Tomorrow's never late.....

This last month I have been so intensely driven to making money that I have made bad decisions and lost friends and ended up reaching my lowest point this weekend. I have never been driven by money, and anyone who knows me will know this. But the one thing standing between me and my love is a chunk of money. If I had a chunk of money we can move on with our lives, hitch hike and tour around the whole of Ireland, get a place in Berlin for a month, have a nice cosy English Christmas and then head back to the Americas sort out some paperwork and record another little album and then tour all over there for a good year or so. Continue building on our great album we made and playing music and being together in love. 

This to me is heaven and all I want, and when I want something I want it bad and I get impatient. I busk and if I havent made enough after half an hour I start to get frustrated and pissed of and this is the wrong energy to have while busking. I just watch the sunny days pass and I wish Nizha was here more than anything. It's killing me, I had made a lot from busking and almost had it, I made a wrong decision and lost friends, time and money because I was so determined to make money. Strange one that.

But I'm feeling in a much better positive mindset after this lost weekend. When you do things for the love and not the money it has much better effects on you and what you do. The effects of being so focused on money just cause impatience, greed and dis satisfaction. Niz and I are getting a lot of setbacks lately, just when we think we have it, it gets taken away. But the hardest challenges in life reap the biggest rewards. And this time away from eachother is enough to make sure we are never apart again like this. Also, perhaps it has been our mindset of needing the money as fast as we can that has caused some of these setbacks.

Time is a constant motion of change. Like a 24 hour bus journey, you think the end wont come and you get frustrated cos you want it to be sooner than it is, but that just makes an unpleasant journey. But if you enjoy the ride, do your best with love and a smile and know that the moment will always arrive when you reach your destination, it makes it much more pleasant. My impateince has made me make bad decisions and I have learned hard lessons from it.

After feeling so broken and burned out this weekend, it's time to just keep a strong heart and smile and laugh and know that the motion of time will keep on keeping on and that Niz will be here soon, and we will be stronger than we ever have been.

Desert Memoirs Part 1

As my time in the desert is becoming more and more distant, the memories get a touch of reverb on them, the people, the smells, the sounds and the sights are all like a distant and beautiful experience that has strengthened me in so many ways.   The beauty was the tempo of life there, nothing rushed, you get whatever you need, it just takes a little time, there is nothing rushing you or throwing you down an escalator.  In Buenos Aires of course, but not in the North and in the middle of a mountainous spine that runs all across the American continents.  

Vastness, eternal vastness for as far as the eye can see.  Stars you could reach out and touch if you could climb a little higher.  The procession of the constellations, how the moon would rise and fall in symmetry.  We say the Days had no name there, but the moon gave us our clock.  We would build up to  a full moon, and know exactly when its rising and falling and crescent.  On a full moon you could see like it was a pale early morning, moon shadows of the dark desert landscape filling the ground.  The mountains all around, silhouetted with pale moon light.  

Then when there is no moon, there is no light.  Just blackness in front of you we had to walk from the studio without a lantern sometimes and you never knew where you were stepping.  There is so much harsh forms of life there.  Because the conditions are extreme, the life around around it grows to live from it.  Everything is sharp, thorny, dry and does everything to protect itself.  The sand is everywhere, the floor is sharp stones and thorns of all shapes and sizes, and the wild life still runs wild.  A herd of donkeys will come and wake you in the night, horses will dart past your window and poke their long faces in, wild boar like animals that go for the chickens and have little hands and fingers.  I never found out what it was called but I seen a picture of one that Nizha’s friend had to kill with a hammer!  Lots of dogs, foxes, snakes, big spiders, lizards, scorpions, ant nests every few steps.  If you ever kept your feet still, the ants would start crawling up your shoes.  You got used to it by constantly tapping your feet to any sound you could hear.

After 2 months of being there, feeling so isolate and away from everything, writing a lot of songs and jamming lots with Niz we started to realise we could have a studio with the gear we had.  Niz had an old computer with a quite decent onboard sound built into it.  A good set of studio monitors, a nice box of cables and adapters.  We just lacked a microphone and mixer.  We borrowed an SM57 from Nizhas friend and it was the best sound with a mic I have ever recorded with.  It was plugged into a Dictaphone to give it gain, and then into an auxillery cable into the computer.  It really was a beautiful sound, and 90% of everything recorded was going through that mic.  

