I picked up the guitar for the first time when I was ten years old. My father being a Luthier (guitar builder) was the initial influence. This started by him assigning me the job to tune up every guitar he had just completed. After a while this became very monotonous so the next best thing was to learn some guitar chords. E major was incredible but when A minor was discovered...WOW bitten by the bug. I am sure all you guitarists out there have a similar story and when we look back it is quite funny..those blitz one finger on one string solos...amazing what the human being can do. From there it was the normal learning process. As you have gathered my biggest influence was Alvin Lee of Ten Years After, so much so I worked for two summers as a waiter in Cyprus in 1973/4 to save money and buy my Gibson cherry red ES 335 . I wanted nothing else but the same as Alvin Lee`s guitar. This was achieved and in June 1974, I had a friend of mine travelling to the UK buy it for me from Henri Selmer in Charing Cross Road , London. That was the biggest moment in my life when I held the 335 in my hands at the airport. A month later the invasion of Cyprus by the Turkish army forced me to evacuate my home and all my possesions. But the only things I made sure I took with me while fleeing across fields to avoid aircraft bombing was my 335, five Cypriot pounds and my passport.
Today I am still an active musician involved
in the recording business. I am a partner in PROSONG
recording studios along with my brother Costa and Italian friend Peps, based
in Johannesburg, South Africa.We also perform as a band called "The Worx".
A diverse outfit with a repertoire that covers most styles which are required
to do corporate functions etc. However we have our speciality and that is
Latin American music.
I am also a keen vintage guitar collector and some of you might think "This
guy is crazy he only collects guitars with the 335 shape". My aim is
to collect one of each model that has this shape. I have a very nice collection
of guitars and this is slowly growing..............expensive hobby this. The
music that I am into is Latin American, Jazz, Fusion and of course TYA. The
funny thing though is that I play a 1964 Stratocaster at the gigs. The reason
for this is that the ES 335 is a very delicate instrument ,one fall and thats
goodbye to the guitar, but the Strat has survived falls dozens of times due
to poor stages and the occasional smartguy that walks across the band stage
to get to the other side of the club. I use the 335 at the recording studio
for session work and the odd "safe" gig. Don`t get me wrong I have
been playing my Stratocaster for twenty years and still enjoy it , but my
favorite is still the Gibson 335. Presently I am living in Santa Clarita,
California, USA.
