300 of new J-wire contacts but I've done nothing on it for two years now!

DrNomis_44
04-05-2017, 10:58 PM
@ Simon Barden As a person who was diagnosed with minor depression a few years ago, you're not the only one mate.


While describing my musical roots, I forgot to include how I started off getting interested in music and one of the first musical instruments I learnt to play, anyway, I guess it all started in primary school, one of the subjects was music, I've read some of my old school reports and one teacher commented that I enjoyed music, one of the first musical instruments I remember learning to play was a recorder, I think my interest in playing guitars started when I was about 6 years old, I had to undergo surgery on the muscles of both my eyes because I was born cross-eyed as well as colour-blind and short-sighted (technically I should be wearing my glasses but they sometimes make it hard to focus my eyes, I can see well enough without them to be able to cross a road safely), so, my parents flew with me down to Perth (this was when MMA Airlines was still operating in the 70's, I have fond memories of that time), and I had the operations done at Princess Margaret Hospital (surprised that I can still remember that), and they were able to get my eyes more or less properly aligned so I could see better, after the operations I had to wear special sunglasses and I remember that my mum bought me a toy electric guitar made from thin painted sheet metal, she bought it because she thought I looked like a rock star.

Kick
05-05-2017, 02:35 AM
The illness really sucks Simon :(

juddernaut
31-05-2019, 02:44 PM
My brother bought SGT Pepper as my first album when I was 6. It started with the Beatles then they still going strong for me 45 years later.
Other early influences were Stones and Elton John Yellow Brick Road

DarkMark
31-05-2019, 08:55 PM
When I was knee high to a grasshopper my Nana passed an organ on to our household. I had to take lessons, I learnt to read music (for which I’m eternally grateful). I didn’t stick with it.
Flash forward several years.
My older brother had an extensive cassette collection with lots of bands I’d never heard off. I must of been 14yo when one night I decided to grab two random albums from my brothers cassette collection to listen to while I did my homework. They were Starfish by The Church and Pleased To Meet Me by The Replacements. There was no going back. Not only did I like what I was hearing, but to me it was better than what I was hearing in the popular charts. It was Indi/alternative music for me from then on.
18yo and on the dole. Looking for work as best as an 18yo knows how, but needed a reason to get out of bed each morning. Brought a cheap pawn shop guitar and started about 12 months of guitar lessons. I remember it had a stick for a bridge.
Got interested in Jazz later in life through returning to guitar lessons and my former guitar tutor, Ross Gibson down in Gosnells (recommendation).

king casey
01-06-2019, 04:06 AM
Brought a cheap porn shop guitar
(recommendation).

Geez I didn't know the local knocking shops were a broad church.

I suffered a similar fate though...getting sucked down the jazz hole.
I did see Count Basie @ the Perth Concert Hall in '79.

cheers, Mark.

DarkMark
01-06-2019, 05:08 AM
Geez I didn't know the local knocking shops were a broad church.

I suffered a similar fate though...getting sucked down the jazz hole.
I did see Count Basie @ the Perth Concert Hall in '79.

cheers, Mark.

Freudian slip? I need a proof reader.

king casey
01-06-2019, 07:43 AM
Freudian slip? I need a proof reader.

No worries, I've stuffed it up also...unless 'porn shops' have a 'try-before-you-buy' policy.

On the topic though. Perth often missed a lot of the big acts due to location.
Managed to see the duo of Oscar Peterson and Joe Pass...also at the Perth Concert hall.

cheers, Mark.

Fretworn
01-06-2019, 11:06 AM
As a pre-schooler I was so determined to listen to music all the time that I taught myself how to use the record player, much to my mother’s chagrin. One of the first albums I was fascinated with was an original copy of Switched on Bach. I also listened to a lot of jazz and orchestral music that my mother listened to. My dad never “listened” to music, it was always just background for him, but I think it was through him we had the comedy records - Bill Cosby, Allan Sherman, that sort of thing. I have two older sisters, the oldest is 7 years older than me, so she introduced a few rock compilations to the house where I got to hear AC/DC, Stevie Wright, Sweet, etc. My second eldest sister liked ABBA, Elvis and the Grease soundtrack. So I had music coming from everywhere.

I’ll give it a go
01-06-2019, 03:08 PM
My music story is:

I’m not a musician, I can play a bit but wish I could play a lot better. Wish I started when I was a nipper and had more time on my hands.

I bought my first guitar (acoustic) because I wanted to play Elvis songs. I soon found out it was far more difficult than I thought. It sat in my bedroom for years until that is, I heard Oasis. I learned a track from a computer program called cast no shadow. From then on I would fade in and out of playing, found it very difficult. Still playing mainly Oasis songs (I’m surprised my missus never divorced me).

I’m now 50 and this year I want to learn how to play the blues. I’m getting there but very slowly. YouTube has been my go to.

My tastes I’m music are quite wide, Elvis, Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Foofighters, Nirvana, Madness, ACDC, SRV, just discovered Albert Collins, BB King and a bit of rap, Ice Cube and co.

That’s me done, who’s next.


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FrankenWashie
01-06-2019, 03:57 PM
It is a very interesting little rabbit hole to wander down isn't it?

I grew up with my dad rocking Elvis, Marty Robbins, The Highwaymen, The Irish rovers, Kenny Rogers. I really didn't discover music that really moved me, until the early to Mid 80's. It was watching Carlos Santana do Black Magic Woman at Live Aid that made me want to pick up a guitar. I quickly found Cream, the Who, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, SRV, Midnight Oil. I had the privilege of seeing Albert Collins as my first ever live Gig just prior to his passing which just reinforced that i needed to play guitar. I was also fortunate to catch Hunters and Collectors several times in Auckland which blew my tiny little mind.

Then Grunge Happened. I lost the nineties to Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Mother Love Bone. My Brothers plugged me into Metallica, and the rest of the "Big Four" and my youthful teenage anger saw me belatedly find Public Enemy, NWA, RATM and the like. Of late i have rediscovered some of the Classical music my grandparents used to play, but its all gotten heavier and louder in the last decade or so. I've enjoyed a lot of the stuff that our forum mates have posted, and of late some of the more jazz oriented things i have are getting more airplay.