Once we had the studio it felt so great, something to invest our days in while we were here.  I always believe that isolation is the perfect ingredient for creativity.  And here we had perfect isolation.  It was in a little shack about 70metres from the house.  It had a bed in there, a power supply and lots of insect and lizard friends.  Bit by bit we made it into our studio, started recording and getting better and better quality and ideas with the recordings.  Niz and I became a true songwriting partnership.  Working well with eachother, screaming at eachother of course, but that’s the way it should be.  I would sit and watch in awe and love as she would write out some staves and come up with magnificent string arrangements for the songs.  She would put perfect harmonies on, and not be satisfied till she got it right, which she always would.  

We became like one in the studio, her ears mixed with mine, everything I have ever lacked and wanted in music I felt with Niz we had it together.  She would stop me rushing things, and we would take time to get it right.  I would insist on getting things finished and seeing them through.  We just worked well together and the studio allowed us to really make use of us being there.  It sometimes seemed like it was meant to be, how everything just fell into place.  We would drink some mate, take a flask of tea, have a little smoke and immerse ourselves in the songs, as perfect isolation will allow you to do.  The mountains don’t ask you to keep your voice down, they empower you to sing with all of your heart.  We wrote on our white board ‘Sing like it’s your last day on earth!’ ‘  We felt really inspired together in this place and I fell in love with Niz even more so.  I remember thinking ‘If I had of met Niz in the studio and worked with her as a musician, I would have fallen in love with her right there and then’.  She is so feisty, and determined to get it right.  I love everything about her and the studio side especially.

Juan, the legend that he is, managed to get hold of a motorbike for us.  It was a little red Italian chicken Chaser.  The first time I rode it through the mountains I felt it was the best day of my life.  It really was amazing.  It broke a few times, like a lot of stuff there does and he would rip it open, take it apart and fix it, lift it and do his best to get it working.  He is a man that truly never stops; there is so much strength in him that it inspires me incredibly.  I would ride through the mountains on this bike with Niz on the back singing to her, and feeling the beautiful 2 winds in my face.  There was a hot wind and a cold northern wind that would meet and you would feel them both as you rode. It was a great sensation.  

We would ride the 3 miles to the nearest town and get a few different bits from each shop.  Potatoes here, cheese there and so on.  I kind of missed very clean supermarkets at times, as the flies would be crawling in and out of pumpkins, all over the meat and you had to look for the good batches of fruit and veg as a lot of it was turning bad.The smell of raw meat in the hot sun will always stay with me.  But you could always find the good stuff, you just had to look and Niz was great at finding the ncie stuff.  Choice was very limited, but Niz cooked amazing meals with whatever we could get hold of.  The cost of living was perhaps a little cheaper than here, but not that much.  The cigarettes were 80p for 20, you couldn’t get hold of any tobacco unless you went 300 miles to Salta.  But everything found a way.  Whatever I ever wished for, I would get.  It sounds strange to say that.  But it’s true.  Especially when a little smoke would turn up at the perfect time and  Juan would come back from his travels through Argentina with the 5 litre bottles of Vino and bananas from the North, oranges from the South and so on.

No chemtrails.  Everyday the skies were clear and blue, sometimes overcast and sometimes a few plane trails.  But nothing like the dirty skies of Europe.  A burning sun, howling winds full of sand and everywhere there was sand.  It would get in through closed windows, the studio floor was often caked with a whole layer each morning.  It would get in your skin, eyes, hair everything.  I remember seeing an old man once just after a dust storm and his brown skin like leather, with sand in the wrinkles.  His shoes and clothes all had that yellow layer of dust that blends you into your surroundings.  

