Tim Gaze is spending less time at university and more time on the road touring with Australian rock legend Jimmy Barnes.
Since March, the UQ Ipswich staff member, has been sharing lead guitar in Barnes’ touring band.
“It’s been great working with him because he’s very serious about doing a good job and getting a lot of energy from the music,” Mr Gaze said.
“It’s really guitar driven music and he likes it pretty loud and he likes the guitars to be doing a lot of the work.”
After receiving a call out of the blue, Mr Gaze has been playing up to five shows a week for Barnes’ new platinum selling (70,000+) album Double Happiness.
“He just thought of me at a time when he was putting a different band together,” he said of Barnes, the newest ARIA Hall of Fame inductee.
“To be able to be playing to large amounts of people and have that level of energy, you can’t beat that.”
Mr Gaze has been a guitarist for most of his life, playing and recording with artists such as Renee Geyer, Gyan, John Paul Young, Stevie Wright, Rose Tattoo, Gary Moore, Air Supply, John Lord from Deep Purple and Bob Daisley from Ozzy Osbourne.
He is a respected blues guitarist and has enjoyed success with the The Tim Gaze Band and continues to pick up live and studio work.
As a project officer with the Australian Creative Resources Online (ACRO), Mr Gaze is part historian and part documentary maker.
ACRO is a growing digital collection of free audio, video and images that artists can use non-commercially to make new creations.
Not only is he asking musicians and artists to submit material, Mr Gaze has recording interviews with famous artists such as veteran rocker Russell Morris who performed the 1960s hit, The Real Thing.
He said he asked artists about how the digital world of computers and online resources had changed how artists produced and marketed their music, art and media.
“I ask them how they’re writing songs, do they work with computers, what do they think about filesharing, what do they think about copyright, intellectual property issues and how they use modern computer skills to put material together.”
He said other artists such as Brian Cadd, Ross Wilson, surf movie pioneer George Greenough and Jimmy Barnes were on his interview list.
The 52-year-old from Westlake is also cowriting with singer/songwriter Gyan, for her double album.
Media: contact Tim Gaze (0412 466 791, timgaze@optusnet.com.au) or Miguel Holland at UQ Communications (07 3365 2619)
