Martin Cilia Endorses the Hall and Collins Signature Echo
We are delighted to announce that Martin Cilia, King of Australian surf guitar and member of legendary surf band The Atlantics is endorsing the HCSE.
Martin has been using the HCSE since December 2015 and is now using the unit regularly and plans to use the unit on future projects that are in the pipeline, we will update you on these as they happen.
Martin is currently on tour with Mental as Anything in Australia, full details can be found here http://martincilia.com
Martin was born in Rochford, Essex, England in December 1958 and he immigrated to Perth, Western Australia with his family in January 1968. Martin played his first ‘gig’ in a school hall (Morley High) in 1972 with fellow students. He can remember playing Apache & Peace Pipe by the Shadows, I’m a Believer – The Monkees and some Beatles songs.
By age 14 he was doing professional gigs playing songs by The Beatles, Stones, CCR & hits of the time. Around age 15 or 16 Martin was playing professional gigs with some older guys (they were around 20 or so) often playing 5 gigs a week. He recorded some demos and played in various bands until 1979 when he went to London for a year. He joined original pop/rock band Urban Clearway with whom he recorded a couple of demo tapes that were shopped around the record companies. The band had some interest from Island records in London but tired of eating baked beans he then returned to Australia & played in various Perth band lineups.
In 1982 Martin joined Perth band ‘Invasion Force’ later to be called ‘Force’ where he met Alf Demasi & Lloyd Allanson with whom he formed the legendary Perth band “The Flying Fonzarellis”. The Flying Fonzarellis released several recordings & toured the “Eastern States” in 1984. The band had some chart success holding the number one spot in Perth for a few weeks.
After the Fonzarellis he went on to play in Dave Warner’s “Sensational Sixties” & then with Midget & the Farrellys who were popular in Fremantle throughout the Americas Cup yacht race. He went on to tour & record with Dave Warner’s band.
Martin moved to Sydney in late 1989. He toured Western Australia in 1993 with the “Big Land Big Heart” tour. That band contained Dobe Newton (Bushwackers), Ernie Dingo, Dave Warner, Greg Macainish (Skyhooks) Paul Hitchins (Sports) Dave Clarke & Martin. They toured Vietnam with a similar concept in January 1994 .
In 1998 he started recording some instrumental guitar songs. Bosco Bosanac, the bass player with legendary Australia group “The Atlantics” heard one of his demo tapes. One Friday afternoon Bosco called Martin. He said “you sound all right on the recordings but can you play live?” His band’s guitarist had just called in sick. Martin did the gig and must have done ok because Bosco told the other guys from The Atlantics about him – the rest is history.
Since then the Atlantics have gone on to record many of Martin’s songs, which have appeared in feature film soundtracks, surf movies, Playstation games, the list goes on.
In August 2007 Martin released his first solo album “Revenge Of The Surf Guitar” with all tunes composed by Martin. This album has received positive reviews from both Australia and overseas and continues to sell well to this day.
Since that time he’s released four more albums, The Odd One Out (2009) Surfersaurus (2011) “Going to Kaleponi” (2013) and “Electric Christmas” (2015).
In 2013 Martin toured Europe with The Atlantics for their 50th Anniversary of Bombora tour and after that tour finished he went on a West Coast tour of America with his own band.
Martin is currently touring as guitarist with Australia’s legendary “Mental As Anything”.
CLICK HERE to hear Martin Cilias playing 1961 using Patch 4