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I was born in California and grew up in the Redwood Mountains and Los Gatos. Around the age of 13, my father and I moved to the Haute Savoie, a beautiful area in the foothills of the Alps - all cows and oak trees - since gentrified beyond repair (well, an ice age would probably take care of it). A few years later I got interested in playing guitar after a drunken trip from the north of England to Holland, and my father bought me an old Epiphone. I remember him asking me if I wanted a 6 or a 12 string, "huh?" I said. He showed me how to play a few chords and do some Carter family style strums. Later he also gave me a 12 string, my main guitar these days, though it's been warped by time and the sun. At some point, I can't quite remember how or when, I got interested in the banjo he had - he played clawhammer banjo - and started learning to play it too. He's from a small town in Scotland, but I suppose I'm now a valid product of the Folk Process (see John Burke's introduction to his Book of Old Time Fiddle Tunes). Latterly, I've been living on the isle of Crete, rebuilding an old village house, and getting too much sun (handled as of 2007; a move to Vermont has potentially brought all the cold weather one could wish for). |