There are two sides to my interest in music - playing performing, and listening to music

Interests: Performing.

I have been playing one musical instrument or another almost non-stop since I was four, so music comes fairly high on the list.With respect to playing, my first instrument was the violin, which I played until I was eleven, by which time I realised exactly how interested in continuing with it I was. It wasn't all bad, just 90% of it; the orchestra gigs were cool, but the soloing was crap. During secondary school I briefly flirted with the piano before settling on the one true instrument for playing "the one true music".Having learned the rudiments of the various styles of said music I was determined to branch out. I helped form a rock band which had limited success (due to the tendency of the other members to argue over the name) and then with a close friend of mine formed a short lived soul band of immeasurable quality. This twelve-piece played a few short sets of classic numbers by the likes of Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, James Brown and others, before splitting due to the pressures of A-level studies. The next band I joined was the once great Bristol pub band Aliens Exist. We persevered with this band, which was actually quite good, but my interests didn't remain with the jazz-punk ethic of Tom the main songwriter, so he closed the band down with the intent of moving towards a more rock based setup. Meanwhile Alex the bassist and myself were busy acquiring equipment for the new project - the Holy Church of Jazz (Foundation).

Interests:

Listening
I listen to and enjoy many types of music - from blues to jazz, from rock to metal, from dance to dub. As you may have read I have played in few bands, and have very recently started a deep dub/dance band with a couple of friends of mine. It is all very amateurish of course (Alex is still doing A levels) and purely experimental, but it will certainly be interesting to see and hear how it comes out. Some bands/artists I actually like:

Massive Attack
Portishead
Tricky
Suicidal Tendencies
Donald Fagen
Herbie Hancock (Mwandishi)
Tales From The Woodshed
G Love and Special Sauce

And many others. So there you go: a brief history of my interest in music, complete with music tastes as of 29/6/95. Can't say fairer than that.Oh. You want more, eh? How about a summary of recent gigs I've been to? And the venues? Beers? Pizzas? What do you want? Tell me, by email.