G’day and welcome to Rob’s rave.
I guess this will be a monthly type thing but as it’s now near the end of April there’s already too much to write about.
First thing, this year is kind of a special one for me as it is my 10th year doing sound at St Andrews Hotel. So before we look to the present i think it appropriate to have a bit of a look back in time.....


HISTORY
At the end of 1994 I purchased a small PA.from Mick Ahearne who , at the time, was Broderick Smiths manager and also supplied PA’s for Port Fairy Folk Fest. and other major festivals. I was playing in an acoustic duo (Harwood and Hancock, some may remember, some even thought we were pretty good.) and was co- running the acoustic sessions at the Clifton Hill Hotel every Wed night and recording lots of performances (audio) on my hi-fi vid recorder. Also videoing heaps of gigs by then.

1995 saw me doing PA and mixing at Haskins Hotel in Nth Melb every Tues night (regulars for that gig were Geoff Acho, Dave Steel, Brod Smith, Harwood & Hancock, Ben Rogers Vipers Dream), I did my first Port Fairy Fest sound gig, did the Northcote Street Party for Sharin Anderson, Wangarratta Jazz Festival, Portland Jazz Festival and the scariest of all - played 2 gigs with Geoff Achison as a duo in Lorne end ‘95 start ‘96. I’ll never forget it, I was scared shitless.

They say life starts at 40, I wouldn’t necessarily say ‘starts’, but it certainly kicked into a higher gear for me 10 years ago.

In 1996 Sharin Anderson and Mark Smith who were playing in a duo at the time asked me to do sound for them at St Andrews Hotel.

The 1st gig for me there was on 7.3.96 and we did gigs together nearly every Thursday and the odd Sat arvo for the rest of the year. The main thing I remember about that first winter (aside from the music) was Stan and his fire sculptures - here’s this big scary looking but friendly bloke with a huge beard who would carry in these large logs on his shoulder and build these almost Aztec style pyramid fires in the famous fireplace. Kel (co-publican with Stan) was booking the music and unbeknowns to me they had just recently taken over the pub. So we all kind of grew and suffered the trials and tribulations of steep curves together.

Then Tim Hancock and I played some duo gigs at the pub and one thing led to another as more people asked me to do their sound for them and the next thing I know it went from doing acoustic duos and trios to doing PA for full kick arse band gigs and “Shit I need more speakers, I need more power, I need more mics”, and “Geez it would be great to try and record some of this stuff.” What a steep learning curve in such a short time!

Enter Geoff Achison - by mid 1996 I’d already been doing sound for Geoff on and off for 3 years, lots of gigs at the Clifton Hill, Haskins, McCoppins, parties, all sorts of stuff. (usually acoustic) as a result of all this and Geoff’s growing popularity we recorded ‘Mystery Train’ in Sept 96 and launched it at the Continental Café on 15.12.96 with Jeff Lang and Marco Goldsmith supporting (it was filmed and a video of the gig released the following year).

Geoff did his 1st gig at St Andrews 3 weeks later on the 5.1.97 with Pete Howell on bass and Nigel Maclean on electric violin. 3 weeks after that on Fri 24.1.97 the Geoff Achison Band played St Andrews hotel for the 1st time. Mal Logan on keys Fred Abery on drums and Rob Hornbuckle on bass. And so began the Geoff Achison journey at St Andrews Hotel ------- and my journey and the journey of many other musos from close and afar. Hopefully I’ll find time to elaborate more about this magic time in the near future.

For more information see www.mbas.org.au/rob.html

Here's a CV of my work and the Artists I've worked with.