Eric Gales & Gary Hoey 2nd June 2017, Nells Jazz And Blues Club, London.

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It’s Friday night, I’m leaning against something sticky and vibrating and I’m hoping this doesn’t end too soon. I’m watching the penultimate song of Eric Gales’ set and the sticky vibrating thing is the wall of Nells Jazz And Blues Club, West Kensington. What is a Motörhead T-shirt wearing self-confessed metal head doing in a Jazz (small shudder) and Blues Club? Watching really great guitarists, that’s what. I’ve been excited since I queued in the very friendly queue outside, looking through the window of the Sainsbury’s Local below the venue at some unripe bananas.

Eric Gales gets a lot of Hendrix comparisons and these are well deserved but he’s got a style totally his own. My two favourite songs in his set were Sea of Bad Blood and Voodoo Child (Slight Return) which featured the riff from AC/DC’s Back In Black, something that should be heard every Friday night, across every land. For set list nerds, here’s a link: Eric Gales’ Set List.

I love the stories between Gales’ songs. I love that he tries a British accent and can say “splendid” splendidly. He’s one year clean and he somehow leaves you better than he found you. He plays with such passion in his face, wearing expressions that range from a child trying lemon for the first time, to opening a letter reminding you it’s time for a dental check-up, to a dog eating peanut butter, to one of those sneezes that you think you’re going to do but it vanishes. His honeyed words about his wife LaDonna are charming, she plays percussion with such energy. His bass player, Cody Wright, begins be-hatted and then gets too hot for it and drummer Nick Hay pounds his kit like it’s asked him to be rough with it. Talented musicians all, it’s a pleasure to watch them.

The opening act tonight was Gary Hoey, a chap I have read a little about in Lita Ford’s autobiography and met briefly on the Keeping The Blues Alive At Sea III cruise earlier this year. He’s black T-shirted and tattooed and he has a kind of punky grin at times, fifteen percent Sid Vicious, fifteen percent Billy Idol and seventy percent pure Hoey. My favourite songs in his set were Dust And Bones and Steamroller. For set list nerds, here’s a link: Gary Hoey’s Set List.

I know very little about blues but I do know that songs about trains are important and Hoey ticked that box by giving us Box Car Blues. There was a lot of smiling on stage between Hoey, Matt Scurfield on drums and AJ Pappas on bass. They look to be having a great time and it’s infectious.

Hoey1After the gig Gary Hoey was outside and we chatted and had a photo taken. There’s a lot of sweaty happiness in this picture. A big thank you to our chum Steve Betts for taking it, for being persuaded to join us on a night out and for putting up with all the bass player jokes aimed at him. We had a very good curry (and yes, my husband’s floral shirt did match the wallpaper in the Indian Express restaurant), a couple of drinks and we gave our ears a treat. So what if we’re tired tomorrow?

As we left West Kensington I noticed that the bananas in Sainsbury’s had ripened. The music must have drifted through the ceiling and helped them reach their potential. Whoever eats them is unwittingly ingesting a bit of the magic of Hoey and Gales. That’s going to make for a great snack.

10 Reasons Why Seeing Kiss Made Me Very Happy.

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  1. The lyric “It ain’t a crime to be good to yourself”. This should be your new philosophy.
  2. Birmingham is a truly beautiful city. The library was lit up with rainbow lights for Pride.
  3. The song “Lick It Up” is a splendidly life affirming tune and also hints at sexy times. Snigger.
  4. My friend telling me her colleague’s misheard lyric; “I want to rock and roll all night, and part of everyday”. It’s not the correct Kiss lyric (party every day) but it is more realistic and achievable. If you’ve rock and rolled all night, you’re only going to be able to rock and roll for part of every day, not the whole day.
  5. Shouting “Paul, Paul, Paul!” like a crowd of needy drunk girlfriends in a town centre on a Saturday night. We don’t want to be the crowd he doesn’t get on the zip wire for and doesn’t get atop his lazy Susan rotating stage for. Not many men his age look so good in a spangly crop top. He asked how many of us have never seen Kiss before and told us we would remember this night. He took our Kiss cherries so gently and so thoroughly. Phew!
  6. The lyric “These are my people and this is my crowd” sung by fifteen thousand people of which you are one.
  7. Paul and Gene are constants, they’ve been doing this since before I was born.
  8. So much tongue wiggling. Probably way over the legal limit of tongue wiggling.
  9. The joy of hearing Americans pronounce Birmingham.
  10. A scene I like to imagine from Gene Simmons’ life; Mr Simmons, your Avon order is ready. Good. I’m going on tour and I like the shower gel that removes dried fake blood easily from my chest hair.
  11. The crowd singing “God Gave Rock And Roll To You” while walking out of the venue and continuing to sing all the way down the street outside.

