People keep sending me emails and text messages asking if I'm still alive and am I feeling alright. It's as if they expect me to spend my time lurching from one crisis to another. And I suppose I do really. But in between being completely broke, fending off the bailiffs, and dealing with impossible travel situations, I think I have quite a good time. I'm just not sure how much longer I can get away with it for. But that's nothing new - I've been wondering that since the late eighties when I went to live in France and effectively dropped out of society for a few years.
I'm going back there soon, and taking Amy with me. It doesn't mean that we won't be back here to play - it'll be a lot easier to drive in London with French plates so it might be a more attractive proposition than it is at the moment. I say this on the heels of my latest crisis last Friday night in Shoreditch.
Shoreditch is the home of the worst haircuts in the country, the Brylcreamed urchin look where you have to plaster a sub-Beatle cut to the sides of your head and leave some greasy, gingery-brown bits sticking up on top so that you look like a sick parrot. I don't really mind about that, it's just the people underneath the haircuts that do me in - a delightless mixture of self-confidence and vacuousness.
The promoters wanted me to be there at six o'clock for a soundcheck. I didn't really want a soundcheck but that seemed to worry them so I got there at quarter to eight and watched the first band on going through the most protracted soundcheck I've seen for ages. Then I went off to eat at the Pizza Express, which wasn't very nice but it was the only place I could find that wasn't full of advertising execs and city highfliers all talking loudly about themselves. The sort of people who move into poor areas and by so doing immediately double the price of property, then congratulate themselves on being down amongst the nittygritty along with all their safe yuppie half-a-gram-of-coke-at-the-weekend mates. The sort of people who think their copious use of the over-priced corner shop, coupled with referring to the pub as the rub-a-dub, means that they really fit in. Which they do in the end because nobody else can afford to live there anymore.
But I didn't mean to write an essay about the migration of twats, though the migration of twats does have an indirect bearing on the impossible parking situation in Shoreditch and the subsequent wheel-clamping of my car. When you drive into Hoxton Square from Old Street there's a sign high up on a pole that you wouldn't immediately see unless you were looking for it. It says Controlled Zone: 7am to 11pm. I wasn't looking for it so I missed it. I thought it was a pretty safe bet to park on a single yellow line at quarter to eight in the evening, especially as there weren't any signs along the pavement telling me otherwise.
I should have been gazing into the air instead of watching for pedestrians as I drove into Hoxton Square. Instead my callow, country bumpkin ways cost me nearly half what I earned for pumping out forty minutes of music in a dark noisy basement full of posh kids and junkies. Not that I didn't enjoy it - I loved it, even the guy who was shouting 'let's take heroin together'. I had to slap him down because he started to get a bit tedious. I told him he could take all the designer drugs in the world but it wouldn't cure his haircut. That got quite a lot of applause along with some adverse comments about Hackney Borough Council.

Anyway, when I came back from the Pizza Express I found a big yellow metal triangle on the front wheel of the car and notice on the windscreen with instructions on how to pay up. You had to do it with a credit card, otherwise you'd be obliged go to Poplar and pay in cash. This scam assumes that everybody has a mobile phone and a credit or debit card. I've got a mobile phone but I got to the end of my credit card last week, and I haven't got any money in the bank. In fact the bank situation is so bad at the moment that I've given up carrying my debit card because there's no point. So I rang a friend who tried to pay over the phone but got through to a retard who couldn't deal with a credit card payment. He tried but he fucked up. Twice. By that time it was the middle of the night and I had to go and play (I went on at about haf past one in the morning).
A nice girl called Lucy tried to pay with her credit card in exchange for the cash I was carrying because, as luck would have it, I was paid in full, in cash, before the gig. But they wouldn't accept her card. So I went onstage and did the set in the full certainty that afterwards I'd have to find my way to Poplar and back, probably in a taxi, and then wait in the car for a couple of hours while they came to unclamp it.
The set was a speedy rock 'n' roll sort of affair. The audience were so noisy that I could hardly hear what I was playing. But they were into it so I didn't mind. For anyone who wishes they'd been there the set went: Birthday Blues, It's A Sick Sick World, Reconnez Cherie, If It Makes You Happy, A Darker Shade Of Brown, Someone Must've Nailed Us Together, 33s & 45s, Whole Wide World.
Afterwards a charming sister and brother, Jess (short for Jessica) and George came to the rescue. Finally a credit card worked! We hung out on the street together, got my old Framus acoustic out and at Jess's request I played Just For You, and then George played that great Billy Bragg song, New England. Then we went into the club for a while until the unclamping van had been round. I set off home at half past four. I had to sleep in the back of the car for a while so I didn't get home until half past eleven on Saturday morning.

Still, never mind - it didn't rain at the Rhythm Festival the other weekend. Adjacent farmers made sure the site stunk of cow shit for the duration, but they always do. It was quite bizarre, being on an ex-wartime airbase with adverts for a forthcoming concert by The Glen Miller Orchestra cluttering up the place. I can't imagine anything worse than a concert by The Glen Miller Orchestra - yes I can - dare I mention J.... Perhaps not or I'll never get on his show. There were dragonflies everywhere too. I think they were left over from the second world war - no one had told them it was over.
I compered the first night - to me the word compere has the word toupee sort of built into it, even though you can't actually see it. I didn't actually wear a toupee for the job though - actually I didn't do that much compering because we got there late. We only arrived back from America the night before so we were feeling a bit strange, especially me because when I woke up I realised I'd be introducing Donovan that night and I like Donovan. I'm a fan, I always have been. When I was ten I did a painting of him - it could have been Bob Dylan or Kiki Dee, or even Jimi Hendrix with an acoustic guitar, but you could tell it was Donovan because I'd written his name - D O N O V A N - next to him in big letters in raw sienna. I tried to find it so I could get him to autograph it but I couldn't. And I was so sure I'd still got it somewhere.
His name was mis-spelt on a big plastic banner at the front gate - DONAVAN... Artists cancel for less than that, and demand the full fee. I think he must have decided to be big about it, or perhaps he didn't notice. Actually he was such a nice man that I'm sure he let it go. I wondered if my job might have been to correct the mistake - 'Ladies and gentlemen, Donoven...'
He was great. He started with Sunshine Superman, finished with Mellow Yellow and did all the hits and more in between. I always liked his guitar playing but I never realised quite how good he really is - his picking sort of harmonises with his singing at times.
We were a bit more organised the following day, even though Amy had to do her set without even having any breakfast - I think she got half a cup of coffee. The audience were very attentive, sitting quietly in the sun, no doubt getting heat stroke.
Gaz Mayall (son of John) was a pain in the arse. It seemed he didn't like anything (except himself) and he was extremely drunk. His band, The Trojans, were on before me and he was pissed off because the audience sat and listened. He told me he'd just come back from Japan, on a plane with the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. So I suppose he thought he deserved better than a passive audience. But what can you expect at six o'clock on a summer's evening?
Unfortunately Gaz was the compere. I thought his introduction was never going to end. It wasn't so much an introduction as a drunken tirade that left the crowd in no doubt that he didn't like them. But the crowd was fine, and bit by bit more people came along, and by the middle of the set the area in front of the stage was filled up and I saw loads of people (mostly blokes) that I've seen at my other gigs.
Amy came on after about three songs and then Hazel, Amy's seventeen year old daughter. Hazel played the bass and we rocked along like The Partridge Family.

There's no time to finish this at the moment because we're going to France tomorrow to try and find somewhere to live. But I'm sticking it on the site anyway.