One of the most magnificent experiences ever was watching a lightning storm on a few occasions.  Lightning would fill all the skies around you, no rain but thunder and these constant flashes that were like electricity strobe lighting the mountains all around you.  I would watch in awe at the skies ripping open and the huge streaking lightning bolts.  Once a lightning bolt hit the house, blew the wiring case off the wall and left us without power for a few days and without water for a month!  The thunder ripped the sky above us, the house shook and then within a second this flash that caused this big bang!  I just held Niz close and we waited in wonder and worry for it to pass.

All the water was drawn from 70metres under the ground by the river that flowed nearby.  It was much different water to any I had known.  Very heavy, your hair would stick and be straight after a shower, you felt it on your stomach when you drunk it, but it was nice.  When we went the month without water, we would fill lots of bottles up at the nearest village, and bring them back.  Not waste a bit of it, re use anything we could. Try to flush the toilet only once a day.  It was a hard test, but it brought Niz and I even closer.  

Our little kitten, Haku was also such a joy and beautiful energy to have round.  Niz saved her from the garbage abandoned.  We made it our mission to make her strong and get her prepared for life in the desert.  And she loved us so much, she would jump on my shoulder sit with me on my lap for hours in the studio, happily purring away.  It’s making me a little sad writing this, as not long after I left for Europe the desert took her and she never returned.  But I know that the beautiful energy she was so full of will return to the universe and come back into the world.  We really loved that little kitten, so did Chihero the other Cat at Niz’s.  They would snuggle up and lay together on the bed, he with his arm around her for hours.  Their story is a beautiful love story aswell.  He wouldn’t let her in at first, and was quite moody and distant but she was persistant and won his heart and we would see them laying together and our hearts would melt.  Rest in peace my beautiful Haku.

Nizha’s mum, who is a philosophy master, a brilliant poet and singer songwriter came into the studio after we had finished our album and recorded the most wonderful songs.  To see her sing so passionately full of life and love and wisdom in her lyrics, it made me love Nizha even more.  You can tell a lot about the girl you are with by knowing her parents and Nizha has such wonderful strong, creative and beautiful parents that it made me sure I will grow old with Niz and love her for as long as I have breath.  Niz would translate to me her Mums lyrics and they were so deep and profound I was so happy to record them with her.  Normita, Nizha’s mum has the most amazing smile full of positivity and a contagious laugh so full of happiness.

Her Papa, Juan is also a special soul in this world.  Everything is so positive, always muy bien and he eats his meals like it’s his first and last with a beautiful appreciation.  He is a great man, and even with my bad Spanish we would communicate well, we said it was telepathic when I would know he needed a Vino Con Soda.  Wonderful people in a wonderful place, and being with Nizha in her home land made me love her so much.  I am so happy that I went there, and didn’t just wait for her to come back to Europe.  She looked after me so well, and Argentina became a part of me just like Nizha is a part of me.  I took a big risk by heading to South America with a one way ticket to a girl I had just had the best summer with.  But it seems when you take a big risk, you get rewarded with the most incredible experiences.

The house in San Carlos is also the home of the most beautiful grandest collection of coffee cups in the world from all around the world.  For years Normita has collected espresso cups from everywhere.  They are lined up perfectly on shelves around the kitchen, each one with a story to tell.  I used a few of them sometimes for an espresso and I held them so tightly and carefully, petrified something might happen to them.  I must admit, it did make the coffee taste gooooood.  I have already been collecting some for her here to take back when we go again.

We also played a nice few little gigs at this wonderful wine bar that is owned by one of Nizha’s good friends.  It has the most beautiful green colourful garden, Columbian coffee, an indoor part with a wood fire, so thoughtfully decorated and built with so much love.  There were pictures of the Beatles all around, lyrics from Dylan.  It is a very stylish bohemian place.  Right next door was the hostel that they owned also.  We would stay there when we played and it felt like a little holiday night out for us.  We would go to our favourite Lomita house and I would have the best steak sandwhich of my life.  It was a foot long bread with tender good steak wrapped in cheese, with a fried egg or two, salsa sauce, tomatos, ham and other lovely stuff.  Combined with the Cerveza De Salta it was a perfect combination.  After our food we would go to the Wine bar called ‘Ombu’ which is Tree in Spanish.

