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...
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