Jazz and Blues influenced original Guitar Rock, including three Blues, two of which are covers - "Broke Down Engine" by Blind Willie McTell and "Trouble in Mind" by R.M. Jones. 53 minutes of music, 14 tracks, 12 with vocals, 2 instrumentals.
The band is called AXIOLOGY, same as the CD title. We perform music from the CD as well as covers of Blues, Jazz-Rock and some non-commercial classic rock. Improvisation is an important element of the bands performing style. Current band members are Danny Suen - Drums, Don Connolly - Bass, Albert Stasiulis - Keyboards, Andrew Riggs - Vocals and Lead/Rhythm guitars.
My guitar playing has been influenced by many of the rock guitarists from the 1960's and 70's - Santana, Clapton, Steve Howe(Yes), Hendrix, Allman Bros., Andy Powell(Wishbone Ash), Jeff Beck and numerous others, as well as players from the jazz and blues genres. However, I don't attempt to imitate anybody. I consider myself to be a musician first and songwriter second, the songs I write partly to challenge myself as a musician. The Jazz-Rock song "Opportunity" is the one on the CD that I consider the most challenging because of its multiple key changes. I try to find musical ideas that have not, (or at least have not often) been explored, within the rock genre. ...Andrew Riggs
I'm English born, my parents moved to Montreal when I was about 2 years old, then we moved to Powell River B.C. when I was ten. I started playing guitar when I was 14, bought my first electric guitar(the telecaster) when I was in grade twelve with money earned from working weekends in the local paper mill. I start jamming with other musicians when I was about 18 or 19, but I didn't have a steady band.
I moved to Calgary myself when I was 20, where I've lived ever since.
For the next 6 or 7 years I played and sang with three "power trio" type bands covering material by Cream, Hendrix, Doors, Allman Bros., Lynyrd Skynyrd etc. We had occasional community hall gigs and played at parties.
I've never had an interest in playing "Top 40" type music, and my bands have always been weekend, part time groups.
About the same time as moving to Calgary I started to write songs, most of the early songwriting attempts will never, I hope, see the light of day, although I also started doing recordings about this time, and still have all my material on tape. None of the original material was added to my bands repertoire at the time, by my choice.
What I consider to be my current, mature writing style didn't start to gel until I was about 28. About this time I formed an original music band with another songwriter/guitarist. We played occasionally in some local bars that featured original music but these generally featured "alternative" type bands, we didn't really fit in that well.
Keeping drummers was a major problem, we'd rehearse until we were ready to play gigs, do a few, then the drummer would quit. The music wasn't simple so it would take a number of months rehearsing, one or two nights a week to get a drummer up to speed.
The other songwriter was a prolific lyricist, but a marginal musician, I have a surplus of musical ideas but am slow producing lyrics. This might seem an almost ideal situation, but the other songwriter felt that any of my music that didn't have lyrics was free for him to use without my permission and without requiring him to give me credit for it. This issue brought that musical partnership to an end.
It was never my ambition to become a "solo artist" I wanted to be part of a band; sharing songwriting, vocals etc. I'm uncomfortable with the term "artist", it sounds pretentious to me, but I'm getting more used to the idea as time goes on.
The CD "Axiology" was released in the fall of 1998, the recordings on it were done over a period of about 4 years prior to that.
My guitar playing has been influenced by many of the rock guitarists from the 1960's and 70's-Santana, Clapton, Steve Howe(Yes), Hendrix, Allman Bros., Andy Powell(Wishbone Ash), Jeff Beck and numerous others, as well as players from the jazz and blues genres. However, I don't attempt to imitate anybody. I consider myself to be a musician first and songwriter second, the songs I write partly to challenge myself as a musician.
I didn't start writing songs until I'd been playing about 6 or 7 years. The Jazz-Rock song "Opportunity" is the one on the CD that I consider the most challenging because of its multiple key changes. I try to find musical ideas that have not, (or at least have not often) been explored, within the rock genre.
