Martin Cilia (born December 1958) is an English-born Australian musician. Cilia is best known for his songwriting skills, and his membership in The Atlantics, where he performs on the

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

. Cilia played his first gig in a school hall in Morley High in 1972 with fellow students. He remembered playing songs by

The Shadows The Shadows (originally known as the Drifters) were an English instrumental rock group, who dominated the British popular music charts in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in the pre- Beatles era. They served as the backing band for Cliff Richard ...

, The Monkees,

The Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...

, and

Cat Stevens Yusuf Islam (born Steven Demetre Georgiou; ), commonly known by his stage names Cat Stevens, Yusuf, and Yusuf / Cat Stevens, is a British singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. His musical style consists of folk, pop, rock, and, later in ...

.Cilla, Marti
Martin Cillia Official Website
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Start of career

At age 14, Cilia became a professional musician. He played in various bands in and around

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

before spending a year in London in 1979. In 1982 Cilia joined Invasion Force where he met locals Alf Demasi and Lloyd Allanson. Together they formed the Perth band The Flying Fonzarellis. The Flying Fonzarellis released several recordings and toured Sydney in 1984. The band released the studio album ''Having a Party'', which peaked at number 58 in Australia in 1984. Singles "Honey Bee" and "Stay" peaked inside the Australia top 100 in 1985. Martin-Cilia-band-01-PRINT

After the Fonzarellis, he went on to play in Dave Warner's Sensational Sixties and then with Midget and the Farrellys who were extremely popular in Fremantle throughout the Americas Cup. Already his passion for that stinging surf music guitar sound was obvious. He went on to tour and record with Dave Warner's band, ''Dave Warner’s From The Suburbs''. Cilia moved to Sydney in 1989. He played & recorded with The Brookes. He toured Western Australia in 1993 with the Big Land - Big Heart tour. That band contained

Dobe Newton Dobe Newton OAM (born 14 July 1948) is an Australian musician and member of folk and country music group the Bushwackers from 1973. He co-wrote the patriotic song "I Am Australian" in 1987 with Bruce Woodley. For his service to the performing ...

of the Bushwackers,

Ernie Dingo Ernie is a masculine given name, frequently a short form (hypocorism) of Ernest, Ernald, Ernesto, or Verner. It may refer to: People * Ernie Accorsi (born 1941), American football executive * Ernie Adams (disambiguation) * Ernie Afaganis (born ...

, Dave Warner,

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, Paul Hitchins, (Sports) Dave Clarke and Cilla. They toured Vietnam with a similar concept in January 1994. In 1998 he recorded some instrumental guitar songs. Bosco Bosanac, the

bassist A bassist (also known as a bass player or bass guitarist) is a musician who plays a Bass (instrument), bass instrument such as a double bass (upright bass, contrabass, wood bass), bass guitar (electric bass, acoustic bass), synthbass, keyboar ...

with the Australian surf group The Atlantics heard one of his demo tapes. The band is noted as the "Australia's own surf music maestros".ABC Ballarat
Retrieved 30 April 2009 One Friday afternoon Bosanac called Cilia. He said "You sound all right on the recordings but can you play live?" His band's guitarist had just called in sick. Cilia played at the gig and Bosco told the other members from The Atlantics about him, and Cilla has been an integral and permanent member of the band since. The Atlantics have gone on to record many of Cilia's songs, which have appeared on various Atlantics records, in feature

film soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

s, surf movies, and PlayStation games. In August 2007, Cilia released his first solo album ''Revenge of the Surf Guitar''. The album brought him first place internationally, both as an artist and songwriter in the Surf song category in 2009 at the Just Plain Folks Music Awards. Song WinnersHis next album ''The Odd One Out'' was released in 2009. ''Surfersaurus'' was released in 2011. The next solo album ''Going to Kaleponi'' was released on 5 April 2013. After that came Electric Christmas (2015), an EP called SleepWalk (2017) and Espresso Martino (2018). In 2019 he released Shadowman, a tribute to the British Instrumental group, the Shadows, containing some covers and many original songs. After The Atlantics retired from touring in 2013 (at the end of their European tour) he joined Aussie pop icons Mental As Anything. The band toured constantly from 2013 - 2019, but left the road due to the untimely death of lead singer Greedy Smith. In 2021 Martin joined The Radiators and continues to tour with them.

Equipment

Cilia is an avid collector of classic and unique electric guitars. Some of his most valuable guitars can be heard on ''Revenge of the Surf Guitar'' including an original candy apple Red 1963 Fender Stratocaster, a black 1963

Fender Jaguar The Fender Jaguar is an electric guitar by Fender Musical Instruments characterized by an offset-waist body, a relatively unusual switching system with two separate circuits for lead and rhythm, and a short-scale 24" neck. Owing some roots to th ...

, a 1957

Fender Precision Bass The Fender Precision Bass (often shortened to "P-Bass") is a model of electric bass guitar manufactured by Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. In its standard, post-1957 configuration, the Precision Bass is a solid body, four-stringed instrum ...

and a 1965

Fender Jazz Bass The Fender Jazz Bass (often shortened to ''J-Bass'') is the second model of Bass guitar, electric bass created by Leo Fender. It is distinct from the Fender Precision Bass, Precision Bass in that its tone is brighter and richer in the midrange a ...

. Pieces from the collection are featured on his website with a story about each item, a new one is added each month
Guitar of the Month
Inspired by a 2012 trip to

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

and

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

(the Hawaiians call it '' Kaleponi'') and a chance meeting with surf guitarist Dick Dale, ''Going To Kaleponi'' has Martin and his classic guitar collection in full flight. Martin was featured in a 6-page article in April 2020's

Vintage Guitar magazine ''Vintage Guitar'' is an American magazine that focuses on vintage and classic guitars, amplifiers, effects, and related equipment, as well as notable guitarists from all genres and eras. The publication's feature stories and monthly columns cov ...

(Vol.43 No.06 April 2020). He talks about his influences, experience and shares photos of his vintage guitars.

Discography

*''Revenge of the Surf Guitar'' (2007) *''The Odd One Out'' (2009) *''Surfersaurus'' (2011) *''Going to Kaleponi '' (2013) *''Electric Christmas '' (2015) *''SleepWalk EP '' (2017) *''Espresso Martino '' (2018) *''Shadowman '' (2019)

References

External links

Martin Cilia Official WebsiteMartin Cilia MySpaceRevenge of the Surf Guitar MySpaceFender Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cilia, Martin 1958 births English rock guitarists English emigrants to Australia Living people People from Rochford Surf musicians