Faces of Warwick Valley
Meet the faces of Warwick Valley. Every month, Hello Warwick Valley will introduce you to three Warwick Valley residents.
To participate in the Faces of Warwick Valley, please email Mary Collura at maryccollura@gmail.com
April is “National Guitar Month,” so we caught up with local musicians to celebrate.
Jeff Ciampa
Town of Warwick
When did you start to play guitar? Around age 12 after starting to tpt at 7.
What are your major musical influences? Beatles, Hendrix, Clapton, Jeff Beck, Wes Montgomery, Pat Martino, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, J. S. Bach, Bartok, Stravinsky, etc.
Describe your Rig-Run-Down: POD XT for stereo ambient effects (rev, del & chorus) and pedalboard, Boss Waza Super Overdrive, Boss Envelope Filter, Electric Harmonic Tube-Pre, two Acoustic Image amps (stereo), two Celestial 12G 12” speaker cabs.
What has been your most memorable experience playing? Having Roy Haynes sit in on a gig I was playing.
John Collura
Village of Warwick
When did you start to play guitar? I got my first guitar when I was sixteen.
What are your major musical influences? They’ve changed through the years. I was first influenced by ACDC and Rush. Then it progressed into Metallica and late 80s metal. Once Nirvana came on the scene, no one really cared about guitar solos. By the 90s I was heavily influenced by punk rock music like Fugazi, NOFX, Strung Out, Good Riddens, all the SoCal skate punk. As I’ve gotten older, I’m more into shoegaze, indie rock but I still love progressive metal and punk.
Describe your Rig-Run-Down: This rotates a lot. Currently: Magnatone Amps, Gretsch Falcon, Fender Jaguar, Fender Jazzmaster, Gibson ES335 and my Fender 52 Re-issue Telecaster. I rotate pedals as well, but currently using Chase Bliss Automatone, Chase Bliss CXM 1978 Reverb, Browne Protein Drive, Strymon Timeline, Line 6 HX Stomp, Origin Effects Revival Drive.
What has been your most memorable experience playing? The first show I played in front of an audience was at the Eclipse in Middletown in 1997 and I never imagined what that would lead to. I was lucky enough to headline shows at Roseland in NYC and the famous Astoria in London which no longer exist. The biggest show I ever played was opening for the Red Hot Chili Peppers in Duisburg, Germany. Other memorable shows include: Reading and Leeds Festival, Fuji Rock Festival in Japan with The Cure, Muse, Beastie Boys, Iggy Pop; Earls Court Arena in London and Manchester Arena in UK with My Chemical Romance; The Falls Festival in Australia with the Black Eyed Peas; and opening for Blink 182 at the Golden 1 Arena in Sacramento. I also did television performances on Jimmy Kimmel, Conan, and the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
Greg Galluccio
Town of Warwick
When did you start to play guitar? When I was seven, I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show and immediately became obsessed with having long hair and playing guitar. To shut me up, my parents bought me a cheap acoustic guitar and some lessons and I’ve never stopped playing since. The long hair, however, has come and gone.
What are your major musical influences? My playing is largely influenced by Jeff Baxter and Larry Carlton of Steely Dan, and more recently by modern blues players like John Mayer, Robben Ford, and Joe Bonamassa. Acoustically, I love all the alternate tuning work that was pioneered by CSNY and Joni Mitchell.
Describe your Rig-Run-Down: On stage, I run my acoustic guitars through a Marshall AS50D acoustic amp with a touch of reverb. Just by itself, it gives all my acoustics some really nice color. My go-to electric guitar is a 1982 custom Fender Stratocaster that just sounds amazing. I use a Fender Mustang III amplifier which can uncannily mimic a Fender Twin, then add a compressor and a small amount of tube distortion to get the grit I need on a solo. In the studio, I’ll either crank up my Peavey Classic 50 tube amp, (it’s way too loud to use in smaller venues), or I’ll record direct using a software amp emulator called Neural DSP which gives me an infinite pallet of sounds.
What has been your most memorable experience playing? So many. I’ve played a lot of opening acts and festivals, so the big venues are really fun. But I love the intimate setting of a good house concert – probably more than anything.
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