No Direction Home

After having performed the acoustic circuit for approximately nine years my hatred of journalists combined with my alcohol abuse led me to the inevitable. I decided to quit.

This decision came to me in a state that only recovering alcoholics can relate to. It is a clinical term defined as 'drunken clarity.' This only occurs when one has been consuming large amounts of alcohol for an extended period and for whatever reason splurge out and drink even more. This leads to a fleeting moment of clarity where everything makes sense and is, infact, extremely logical.

I have had this occur twice in my life. This first time was after a gig approximately half an hour away. I consumed a bottle of vodka as I was being driven home. When I arrived home I discovered that I had three, not my customary two, bottles of vodka waiting for me on the kitchen bench.

I took all three bottles and sat them by my chair, alongside two packets of cigarettes and ashtray, put on the T.V. with the sound turned down and put on my CD player. I had no idea what CD was in there. It happened to be a Bob Dylan double-CD, one given to me the previous Xmas. As I was getting the vodka into me in my normal fashion, by the cup, the track "Blind Willie McTell" came on. It was well and truly daylight by this stage. I had three cigarettes and less than half a bottle left.

I rang for a taxi as I was incapable of walking the 4km round trip to get more booze and cigarettes. I returned home and Dylans "Blind Willie McTell" was still playing. I have no recollection of setting it to 'repeat' but I must have and was quite happy to listen to it, analysing it for the remainder of the day and wondering why on earth he decided not to put it on the album 'Infidels.' I was later to find out from a reliable source that it was the sound of his tapping foot.

As mid-day approached I was still listening to the track when the line "....this land is condemned...." hit me like lightening. It was at this precise moment that I knew within myself that my body, which at that time was approaching 40 years old, was no longer fit to put itself through the torture of withdrawing from alcohol and taking bucketloads of prescription medications to avoid the possible life threatening seizures every two-to-three weeks for the sake of $500.

Looking out of my window across the distant rolling hills I realised that this land IS condemned. I wasn't thinking of the rolling hills or, surprisingly, myself. I was referring to performing live.

I had my recording unit sitting, encased in an old glass-fronted record player cabinet. All the cables were plugged in with the exception of the guitar lead and power cable. Recording could commence whenever I was ready.

It would be quite some time before I would commence recording at home.....and it wouldn't be that home that I would re-commence recording in.

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