gavinburgess.com

Biography

Always fascinated with music of any style, my serious involvement began at a young age when my parents (who, along with their children, enjoyed an ample diet of classical music) accidentally allowed me to hear and see a rock band performing on the family television. Within moments the Burgess home was filled with the sound of a persistent six year old demanding the immediate purchase of a guitar and eventually my reluctant parents, knowing the tranquility of their home was forever shattered, gave in to my incessant demands.

I was fortunate enough to be taught by a series of proficient local tutors who ingrained a basic knowledge of music theory, which, becoming the foundation for a much broader understanding of the art, still serves me well today. I also took lessons in Cello and the Recorder. Practice, however, as might be expected from a young boy, was somewhat erratic, and often had to be enforced with parental threats, especially as, even at this age, I was more interested in making up my own tunes than in learning the lessons for which my parents were parting with their hard earned.

This state progressed, with gradual improvement, until my secondary schooling at Wanganui Collegiate where I was fortunate enough to be tutored by two noted New Zealand Musicians. Trevor Gibbs took me through to my fifth form year in music studies and, as choir master of the chapel choir, imparted an excellent grounding in vocal technique. Upon his departure my tutoring was continued by Peter Watts. Under his guidance I completed my fifth form (School Certificate) and sixth form (University Entrance) studies.

During this period, as well as continuing my studies on guitar and my involvement in the chapel and school choirs, I also played cornet (a kind of stunted trumpet) and piano and spent considerable time messing with the various tape recorders and synthesisers which the school had available. Nothing of note was ever produced on the latter but it was the beginning of a fascination for recording and manufacturing sound which still endures.

Upon leaving school I attempted to establish several bands, playing at my local youth group and the occasional youth event. These were generally awful but being in front of an audience, however unconvinced they appeared, only served to heighten my resolve to perform.

At the age of 20 I finally stumbled on to my "big break" when I was tentatively asked by a workmate if I could possibly play bass guitar in a band he had just joined. In a moment of extreme, and, at that time, totally unjustified self confidence I assured him that although I had never actually played a bass guitar I could play six string OK so it wouldn't be a problem to swap. Fortunately he couldn't play guitar at all so believed me completely and confidently assured the others that I was the man. I was in a real band!

"Top Secret" (as the band was soon renamed after the mutual realisation that it's existing name was an embarrassment to all), of which I was the junior member by some ten years, was a four-piece line-up consisting of bass guitar, drums, lead guitar and vocals. In latter years this was supplemented by a second guitar played by the vocalist.

The band started out playing basic covers of early Bee Gees songs and the like (I hasten to add that I had little involvement in choosing the early repertoire) to the less discerning members of local society at the various workingmen's clubs around town but over its three year lifetime progressed to playing a well established circuit around the lower North Island of New Zealand which took in Venues from New Plymouth to Wellington with side trips through Hawkes Bay, the volcanic plateau, and as far north as Hamilton.

In the early nineties, due in the most part to professional management ethics and clever promotion strategies, Top Secret enjoyed a remarkable amount of success for what was essentially a covers band playing 60s and 70s rock. The band formed its own management company and toured full time for several years. Several singles were recorded and the most popular of these,  Guesswork , received significant regional radio play as well as air-time on national radio. Various studio recordings as well as live and practice room tapes have recently been unearthed as well as most of the master tapes of a cassette release which was originally compiled in 1992 and it is planned to release the best of these recordings as a full length CD in the near future.

By the time I left Top Secret in 1992 I'd progressed to a standard of musicianship which had gained me some respect amongst local musicians and, having completed writing a group of songs, was able to work on the recording of these with Murray Loveridge, former bass player from successful 70s band, Quincy Conserve and the late Bert Whitcombe at Bert's home studio in Wanganui. These recordings, along with various others made over the next few years were released on cassette in 1995 and are also scheduled for re-release, supplemented with various recently rediscovered bonus tracks later in 2003.

In 1993 a chance encounter brought my song writing talents to the attention of former actor and "Quintikis Maori Showband" drummer, Gary Warlich, who had recently returned home from a long period in the United States. Tracks recorded with Gary in our practice facility in Auckland are also included on the afore mentioned CD.

