The Leaving of Liverpool

So, I flew back from Amsterdam in October with a big beard and a belly full of 'Brand' beer, a head full of amazing memories and a heart full of new friends.  The first 2 weeks were great, catching up with friends and playing a few gigs and doing some busking.  After 3 days I moved into a house in Kensington, it was a cold house and winter was approaching.  I nailed up a set of curtains and all of a sudden the excitement of not knowing where I was gonna sleep, and being in all these different cities seemed like a million years ago.  Could it happen that quick?  After about ten days I was all over the place, couldn't settle at all, was letting people down, couldn't get a right symetrical placing of the furniture in my room.  It was like a jigsaw puzzle where none of the pieces fit together.  This was a strange time for me.  I never get depressed, but I felt a wave of it hit me.  Cato, who is this amazing musician and singer I met in Amsterdam came to stay with me to record an album we had promised!  It was a strange atmosphere as I was starting to reject recording.  After ten years of locking myself away in a room, smoking morning till night and recording LOTS of music, my body was just starting to reject it.  We still recorded an album, and it is a mix of all those crazy energies we felt.  Not long after that, the two other wise men came to stay with me to do some recording.  It was a wonderful time we spent together, and we got some recordings done, but I just still couldn't settle this feeling that was making me so restless and unhappy.  Ron bought me a ticket to Amsterdam for this legendary party, and up until the last moment, I was going.  But I knew if I had of gone, I wouldn't have come back.  I was completely unprepared to set out again.  And felt I would have been leaving with the wrong motives.  I didn't go.

I lasted a few more weeks in that house, and then decided to leave.  Leaving a massive debt of unpaid rent, but I felt a cold house and a nested room was not helping my cause.  Pete Benthem who runs the legendary nights Free Rock n Roll at the mello said he had a room going, so I went to see it on Tuesday and moved in on Wednesday.  Already I felt this weight was starting to lift off me.  The house was warm and homely and with the best dog ever.  I detatched myself from the internet, and still wouldn't and couldn't record music.  I would only use my computer to listen to music on, I stopped smoking in my room, and cut the pot right out, played my guitar and went busking nearly every day.  Went to all the great nights Pete goes to, like Sidney Baileys at Peter Kavanaghs, The Loose Moose at the Caledonia and really enjoyed passing the winter drinking real ale, listening to lots of new music and started to write this album I am getting ready to record.  My plan when I came back to England was to put another band together and keep working on the label and building its infrastructure.  I struggled making the band because I just didn't feel my heart was in that direction anymore.  I felt it was something I 'should' do, rather than something that felt natural and right.  We had some practices with this amazing double bass player, but it was lacking what I had felt with all my other bands before.  I felt my heart was just in busking and learning as many new songs as I could. Liverpool is a great musical city, but it is hard work for a band who are writing their own stuff.  It is an expense that is a strain.  And trying to get everyone together is a headache. I have loved and enjoyed all my previous bands, but didn't feel it with this one.  The label was pulling away from every bit of cash loan injections I was eying up.  They never worked out, and I know now, that that is for a reason.  It would have tied me here indefinitely.  Before I booked my ticket to go, I was signing on and the dole were gonna give me loans to set the label up, and he said 'Well, that will keep you here till at least Christmas'.  I asked myself if I wanted to be tied here till at least Christmas and thought, no...

Spring started to spring up, and I started to feel a change in myself.  The answers were becoming clear.  I will settle in this city, and I will always help fuel in any way the music culture of this very special city.  But just not yet, I felt there is something I need to get out my system.  Before I am tied to loans and business things, I want to live truly free.  In the last 9 years I have moved house about 17 times.  I kind of accept I can't settle anywhere for a long time.  So I started to think about what I wanted to do.  My last adventure was the first time I had been out of the country, and so now I knew the water was warm, and the excitement was ripe.  It was time for the BIG adventure.  I felt I had come back to tidy up my loose ends, by graduating with my degree, helping fight the BBC cuts to local radio, being there for my Mum as she left her sewing shop.  But now it is time to move on.  As I seen the daffodils blooming and the frogs appearing I felt the breath of spring bring new life to me and my surroundings.  The bare tree I have looked at as I smoke out my window, now has flowers and leaves appearing.  The seeds of thoughts all winter were now starting to bloom in my mind.

I cut off all my hair, threw away all my old memory boxes of love letters, old lyrics, stuff like that.  Started doing heavy physical exercise, started to really understand French from these tapes I downloaded, started to prepare myself physically and mentally for this adventure.  I am selling everything I own, all my studio gear, computer, everything!  I am busking for 5 hours a day at the weekend and saving as much as I can to take with me.  I am buying a busking amp and a new guitar (as redwood my old friend had her head cut off in London)  Luckily Radio Ray lent me a beautiful old full bodied guitar who I have struck up quite a rapport with!

Liverpool, I love you dearly.  My friends, you are more special to me than you will ever know.  My family, you are everything that has allowed me to be who I am and supported me through everything.  When I was 19, I was a very different person.  The thought of being involved in music was just a seed of thought.  10 years on, I run a record label, have written 20 odd albums, met some amazing people and have not regretted a thing. As I prepare to turn 30 next week, I am planting more seeds of thought for where I want to be ten years from now........