It is around 1993, late afternoon and I am at the stage entrance to the Burnley Mechanics theatre. The Diving Ducks, the area’s premier...

It is easy, or rather; I seem to find it easy, to kill a set with the wrong choice of song. I think I amply demonstrated this in my...

It is 2016 and I am doing a solo gig at Blackpool Football Club. Not the Blackpool Football Club, unfortunately, just a Blackpool...

In about 1991 was playing a small café just opposite the Alhambra. I mean of course, the real Alhambra. The one in Bradford. Not the...

I have referred to The Hearts unfortunate propensity to lose drummers. I can distinctly remember saying to the band on one occasion,...

Blog 17 Just bear with me on this one if you would. Until just before the millennium, I was a keen, if not avid football fan. Admittedly,...

Blog 16 Thank you to anyone still sticking with this blog after the caesura of the summer and lockdown. Any comments would be most...

The summer, such that it was, is over and I have put away my golf clubs, niblick and all, and returned to my blog. Apart from anything...

I am not a racist. When I say that there isn’t even an elided ‘but’ at the end, hopping about for a bit of attention. To be fair it might...

If you are still with me, thankyou for following my litte Roman Fleuve. I would welcome any comments, and particularly you sharing it...

I love sitting in with bands. Obviously I love ‘The Cheating Hearts’ more, but I enjoy the challenge of being asked to fill in, or even...

New Year’s Eve, the biggest paying gig of the year, and invariably the most dismal, tawdry and uninspiring one as well. In Britain, New...

Some years ago Brendan rang me from Italy. That was in itself quite an event. I knew Brendan was aware of the concept of a holiday, he...

‘Country’ and ‘Western; are possibly the two most divisive words in popular music. It remains true though that world-wide, country music...

Most performers, musicians, actors, dancers, are reasonably self aware. You have to conjure up some kind of illusion beyond the...

I’m basically a band player, a section man. Squeezed into a corner, largely unregarded, filling in that middle and swelling the Hammond...

It was around 1990 and I was fairly recently returned to the North West and slowly ingratiating myself into the local music scene. When...

In the eighties, Saturdays usually involved a tedious drive through the London traffic and onto the A12. Or the A11 perhaps, or even...

I’ll start with an aphorism, albeit a clunky one. All good music is musical entertainment, but not all musical entertainment is...

Forgive this brief encomium but my wife has recently read my blog. “It’s a bit sweary” she said. “You mean my use of the authentic...