They were always quiet gigs, the acoustics of the room were so perfect.  Whenever we played there were only ever a few tables in the room but we loved it!  I would rather play to a handful of people who really enjoy and listen to your music rather than a room full of people talking over you.  We would leave some envelopes out on the table with saying donations for the band and we always did really good from that.  One night 300 pesos, which is a lot!  Niz was singing a lot more in the sets, we had learned some old classics like ‘After you’ve gone’ and ‘All of Me’ and we were singing so well together.  We naturally harmonise with eachother in so many ways, and we enjoyed some really nice gigs at Ombu.  Nadine and Fede are wonderful people who built the whole place themselves and Fede loves to grow many things. The roof of the outdoor area has grape vines running all through it, so you just reach up and eat the best grapes you’ve tasted.  It is a garden that’s like a little green paradise in the middle of the desert.

I miss it all so much, and just wish Nizha was here with me now.  And she will be soon, I am working hard and saving good to get her here and I know that the universe is in motion to bring her here.  I went there to marry Nizha, and I did.  I feel with all my heart she is my wife and partner in every way.  The desert bonded us so closely and though we may not have the paperwork for it yet, we are as close as 2 people can be.  Why not download our album we made in love and help bring her one step closer?

Always look on the bright side of life.

Always look on the bright side of life.

Away from the physical journey I have made through Europe and Argentina there has been another journey I have been on; the journey to understand life, to experience things and come through them a stronger person.   They can’t teach you experience in a book, you have to get your heart broken, you have to get blind drunk and make a fool of yourself, you have to push your body to the limits by putting all kinds into it.  One aspect in particular I would like to talk about is the online ‘conspiracy’  and  Illuminate world that exists within the tube.   

In 2001 the world as we knew it changed.  A domino destruction in the Middle East started, all kinds of rights were taken away, government funding for secret services and more intelligence agencies skyrocketed.  Community police were enrolled - normal people given a night stick and jack boots to police their neighbourhoods.  In the years that followed the economy collapsed, all business was shifted to China, the military hung from a barn President Suddam Hussein!  Literally they hung him from a barn by the neck, and Colonel Gadaffi.  Lots of bad, terrible things were happening and continued and continue to happen.  It all seems to stem from 911.  

Can we remember a life before September 11^th?  My recollections are of a good social welfare and youth system.  Tony Blair had just come into power, Oasis and Blur were bursting with fresh musical energy, Britain was a buzz.  You could get your driving test for free, there were so many youth schemes and apprenticeships and always jobs, either in a factory or a call centre, depending on your collar.  Things built up nicely and my memories of the late 90s are all good ones.  Still hardships, but it seems that things have become harder for everyone now.  I used to sign on the dole and proudly say I was a musician.  They really liked me there and wouldn’t make me do any job searches or make me come in more than the bare 3 minutes to sign my signature once a fortnight. It’s almost like giving the Queen your autograph.  

They even sent me on a 6 month course to the most prestigious school of music in Liverpool....Lipa!  And there I made some great recordings, met some good contacts and jammed with Paul McCartney!  I went to Music College for four years for nothing, no fees just good musicians to meet.  The year after I left they stopped the free college, they made it hard to claim any money without giving an ounce of flesh.  The benefits system was under attack, and so was everyone it seems.  Lots of people around me were losing their jobs, people with money saved were losing that somehow everything seems to have gotten shitter, and is getting harder for a lot of people more and more rapidly.

 That is what I know for sure, trusting my own memories I can definitely say that yes, since 2001 things have gotten worse in a lot of ways.  So what happened on that September day?  We see the giants of World Trade brought to their knees and destroyed.  We are told another plane hit the pentagon and that one was brought down before it hit the White House and this is where it all starts.........

