Introducing Martin Cilia

Martin Cilia was born in Essex, England in 1958 & moved to Perth, Western Australia with his family in January 1968.

Remarkably, at age 14, Martin became a professional musician. And has been ever since.

In 1982 Martin formed the legendary Perth band “The Flying Fonzarellis” with local musos Alf Demasi & Lloyd Allanson. They released several recordings & toured Sydney 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" and then with “Midget & the Farrellys” who were extremely popular in Fremantle throughout the Americas Cup. Already his passion for that stinging surf guitar sound was obvious.

Martin moved to Sydney in 1989 & 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. They toured Vietnam with a similar concept in January 1994.

In 1998 Bosco Bosonac, bass player with legendary Australian group “The Atlantics” called Martin after hearing some recent demo tapes. 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. Martin has been an integral and permanent member of this great surf music band ever since.

Martin is also an avid collector of classic and unique electric guitars. Some of his very valuable “babies” can be heard on Revenge Of The Surf Guitar including an original candy apple Red 1963 Fender Stratocaster, a black 1963 Fender Jaguar, a 1957 Fender Precision Bass and a 1965 Fender Jazz Bass

For more details:

www.martincilia.com
www.myspace.com/rotsg