Born and raised in the Yarra Valley of Victoria, I left home at 19 and travelled widely. Played in my first band at 11, had my first residency gig at 21 and have been writing and performing constantly .
I have worked with NSW community health in a song writing capacity on some projects to improve child literacy and health and have run song writing workshops for pre school teachers, which was a lot of fun.
After moving to the Far South Coast of NSW about 20 odd years ago, I played with many line ups and individuals including the great and talented Mike Petersen, The Fish, who played all original music mostly written by the legendary Roger McCulloch and those fabulous revolving line ups of The Once In A Blue Moon Band / Down By The Deep Blue Sea Band who raised many, many thousands of dollars for community groups in the area and had so much fun on stage that it shouldn't be allowed.The last band was the Sleepwalkers, a very tight unit playing a lot of original funk, groove and R&B. Lots of those players have been loyally blessing me with their prodigious talents for many years now and it humbles me how enthusiastic they continue to be about my music. Thanks all of you!
My day job with the NSW NPWS gets pretty exciting around fire season. Remote area fire fighting is a unique experience that has provided many intense moments over the years, some of which are written about here.
The big campaign fires in the Snowy Mountains and Deua National Park of the summer of 2003 were memorable and long. Those experiences inspired the couple of fire fighting songs on the cd and I am sure anyone with any fire experience will relate to them.
I have also been fortunate to work with the Wik people of western Cape York in the remote community of Aurukun, an experience that has changed many of my views on many things. I could write about the highs and lows of those trips forever, and any one interested will find some songs and stories here of some of my adventures and the wonderful relationships I formed while up there.
So now I have done my first album and hope that you enjoy it just a fraction as much as I have enjoyed the writing, performing and recording. Thanks be to Damon Davies for making the recording such a hoot up there at Planet Mars and to Eve, Jed and Ro for the album art work. Great 50th birthday present!
I think the greatest thrill for me out of this whole thing would be to have other people play my songs.
So all you performers out there, I would love to hear your interpretation of this material. I have another 90 or so songs to record and make available, but that will be a bit of a task.
I can see that for the rest of this summer I will be "off to the fire line again"!
