Twenty five years ago I was getting along perfectly fine as a rock and roll bass player. I knew every Paul McCartney lick. I could even play an acceptable jazz bass line when required.

I was into blues as well and I went to a local concert called "Sing the Blues" - which was a bit damn deceptive because I found myself at a concert of folk music. I saw many acts, culminating in Marg Layton "singing the blues" accompanied by none other than Paul Metsers. There was Eric McEachen, the twins Jude and Joanne accompanied by Laurie O'Callaghan, and a bluegrass band with three really old guys and one really young one.

The really young one was running around, making fun of the audience, making fun of the really old guys, playing fiddle and chucking Crunchie Bars into the audience. Apparently he had a chocolate fetish even back then.

Some time later the really young one rang me up (me!) and asked me to play guitar in a band he was forming. That's when I sold my bass and bought my Ovation guitar which I still have today.

Unlike the band: we did about two gigs before we folded but I kept playing guitar for Marcus (yes, it was Marcus) when he needed accompaniment for his fiddle playing in various folk club appearances. I went to festivals with him.

It was many years later when we were playing together and he turned to me and said, "There was a time. Moroney, when I despaired of ever getting you interested in this music." I realised at that point that I had been serving an apprenticeship.

Mike Moroney is a Dunedin musician (Vocals/Guitar/Mandolin/Mandola) and songwriter who has played and recorded with many bands and artists including the long-running but now defunct Pog Band, The Chaps, Chris Penman, Lindsey Shields, and Marcus Turner.

Currently (2004) he is a member of the Dunedin folk-rock group Gazebo Tiger. He has done much to support Dunedin's New Edinborough Folk Club, the Whare Flat Folk Festival, and the NZ-Folk e-mail discussion group. Listen to him performing with The Chaps.