I made my first guitar when I was nine. It was a plank of wood with nails at either end upon which I strung a series of elastic bands. I would tune them by wrapping the loops around the nails to achieve the desired tension, and then strike a number of rock 'n' roll poses in front of the bedroom mirror while plucking haphazardly at my home made instrument. It was very quiet, but in the silence of my childhood struck a chord that was loud enough to propel me into the world of music.

My first real guitar was a Selmer 'Futurama'. It was ice-blue and came with a tartan carry-case. A friend taught me a few chords and before long I had mastered enough Shadows' licks to get noticed among the other juvenile wannabees who were growing up in a social climate that was mainly dominated by American pop and rock 'n' roll. On the light side there were names like Dion, Fabian, Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, a load of other Teen heart-throbs with quiffs and of course Elvis. But if you really wanted to get down and dirty, you had to conjure with the likes of Jerry Lee, Little Richard, Carl Perkins (so cool!) and Chuck Berry. And then there were the guys like Chet Atkins who was so technically proficient, that, even if you didn't particularly like what they played, you could not fail to be impressed by their proficiency.

My first band was called 'The Chartists', a name taken from a group of Welsh revolutionaries that were slaughtered by battle hardened British red-coats in the mid-eighteen hundreds. I played rhythm guitar but was replaced by a local whizz-kid called Fred Harris who knew a lot more chords than I did. However, there was an acute shortage of bass-players at the time so I removed the top 'E' and 'B' strings from the Futurama and rejoined the band as bass-player. Some months later, after a long summer fruit picking, I managed to get enough cash together to buy a Hofner 'fiddle' bass - just like Paul McCartney's. At this point, I would like to say that I cannot emphasise too strongly the impact that McCartney made on bass-players everywhere. Suddenly you could play bass and sing lead vocals. The idea of the front man vocalist was swept away. Bass-players everywhere came out of the closet and took centre-stage positions as vocalists. I'd like to take time out here to mention that Allan Price (the original Jade Warrior drummer) and I grew up together, became interested in music together, and played in our first band together.

Anyway, to cut to the chase as it were, I left school and became a trainee journalist for two years. At this stage I could do three things reasonably well - I could write, sing and play the guitar. I also read a lot - Tolstoy, Dostoevesky, Mervyn Peake, Hardy and Mad Magazines. Instinct told me that I really should move away from Nantyglo, the village I grew up in, and move to a big city, where maybe I could earn a living as a musician and have some fun at the same time.

I moved to London in 1966 in the company of an art-school graduate and another bass-player. The art-school graduate was Mr. Cool and introduced us to cannabis. London was wonderful and bursting with possibilities. By this time I was listening to bands like John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, the Beatles, the Stones, (obviously) and a load of Brit rock/pop outfits like the Small Faces, Manfred Mann and the Animals. If I had to pick one track that struck me to the heart during this time, it would have to be 'Have You Heard' from the 'Beano' album by Mayall and the Bluesbreakers (Clapton's guitar solo is devastating), Also it wasn't long before The Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Vanilla Fudge, the Doors and Frank Zappa (the Hot Rats album is still one of my favourites) had a big impact on me, but in terms of expression, I had identified mostly with white blues bands such as Pail Butterfield, Canned Heat, Them, Jethro Tull and so on.


On tour in the USA
Then a friend dragged me along to the Marquee Club to see a band called King Crimson. The gig was a turning point for me, exposing the possibilities of utilising influences such as jazz, classical, rock and blues and presenting them all in one beautifully crafted package. Crimson were playing a series of Monday night gigs at the Marquee and I went to every one. At the time Allan Price (who was also living in London at this time) and I were playing in a jazz/R and B band and working the American air base circuit in Britain.

A short while later we joined a band called Unit Four Plus Two where I, met Tony Duhig (and consequently Jon Field) and went on to form Jade Warrior (if anybody wants more information about this its available at Friends of Jade Warrior.

I wound up sharing a flat with Tony and his brother Dave, a reformed juvenile delinquent who was already well on the way to becoming a remarkable guitarist. When Jade Warrior broke up, Dave and I stayed in touch and got involved in a lot of recording projects, non of which saw the light of day, but all of which I remember fondly.



Playing with The Edge
In 1976 I became the vocalist in a band put together by Cliff Davies, who later went on to become Ted Nugent's drummer. Around this time I was living in Chiswick, West London, and my local pub was called the Duke of York. Two of the other regulars in the pub were Steve Jones and Paul Cook who went on to become the guitarist and drummer in the Sex Pistols. I was seeing success all around me but seemed out of step with it. So I went to Canada where I'd been offered a gig as vocalist in a band called 'Butler'. We were managed by S.R.O., the same people who looked after Rush, but by this time, Punk and the New Wave had started to bite hard, and prog-rock bands were being elbowed out in favour of a raw, more immediate style of music. I flew back to London, shaved my head and got a gig playing bass in a band called the Edge. We did one album and the band broke up, but not before recording Kirsty McColl's first two singles and album and toured with an American singer called Jane Eyre under the pseudonym of 'the Belvederes'. The drummer with the Edge, Jon Moss, went on to join Culture Club while the guitarist, Lu Edmonds, can still be seen touring with the Mekons and Billy Bragg and the Blokes.


karate!
And that's where I'm going to leave things. It's all a bit condensed, but if anyone out there wants to know more, there's the Friends of Jade Warrior website. So I'll just end this thing by running off a list of all the records I can remember playing on - a discography I believe it's called.


The Dogstar Poets