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Rocking the hobby horse and surfing it all the way to the beach.

Music has been around me , comforting like an old trusted blanket.
I have a vivid memory of a spark igniting and opening my mind to the
possibility of actually being able to play a guitar at a tender young age
while living in the Bay of Plenty . During a school rugby trip into the boonies,
after the match two young maori boys grabbed 2 guitars & treated us to a rendition of
Venus - the shocking blue number.
Think heavy eye shadow , beehive hair  and oil lamp shapes/colours.
Wrapped in that maori strum.
Growing Up page

I wanted to play guitar but was pressured into taking piano lessons.
The path to musicianship I was assured .( if only I listened )
I hated it - didn't practice at all despite my teachers best efforts.
She even shelved all the modules to cut to the chase and some Hal David
and Burt Bacharach at least a bit more palatable.
I still couldn't see how this was possibly going to get me to Blackmore.
My parents relented and my father bought me my first guitar.
A Suzuki classic nylon six string with an extra wide fret board.
Good exercise for the fingering. Mike Gubb was my tutor.
He later became the keyboard player with Mental As Anything.
I had far too many distractions going on in my life for this ever to catch fire.
I put very little effort into practice.If I didn't get something in the first
or second pass it was dropped.I had most of Wishbone Ash's Argus
down , America, Dylan of course,Moody Blues,Gallery and anything else I had
magpied off the older kids.Nauseous for a tutor to be going over
the same material with each student.
Fast forward to the close of the eighties and the tail end of my first O/E.
Squatting in London I was suddenly surrounded by a bunch of musos.
We had a beat up old  nondescript electric - no amp that we passed round
belting out covers to the wee hours.I see an acoustic in that pic too and
my girlfriend rocked up with an african drum that she said she somehow
had felt compelled to buy while in a market.
Christchurch contingent ; the genius kiwi guitarist Chris Sheehan ( Exponents )
& his Mrs Jenny squatted next door.He kept an old Fender jazz master original guitar
that he used for recording in my closet.I believe Belinda Charlyle ( Go Go s ) had bought
it for him .Our squat was a bit more secure than theirs.
It had wooden pegs in the machine heads - a bitch to stay in tune,
not that I ever touched it of course .

Steve Clarke -vocals    Warwick (the Gordons )  Purdie
Vauxhall 1988/89
I was going to gigs all over London every week just about.
Got to the stage where I would be on my todd - organising a crew a nightmare.
I didn't have the street cred of the other guys and weed was about as adventurous
as things were ever going to get for me.My mantra :
If you don't know who is in the kitchen - don't do the drug!
If you know who's in the kitchen you're too close and trouble is lurking.
A heavy diet of early Black Sabbath sunk in. Fairies wear boots.
Carlos Santana talks about the crippling affects of flashbacks
sometimes years later.
I don't have enough brains to spare enough to fry.

Another fast forward  to the early 2000s and my arrival into
Ft Lauderdale Fl and the rookie beginnings of my yachting career.
Hunkered down in a crew house I met a fellow chef who showed me the ropes.
Also a guitarist he had a strat that he used to plug into a small effect box
and plug head phones into .  I was blown away . He took me down to the
guitar shop in Hallandale in Nth Miami - what a playground.
My first major gig and I was fully rigged.Mexican copy of a 1957 Jazz master
Stratocaster running a small Korg effects box.

Mucking around - I had been keeping note books for years.
Scribble of phrases & lines ; inspirations.
I started to realise that my noodling was improving in bounds and was
being lost into the ether.
I bought a crude home studio set up. Never really getting the opportunity
to set it up and get it functioning properly.
Until Nowwwwwww

You Tube - Conkijoe Moana - the Stable  Link


You Tube - Conkijoe Moana - Profile Page References  Link
You Tube - Conkijoe Moana - LondonTown  Link

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