Since he was at school, many years ago, John Cologon has been writing music. His school exercise books were littered with the words of songs that he jotted down during class (there would be maths equations, for example, at the front of the book and songs at the back). Towards the end of, and after leaving school, John was a member of various bands with names like "Dark Alley", "Scrooge", "SPD Limited", "Midnight Rainbow" and, believe it or not, for a brief period, one called "Arnold Ziffle's Zany Twinkle-Toe Sandshoe Band".
In some of these bands, John played lead guitar, in others, bass. At one stage, he also had a brief career as a drummer. In the first incarnation of "Midnight Rainbow", he alternated between lead and bass, using a dual neck guitar with bass on one neck and a 6-string on the other. It was while he was in Midnight Rainbow that he began to take an interest in recording, using a 4-track Teac reel-to-reel tape recorder belonging to the drummer (he later bought his own).
Life moved on, and John chose marriage and kids over the music scene, but kept his hand in with occasional performances and jams, as well as by writing and recording songs at home. He also, from time to time, played a number of gigs, with various bands, including at a couple of stages, bands with various of his children, as they grew and took an interest in music.
A few years back, John reconnected with Peter Stein, a former fellow band member from Midnight Rainbow, and they did some jamming together. Peter suggested that John put together an album featuring some of his best songs from over the years. This idea grew into the idea of a concept-album featuring both old and new songs (with the older songs being re-recorded). The concept album was released in December 2019 ("Reality?"). John went on to release more albums and multiple singles.
John's music definitely shows the influence of his time playing in bands during years back, at which time he was motivated by the music of bands like Supertramp, The Beatles, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin, to name a few. These early influences have been modified and matured through the effect of the music he has been exposed to over the intervening years, resulting in a unique combination of progressive rock, power-pop, psychedelic rock, blues-rock, post-punk, classic rock, hard rock, progressive metal, and a sprinkling of other genres.
John's most recent album, Onwards and Inwards ” explores our search for meaning and takes a journey through some of the psychological pitfalls in the process of human growth.
John's latest single, "Love Flows Through", a positive antidote to our current world situation, clearly shows the influence of The Beatles on his music.
John currently lives in Canberra, Australia.
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