first things first

I'm a music fan and (sort of) musician (I also write for the Domino Rally mp3 blog).

This blog was originally going to be a series of "hilarious" stories of scrapes that we got into over all the years that we played in bands - when I say "we" I'm referring to me, my brother and many, many friends that I was lucky enough to play music with over the years. Most of them have moved away, the way that old friends do, but I still listen to the music that we played and get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

The title, "It's A Shit Business", was clearly taken from BBCs great The League of Gentlemen comedy series and the pay-off line for the character who always reminisced about the old days, playing and touring in the band Creme Brulee.




As I say, most people have now moved away or have had kids. However, one of the things that put a dampner on my creativity, aside from the whole "growing-up-and-settling-down" thing, was my diagnosis with Relapsing and Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in 2005.

Applying the same title to a blog which is a kind of therapy for me in recording my illness is, I'm afraid to say, an early taste of the "gallows humour" that is my unfortunate stock-in-trade. It's not really that shit, there are people who are a lot worse off than me - it's just a pain in the arse.

The real sickener with my diagnosis is that one of the recurring symptoms that I face is a constant pins and needles feeling in my right-hand - not particularly helpful for a pianist and guitarist!

So I'll apologise right now if there are lots of typos on these pages.

* by the way, MJ Hibbett's My Exciting Life in Rock does the whole "reminiscences of a a music underdog" thing way better than I ever could.