Music is a vital thread running through my life.  I have never made much money from it, but then again very few have.  Luckily I have money from other sources (all legal) so I have the luxury of enjoying music as a creative outlet rather than depending on it as a source of income.  And that’s just as well, because I loathe the music industry, finding it oily, greedy and above all ignorant.

 Like several other members of the band I was born in Derby, England, and grew up on a working class council estate populated mainly by demobbed servicemen and their families.  My parents, apart from being honest and hard-working, were also pretty demanding.  That may be why I ended up with a good education (PhD in geology – not too cool for a musician, eh?) and why I seem to be seem to be driven to create things.  I can’t sit still and relax for more than 5 minutes without “doing something useful”, be it playing music or writing.  If I haven’t got a project, I’m a pain in the ass.  I don’t really know why this is, but like everyone else I can choose the cheap option and blame the parents…

 I was first inspired to pick up a guitar by the Beatles and Dylan.  First hearing “Freewheelin” and “Sgt Pepper” in the 60s were life changing experiences, as was “10,000 Spirits” by the Incredible String Band.  I would have to wait until the punk explosion of the late 70s for a similar Road to Damascus experience.  I played lots of folk clubs in the 60s, often with childhood friend John, struggling a little against the folk establishment who were mainly interested in bands with agricultural-sounding names singing songs about dusty roads or maids with inadequate apron strings.  I wouldn’t want to slag off traditional folk, though – it’s still my oldest and deepest influence.  Moving to London, I lived in a flat-cum-hippie commune with John and Caro.  I wrote hundreds of songs at this time, some of which appeared on the Tony, Caro and John album “All On The First Day” - a privately produced low-tech affair, the making of which is described in John’s bio and in the AOTFD sleeve notes.  We were definitely in a creative fugue at this time, with no qualms about mixing up folky strains with pop, psychedelic electronica and vaudeville piss-takes.

 In the 70s we joined up with guitar ace Simon, blues harmonica virtuoso Jonny, electronics whizz Rod and (occasionally) my vocalizing sister Julie and wife Barbara to form Forever and Ever, basically a rock band but melding all the very diverse musical influences of the members (folk, blues, rock, punk and electronica).  We played colleges, I got electrocuted (see sniggering comments in other band bios, the murdering bastards) and we recorded some better-produced stuff.  At the beginning of the 80s I left for Norway and was there for most of the Thatcher-blighted decade, occasionally returning to record more songs with John, Rod and Simon.  While in Norway I played in an occasional country band, was a sideman in a rather good folk band called Domeama, and did the round of folk clubs where the British traditional stuff was much in demand.

 Since the early 90s I’ve been back in London, where my tolerant wife allows me to fill three-quarters of the house with musical instruments, books and rocks.  Unlike Simon I haven’t been gigging much, but have kept musically active with writing, recording and jamming with sundry FE&E members.  Our album “Retrospect” is a sample of what we were up to in the 80s and 90s.  It was a tremendous buzz when we found that our ancient album “All On The First Day” had attained some kind of cult reputation on the Internet, largely due to its being classified by afficionados as part of the rare genre “psychedelic folk”. Original copies of the 1972 album were on sale for up to £2,700! This bizarre interest from people with great musical perception (or too much money) resulted in the album being commercially released on the Shadoks label. 

 Nowadays the songs don’t come in hundreds – they just seep through from time to time within the confines of a demanding day job.  Singing is still a huge pleasure and relaxation.  I have a limited vocal range, but think I have made the best out of the hand I have been dealt.  I play guitar, mandolin family of instruments and get by on keyboards.  I have recently taken up the sitar – a wonderful instrument to play, but needing several lifetimes to really master – and am teaching myself blues harmonica.  I want to learn more instruments, with banjo top of the list.  My priorities in life are 1)  friends and family, 2) music, 3) the academic-professional thing, and 4) everything else.