But there's always room for some monster metal riffs!

Marcel
01-06-2019, 05:56 PM
Some great stories here.... I guess it's my turn.

Dad loved opera and classical orchestral music. Mum was a more Hank Williams kind of listener. We had a great stereo for it's day. 10W per channel in the early '70's. An uncle left an acoustic guitar with us and I often banged on it only to make noise. At age 12 my parents offered me lessons and a guitar that could actually be played, my F25 Fender acoustic which I still have to this day.

At 13 another uncle took me to my first concert. 5 bands. Dragon, Kevin Borich, LRB, Santana and Fleetwood Mac at Calder speedway.

At 15 I got my Ason strat copy. Plywood body monster that permitted imagination of being some kind of Hendrix style rock god... I wished... Also got the complete Beatles and Rolling Stones song books. I learned and could play every song in those books. My school friends were all impressed, as was school, they bought a Fender Jazz bass and amp to allow me to play in the school band and annual school drama play. It was here I learned that while I enjoyed being in the production I did not enjoy being on stage.

A 6 year stint in the RAAF finished with me getting a Diploma in Audio Engineering from SAE. My tearing apart the pro mixes of 'Everybody want's to rule the world' and 'all those zombies' earned me a position as instructor for a while, I soon diverted and hit the road pulling sound with touring bands around Brisbane. A side line that quickly grew was repairing amplifiers at the Musicians Pro Shop, followed by being the audio repair technician at Expo 88.

A few years in rural radio broadcasting followed by 6 years with WIN television meant the guitars found their way to the closet. 19 years in aviation meant the dust just got thicker. Redundancy 10 years too early, sickness and boredom had me wiping away the dust, and finding this site.

Back into radio broadcasting these days, Mostly 4RO and 4CC, and others like the KIX network and odd jobs for MMM... and lots of free time to practice what I thought I had forgotten...

OliSam
06-06-2019, 11:16 AM
Grew up in a house where Dad played records from the '50s and Mother played tne Beatles...
Loved the rawness of the old rockers such as Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and co...
Then one day I heard Tim Buckley's Greetings From LA and fell in love with the Bass playing of Chuck Rainey
The rest, as they say, is history.. but it is due to Chuck Rainey that I ultimately became a Luthier.. well, Chuck and the fact that I totally suck at playing :D

Agreed.....Greetings from LA was a real turning point for me.

Loving this thread!



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Sonic Mountain
06-06-2019, 12:42 PM
Bit late to this party.....

Where to start? Music wasn't really a big deal in my house growing up. My mum insisted I learn piano when I was younger which I really disliked. I did learn to read music so that was a silver lining. A few years later when I was about 12 I discovered we had an old acoustic guitar in a cupboard. My school was offering free afternoon lessons so I asked if I could put some strings on it and try to learn. My mum, having been through the angst of trying to get me to practice piano basically said 'whatever' and left me to it. That was probably for the best because without the pressure I found it a lot more enjoyable.

I wasn't very good, in fact, the only reason I can play at all is sheer bloody mindedness. I had a terrible singing voice and almost no ability to recognise pitch. This has improved over the years, but again only because I worked at it.

The music played in my home growing up was largely classical and opera, with a bit of other stuff sprinkled over it. It wasn't until my peers started listening to music that I really paid any attention. My first early loves were Def Leppard, Motley Crue and Faith no More. The latter has stuck with me, as Mike Patton has grown and explored I've followed him some pretty weird places.

The real revelation for me came in year 7 or 8. I was reading 'Issue One' comics and in particular Zero Assasin. One of the quirks of that comic was that it had a soundtrack listed to play while you read it. This particular comic called for 'Wave of Mutilation' by the Pixies. I had seen Pixies graffitti on the goth kids bags and asked one I kind of knew if I could get a copy of that song. He ended up giving me all of Doolittle and it was an absolute revelation to 13 or 14 year old me. This music was so weird and awesome, yet sounded like a garage band mucking around. Especially the lead guitar.. how was he making that noise??? So I went down a huge musical rabbit hole. I've heard it said that any teen who listens to the Pixies forms a band. I was no exception. That particular project is still going nearly 30 years later.

I became a bit of a musical snob for about 10 years and actually missed the real birth of grunge.. it sounded like a rip off of my favourite band but not as good to me. Funnily enough, years later and soon after his death I saw an interview with Kurt Cobain where he said the pixies were one of his biggest influences. Cue me tracking down as much Nirvana as I could find and learning how to appreciate it... and play it.

It took a while, but a have branched out hugely now and there are many bands/artists I follow pretty closely. Beck, Blur, Gorrillaz, Alice Donut, Arctic Monkeys, Regurgitator.. the alternate rock catalogue is pretty big and ever growing as I go back and look at my influences influences - Husker Du, Bowie, Queen, The Beatles etc etc.

The Pixies have stayed my main squeeze. They actually broke up the year I discovered them.. but when I heard they reformed in 2007 hell nor high water would stop me seeing them. That they are able to recreate their sound live almost flawlessly blows me away every time.. and I've probably seen them 6 or 7 times now.

So that's the extremely condensed version of my musical genisis......

king casey
06-06-2019, 07:41 PM
Agreed.....Greetings from LA was a real turning point for me.


Got my licence @ 17 and me first car was a Hillman Hunter.
Only one cassette on rotation for about a year ...'Greetings From L.A.'

cheers, Mark.

DarkMark
06-06-2019, 08:00 PM
The Pixies Doolittle album was my first ever CD, Sonic. I was 15 years old. Pixies (and U2) were the reason I wanted to pick up the guitar in the first place.

I’ll give it a go
06-06-2019, 08:02 PM
The Pixies Doolittle album was my first ever CD, Sonic. I was 15 years old. Pixies (and U2) were the reason I picked up the guitar in the first place.

U2 are coming to Perth this year with the Chief himself Noel Gallagher supporting.