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I’ve been ready for this gig since 1989 – Kiss 28th May 2017 Barclaycard Arena, Birmingham

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Hello fifteen year old me in 1989,

Right now you’re grounded and in your bedroom listening to Kiss’s Destroyer LP. You won’t believe it but there’s going to come a time 28 years in the future when you get to see Kiss live!

Kiss

Mentions of Gene Simmons in the Pandas Saga:

“Cleo was enjoying talking to Shirl. They shared a fascination for Christopher Lee films. Shirl said she was always so nervous before a gig. She had begun playing bass guitar for fun, as a more interactive way of listening to music, stood in front of her mirror at home, pretending to be Jo Bench or Gene Simmons. She had never intended to do it in front of an audience”.

“Zodiac Mindwarp is the very best at this kind of hyperbolic sexual boasting. You aren’t meant to take it literally and get all offended. If he had indeed had twenty-thousand women, he’d needed to have slept with a woman a day from when he was born until he was fifty-five. Compare this to Gene Simmons who claims to have slept with four thousand and six hundred women. Gene is sixty-one years old. If we assume he began having sex at sixteen then that’s sixteen thousand, four hundred and twenty-five days of being sexually active, he’d have had to have slept with zero point twenty-eight of a woman per day, so it’s do-able and he might well have done. At the very least he’s done the maths”.

“Phil rang her doorbell. She let him in and gave him a long kiss in the small hallway. She’d been trying to think of a special sexual birthday treat for him. She struggled to think of a variety of coupling they hadn’t done multiple times. She whispered that she’d give him whatever he chose later.  She thought that anticipation could be an excellent form of foreplay. She had a massive wardrobe of teeny outfits in her bedroom and she had a libido the size of the Grand Canyon. On a good day Suzy could make Gene Simmons look shy”.

“Ian’s reply came in the form of a quote from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; ‘Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space’. He followed this up with ‘Don’t panic’ and pointed out that in another, parallel  universe Jez and Cleo got married and lived happily ever after, but in this one they didn’t. In one universe they never even met. In one universe the Spira was never discontinued. In one universe Glenn Danzig is a tall man. In one universe Jason Statham is unable to say the word ‘trousers’ in a threatening manner. In one universe Gene Simmons is a shy man who doesn’t like to put his name to merchandise and refuses offers of casual sex. In one universe Rocky’s wife has a proper girl’s name. In one universe Ted Nugent is a pacifist vegan. In one universe bass players get all the chicks. In one universe Pete Steele has average sized genitals. In one universe furry pants wear Manowar”.

 

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

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Some books that you have to study at school fall out of your brain the moment you’re finished with them. The Handmaid’s Tale is not one of those books. With a new adaptation starting this week (see the Radio Times for more information) I decided to share the extracts from The Very Metal Diary Of Cleo Howard 1997 and The Mega Metal Diary Of Cleo Howard 1998 which mention the book. It sparks a lot of thoughts for Cleo.

Hmaids

Friday 27th November 1997

We started reading A Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood in English today. It’s set in future America. There is a character in it called Janine. When Miss Wallace read this bit Janine Sackett blushed. A bit later there was a character called Lydia and Lydia Moore blushed. There is never a character called Cleo in anything we read at school.

Friday 4th December 1997

I woke up feeling sick, not because I’m ill but because I have a doctor’s appointment to get the pill. I keep thinking about how pleased Barry will be when I tell him.

We read more of The Handmaid’s Tale today in English. It’s starting to remind me of Brave New World because the people are in groups. In Brave New World there are Alphas, Betas, Epsilons and Gammas. In The Handmaid’s Tale there are Marthas, Handmaids, Commanders and Unwomen.

