About
Free-flowing melodic acoustic guitar.
“Simon's music flows as natural as water” — Fingerstyle Guitar Magazine
The short version
I'm an Australian guitarist living in Vancouver, British Columbia. I play steel-string fingerstyle, somewhere between the peaceful early Windham Hill records I grew up with and the Celtic music I found later, in tunings like DADGAD and CGCGCD.
It all started in Melbourne in the mid-1990s on a Maton steel-string, played quietly in the wee hours so as not to wake the house. Four albums have followed, In the Duck Shed, Night Fishing, A Winter's Tale and Shallow Sea, along with three tours of regional Australia with the Guitar Heaven quartet, amazing trips to the ADGPA guitar festival in northern Italy, and a great many folk clubs on both sides of the Pacific.
A fifth album, Wind and Waves, is in progress here in Vancouver. These days I'm switching between Taylor guitars, and a beautiful Laurie Williams acoustic guitar from New Zealand. On weekends I can be found gazing longingly at a Lowden guitar at my local guitar shop.
The really long version
How we got here, where I'm going
For the morbidly curious, I went on a nostaligic diary adventure to catalog the many adventures, and misadventures of an aspriring guitarist, who continues to aspire in the modern world.
Hot beverages or red wine are suggested.
Along the way
Performance highlights
- 01 Australia Three tours with the Guitar Heaven quartet, plus the Australian National Folk Festival, the Fairbridge Folk Festival and the Melbourne Guitar Makers Festival.
- 02 Italy A regular at the ADGPA guitar festival in the north, among a very good crowd of players and guitar makers.
- 03 Canada West Coast Guitar Night in Vancouver, festivals on Vancouver Island and up in the Yukon, and a lot of folk clubs around the region.