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DarkMark
06-06-2019, 08:06 PM
U2 are coming to Perth this year with the Chief himself Noel Gallagher supporting.


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I believe they are doing the Joshua Tree anniversary tour. I would be interested but I don’t think I’ll be in the country when they come to Perth. I have a wedding to go to in Thailand in November.

I’ll give it a go
06-06-2019, 08:17 PM
I believe they are doing the Joshua Tree anniversary tour. I would be interested but I don’t think I’ll be in the country when they come to Perth. I have a wedding to go to in Thailand in November.

No way that’s a shame, yes your right it is the Joshua tree tour. Work got to busy today and I missed out on the live nation allocations. Another sale coming soon I think.


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DarkMark
06-06-2019, 09:29 PM
Getting a bit off the thread here, but I saw the U2/BBKing Rattle and Hum tour in 1992 at the Entertainment Centre second row right in front. Not bad for my first ever gig. They pulled someone out of the crowd to join in on guitar during All Along The Watchtower. They were having trouble finding a volunteer. I was 17yo at the time and I hadn’t started playing guitar yet. To think, if it had been a couple of years later I’m sure it would of been me up in front of a packed Entertainment Centre.

PJSprog
06-06-2019, 11:07 PM
I'll toss mine in here as well.

I grew up in a house always filled with music. My Mother played piano quite well, and my parents never missed any of the music variety shows on TV. My older sister was big into disco and '70s pop, but early on I discovered the local rock station playing stuff like Hendrix and Sabbath. I became a big fan of bands like Yes and Rush. In the '80s, I started listening to bands like Loudness, Malmsteen, Talas, Vinnie Moore, and all those ridiculously talented players. I also became a fan of classical and baroque music.

In my early adult years, I started listening to more and more baroque/classical music, until at one point it was all I listened to. Then, I stumbled across the new Dream Theater "Scenes ..." album in '99, and reacquainted myself with my old love for progressive rock. I'd always remained a Rush fan, but these guys took that to the next level for me.

Over the years, I've also become fond of some jazz. In addition to the cool modern instrumental stuff, I'm a huge Frank Sinatra fan.

I started playing music at home on our piano, teaching myself from watching my Mother. I wanted to be a drummer, but my grade school music teacher told me they had plenty of drummers, but needed trombones and cornets. I chose cornet, and played through the rest of grade school and junior high school. I quit when I got to high school because the band leader there was a notorious a-hole. My best friend (who'd also quit band for the same reason) started playing guitar in '81, and talked me into buying a bass guitar in '82. Over the years, I've taught myself to play 14 instruments (well, 13, as the grade school teacher taught me cornet).

So, that's me. A music dork my whole life (52 now).

king casey
07-06-2019, 05:54 AM
They pulled someone out of the crowd to join in on guitar

You missed an opportunity to get close-to-the-edge?

boom-boom.

cheers, Mark.

Sonic Mountain
07-06-2019, 08:30 AM
The Pixies Doolittle album was my first ever CD, Sonic. I was 15 years old. Pixies (and U2) were the reason I wanted to pick up the guitar in the first place.

Yep, pretty influential album Doolittle. It sounds lot more simplistic than it is. Their 5 chords over 4 bars or 3 chords over 4 bars so each chord falls on a different part of the drum beat each progression gets really confusing. I've written a few songs like that and tried to to do some of those Pixies songs in various bands.. almost always breaks the drummers mind.

Steev3d
08-06-2019, 06:14 AM
I got my first cassette player at age 7 or 8 my mum brought it back from honkers I think. That and a couple of cassettes. There was one that called heavy songs from heavy groups lol. It had Smoke on the Water and Inna Gadda Da Vida on it to name a couple. She must have just grabbed a handful of random cassettes off some street vendor cos there was that and Yellow Brick Road double cassette by Elton John it's hard to remember all of them.

I can also remember making mix tapes off Double J on this Radio Cassette thing she bought about the same time... The Family Radio Cassette that lived in our kitchen. I used to get in trouble for changing the station from 2GB or whatever my dad used to listen to the races. "What's this shite" he would say as he spun the tuner back to his favorite station. He was always a Sinatra kind of guy.

I had an uncle, my mum's baby bro, who was about 10 or 12 years older than me and a DJ in the disco era. He thought he was cool as fuck and so did I really. I would eaves drop on him and his mates talking about the girls they pulled at the disco and stuff like that. I used to sleep in his old room when I stayed at my granny's place it had a life size painting of Jimi Hendrix painted on the back of the door as an leftover of his teenage years I guess. By the time he made me a few tapes from his collection it was all soul music and disco. Rose Royce and Barry White and Maybe a bit of Earth Wind and Fire pretty much all black artists.

We finally got our first 3 in one stereo sometime in the late 70s I guess and that's when I started buying records. The first one I bought with my own money was Remain in Light by Talking Heads. I don't think I even knew who they were but that was some album. Soon after that I think I bought Peter Tosh Legalise it. I had gotten into reggae about then I guess... I had a bootleg tape of Marley's Babylon by Bus and Sheik Yerbouti by Frank Zappa.

Such eclectic shit I don't know where it all came from, I guess I was kind of a hoarder of musical styles. In the 80s I bypassed a lot of the popular stuff focusing on my own mix tapes off the radio again. A mate of mine had a copy of Machine Head by deep purple and I scored a cassette of that from him. Lazy got a fair beating on my Walkman.

I did have a copy of Regatta De Blanc by the Police. It was the Ragga thing I think... That vibe also lead me onto the Clash I didn't really get the Punk thing but the Clash was a slice above the rest I thought.

Somewhere in the Mid to late 80s I had a band with my mates we practiced in my mum's empty hair salon at weekends drinking beers and smoking weed and playing a strange mix of covers from punk to shoe gaze to who knows what. One of my favorites was an instrumental version of Rock n Roll by the glitter band... (before Garry Glitter was outed as a pedo) Our Drummer "Roars" would go hard on the toms with his mallets and it had this searing chainsaw guitar part that I loved to play and a lot of chanting and shouting. We could stretch that out for 10 minutes. We also did stuff by the UK subs a shit version of Stray Cat Strut by the Stray Cats.

