Music Changed My Life

I'm a self-taught musician who started quite young. I used to listen to records a lot and found it very easy to copy the tunes on my old Bontempi organ. I listened to Johnny Cash, The Monkees and The Beatles. My early memories of pop music include New Order, Blondie and Madness.

Around the mid 80's I discovered Electro and Hip Hop/Rap music. I loved the synth riffs and effects and heavy drums and bass. I got a keyboard upgrade to a Casio and DD-10 Yamaha drum machine. I also discovered on my parents' record player I could pause a tape while recording a drum part, then wind the record back and repeat the process. After a tremendous amount of patience I could achieve backing tracks to play over.

I remember watching 'Top of the Pops' and 'The Old Grey Whistle Test' reruns. My musical tastes seemed to mature a bit; I loved Bob Marley and the Wailers and also Jimi Hendrix. The 70's rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Free led me to Prog and Space rock e.g. Hawkwind. Bands like The Doors, Daevid Allen's GONG, Can and Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd became very influential. They also led me to Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart and the one and only Frank Zappa.

That was it - I had to make music. Finally I got an old electric bass for 10 pounds and started learning reggae basslines and funk. I found it very easy and natural to play and learn. Luckily I was given a broken electric guitar which I fixed up and I bought a second hand Schaller Wha Wha pedal. I never looked back.

Using two tape decks I found a way to over-dub my riffs like a multi-track. I started many a band and loved playing Hendrix and Zappa-style improvisations. That kept me occupied till the early 90's, which is when I got an Amiga 600 computer. I got 'Octamed' free on a magazine (which is a sample based sequencer) and I couldn't believe how creative you could be with it. I quickly bought a midi port and 8bit sampler for the Amiga. This changed my perspective of music completely: now I could do professional sounding songs in my bedroom. Joy!

I now play guitar, bass, mandolin, synth, violin, clarinet, drums and sitar. I have a load of effects, some homemade and others are repairs. I can spend hours experimenting. Now my musical inspirations are varied artists like Beck, Kraftwerk and Air and also Herbie Hancock, Sun Ra and the Funkadelic. I love to mix styles and try new things. Music is like a canvas for me to paint my feelings, it's such a powerful medium.

Cheers for taking time out to check this blog, feel free to leave comments.

Tony