My doctor’s appointment wasn’t too bad. In fact it was surprisingly easy. I didn’t see anyone I knew in the waiting room (except Jenni who waited with me, flicking through copies of Country Living and The Lady).  I went in on my own to see Dr Turnbull. He looks ancient, about fifty. I got a sudden surge of bravery from somewhere. As soon as Dr Turnbull shut the door I said “I’d like the pill please”. He took my blood pressure then gave me a prescription to take to the pharmacy. He has given me three months of tablets and told me to come back in three months for more. He said you only get three months to start with to check they suit you. I’m going to swallow them, not wear them! He gave me a leaflet about what to do if I miss a pill and explained some stuff but I can’t remember any of it, I was too busy thinking about Barry’s face when I tell him he doesn’t have to wear a condom and about the three months of condom free shagging ahead!

I had to wait a little while in the pharmacy and I didn’t know that I had to sign the back of the prescription. The pill is free and you have to tick a box that says “I have been prescribed free of charge contraceptives”. The assistant was a lady and quite young. She pointed at the box I had to tick and she smiled at me, like it was our secret.

I read the leaflet properly when I got home. I have just got my period so I can start taking the pill now! I will be protected from now on. I think whoever invented the pill is a genius. I wonder if he or she did it because they don’t like condoms or children or both?

Friday 11th December 1997

We did chapters four and five of The Handmaid’s Tale today. It had a bit where Offred is told there is freedom to and freedom from. This reminded me of a bit in Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit; “Walls protect and walls limit”. The only walls I want are the ice creams and I’d rather have freedom to than freedom from any day. There was also a bit where the character Janine is pregnant. Janine Sackett looked really embarrassed. It would be quite good to be gay because you wouldn’t have to worry about getting pregnant.

Friday 8th January 1998

“Just one more day and then you can go out on the sauce tomorrow night”. Terry said when I called for Ian this morning. Then he offered us the last of the Christmas liquorice allsorts to eat on the way to school. All the good ones had gone. Nanny Howard says too much liquorice can give you a sad tummy.

We read chapter seven of The Handmaid’s Tale today. Offred has to live in a house away from her family and friends (like at uni but worse because she isn’t allowed out on her own and it’s a future world but not a pleasant one, like Helloween sang about, it’s a horrible one like in Nineteen-Eighty-Four (the book, not the year, I was only one year old in the year so I don’t know what it was like). At night Offred imagines being in better places and being with her Mum. She remembers a time when her Mum and her Mum’s friends burnt pornographic magazines as a protest. Everyone looked at Mark Dobbs when Janine read this out. Offred’s Mum sounds like she’d be embarrassing but it’s still sad if you don’t ever see your Mum, like Ian.

Saturday 9th January 1998

I wonder if there will ever be a world without pornography, like in The Handmaid’s Tale? According to Ian there is loads of porn on the internet but it’s not worth bothering with because it takes too long to download. Ian showed me once where Gav keeps his mucky magazines (at the back of a record box, under his bed). Gav doesn’t know that Ian knows where they are.

Ian has seen Sally’s chest and has felt, but not seen, her bush. At the pub tonight Sally said she thinks that men who have girlfriends don’t need to look at porn. T-Reg said that you don’t always want to look at the same ones, just like you don’t always want the same flavour Pot Noodle.

Friday 15th January 1998

We read chapter nine of The Handmaid’s Tale and a bit of it reminded me of D.H. Lawrence when he said young people take sex like a cocktail. Margaret Atwood wrote “men and women tried each other on, casually, like suits, rejecting whatever did not fit”. There is nothing casual about what I feel for Barry, which I suppose makes it formal. My love for him is like a ball gown, with a diamond necklace and a tiara to match.

Monday 18th January 1998

Mr Moffat told me I should be wearing gloves today. I have got gloves, I just forgot them. He seems to think because I’m sixteen and he’s ancient he can boss me around and treat me like I’m stupid. I do know that it’ll be cold in January. I hate being treated like a half finished human.

Shot said she forgot to rewind the video before she dropped it in to Blockbuster. She said “Oh well, it’s all anarchy, innit?”

I’ve just noticed that the rulers of the Republic of Gilead (the place where The handmaid’s Tale is set) has a conflict theory approach to society. There is competition for scarce resources. I haven’t noticed any other Sociology all around me in the actual world yet. Society is a bit like oxygen, it has to be there but you can’t really see it unless you look in a special way.

Friday 29th January 1998

Everest is a mountain and also a double glazing company. Yesterday I used it to mean vagina, Dear Diary, just to be clear. I think when you are a really great writer you don’t have to explain your metaphors. Flagpole works okay for penis though. Miss Wallace said we have to think about English on a deeper level now we’re in sixth form. We have to read and absorb. We have to notice the words that weren’t chosen as well as the words that were.