We used to go see a lot of bands at the time at the Kardoma Kafe up the Cross and the Trade Union Club in Surry Hills I can remember some post punk Aussie greats like Feed Time, Psychotic Turnbuckles, Lime Spiders, Celibate Rifles, The Scientists, Blue Ruin and Ed Kueper. Into the mix there were also a few international acts we saw James Brown and The Cult at the same venue but different nights both were incredible.

The band broke up and the late 80s is a blur of pills and Italo Dance music but then came grunge....so much like those garage sounds from Sydney and Melbourne and the opportunity to dig out my collection of flannos again. Good times in the Sydney inner west music scene as a budding designer photographer.

The death of Jeff Buckley and Kurt Cobain, marriage and a move to the northern hemisphere, saw me exploring something sonically different. Nothing like the frozen north to help you appreciate the sparseness of Sigur Ross or Turin Breaks.... There are a lot more musicians in colder climates. IT also helps to focus on indoor pursuits.

Desktop recording opened a whole new world for me Cubase, Logic, Ableton. I have been exploring ever since .... Currently revisiting some stuff that I missed out on first time around .... Ambient guitar, the Genius of Johnny Marr and Vini Reilly .... seeking nuance and understated complexity.

https://soundcloud.com/thesurfnomad/harps-n-chords

https://soundcloud.com/thesurfnomad/permanent-stain

https://soundcloud.com/thesurfnomad/passion-flower

dave.king1
08-06-2019, 11:32 AM
Currently revisiting some stuff that I missed out on first time around .... Ambient guitar, the Genius of Johnny Marr and Vini Reilly .... seeking nuance and understated complexity.

https://soundcloud.com/thesurfnomad/harps-n-chords

https://soundcloud.com/thesurfnomad/permanent-stain

https://soundcloud.com/thesurfnomad/passion-flower

Nice work right there

DrNomis_44
16-06-2019, 07:25 PM
I've been really getting into playing Blues in a big way ever since I bought my Fender Mexican Telecaster, last Thursday I got the chance to play some live music with some local Darwin musicians at the Nirvana club, we jammed on a couple of Blues tunes, had a great time too.

kellymaster
18-06-2019, 06:34 PM
my musical root's begin when i first got into hard music i heard the song. Somebody to love by queen. And specifically the solo. i had never seen play with such feel before an that solo inspired me to play guitar then i heard motorhead for the first time. and then metallica and then system of a down and acdc . but the man that changed my guitar playing life and to this day the man on my profile pic yngwie malmsteen up until this point i was more of a bluesy feel player but when i heard far beyond the sun i was a changed man and then i got into 80s hair metal like dokken. montley crue and judas priest. so thats my musical root's

G-Axe
19-06-2019, 01:28 PM
I grew up in a family that loved music, but didn't play it. When I was about 5, the family got a Commodore 64 that came with a little plastic two octave keyboard overlay and some software that taught you how to play some Beatles tracks. That led to a Casio keyboard and eventually an upright piano along with years of lessons.

My dad is a huge Beatles fan and so they're basically the foundation of my musical knowledge. My earliest music memories are of Sgt Peppers and Abbey Road - Octopus' Garden is about as close as I ever got to "kids" music, so I missed out on Peter Coombe, The Wiggles, etc. Along with the Beatles we had a pretty definitive collection of '60s and '70s pop, and plenty of radio play of 1980's pop. It wasn't until mid 1989 that I discovered heavy guitars through songs like Alice Cooper's Poison and Faith No More's Epic and From Out of Nowhere and became musically "self-aware" - where I realised I had my own musical tastes that extended beyond my parent's collection.

My love of heavier guitars began in earnest as I started high school. Metallica's black album, Use Your Illusion, Blood Sugar Sex Magik and then Nevermind, Ten and Rage Against The Machine were all on heavy rotation and my musical world kind of exploded from there.

Eventually I discovered Triple J and Three Hours of Power, and Machine Head's Burn My Eyes was the first genuinely heavy album I bought, and once I had a job I quickly picked up the entire Pantera discography, Chaos AD and Roots, Demanufacture - all the '90s metal albums worth having (and a bunch not worth having). I also kept expanding my collection of anything and everything with heavy guitars - Tool, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Kyuss, You Am I, Regurgitator, Screaming Jets, etc.

It wasn't until late high school that I first started on guitar. A mate was learning, and taught me how to play a bunch of Nirvana songs - that was when I very quickly realised I needed an instrument I could use to play along to my own musical collection. That Christmas I was lucky enough to get an Aria Pro II SL-STD3 - a fantastically versatile HSS super Strat with no pickguard and a mean, Jackson-ish headstock.

Then as a adult, I've tried to commit myself to constantly challenging my musical tastes, and always expanding. Part of it was probably that my favourite bands either met their demise, or stopped releasing albums with any regularity, but I think it's mostly that euphoria of discovering something new that makes an immediate impression.

That said, even with a diverse listening taste - when it comes to playing music I rarely dial the gain down below 11. ;)

OliSam
19-06-2019, 09:03 PM
We used to go see a lot of bands at the time at the Kardoma Kafe up the Cross and the Trade Union Club in Surry Hills I can remember some post punk Aussie greats like Feed Time, Psychotic Turnbuckles, Lime Spiders, Celibate Rifles, The Scientists, Blue Ruin and Ed Kueper. Into the mix there were also a few international acts we saw James Brown and The Cult at the same venue but different nights

So we were both hanging in the same bars listening to the same bands!




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MusicStudent1
19-07-2020, 09:36 AM
This is an old thread but what the heck....

I saw this when I was 13 or 14. https://youtu.be/KsvtJ2npPiA It caused me to bale hay on a farm, work at McDonald’s, & make pizzas until I had enough money to buy a guitar and amp!

(It was a Sears non-branded Les Paul Copy that I eventually upgraded with DiMarzio Super Distortion pickups. It looked pretty close to Ace’s guitar in the video once I was done with it.)

