 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Classic Rock Tribute Act from East AngliaI don't come from a great musical family and nobody seems to know where my urge to play guitar came from. All I know is that from as young as I can remember I had a determination to learn and had my first acoustic guitar bought for me when I was about 12. I had 6 or 7 lessons from an old hippy that taught me the basics and from there on I listened to my favourite music learning the songs by ear. Next logical step was a schoolboy band playing various covers and our own songs and even though we were in reality probably pretty awful, we enjoyed it and the lessons learnt set me in good stead. Several more bands followed with line-up changes so regular that Spinal Tap would have been proud. A semi-serious attempt to "make it" in the late 80s / early 90s never came to anything although it was a pretty prolific time for my song writing. For those interested my own songs under my real name are available for listening and download here . |
| One anetdote from that period happened as we were recording a demo at the now defunct Copdock Studios near Ipswich. As we were arriving early one Saturday morning we were chatting to a band that had just finished an all night session. When they had left the engineer told me they would be the "next big thing", I of course corrected him and told him we were the next big thing. He told us the name of the band which didn't mean anything to us at the time, in fact we forgot all about the whole meeting until "There's no othey way" made it's mark on the charts and suddenly the name "Blur" had meaning. | |
| When
we realised that we weren't going to make a living from our music we
became more of a covers band although we did still perform many of our
own songs which were well received. Around the same time the band was
reaching the end of it's natural life I started to get more interested
in the whole recording process and slowly but surely built up my own
home studio which is where most of my musical efforts have been for the
last few years. Playing in a band was getting more difficult because of
work comittments and eventually the studio took over even to the point
where my guitar playing was coming second to my song writing and studio
engineering exploits.I learned to play piano well enough to write and
record and then drums well enough to get some basic beats
recorded. The hankering to play live again was always there though. The idea for "Rocking ROB" first came to me a couple of years ago while on a camping holiday in Dorset. In one of those campsite club houses there was nightly entertainment, one of which was a guy in a wig with a guitar, amp, MIDI sequencer and a PA system. He was playing rock covers that went down a storm with young and old alike and so the idea was planted. |
 |
| I
still had most of the equipment from my band playing days, the only
problem I had was sequencing music that sounded realistic
enough for me to be happy with it. Then purely by chance a new studio
synthesizer purchase turned out to have the capability of playing back
MIDI files from a USB stick and Rockin'
ROB was
in business. For anyone who is a little unsure of listening to MIDI
files, I'd say two things. Firstly you already do on just
about
every modern day recording, and secondly listen to me with
your
eyes closed and then tell me you can tell it's not a full band playing.
Today's technology is incredible and I make as much use of it as I can.
Click
here if you are
interested in my set-up. If you live in Norfolk, Suffolk, or Cambs and can catch me playing live, I'm sure you won't be dissapointed. I'm slowly getting gigs arranged and you can find more info on them here. |
|
|
|
© Karl Rose, 2009