Janine had to read chapter sixteen of The Handmaid’s Tale aloud today. The whole room was silent as she said the F word. For a book we have to read at school it’s quite sweary but it isn’t sweary for no reason, it describes situations that people would definitely swear in. Offred has to have sex with the commander in the same room as his wife so that she might get pregnant. It is a grim scene. Holly Rowlands said it was state sanctioned rape, even if Offred said it wasn’t, because her other life choices were so bad. No-one else said anything. Holly never goes red when she answers questions in class.

I love going round Barry’s and getting into his warm bed. I wish I could spend a whole week just snuggled up watching telly and making love. Reading The Handmaid’s Tale has made me aware of the difference between fucking and making love. On Gimme Gimme Gimme tonight Linda got Liam Gallgher’s phone number from her sister Sugar Walls who is famous. I know so many people who fancy Liam but give me Pete Steele, or Rob Zombie, or Rob Flynn, or Max Cavalera any day. We also watched Bang, Bang, It’s Reeves and Mortimer. Paul McKenna was on it. I wonder if he could hypnotize Mum to stop her going on at me to bring my mugs and plates downstairs?

Friday 5th February 1998

I got my period this morning. Annoying. In The Handmaid’s Tale we found out that Offred’s boyfriend Luke might be dead, or might be alive and in the resistance. When I think of the resistance I think of Michelle from ‘Allo ‘Allo! Offred used butter as moisturiser because handmaids aren’t allowed real moisturiser. The other women want to make them ugly. I always use Simple moisturiser on my face and Body Shop moisturiser on the rest of me. On my way home I went to the library to renew my books. The woman on the counter said I will soon be able to do it on the computer instead of coming into the library.

Me and Barry watched Parkinson because Harry Enfield (who I like) and Michael Caine (who he likes) were on it. I said that Parky should have Lemmy on. Barry told me that there was a Pot Noodle advert about six years ago with “Ace Of Spades” as the music but it got banned because it made people feel ill. I don’t remember it but I was only eleven at the time and I didn’t start listening to metal until I was twelve. It saddens me to think I wasted twelve years listening to rubbish music.

Friday 12th February 1998

The Handmaid’s Tale was revolting today. Everyone watched Janine/Ofwarren give birth. Getting pregnant is the thing I am most scared of in life. It’s awkward that the pretend character Janine in the book The Handmaid’s Tale is whiny and annoying, like real Janine Sackett who goes to my school is. She is much nicer now she doesn’t hang round with Carina Norman but some people still won’t give her a chance.

Dazza said Venomous Lizzard are writing a song called “Lesbian Exorcism”. This was my idea, based on the book Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit. Maybe I should write song lyrics. No-one ever writes songs about periods so maybe I should suggest this to Dazza or perhaps keep this idea for my own band when I form one.

Mum was reading the telly guide while I was having breakfast. She said Jim Davidson and Thora Hird are on Parkinson tonight. She said she hopes Jim keeps it clean. The Vanessa Show and Trisha have had fake guests on recently. Even if Parkinson’s guests are boring and old, at least they are real. Normal people look a bit shabby on telly.

I couldn’t wait to see Barry today. His Mum had gone round her friends before going to bingo so we had the house to ourselves all evening. We did it twice, Barry said it was once as usual, and once to make up for when he saw me yesterday but we couldn’t do it.

On Gimme Gimme Gimme tonight Tom got married to a lesbian so that she could stay in England with her girlfriend. Linda was a bridesmaid and she got a job in a porn film called Poor White Trash Get It On. I wonder if I’ll ever get married? Even if Barry asked me now we’d have to wait until I’m eighteen because you need your parent’s consent to get married before eighteen. Mum would be bound to say no.

Friday 19th February 1998

In The Handmaid’s Tale Offred played Scrabble in secret with her commander and he let her look at a forbidden Vogue magazine. She asked him for hand cream and he got her some. All of this is not allowed in her society. She feels like his mistress now, not just a faceless woman he has to try to get pregnant to repopulate the planet. I can’t help thinking that babies could be created more easily, like in Brave New World.

I read a Vogue magazine once. It’s not as good as Terrorizer or Metal Hammer or Kerrang! even. I would hate to live in the Republic of Gilead (where The handmaid’s Tale is set), they have uniforms and no pub to go to on a Saturday. Choosing your clothes helps you choose your life.