Yeah...now I’m a 56 year old with the maturity of a 16 year old! I can still play every note of that solo, lol. Thanks a lot, Ace!😉

I got kind of bored with guitar and play bass now. Alex Webster, Billy Sheehan, Jack Pastorious, and Rudy Sarzo are my inspiration nowadays.

Trevor Davies
19-07-2020, 09:46 AM
I'm the same! Still love that early Kiss stuff. I have a fascination with LP's because of this. Moved on to hard rock and classic rock (which my parents said would be a passing phase). Well, it still has not passed! Though now I have matured slightly to rocky blues like Gary Moore, KWS, Joe B. Good times.

MusicStudent1
19-07-2020, 09:49 AM
Yes - my parents did not understand my infatuation KISS music and neither do my kids, lol!

This is OUR music!! I’m ok with it!

dave.king1
19-07-2020, 02:35 PM
This is an old thread but what the heck....

When I started this thread I hoped that it would stay alive for as long as new members came on board and shared their musical foundations

Cliff Rogers
19-07-2020, 09:39 PM
I grew up in the bush in Central Western Queensland & went to a little one teacher school.
My grade 7 teacher had an acoustic guitar that he would play when we had a music class, we would all sing along, that was HEAPS better than the bloody recorder.
He was good, he could play a good variety of sing-a-long stuff which was inspirational.
Every chance I got, I would ask to play his guitar & he taught me a few chords.
His old guitar was getting a bit out of shape & hard to play so he bought a new one.
He took the neck off the old one & glued it back on at a better angle & restrung it & when it was playable, he gave it to me.
That was 50 years ago this year.
The next year I had to move to town to go to high school so I was able to start guitar lessons.
The teacher was a Nun & she taught good old sing-a-long stuff, folk, Bob Dylan, Beatles, CCR & country.
By the end of the 2nd year I was playing bar chords & had managed to borrow an electric guitar & amp.
The next year I joined a band, we played lots of CCR stuff.
Some time during my 4th year of playing I could finger pick Neil Young's 'Needle & The Damage Done'.
Then I saw a kid 3 years younger than me who had only been playing for a bit over a year play it better than I could.... bastard. :rolleyes:
I kept & played that old guitar for 5 years.
It got handed on & I don't know where it ended up.
I still have my first electric & the first acoustic that I bought once I left school & got a job.
Come to think of it, apart from that first one that I handed on, I reckon I still have every other instrument that I have ever owned.... all 26 of them. :o
Anyway, 50 years later & I am still learning. :cool:
I play 6 string acoustic & electric, bass, Uke, baritone Uke & bass Uke.
I can't read music, sheet music is just tadpoles hanging on a clothes line to me.
I can play fairly well by ear, first I figure out the key & then work out the chords.
I play mostly rhythm or bass but I still manage to do a fair bit of finger picking.
I like chords, lots of them, 3 chords are boring.
I like blues, I took a 3 chord 12 bar blues & turned it into a 13 chord 12 bar blues & then added some finger style as well.
I am really enjoying the bass, I have had one for almost 19 years but only got serious about 6 years ago.
I play in 2 bands & a Uke group.
Rhythm in the bands but can fill in on bass if required & bass in the Uke group.
The bands are Gypsy Swing & Blues.
The Uke group is hum & strum sing-a-long, a bit of anything & everything.

Guitar tragic. :p

fender3x
25-07-2020, 11:36 AM
It has been really interesting reading through these. Thank you for sharing your stories!

Like many, my mother tried to get me to play the piano at a young age, but it didn't take. I spent a couple of years trying to learn the trombone. At about 12 I wanted to learn the violin, but my mother thought I'd never have the dexterity and wanted me to try the cello. I didn't like that Idea, but decided to try the string bass, which I played in the orchestra at school for the next 6 years. I was never all that good, and my dyslexia kept me from being able to read the music, although I really tried. I also sang choirs, ensembles and eventually bands. Within a few months of playing in the orchestra, the school music teacher offered to teach me electric bass, and it was off to the races. I soon discovered that a kid with a bass, an amp and a bit of voice could be in a band, even if the kid was not a very good player. Still true ;-)

A couple of years later I got injured playing American football and had to stay home for a few weeks. To fill the time, I learned to play a guitar that my mother had given my dad. it was a horrible high action, steel string piece of junk...but it made my fingers tough. Every since I have had basses and guitars around. I have never been a great player, and in bands I have always been the bass player, and usually a singer as well.

I have always been drawn to blues and blues oriented music. I am not sure where that came from. No one else I knew listened to it growing up. I listened to a wide variety of music, but the bluesy stuff is what has called out to me, and the most recent band I was in was more or less a blues bar band. That's been a while.

I think the builds were a way of experimenting, and also getting my equipment in shape while the kids were little and I could not justify the time to play with a band. Starting to look for the next band now. I don't think I'll ever play seriously enough to give up my day job, but it's even more inconceivable to me that I could give it up.

blinddrew
27-07-2020, 06:31 AM
We always had music in the house growing up, but my parents were much more interested in classical music. I think there was one 'Best of the Beatles' album (never really liked them), One 'Best of the 60s' (which had the usual mixture of excellent and less so), and a best of Simon and Garfunkel (which I always loved - Paul Simon is undoubtedly my longest running influence).
Going to boarding school was what opened the door to what else music had to offer. There were about 60-70 of us in the boarding house, and a few tape-to-tape recorders, so we recorded every chart show off the radio on Saturdays and whenever someone bought a new cassette it was duplicated within an inch of its life! :)
Apparently we were killing music... :\
The first 7" single I bought was Rock Me Amadeus by Falco, my first cassette was a slightly-more-respectable Zenyatta Mondatta by The Police.
The Police, The Pogues, The Cure, The Clash, The Cult, Dire Straights, The Men They Couldn't Hang were probably the core of my early teenage years, accompanied by some more heavy stuff from the likes of AC/DC, Iron Maiden, and Van Halen; as well as some more pop stuff from The Pet Shop Boys, Eurythmics and Ultravox.
Round about this point I bought my first guitar, a Westone Thunder 1A I think. That was a cracking guitar. I started off with the blues, as a lot of people do, and whilst I never got the heavier side of blues, the early delta-style stuff still gets me.
When I first heard REM on a documentary on the TV it blew my little mind, Green had just been released and it was pretty much everything I wanted music to be at that time. They weren't well known in the UK at the time and it took me a while to get hold of all of their albums. Then Out of Time came out and everyone went nuts for them.
Round about that time I started listening to a few more southern hemisphere bands. As well as some of the South African lot (Mango Groove, Stimela, Boyoyo Boys and anyone else who'd been on Graceland) I found a few Australasian ones: Split NZ and Crowded House, Things of Stone and Wood, Men at Work and Midnight Oil. My mind was blown again by the Oils.