For a good couple of years I didn’t even question that it might have been anything else than the bogeyman of Osama Bin Laden.  It only took them a couple of hours from when the planes hit to put the blame on him.  I think it was around 2004 and my bass player sent me an email saying you have to watch this video.  It was called Loose Change, and it showed some crazy evidence that things were not exactly how they told you about September 11^th.  Mainly that there was a whole building demolished in a controlled way ‘WTC7’ and that there was no wreckage of a plane hitting the pentagon, and that the flight path it was on was near impossible to hit it at the angle it did.  There were signs that the two towers had ‘squibs’ which were thermite explosions which allowed the towers to fall at free fall speed.  What hit the Pentagon was claimed to be a missile, and it hit the exact department that was investigating why trillions of dollars from the budget was missing.

‘Wow!’ I thought, could this actually be real.  Could they have really tried to get away with this?  ‘They’ being the Bush Dynasty who had been trying to wrestle power from a constitutionally empowered people.  This was the starting point of me really starting to question things and going deeper into what is now a dark cheap made world that blames everyone from Jews to Arabs to Bush’s to Clintons to lizards and aliens and Jesus to Satan for those world changing events.

I would dig deeper and watch even more videos on this wonderful site called You Tube, which had no adverts and had videos on everything.  I am told how the Illuminati had planned all this since 1991, and how the Jews are really in control of America, how aliens have been interacting with our world leaders for decades and how there is a Satanist cult running the entertainment industry.  I remember feeling so awake when watching all this stuff.  A lot of it made sense, a lot of it was nonsensical, but I remember seeing one website in particular that as soon as I saw it gave me shivers because it opened my eyes to the skies above me.

It was these pictures of planes filling up the skies with grey smog.  I still remember the feeling now, seeing them and then something inside me just waking up.  I look out my window, and see the blue being smeared over with these jet trails.  I had seen it so much, and not thought anything of it.  But the moment I saw this site, it made me see it clearly.  This is what affected me the most, and still does to a large degree.  This was the catalyst which really excelled my immersion into this conspiracy world; ‘How could they take away our sunny day?!?!?’ I would scream inside.  I started to tell everyone I met, look up to the skies; can you not see what they are doing?  

I was not the only one who could see this horrible act, I joined a movement in Liverpool handing out leaflets and going to weekly meetings.  I started listening to the ‘Alex Jones Show’ and would listen to him rant and cry about how the world as we know it is ending.  Every day the horrors he would broadcast seemed to be getting closer and the world was becoming darker and darker.  People would find it hard to spend time with me, because I would end up ranting about Chemtrails and big brother and getting really worked up about the problems of the world.  I could only see the bad in the world which there was lots of, for 5 years now I had been in immersed deeper and deeper into it.  I could only see fat hateful ugly kids, stupid people breeding 7 kids they will never love or look after, 4 cameras on every bus, automated voice systems constantly spitting out information over loud speakers, community police with jack boots and tear gas, the destruction of the middle class, the closing of the very British pubs all over the country, lots of independent business’ going under.  

And then I went travelling....

After being so sick of England and its deterioration into this world I was seeing, I left the place.  For the first time in 29 years I left the little green island and went busking around France and Holland with a few hundred quid in my pocket.  I think it took 2 months away for the hatred to start to fade and for me to start to remember the good sides of England; the things I took for granted like the music and busking, real ale, funny accents and red brick houses.  I came back after 4 months away and felt like a different person.  I tried to pick up where I had left off, but couldn’t!   Things were different for me.  Having a taste of a different culture and being on a great adventure had wetted my appetite and opened my eyes.  I have been travelling for over 3 years now and the longer I am away for, the more English I become.  

The point of this blog is that I came to a realisation.  After seeing only the bad in the world, I started to see the good again.  You could be a racist homophobe and stay with a gay Indian couple and lose every bit of hatred you would have.  Not that I was a racist homophobe, it’s just an example to show that goodness exists everywhere in the world, more so than the bad.  And the conditioning of your environment starts to shed the more of the world you see.  We are all born with 2 legs and 2 arms 2 eyes (if we are lucky) but it is our surroundings that make us who we are.  How we talk, how we behave, what we believe.  The more of the world you see, the more you see this.  The same human behaviour exists everywhere and has done since the start of time.  Even in the Mongolian desert they send the kids to the shops for batteries for their radio, even if it takes 3 days to get there. (I watched a film about camels and seen this)

