I'm into music a fair bit.
If you scroll through the next few pages, you'll be able to read a potted history of my musical life/career/escapades. Alternatively, click the links in the menu on the left for tech specs and MP3 downloads.
One of the earliest photos of me that I can remember is of me sat at a huge Yamaha double-keyboard organ when I was about 3 or 4. My dad won it in a competition or something, and he had it for years until he exchanged it for a very nice Trace Elliot TA-40CR acoustic guitar amplifier. Anyway, I got into playing the keyboard. Things got exciting when dad bought an ancient analogue synth in an amazing wooden case with lots of knobs on it, but I didn't really understand the specifics of frequency modulation at 7 years old, so it was soon swapped (looking back, what a mistake!) for one of the early Casio CZ range of synths. It had some really quite cool sounds on it (and I still use the organ sounds for a bit of retro bass now again) but it does have its limitations. However, that Casio introduced us to the wonders of MIDI sequencing, and together with a little Yamaha two-track solid-state sequencer we could weave magic. Or something.
When I went to secondary school in 1992 I met two of the most encouraging teachers ever. Liam Gamage and John Bamford were the sole music teachers in the school, and I'm sure that without them always pushing me to do new things I'd never have reached the stage I'm at now. Within a couple of terms I'd joined forces with Mark Lomas and formed Sterling Beat - a band with whom I travelled as far as Germany, until I left in 1998 due to a few tensions in the ranks.
Sterling Beat mk.1 sucked. I've got a video somewhere of our first gig (me on a couple of the music department's synths - put at right angles so that I could feel like my hero Rick Wakeman - and Mark bashing away on drums). We stank. We were actually the support act for the real stars of the show, the Pen Top Bangers - 4th years who mimed to metal tunes. It was a shambles.
By the Christmas of my second year, Sterling Beat had ballooned. I had started to play guitar that summer, and for some strange reason decided to play it for a gig. The band had acquired a vocalist in the shape of Mark Brocklehurst and a bassist, Adam Starzeck, in addition to myself and Mark. Performing the rousing Revolution by Chris de Burgh and Rockin' All Over the World, we were unstoppable. Or something.
Sterling Beat kept bubbling along, while I had joined forces with a young guitarist called Ian Armstrong. I met Ian at guitar lessons run by John Bamford, and was mightily impressed with his playing. A fete at John's daughters' school was coming up, and myself and Ian joined with Adam Starzeck to play a few Shadows covers at it, which was fun despite the rain.
Next Page - Sterling Beat takes off