When I was 16 I sold the Westone to upgrade but ended up spending the money on vodka in the space of a month.
I still have regrets about that.

And that kind of parked my music for a while until I got to Uni where I met a Chinese chap who remains one of the best and most creative guitarists I've ever worked with.
The first night we jammed it became immediately apparent that he was many times the guitarist i would ever be so I took the singing role. Which was interesting as our music teacher at school had described me as the only person he'd ever met who couldn't sing.
But it gave me an excuse to stick to the chords and that worked for both of us! Round about this time Radiohead released The Bends and Counting Crows released Recovering The Satellites. Guess what happened to my tiny mind?
With Frank we formed our first few bands, but with people moving in and out of Uni none of them ever lasted that long. Eventually I moved to Holland for a bit and he moved to Australia. I think he's still running a very swanky Chinese Restaurant near the Sydney Opera House.

The next phase (which is pretty much the current one) was moving to York around the turn of the century. By this point I'd pretty much settled on being a singer-songwriter and I was playing a lot more acoustic than electric stuff. My flatmate at the time introduced me to Tom McRae and I introduced her to David Ford. Since then you can add Josh Ritter, Gregory Alan Isakov, to the influences list, along with a few more experimental acts like Public Service Broadcasting, Bon Iver and a fair bit of Scandinavian music.
It was in York that I had my brief dalliance with the business side of music. A recording studio in Leeds had moved to York and hooked up with a promoter to start up a record label and they were looking for local acts. I was signed along with a duo and a couple of bands. Sadly the business plan didn't really extend beyond 'play gigs, sell CDs' and the promoter didn't really live up to his end of the deal so we weren't getting gigs, and everyone stopped buying CDs...

So now I do this stuff for fun. I'm still not much of a musician, but I think I'm a reasonable song-writer and I'm improving as a recording engineer and mixer. That's where the bulk of my music time goes now but I'm still fronting a band that was gigging reasonably regularly until C-19 hit. We're just finishing up our second lockdown video now.

WeirdBits
27-07-2020, 02:00 PM
... I sold the Westone ...

I know your pain. Selling my Thunder I (http://www.westone.info/cats/83/p6.html) (not the A) is an endless regret *sob*

Simon Barden
27-07-2020, 03:00 PM
but I'm still fronting a band that was gigging reasonably regularly until C-19 hit.

You've found success using an under 20-minute cassette tape formula? ;)

Sonic Mountain
27-07-2020, 03:08 PM
https://i.imgur.com/XyZ5X88.jpg

blinddrew
27-07-2020, 10:59 PM
You've found success using an under 20-minute cassette tape formula? ;)

Extensive surveying reveals that 19 minutes is as long as any audience can tolerate us.

Is that 'success'? ;)

Simon Barden
27-07-2020, 11:35 PM
That's 4 minutes longer than the supposed average length of people's fame. So I'd say 'yes'.

blinddrew
28-07-2020, 04:03 AM
I know your pain. Selling my Thunder I (http://www.westone.info/cats/83/p6.html) (not the A) is an endless regret *sob*

Sorry, missed this first time. Yep, cracking little guitar. But checking up I have misremembered. I also had the 1 not the 1A. There are a couple of optimistically priced ones on ebay!

dave.king1
28-08-2021, 03:31 PM
Time for a few more to pitch in with their stories, we have plenty of newbies who surely have a tale or two to tell.

JackOnTable
07-12-2021, 09:10 PM
My short story for inspiration.
When I was 10 years old, I was sent to music school to study piano. I didn't like keyboard instruments right away, but strings were great. I started learning to play the guitar, and by the end of school I could play very well. But then I joined the army for 5 years and I gave up music. After I came back from the service, I got a job and got a bass guitar as a gift. It was new to me, as I had played acoustic before.
I wouldn't say I'm very good at it, but I love the feeling the music gives me. I'm fascinated by the sound of the instrument, and I can rattle on for hours on end. Sometimes I play it for my girlfriend, she likes it :)
Maybe when I have more time, I can get more into music.

XP Rider
08-12-2021, 08:49 AM
I'm glad to see this thread reactivated. OK if I come from a totally different world?
I grew up on the great old cowboy music, Sons of the Pioneers, Rex Allen, Gene Autry, etc. My parents' old 78 rpm's.
Like Fender3X, my mother dearly wanted a piano player, but my heart was on the guitar from the start. A guy came out to our little town and taught lessons for about 3 months. He taught me basic chords, and how the fretboard works up the neck. From there, I am pretty much entirely self-taught. Listen and imitate. I never learned to read sheet music, but have a pretty good ear, and can pick up about any straight-forward stuff I can hear.
Early 60's brought the folk crazy, Kingston Trio, Brothers Four, and I couldn't get enough. Later that decade came the British Invasion, and we saw a lot of bands in concert, including the Rolling Stones (tickets were $6 U.S. in 1966, y'all!). Still love the music from that era. The Beatles were OK, but couldn't touch the Beach Boys, I thought. I took the girl I was dating, now my wife, to Jethro Tull. She has forgiven my, but has not forgotten (I still like "em). All-time favorite is Steven Stills (Buffalo Springfield, Manassas, Crosby Stills and Nash).
Now as a geezer, I still favor the '60s and '70s rock, real western and country (what passes for "country" music now is mindless drivel), and Texas songwriters like Guy Clark and Robert Earl Keene, modern Cowboy artists like Dave Stamey and Trinity Seely.
I played in a band in High School, and another as a freshman in College. Always rhythm guitar. Then it was mostly campfire music for most of 50 years. I used to jam folk music with a co-worker 40 years ago, and on retirement, we got together with a drummer. Mostly just jamming, but one day John said to me, "You know, if we're going to do anything with this, we've got to have a lead guitar, and it's about got to be you." Gulp. But since then he has pushed me far beyond where I ever thought I could go, just listening to what plays in my head and working it out on the guitar. Still don't really consider myself more than about a B- grade guitarist, but I'm not embarrassed by what I do. Our band is Mustang Alley (facebook page MustangAlley302). We play mostly old rock-and-roll, but range from Soggy Bottom Boys to Iron Butterfly, Carl Perkins to Freddy Mercury. Whatever sounds like fun.
Occasionally I also get a chance to do some Cowboy Music and Cowboy Poetry. I'm loving it all.