There is a quote that sticks in my mind, if I can get it right and it says ‘If you want to keep a secret, then shout it from the marketplace’  I think this is the case with the world of conspiracy videos.  There are that many crazy theories out there, you just don’t know what to believe anymore.  I know something about September 11^th stinks, I know that propaganda exists in every channel of the Television, I know that the smears from the jets stink and are not just harmless contrails.  If I’m honest I think they are something to do with HAARP and the technology Tesla discovered about weather modification.  I know the 2 party system is just an illusion of democracy.  I know the cameras are watching everything, your computer watches you inside and out, I know that the queen is probably responsible for the wars in the Middle East.  Why else would she have her sons photographed in the military.  She wants these wars.  She is not as useless and ornamental as she wants you to believe.

But you know what?  I don’t care.  Since the beginning of time there have always been bad people trying and doing bad things, and good people doing good things.  It is that fusion of positive and negative which gives the world its charge.  Maybe now we are in a position where technology can free us and bring on a planetary golden age, and maybe one day we will get there.  But life will always be a struggle, sometimes we will have great times, and sometimes we will have hard times.  Genocide existed long before Hitler and war has been a natural part of human existence since the monkey used a bone to beat the other monkey up (2001 ref).

I still see the Chemtrails fill up the skies, I still see the rise in police and economic warfare, the Orwellian camera state and Brave New World eugenics.  I see the bad in this world, but I don’t let it bring me down anymore.  I look at youtube vids of internet casualties with bagged blacked eyes ranting about lizards and jesus and all kinds, and I laugh now.  I just keep a faith, that no matter how bad things seem, there is a good side to life aswell and the only constant thing is change, this system will collapse, a new one will take its place, and that will collapse.  These empires who think they can rule the entire world will never do it.  Because the lessons life teaches you is that even when you think you have it all going your way, something will happen that you never planned would and will fuck things up.  The world is so vast and huge, and there are so many things going on that it is impossible to control them all.  

I just try to affect my surroundings positively through music and optimism and also with an understanding of why and how these things happen.  I will never understand it all and even if I am right no one comes down with a gong and says ‘Well done, you got the right answer’ alls you have is faith and the evidence you gather from the world around you.  I know that the universe is infinite and is just everlasting cycles of beautiful chaos and collisions and destruction and harmony and symmetry. This earth is a violent place, everything eats it eachother, the earth rips open the floor when it wants to, the wind twists and sucks everything up, the sea destroys what it wants to.  We are the conscious reflection of this earth.  We are violent, we cant ‘Save the earth’ it is a self supporting system and everything we put into this earth comes from the earth.  It rules all. 

I feel I am starting to drift, but want to do another chapter about the earth religion and all.  I hope my point has come across in this blog. 

Coffee n Cakes

After a night on the streets of Berlin, I was waiting for the bus for fusion to arrive, watching the festival goers in their sunny gear and crates of German ale.  Here I was in a suit with just a guitar on my back.  I hadn’t taken any luggage on the plane because it would have cost much more for the ticket.   I had a look at the ticket for the bus I had printed off and felt a wave of worry it me as it said ‘You cannot board this bus without your festival ticket, please respect’ I didn’t have a ticket; Danni was going to meet me at the gate and get me in, I kept going over the story I was going to tell them.  If I couldn’t have got on this bus I would have been screwed.  No money, no energy and no way back to England.

They started boarding the bus and didn’t even ask me for a ticket.  I thought ‘Phew!’ That’s the chilled out vibe of the fusion though.  And it made me smile to think of the previous 2 years I had been at the festival.  Never any trouble, just happy dancing, drinking Germans.  I really love the German people and culture.  The first year I was there was a magical time.  I would find myself in stitches by how they spoke, how they happily waited in long lines for water, never complained.  I’m smiling now just thinking of them.  

