What are your roots

[dave.king1]

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]

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]

Oooohh, here's a rabbit hole to disappear down... .... 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]

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 )

[king casey]

'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]

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 )

[dave.king1]

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]

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

[Dedman]

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]

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.