Lona is a field recordist & sound designer, audio engineer & voice-over artist. Former radio & TV professional broadcaster.

The TakeOffs are an instrumental surf band from Kauai, Hawaii led by Ron Rhoades. The songs that appear on this site are the sole work of Ron Rhoades in his Koloa Dub Lab recording studio and have not been performed by The TakeOffs (except "Diamonds" 'live' "Mosquito Bay" and "Goofy Foot"). The TakeOffs have released their first studio CD titled 'Blue Avalanche' which is available from: www.doublecrownrecords.com and www.deepeddy.net
Band members are: Ron Rhoades-guitar John Hunt-bass Conrad Mathews-drums Billy Mello-guitar.

I like spaghetti & mellotron.
Thank you for listening.
Now go do that voodoo 
that you do 
so well.

Nice to have listeners from all over the world. Glad to have you here! 

I started playing the guitar at 15 but as is my way didnt take lessons or learn formaly, all I wanted to do was play instrumentals so providing someone put the guitar in tune for me I would spend hours trying to learn shadows numbers armed with just my ears and a Bert Weedon play in a day book and the odd chord being explained by a very talented musician called Eamon Toland hidden away in the tap room of Martins Nest Public House in Brighouse. Hidden away because legally it should have been another 3 years before I  was entitled to enjoy the experience.

Without doubt the lack of any formal lessons did and still does hamper my progress and abilities with such things as scales, keys and chord progressions being a total mystery to me. Nonetheless undeterred I battle on, convinced that I will have time to get to grips with the technicalities of it all once I retire, at the moment such learning would interfere with my playing time. 

Despite a few brief years playing in a local band performing in pubs and clubs my playing has always been limited to picking up the guitar for ten minutes here and there, usually to throw off a bad mood which it usually manages to do. Life must have been pretty good over the last few years as my equipment has sat gathering dust and after around 12 years in hibernation I decided it was time to dig it all out and see if I could manage to start knocking out tunes again so weekends are now spent locked away busy having a go at creating something to remember me by.

The sounds are produced with my 1988 USA Strat and although I have an original Fender Blues Deville 212 valve amp it isnt practical to use due to the volume needed so tend to use the guitar plugged into a Presonus Audiobox into a PC outputting to good quality domestic speakers which is fine for the volume I need for recording.

Recording is managed by Studio One Pro V2 which true to form I only use a small percentage of, (Its a bit like having a Ferrari to pop to the shops in) but it 's intuitive to use without spending too many hours learning.

I hope you find some enjoyment in my offerings and am always happy to receive constructive comments.

SteveMoxon is following