Wednesday, 10th March 2010

Who Am I?

I am The Libster of course! I'm a bass player/arranger from Sydney, Australia. I've lost count of how long I've been playing bass, but I started playing when I was 13 so, well let's just say that "long enough" should suffice!

I studied music throughout high school, then the Sydney Con followed by Sydney University. I also did English Lit at Sydney Uni, not that it helped improve my spelling or grammar. I've also got a diploma of web dev and site management, which I did when I was having a break from the music but I decided I hate dealing with clients & being told what to do so I gave it the flick. You can't go from something artistic to a bloody grunt desk job - it kills your spirit & your soul.

Anyway, after Uni I became a professional bass player & also did a lot of teaching for a few years. I've played in stacks of bands, most of whom I've completely forgotten. It's a blur. (There are various recordings of me floating around this site, but I can't think where at the mo). Probably the band that's been closest to my heart is the Temple of Groove - we've been playing on and off for about 15 years, doing mainly 70s style funk & soul, a la James Brown, Temple of Groove, EWF etc.

Back to me now I guess. (It's all about me). I somehow or other got sucked into the arranging/writing world about 10 years ago, and now I probably do more of that than playing. I spend most of my working life at home on the computer, using Finale, Sibelius and Logic (badly), writing bits of music and parts and the like. Playing beats everything still though!

I've been an arranger on series 2,3,4,5 & 6 of Australian Idol. Just quietly, I can't stand to watch it anymore and so I just have it playing in the background and turn up the vol when one of my bits is about to come on. It's a nice little earner though and I work with the best musos in the country, so I can't moan too much.

I did a bigger gig than Idol last year. The Pope dropped in to Sydney for World Youth Day, in a concert that was heard by about 1.2 billion people worldwide or so I'm told. It was the biggest live concert ever held in Aus. I did most of the music writing/arranging and played bass. The Pope didn't seem to have any issues with me not being Catholic. I dont think you could say that he blessed me, but he definitely looked in my direction and nodded. (I sat on his throne). That was an interesting gig, to say the least. The security was a shocker - my bass had to go through an x-ray machine on three separate occasions.

In case you care, my main basses are a Lakland 5 string and an almost identical fretless. I have a policy with amps & sounds to keep it simple, cause I'm not real good with tweaking the knobs :-). I mainly use an old GK800 head cause I love how you just turn it on and it sounds great.

Well anyway I hate talkin' about myself so I'm outta here. I can't seem to find a reasonable pic of my likeness on this computer at the mo, but it's not like you're missin' much. Here's one of my faithful mut, Maxi, instead. CYA.