During this time I was also fortunate enough to form what has proven to be an enduring friendship with jazz trumpet and flugel horn player, Edwina Thorne. Edwina took me on as second engineer at Gazelle, the studio which she owns and runs on Auckland's North Shore and whilst there I worked with Paul Crowther (formerly with Split Enz) and Murray McNab (one half of the Murray McNab/Murray Grindlay team which produced the soundtrack to Once Were Warriors and a string of other NZ movie soundtracks).

I also ran a number of recording sessions for various bands which had hired the studio (styles varied from hard rock and alternative through to jazz and even a Jamaican band) as well as enjoying an extremely productive period writing and recording demos of my own material.

Whilst in Auckland I also worked as a live sound engineer assisting acts such as Edwina Thorne, Beaver and the Topp Twins, as well as hiring and maintaining sound equipment for several week-long events associated with the 1994 Hero Festival.

Returning to Wanganui in 1995, I increased my involvement with the annual Whangaehu Music Festival, which I had originally helped organise from its inception in 1992 and with which I remained increasingly involved until its final year in 1997. Planning and organisation extended over the entire year and I was able to assist the organisation in hosting several prominent acts including Wayne Mason and Shona Laing. I also performed at the festival myself in some form on every year that it ran, even travelling from Auckland and return during a 24 hour lull in the Hero Festival gigs in order to play a half hour acoustic set.

I had not been long back in Wanganui when I felt the itch to once again perform in a band situation and, having decided on the band I wanted to join, and hearing that they were looking for practice space I deviously offered them the use of my lounge. I was subtly angling for the position of singer but the opening which eventually arose was that of keyboard player. I had hardly touched keyboards since my school days however, having convinced the guys that I could do half of their material equally well on guitar, I was quickly on board and soon also sharing vocal duties with the rest of the band. With a change of drummer shortly after my joining we quickly had a very proficient line-up, which performed throughout Taranaki, Wanganui and Manawatu over the next year, and in various incarnations continued for several years after my departure to form my own band.

By 1996 I was auditioning various musicians with the goal of performing my own original music. By now I had sufficient repertoire for an entire evening's performance and after a few false starts was able to put together a four piece line-up which, although plagued by personnel changes (we got through six bass players in three years for various reasons) played a surprising number of very well received gigs at various venues from Taranaki to Wellington. One of our Wellington gigs was also reviewed very favourably for National radio.

During this time I recorded songs for an album provisionally entitled "Forms Of Escape" featuring the members of the band and other musicians whom I'd worked with previously. Recording was completed in 1999 and the tapes currently await mixing and post production. One of the tracks, "When Alice Dances" was released on the Compilation CD "Muster" and was very well reviewed in the New Zealand Musician Magazine as well as receiving airplay and rating highly in a local stations listeners poll.

In addition to this project, material for a second album was written and performed successfully. There were also several recordings and broadcast quality videos made of gigs, from which I plan to release a live CD and DVD. The band also ran a successful Thursday "Jam Night" at a local bar whilst during this period I also worked as a late night radio personality for a local commercial station and performed engineering and maintenance work for the the local recording studio.

I quickly learnt to combine my work at the radio station, good contacts at the local newspaper, our regular Thursday night appearances and controversial poster campaigns to boost local awareness of the band and gained a lot of knowledge regarding successful promotion during this time.

In late 1999 I relocated to Wellington where I was able to obtain premises to build my own production studio, the aim being to establish a facility which will allow me to produce product to a standard of excellence. This website and the product it promotes is the culmination of this work.

Song writing has continued and developed even further in quality and scope. New songs have been trialed, and older material re-presented in a solo acoustic format at several venues around Wellington as well as the Gathering Festival held near Takaka at New Year, The Cuba St Carnival, and at performances at private functions. These performances have been extremely well received by fellow musicians and the general public alike. Recordings also exist of several of these gigs which leads to the possibility of some further live recordings being released on CD and DVD.

- This is how things stood in 2002. A lot has happened since then - as the diary and gavland product pages attest. Maybe it's time for a new bio. I might get someone else to write it next time though, G.