I started playing bass when I was 14 after a volleyball injury to my wrists made it difficult to carry on playing drums. The injury cleared up eventually but I decided to stick with bass and 21 years later I'm still going.
Although I was born in the UK, my family moved to NZ when I was 10 and that was a pretty big cultural shock to deal with. I got through high school, did a Fine Arts intermediate and worked my way through uni as a newspaper and magazine illustrator only to become disillusioned with Fine Arts. After taking a year out (during which time I purchased my first decent bass, a jaydee supernatural mark king) I eventually completed a degree in Landscape Architecture and left NZ to look for work. After spending time in the UK and China (2 years in Nanjing) I now work in London for a very large and high profile organisation managing their landscape and urban design section. I have three staff in my team and our projects include some of the best known spaces in London which sometimes attracts a lot of unwelcome media interest (especially last week which was hell).
I started off playing blues with the guitar teacher at high school then got into Level 42 when I had my first (and only) set of bass lessons the following year. Glen Commons was an amazing teacher - very inspirational and patient - plus of course, bass was very cool in the 80's. Ironically my first lesson was a week after my 16th birthday which was the same day that Jaco got beaten up outside that nightclub.
I stayed with the Jaydee and played in jazz, covers and blues bands until I graduated and then the bass more or less got put on the back burner while I was trying to establish my career. However after 15 years, I think I've achieved that and fortunately I've been able to buy a few nice basses in my time (as well as a few lemons, thanks to Ebay). My current collection is:
Ken Smith BSR6GN
Ken Smith BSR5GN
Ken Smith BSR5GN fretless
Pedulla Pentabuzz (fitted with Alembic pups)
Alembic Series 1 graphite (one of about 50 known examples in total, and even fewer in long scale)
Jaydee Supernatural "Mark King"
Musicman Cutlass 1 (ex Cliff Williams and one of only a few known with thru body bridge and 3 bolt neck)
Musicman Stingray (78 refin neck, electronics and hardware on a care worn 77 body - very mojo bass Baby, yeaaaaah!)
Mongrel Stingray (feat. graphite neck, nord. pup, SD pre, original Musicman hardware and body)
More info on the basses here:
http://www.freewebs.com/crazykiwi_bass/mybasses.htm
I also have a Modulus Quantum 5 sweetspot currently for sale at the Bass Centre, London if anyone's interested...? But back OT:
Currently I'm in a neo soul band featuring 12 female singers singing in 4 part harmony. We've got a couple of sets of covers we play (incl Erika Badu, Angie Stone, Chaka Khan etc) but are slowly introducing originals. My main influences bass-wise are (in no particular order) Bernard Edwards, Mark King, Meshell Nedgeocello, Julian Crampton and Pino Palladino.
I'm also in the process of setting up a 70's dance band to do functions and pull in a little cash. Two of my favourite singers from the neo soul group are helping out with that one, but we've yet to find guitar, drums and keys. The girls are definitely up for a bit of funky fun and I get to live out a Bernard Edwards fantasy once we find our Nile Rogers and Tony Thompson
.
I have a myspace page at
www.myspace.com/crazykiwi and you can find me on Talkbass, Bassworld and, rarely, the Ernie Ball forum (usually for bragging rights over the Cutlass
) and Alembic forum (where I get the impression I don't fit in). My non-musical hobbies include fishing, reading science fiction short stories and I'm an Admin at Bassworld.