Current Music Bio - Spanish Original Song and Guitar
In a Nutshell: I sing original spanish lyrics against a backdrop of Latin / Flamenco fusion guitar skills. For details about the roots and influences of what I play check out my page entitled “Guitar Influences”.
Over the past 10 years I have played at venues and events in and around South Eastern Tasmania and the Tasman Peninsula.
Haunts: Recently I played at the Summer Sounds held by the City of Hobart as part of their summer festival. I have played extensively at events and venues including the Clarence Jazz Festival, Hot August Jazz, Mona and the Cygnet Folk Festival. Other places I have also performed are Willie Smiths Cider Shed, Bangor, Pickers Pantry, The Pear Shed, Bream Creek Farmers Market, Koonya Hall, Eco Village and various open mikes, private events and often lead kirtans! Check out my contact details to get me to your event!
Ongoingly: From 2018 I have soloed at Okines almost every 1st Monday of the month. This is a community event I do for “Garden Tucker”. I perform at the odd Soiree for Okines Community house. I still put my name down every month for the Okines Community Garden Jam every 3rd week of the month. Since 2018 I have built up my Spanish vocals and forged a Jose Feliciano derivative guitar technique from an interest in his earlier years of playing in the 1960’s. I keep honing my Spanish language skills by attending a Spanish Group every week or so.
Origins: Around 2015 I started doodling around with Latino Spanish Bolero guitar. I used to play on the verandah of Hans Pfister’s old shack at 4 Eularminner St. Carlton. Han’s had some great rasgueado techniques picked up from busking in Europe and amazing ability to pick the chords for any melody on the spot. I had some picado technique. It worked well together and passers by would hoot on their way back from the beach.
I started writing some Spanish lyrics to sing with what we were playing and since then has ended up with a 2 hour + repertoire of original tunes of a Latino Bolero style (This has nothing to do with Ravels opera entitled “Bolero”).
From there we moved on to Angela Paneretos' lounge room cabarets sharing the bill with Warren Mason and Tim Duffy (Mama Smooth).
Then we started playing at the Okines Community Garden, Dodges Ferry's mini answer to Ceres Community Environment Park Melbourne. Ash Dargan (Coloured Stone) used to join us to play Djembe and American Indian flute.
Way Back Then: Playing a variety of instruments since a young age means music has been a large part of my life since the age of 7. Around 2003 my son had a few guitar lessons which inspired me to pick up the guitar, the instrument I passed music with in college. From then on I made a pact that in my 9-5 job I would get up at 5 am and practice guitar at least 40 minutes a day. At that time I was going through the Real books keeping hold of the Jazz standards I’d learned more than 10 years ago when teaching sax and using guitar to accompany a full contingent of private students I was teaching in Melbourne back in the 1980’s.