After a dodgy early flirtation with Motorhead, and heavy metal in general, I went via a variety of (short-lived and utterly unsuccessful) bands - Sold To The Highest Buddha, to name just one, doing rock, blues and covers, in the late 80s, as well as sitting in with bands on the blues harmonica. I sidled into and later out of Destiny, a 1960's cover band, shortly before they became famous, relatively speaking, and shortly after I died of nausea. We played one gig, in the office of the Halifax Building Society in Hythe, in December 1987; no-one was killed, at least. We played 'Apache' 8 times, and only got an audience because it was raining outside. Around then, I starting to concentrate on the acoustic guitar, folk/blues and instrumental music, and absorbing the likes of John Renbourn, Bert Jansch, Martin Carthy and Pierre Bensusan, with the Americana of the Grateful Dead's quieter work, and the cacophony of their louder stuff - which I'd already spent years getting loose and absorbing.
As well as solo performances round the folk clubs and pubs of the area, another variety of short-lived and utterly unsuccessful folk bands followed; Butt What? and Shanachie, playing Irish and American folk to, and with, IRA sympathisers, transvestites and winos in the arse end of Southampton; Ernie Ball's Regular Slinkies, in a few pubs in New Milton and Christchurch; On The Fiddle and Estimated Prophet, back in the dives in Southampton, followed in the mid-90s by the Rizla Moths, and eventually a second, rather more stable, incarnation of Estimated Prophet , with Gavin Atkins and Adam Bowden .
We kept it up for pretty much a year, mostly at the Twynham folk club in Christchurch, and recorded an album in 1996. The same year, I recorded an album of guitar instrumentals, "The Wind Horse", now available on CD . Those were good days, and the variety of performers was incredible - nice to see most of them are still around!
Since then, life's been quieter in some ways, much busier in others. A bit of travelling, a lot of working, and now I'm getting back to the guitar, undergoing a love-hate relationship with my own voice, and doing a little more recording. Slow progress, but progress nonetheless...
