I’ve been playing guitar for over 30 years, and in that time I’ve gigged, recorded, toured, taught hundreds of students, and played heaps of music. Somewhere along the way I got into jazz, which kind of took over my life and led me to study music at uni. There, I worked with some incredible players and built a career teaching and performing all kinds of music — from pop to jazz, classical, bluegrass, flamenco, blues, prog rock, and beyond.
I live in Melbourne, still play gigs, and teach guitar to people who want to get better — whether that means improving their technique, building consistency, or just getting past whatever’s been holding them back.
I created this site to share what I’ve learned. The Learning Hub and Video pages are packed with free content to help you practise smarter and make real progress. If you’re interested in working with me 1:1, check out the Coaching page.
ALBUMS
PAST PROJECTS
Son of a Gunzel
Son of A Gunzel is a Melbourne Hammond Combo comprised of Sam Boon (sax/vox), Olaf Scott (organ) and Matt Gibson (drums) and me. The band recreates soul, blues and boogaloo classics as well as some instrumental hits from Australian musicians.
Follow Me Through the Red Ash
This project showcases a composition of saxophonist Cheryl Durongpisitkul’s that explores techniques drawn from musical elements within Igor Stravinsky’s ballet ‘Petrushka’ . The ensemble featured 8 members including 2 guitars, drums, bass, saxophone, trombone, trumpet and piano. The band has performed at Melbourne jazz venues and at the 2018 Wangaratta Jazz Festival. Cheryl did an outstanding job composing and arranging this music and it was both a challenging and rewarding project. The album was recorded and released in 2017 and can be found on Bandcamp here.
Bat Country
Bat Country was an experimental/jazz trio that explored compositions by it’s 3 members – myself, Stephen Hornby (bass) and Sarah Galdes (drums). We released 2 albums between the 2013 and 2016. The music features a combination of tight arrangements and group improvisation and has a very cinematic feeling to it. Both albums are available on bandcamp here in both physical and digital formats.
Boon, Villalta, McKenzie
This is an unusual trio comprised of 2 guitars (Diego Villalta on the other one) and one alto saxophone (Sam Boon). In 2017 the trio was invited to play a headline slot at the 6th Annual UNESCO Phuket International Jazz Day Festival. While in Thailand, we did radio interviews with Radio Thailand and 89.5 Phuket Live. The festival performance led to numerous studio and live collaborations with musicians from Singapore, Mauritius, China, Britain and Thailand. The band headed into the studio in late 2017 and produced an album of originals yet to be released. Stay tuned for that!
Mormal Commision
Mormal Commision was a collaboration with Marcos Villalta. The project featured 2 similar Gretsch guitars with Bigsby tremolos, effects pedals and original compositions from both of us. Marcos is a prolific composer, a very talented guitarist and also an amazing visual artist. While this project was mostly dedicated to recording, rehearsing our originals and jamming on some very silly covers, we did perform a number of gigs at local jazz venues around 2014-2015.