glenwilliam
08-12-2021, 01:37 PM
Great thread! I didn't know it existed and really enjoyed reading everyone's stories. There's so much variety in everyone's journey to end up here on this little part of the internet.

I am gladly feeling like a spring chicken (I just turned 40) with most of the stories starting in the 60's and 70's. Though I may have "missed rock and roll" I caught the bug listening to my mum and dad's records in the early 80s. It was The Beatles that really got me going and although a lot of my mums owned music perished when my uncle snapped her Abba records in half (not sure what he had against them but maybe I could thank him for sparing me) a few remained and I used to listen to my mum's Blondie records from a young age.

When my parents divorced in the mid 80s my mum kept all of the Genesis albums and I think they split their Beatles collection. I remember at a very young age listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas albums. Maybe where I get my pop sensibilities from. Dad opened a lot more doors (pun intended) when we got our first CD player and he started buying albums by The Doors, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin. The summer holidays where when I got the most influence from my dad as we'd often take long road trips up north. Bring on the driving albums mostly chock full of 1970s Australiana (I sang along to Skyhooks' Women in Uniform before I had any vague interest in girls).

Things changed when dad got Sgt. Peppers on CD. I'd sit in the dark in the 'fancy lounge' listening to that album on repeat. Just lying on my back hearing things I've never heard in the 100 other listens.

At the start of high school I found FM radio and guilty pleasures. I also discovered girls, and one in particular in the first week of Year 8 (1994) was an older woman (maybe year 10 or 11) who would draw on her folder on the bus on the way to school. What she was drawing? "NIRVANA" over and over. What did this word mean? What's this weird feeling I have never felt before? She told me about a band that would become an obsession. Imagine, discovering Kurt Cobain a month before he would die. Confusing times in more ways than one! My high school years were a diet of Nirvana, Green Day, The Offspring, Smashing Pumpkins, Oasis, Chili Peppers and later on Silverchair, Foo Fighters, and more Australian stuff like Grinspoon, Jebediah, The Living End, Regurgitator and You Am I. All the while my brother was WAY more angsty than me and could hear Metallica, AC/DC, Pennywise, Sepultura and Pantera blasting from his room. My poor parents.

I got my first (real) 6-string in 1997 and started playing Beatles, Nirvana and REM tunes. I'd learn whole albums, pushing play on a CD and playing right through to the end. Things have changed (though not all that much, I'm still obsessed with the Beatles and Nirvana) since then but those were my roots. People call the 60s and 70s the golden era of rock but I can't complain about growing up in the 90s and hearing all of that first hand. I started my first band in Year 11 with my brother's friend and his brother. We played at the school talent quest that year and got disqualified for having a member who didn't attend our school (we snuck someone in wearing a borrowed school uniform). All after I gave my best screams during Silverchair's No Association. Still got the girls interested though.

dave.king1
08-12-2021, 06:11 PM
Cool stories guys, thanks for giving us a window into your music.

GerardL
06-02-2022, 10:59 AM
My story..

The Beginnings:
I started playing at the age of 14 after begging my parents to order me a Satellite Strat copy from the Kays Club book (a kind of mail order, pay by instalment thing that was common in Ireland in the 70's). When it arrived I was a little disappointed as it was only 3/4 size. But it was still and electric guitar!
I had previously heard a school friend play electric guitar with a fuzzbox pedal and couldn't believe he wasn't tricking me and just had a radio in his amp. He showed me how to play a D chord and I occasionally walked the 45min to his house to ask him to tune my guitar and watch him play with his family band.
From the D chord lesson and watching him I was soon playing by ear and learning (incorrectly - but my way) how to play the Status Quo Gold Bars Album. (It was the only 'rock' music at home at the time). I played though our home HiFi as an amp and that worked fine for my skill level.
To the annoyance of my family I never put the guitar down and played with every advert on TV and any soundtrack in the movie we were watching. They never complained.. to be honest. But I was aware that playing unplugged got me less glances :)

Two Years later:
I now had a small 10w practice amp, one of those terrible ones with inbuilt tremolo, an Ibanez fuzz pedal and ElectroLabs Phaser. My guitar was still the Satellite and I had just heard Van Halen Eruption! That started me on the Heavy Rock path, but I also had a passion for classical guitar pieces, although I couldn't really play them, I just did my simplified version of pieces by Segovia and even organ classics like Bach Toccata in Dm.. but my real passion was rock music. I was most influenced by Tom Sholtz and the first two Boston Albums which I learned by ear.

5 Years Later.
My family had moved to South Africa, I contributed as a sound engineer for heavy metal band Tyrant, joined a metal band called Exocet but I didn't settle and so with only 250 GBP in my pocket I had returned on my own to Ireland.
I brought with me an Ibanez Rocket Roll MKII V that my Dad had bought for me in SA. One day after arriving back in Ireland I went to the music shop and bought a souped up Marshall Plexi 100watt head and 4x12 Marshall Cab. They were very 'used' and cost 200 GBP.
My Plexi was sooo loud that at even Vol level 2 it was louder that a JCM800 50watt head on full. I played in a metal band called Sidewinder and we proudly insisted on being the loudest Metal band around. At this stage I was influenced a lot by Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Loudness, Ozzy etc. Together with a bassist I later started a Hard Rock band called So What! and we played up and down the country and were quite successful, signing tracks to Now TV for their extreme sports videos and reaching number 2 in the chart and staying there for 8wks. etc.