Monday 22nd February 1998

It’s half term week. Hooray! My five favourite foods are cheese, chocolate, ice cream, malt loaf and chips. I would eat any of these things for breakfast even though Mum thinks breakfast can only be toast or cereal. Jenni sometimes has pain au chocolat.

I finished reading The Handmaid’s Tale even though we only had to do a few more chapters for homework. I don’t like waiting to see what happens. The ending is mad, set in the year 2195, and we never know if Offred escaped or was taken to prison. I’ve decided for myself that she escaped and she found her boyfriend and their daughter and the resistance overthrew the Government of Gilead and people were free again and scientists helped make people fertile.

Monday 8th March 1998

I caught STR sniffing Shot’s hoodie that she’d left in the common room today. He is definitely in love with her and she is definitely in love with Glen.

There was a new programme on tonight called The Grimleys. It’s set in Dudley in nineteen-seventy-eight and is mostly about Gordon Grimley, a schoolboy who is good at English and bad at P.E. He reminds me a bit of me when I was younger, before sixth form. He fancies Miss Titley, his English teacher. Tonight they were reading Romeo and Juliet and everyone giggled when Gordon said “breast”. We would have giggled too, before sixth form. Breast is nothing now, we’ve all heard much worse in The Handmaid’s Tale.

Happy World Goth Day!

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Ep 6 stillIn honour of today (22nd May 2017) being World Goth Day here are some extracts from The Very Metal Diary Of Cleo Howard 1997 that feature the word “Goth”.

Sunday 5th January 1997

I realise, Dear Diary, I haven’t introduced you to people who were at the pub last night. Ian and Jenni are my best mates at school. Jenni is the only Goth in our year. She’s tall and smart and beautiful. Ian is tall and I suppose he’s handsome but I don’t see him that way. Ian and Jenni keep me sane when Mum is arsey (a long sad story Dear Diary, involving a marriage split). I actually rather like school (except Maths and P.E.) because I get to see my mates. Bob and Simon The Raspberry are metal heads in the year above me at school. It’s interesting knowing older people. Last year I didn’t know what a blow job was so Bob demonstrated using a banana. I still can’t look at a banana without blushing but at least I will never be in the embarrassing situation of actually blowing now I know that this is not what you do. Simon gets his name because he spits a bit when he speaks (only a teeny bit, nothing like the Roy Hattersley Spitting Image puppet) and when he was overexcited once he made a raspberry noise.

I took the Christmas decorations down today. This is always my job. Before Mum and Dad separated me and Dad used to put up and take down the decorations together. Mum used to make mince pies for us when we put them up and bacon sandwiches when we took them down.

One of the tiny shiny red parcel decorations with gold ribbon wrapped round it came unravelled when I was undecorating today. I was fascinated by these pretend presents as a child and I wondered what was in them. It’s a block of polystyrene. That’s another one of the mysteries of childhood that turns out to be disappointing, like the day I found out Sylvania is a real place but isn’t populated by cute animal families, just normal people or like the day I found out what Dad was hiding on top of the wardrobe (my suspicion was sweets) and it was just some playing cards with pictures of ladies in their bra and pants.

***

Saturday 11th January

I went to the Green Man pub with Ian and Jenni. The way it works Dear Diary, is that we turn up wearing lipstick and smoking and no-one doubts that we’re eighteen because we appear to be so confident. Well, Ian and Jenni appear to be confident, I just follow behind them. Both of them look older than their age because they’re tall. We don’t draw attention to ourselves and no-one questions us. We don’t get too drunk or too noisy so we aren’t a nuisance. I’ve seen people get kicked out for this. It seems to me that you can do what you want so long as you do so discretely, so I don’t go boasting about having been to the pub, I just quietly go about my business.

We often see the metal heads from the year above us or the Goths from the sixth form. All the metal/goth/punk people at school sort of talk to each other or at least nod at each other, regardless of what year they are in. It’s like an invisible bond. The Green Man is a rock pub so it’s full of cool people and has no townies or trendies to bother us. They have their own places, whose door I wouldn’t darken for fear of hearing rubbish music.

Tonight Bob and Tyrannosaurus Reg were out. Reg is so much hotter than you would think based on his name Dear Diary. I wish I had a photo to show you. I think he’s the best looking boy in the year above, but Jenni thinks it’s Darren “Dazza” Baskerville.

