About

About Me

Like every old guitarist, I was meant to be a massive rock star. When I was 20 I was the greatest guitarist in the world. By the time I was 25, I was the worst guitarist in my band. We did have some amazing shows and a good following in South Wales, but back then before the Manics had actually made London A&Rs pay attention to the other side of the Severn Bridge, we were naive and had no idea how to break into the business.

My first guitar was a cheap black Avon Les Paul copy. It had the action of a cheese grater and to my horror, when I plugged in I did not sound like either Hendrix or Jimmy Page. These days, we are blessed with guitars that are cheap and well made, but they still need proper setups and a bit of work to make them truly playable for a beginner or an experienced player. Lord knows, I’ve seen some mangled beasts on my workbench over the years but, with only a few exceptions, they have all been fixable and I could transform them into perfectly playable and enjoyable guitars to. 

As to more about me, I spent 2 decades after the band broke up doing everything possible to stay involved with music, from promoting local gigs, working in studios, teching for touring acts across the UK and overseas – including guitar/bass tech which taught me a lot about guitar maintenance, working in cramped and tricky situations. However, it couldn’t last and with age and an injury I had to leave the wonderful circus of “the road” and return to Cardiff.

Along came the plague years, which I spent buying up guitars, and trained myself up on fixing them, with amazing mentoring support from a great luthier in Devon. Having spent 5 years now fixing hundreds of guitars for friends and customers through word of mouth, I’m now offering my services and skills to anyone who needs their guitar treated to a spa day, MOT, full service or if necessary a bloody good talking to lol. All joking aside, you can be assured that I will treat your guitar with care, love and respect and return it to you in the absolute best playing condition possible.

My guitar luthier local hero, and the guy who always made my guitars play like a dream, is the legendary Dave Dearneley who still makes beautiful guitars and plays with the great Snatch it Back band after what must be at least 50 years together. From that original Avon nightmare guitar to my Fenders and Ibanez’s, I could always trust Dave to offer a great service and decent price. If I can manage to offer you the same quality of service and value for money then I will be over the moon.