I was only thirteen when my mother bought me a 3/4 size Spanish guitar. That happened after watching me imitating The Beatles with an ‘old fashioned folder’, singing “she loves you yeah, yeah, yeah!”

A year or so later, a good friend of mine and I used to gather, pretending we were either Simon & Garfunkel or perhaps Lennon & MaCartney. We strummed away at the few guitar chords we knew and managed our way with considerable difficulty around the guitar neck. By the time I was fifteen I decided to learn guitar properly! There wasn’t much choice, as the local music teacher could teach me music, piano, accordion but not guitar! So, instead he had me listening to classical music and in particular J.S.Bach – that went on for two years.

In 1973 at the age of eighteen I arrived in London. Coming from a small fishing village near San Sebastian in the Basque Country, London was a little too much to absorb! And indeed it took me ages to realize that this was the place I wanted to be, probably for life.
Here I could see all the music that I wanted, as well as the theatre and ballet. What a privilege!

With my father many miles away and no longer able to nag me about my long hair, I bought my first electric guitar and amp. This is what I called freedom; the opportunity to go and see groups like, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Frank Zappa, The Band, Crosby Stills & Nash and countless others during the next two and a half years was heavenly! Before I turned twenty, I started to get Blues guitar lessons in North London.  It was back to acoustic guitars with a vengeance. I began to know and see guitar players that shaped my idea of what I should be interested in. Simple yet beautiful tunes played by great finger picking players such as John Renbourn, Bert Jansch , Leo Kottke, Stefan Grossman and later Ry Cooder, plus David Lyndley.

However, I didn’t start to record my own music till the early eighties. This was courtesy of a good friend and neighbour called Keith Chilvers, who had a Revox two track reel to reel recorder. Keith was and still is a very accomplished guitar and mandolin player who had previously played with various groups and done studio work for known artists. It was this opportunity to record in his studio that made me think I should buy one myself, for I did enjoy recording with him tremendously! Keith’s Martin guitar had a beautiful brassy sound that my cheap Yamaha could never emulate. Top that with his old sixties Stratocaster and we are on a winner, at least for sound qualities sake.

Within months, I had my own little studio which was made up mainly with a Fostex quarter inch tape, eight track recorder and a twelve input mixer of sorts. Of course I needed a mic, perhaps a keyboard and definitely a bass guitar. Within weeks I bought them all at great expense! Needless to say, I used to spend hours recording silly little tunes which for the most part were chucked out because once recorded I wasn’t satisfied with them. I named my first project Euzkeraz, which means ‘in Basque’. I was however not convinced with its sound quality and out it went to the bin!   That project was followed by another named Euzkeraz Bi, meaning ‘in Basque two’. It took me a long while to finish it and be satisfied with the end results. Nevertheless this was definitely a good try.

I called the second project ‘Brothers, Sisters and other relations’, I guess it was due to the referencing of family and friends in the tunes. Whereas I did the entire first project on my own, I wanted Keith this time playing guitar in some of the songs. It ended up with only nine songs. And, so on to the third project. I was encouraged by Keith to come along and record some ‘new tunes’ that I had made over a period of time. I named this one ‘Nectar’ and wanted it to be a “roll on the tape Jack” sort of deal, rather than a ”follow the metronome” vibe, and of course as acoustic as possible. There are fifteen tunes on ‘Nectar’.

I am now on my fourth project. I will name this one “Lisa’s trees” as I am fascinated by the psychedelic looking trees painted by artist Lisa Kane.