I settle down on the bus with a nice bit of legroom and just fall asleep straight away.  The Germans are very quiet and respectful people, it wasn’t a bus full of rowdy loud drunks, and they all just quietly chattered and talked between them.    We arrive about 4 hours later and I try to find someone with a phone so I can send a text message to Danni to tell her I am here.  I went to the front desk after 5 people I asked couldn’t get a signal.  I chatted to the guys on the front desk, and they were so nice while I waited giving me a bottle of water and cup of coffee, the sun was burning down and I felt it was gonna be a great festival.

Flits, who is Danni’s son came to meet me at the entrance, I get my ticket give a salut to the guys on the front desk, they had been so nice.  I then head to our camp to meet Danni.  She always has the best most prepared set up and I could smell the coffee the nearer we got.  Again, I was running on an energy I didn’t know I had.  But getting into the festival and that little sleep on the bus had given me a good recharge.  I was so full of life and as soon as I jumped on the coffee bar, the charm came out and the Germans were queuing up for a cup of the special stuff.

Like sleeping on the streets and being in Berlin again, the fusion was reminding me so much of Nizha.  Last year we had fallen in love so deeply, the fusion had really bonded us.  The familiar sites, the smells the sounds all of it just made me more conscious that she wasn’t here and I wished that she was.  In the isolation of Argentina, many times I would miss Amsterdam and Berlin.  I would wish I was there drinking a Berliner Pilsener or smoking a joint in De Graal.  Well, here I was and without Nizha it was shit.

The reality started to hit me more and more and I would think of Nizha alone in the desert while I am at the biggest party in Europe.  Things were feeling bad, and I couldn’t escape the the fact I felt I was moving backwards.  I had done the festival season, and in style!  All over Holland, 2 months at Magnet (twice), Ruigoord, ADM.  I didn’t really feel like dancing drinking and partying, but I did enjoy making the coffee again and seeing Danni, Wytze and Flits.  

I had been eating so good in Argentina, Niz is an amazing cook and would always cook these great meals with veg, potato and salad.  I would only have 2 coffees a day and was in a good rhythm with everything.  Since being back in Europe I had been on coffees all day, fried food, lots of pissy beer.  After that studio job and drinking that shitty tinny ale all day I came home and threw up.  I just felt I was putting so much bad stuff into my body and the festival was going to be more of the same.  But Danni does make great food aswell, and we eat a good meal each day, but you can’t escape what you are putting into your body, lots of strong coffee, beer, vino, rum, cakes and all the other stuff that tastes great but is bad for you.  I think that time in the desert had truly changed me.  My body had become so used to eating good stuff that it was struggling to go back to the old ways.

I felt fearless also.  Taking a trip to the desert of South America with a 1 way ticket and no way to get back, and then making the album we made, learning a lot of Spanish, riding the motorbike through the mountains it had changed me.  I just felt, and still feel fearless.  I had a very strong energy and some lovely German girls were really attracted to me and literally throwing themselves at me!  But none were ever as beautiful as Nizha, and I was never tempted.  Why risk losing someone that you have been looking for all your life, for some squidgy drunk sex in a dirty tent?

Niz was in my thoughts constantly, every train of thought I had returned to her.  And even if I was thinking of something else, she was still there with it.  I was glad I had made this journey though, because it made me truly realise what I wanted and how I felt about things.  With Nizha, we move forward, we move on we conquer our fears together and become stronger from it.  I felt I had made a step backwards, but kept a strong heart and persevered as you must.

The only way you can deal with 70% people drinking, dancing and popping is to join them.  I did, and I am sometimes cursed with a vision.  The rain had came from the second day and lasted till Sunday.  And on one morning when I returned to set up the coffee bar, this grey wet drizzly morning had made everything soggy and sluggy, grey light made things seem grey.  Peoples eyes were all crooked, their jaws chewing and I just felt a real sense of not belonging.  Of thinking that I am done with this.  Chep phony chemical highs were people are your best friend for a few hours was just not attractive to me.

The festival passed and we packed up and made our way to Groningen in the East of Holland.  I stayed there a night and then took a train to Amsterdam.  The place that had been most in my thoughts while I was in the desert.  I thought I would feel good there, OK maybe the festival wasn’t right for my frame of mind, but Amsterdam and my bike and Degraal would be, wouldn’t it?