40 years since getting my first guitar and I now currently have 14 guitars, a full wall of Marshalls, my own studio and play every day. Im currently playing in original band MR THUD in Australia (we have released a couple of albums and an EP, but are not a success unless you count personal satisfaction.. and thankfully we do) Im also in process of kicking off a new tribute show covering early Van Halen (Roth), Thin Lizzy and Ozzy (Jake E Lee and Rhoads era). I still love the music of early Boston, but have to say I have been most influenced by White Lions Vitto Bratta and Van Halen and the late great Gary Moore during his Victims of the Future era.

Well that's my story so far..

Rabbit
06-02-2022, 12:06 PM
My story isn't all that complex. As a kid I was into the Beatles. When I got older it just wasn't doing it for me...but Suzi Quatro was....but it just wasn't enough ... and I discovered ACDC. I dug it, but still not quite what I was looking for. Towards the end of high school a scoolmate gave me a mix tape. On it was some Queen, some ACDC, some Sex Pistols, a little Iron Maiden and Mettalica. I dug it all, but my happy place was with Metallica. Later I discoverd Anthrax and Mortal Sin. Just didn't dig Slayer or Megadeath. I had tried to learn guitar, but due to an injury to my wrist when I was a kid (I jumped out of a tree)., couldn't contort my wrist to play chords. I picked up a bass and found comfort in the instrument. I turned my back on Mettalica after napster, and only just recently re-connected thanx to the research I had been doing on Cliff. I no longer have the urge to throw a brick through the screen any time I see Lars Ulrich show up....well mostly anyways.I guess doing research for some of these builds has kinda opened me up to music I hadn't realy paid too much attention to... I knew should but didn't. Well that's about it .

bassdude
02-05-2022, 08:49 AM
Growing up as a PK (Pastor's kid) & youngest of 4 boys, music has always been in my family. Mum was quite accomplished on piano and organ & Dad had a beautiful tenor voice. They were quite the inspiration. Mum even went onto to teaching piano and organ, & in her 60s & 70s learned pipe organ on the Wollongong Town Hall organ under the tutelage of Robert Ampt who was principal organist (or some title like that) of the Sydney Opera House organ at the time. She gained much enjoyment into her 80s on the roster of pipe organists around various cathedrals around Wollongong. When I was in primary school, Mum organised piano lessons for all 4 of us & I continued those until after we moved in 4th Grade, having progressed as far as 3rd Grade on Piano. Taught me enough about reading music & the basics of sight reading, which I've always appreciated. Church music over the years has meant choirs, musicals (both as performer & later in the pit) & many years of playing bass in various worship teams.

There's a big hole in my musical influences after the early 80's, since I was married @ 20 in '82 & kids (x3) began when we were both 21. Prior to that I guess Countdown through the 70s formed a secular foundation. The biggest influence was from the early Jesus music era with the likes of Barry McGuire, Larry Norman, Randy Stonehill, Chuck Girard, Phil Keaggy & Keith Green. It was when my group of high school friends discovered Keith Green, & one of our crew was a wiz on piano & keyboard, that my previous dabbling on acoustic guitar gravitated towards bass because inspired keyboard musicianship & music was also driven by bass lines that just couldn't be overlooked. I stuck my hand up & got my first bass guitar, an Aria solid bodied violin bass that a mutual school friend was trying to offload. That was in '77 & it's been bass ever since. There were a couple gospel oriented bands, one in high school already mentioned, Cornerstone, & then I joined my brother Vic's band after high school & they rebranded with the name Homebrew. When marriage &, soon after, family arrived my regular gigging days were over by end of '82. It's just been church worship teams since with the occasional helping out friends with their own album releases & adhoc concerts here & there over the years. Work in IT has also meant a couple of overseas contract stints (in US), '94-95 in Dallas, TX, & '14-15 in Dubuque IA. On each of these occasions I've been blessed to be welcomed into the local church worship team & do what I love best - glorifying God with the gifts he's given me & playing a part literally in leading others into His presence. Lockdown has brought about the longest hiatus from regular music I've known, & thankfully now that has afforded some time to explore the mysterious world of luthiery as I begin to work through my HB-4 Hobbit Bass build :-)

A timeline:
1968 Ukelele in 1st Grade, Warialda NSW
1969 Piano lessons begin
1970 1st acoustic guitar
1972 Piano lessons end (3rd grade ACMS), Laurieton NSW
1977 1st bass, Aria solid body violin bass, joined Cornerstone Corrimal High, Wollongong NSW
1980 Ibanez Musician, joined Homebrew
1980-82 besides a few gigs around Illawarra & southern Sydney, Homebrew got involved with prison ministry Broken Chains & performed numerous concerts inside gaols from min to max security, including Berrima, Silverwater, Norma Parker, Long Bay, Goulburn, Parramatta
2003 Ashton AB-1505 5-string became my goto instrument. I love playing it detuned A-D-G-C-F
2014 Godin A5 Ultra SA purchased while we were in Iowa for couple of years. Got it defretted & since then I rarely touch the Ashton 5. I love fretless!
2016 Built fEARful 15/6/1-tube bass cab with True3way x-over. Awesome FRFR cab, I chose the 'tube profile over the standard simply because I'd like to one day also build a 12/6/1 which can be stacked (sideways) on top for an ultimately over-the-top combination to use in every possible situation: 12/6/1, or 15/6/1, or both. I'll most likely never even drive the 15 to its limits, but who doesn't dream of the ultimate rig!
2022 8mths after my 60th b'day received HB-4 kit as 60th birthday gift from my brothers. Currently working slowly towards completing the Hobbit Bass (isn't that what HB stands for?)!

Peter