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I began playing live in about 1970, aged about 14, in Canberra, in a duo with my best pal Angelo O'Reilly. Yes, that really is his name. We both played guitar and sang Simon & Garfunkel covers and that kind of thing.
After a couple of years we formed a band called Doeg with some other pals from school - Fabian Billerwell, Al Capello and Mark Tolley. I was the fairly reluctant singer because they decided I was the only one who could pull it off. Angelo became the reluctant bass player because the others flatly refused to do it. We did a few paid gigs, one of which got our photo in the Canberra Times in December 1972 when I had just turned 16.
After the inevitable split up I began playing solo and trying to be a singer/songwriter. Most people at that time were sloppily strumming covers by the Eagles and Neil Young. I wanted to stand out so I did very complicated covers by Jethro Tull and Yes. Seemed like a good idea at the time anyway...
At the beginning of 1976 I moved to Adelaide, where I played and sang 4 part harmony Broadway Musical numbers for very good money in a show at the Camelot Castle Restaurant in the hills, then did some solo and duo work. In '77 I joined Lucas Aaron, a prog rock band in the style of Genesis, but I left in '79 when they decided to move towards experimental instrumental jazz stuff. Not much use for a singer in a jazz fusion band. Then I moved to Sydney.
After a few performance free years I joined The Dreams in 1982 with an old Canberra acquaintance, Peter Marshall, who had a pretty successful career playing with the likes of Marc Hunter, Russell Morris and Jim Keays. For the rest of the '80s I played with a variety of other bands including Cocktails at 7 and Naughty Rhythms, but had quit music again by the end of that decade. It was 17 years before I played in public again, at an open mic night at the Coogee Bay Hotel in May 2005.
Since then I've started writing again, recording in my primitive home studio and doing lots of gigs. In 2007 I was a finalist in the Songwriters Live singer / songwriter competition. I also made it into the Top 10 Blues/Roots artists in the 2008 Musicoz Awards.
More recordings are at VIRB.COM and at Musicoz.
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