***

 Monday 20th January

It was so hard to get out of bed today. I wanted to stay in my cosy sleep fog. If it wasn’t for Mum shouting up the stairs and for Slayer’s “South of Heaven” I’d never have got upright.

Some twats at school today were going on about how great ecstasy is and how Brian Harvey shouldn’t have got kicked out of East 17 for taking it. Frankly I don’t care how East 17 end, just so long as they do.

Meanwhile, I’ve got bigger stuff to think about, should I dye my hair blonde? The Great Kat looks amazing. Ian said she gives him a stiffy of epic proportions. He thinks she would give the best hand jobs in the world because of her guitar virtuosity. I said maybe she’ll tug him off and record his grunting noises and squeals of pleasure as a track on her next album.

Lex and Mopey Dick spoke to me and Jenni today. They are in the sixth form and are Goths. Jenni fancies Lex even more than she fancies Dazza. Mopey needed to borrow some eyeliner. He said he felt naked without it. He talks really slowly, like just being alive is an effort. He sounds a bit like a record played at the wrong speed. His proper name is Richard Rippingdale and he tried to get everyone to call him “Ripper”, which is a very good Goth name, but instead every calls him Mopey Dick, which suits him well.

We did long division in Maths today. I did really, really long division because it seems to take me longer than everyone else.

My First Ever Book Reading 18th May 2017

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I did my first ever book reading this week at Headington Library, with two other writers and the publisher of Double – Decker More Tales from the John Radcliffe Bus.

3dd

Headington Library is a beautiful building and is in Bury Knowle park. You can read more about it here: Bury Knowle House

I was a little nervous before so I stood in front of this splendid lion wood carving in the park and thought about The Wizard of Oz and the cowardly lion who found his courage. Then I ate a cereal bar so my stomach didn’t rumble. Not all preparation is  deep and thoughtful!

BuryKnowleLion.jpg

The audience was a lovely attentive, receptive group and I really enjoyed chatting with some of them after.

Feeding Things To Snaggletooth Part 46

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This week Snaggletooth has eaten cookie, candy corn, crumble and a croissant. As well as the things I fed him, on #MotorheadMonday Daisy D’Heria tweeted me to show me a carrot she’d fed Snaggletooth. #MotorheadMonday is a fun Twitter activity started by @LemmiumMetal to celebrate the life of Lemmy and music of Motörhead.

DaisyFeedingSnagCarrotTwitter

Dog Tales by Tyla J Pallas

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Dog Tales.jpgTyla has always stood out as a one of a kind artist. Dog Tales shows he really lives the role too. I saw the Dogs D’amour at the Minchery Tavern, Oxford in the early 90s and I saw Tyla at the White Horse in High Wycombe in the later half of the 90s. Both of these gigs I remember with huge fondness. I got to the High Wycombe one late because we’d accidentally gone to a pub of the same name but in West Wycombe. We strolled in, resplendent in our make up, bandannas, PVC (and that was just the blokes) and we were met with flat capped locals and a very horse-brassy bar. “Is Tyla playing here tonight?” we asked. We got a reply very much in the negative and directions to High Wycombe. We used the pubs’ loo, thanked the surly barman and ran away, lest the beige clothing and beige minds infected us. Onstage in High Wycombe Tyla told jokes between songs including one with the punchline “You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off”. For reasons mostly of memory and partly of decency I’ll let you invent your own set up to this punchline.

Dogs 90s Minchery Tavern

Onstage he’s a great storyteller and on paper he’s no different. I loved reading Tyla’s tales in his own words and the illustrations before the tales were perfect. He sounds like he’d be hard work to go on tour with. He’s always getting drunk and into scrapes and scraps. His Mum said he should have tucked his shirt in when he was on Top Of The Pops and one of the pranks he played on a friend sounded cruel, one where he made a heterosexual man think he’d had sex with another man. Most of the time however he’s totally gentlemanly and charming. His spelling and grammar occasionally needs work but I don’t think that’s ever been or is ever likely to be his priority and I’d rather it wasn’t, he’s got music to make, wine to drink, pictures to paint, and songs to write. It’s a book that is written how he speaks. I’m jealous of anyone who has got to hear these tales first hand in a bar.

I’ll leave you with this quote:

“I would often wander from place to place in search of adventure, not realising I was the adventure walking around waiting to happen”.