The Lewes Years 1993-97

I inherited a Tascam 828 8-Track portastudio from Dirk 'Mont' Campbell around this time, which was very exciting for me after so many years of 4-track restraint. Now I could expand and add things like harmonies and drums without having to endure all that ping-pong frustration.

Lewes at that time was a very special place, a certain alignment of the spheres endowed the place with a vibrant social circle and many great friendships were formed at this time. It was a time of impromptu parties, 'Moustache night', the wonderful 'Lewes Guitar Festival' and 'Aylla's Kitchen'. This latter event being a semi-frequent happening at the home of our friend Aylla. She had a knack for finding and assembling local and sometimes not so local talent who would happily spend an evening playing, reciting poetry, or doing drama skits to the appreciative audience sitting on her small kitchen floor. It used to get really packed in there and sometimes the fog of cigarette smoke was very thick!
Local celeb Arthur Brown the 'god of hellfire' made several appearances at the kitchen.

Many of my Scottish buddies also lived in Lewes in those days and I spent many happy hours working out tunes with my dear friend Andy Spiller, recording tunes in my living room and having mad jam sessions in the basement at my flat. It was such a creative period and there was much love and laughter in the air. It was one of those times when everyone seems to come together and be in just the right place at the right time, James Parrot's cafe was the main social hub in those days and in a way, when he decided to move out to Brighton that was the end of the party. People started to move on and get married (or divorced) and have kids. I myself moved over to Brighton and started to persue my career in digital media and art. Brighton was great too but it never quite matched the magic of those Lewes days.