After Lebonon, and back in London I was now thinking of myself as a pro musician, and this meant I needed to find a gig that paid. The Melody Maker didn't have that many paid gigs in the musicians wanted classifieds, in fact the classic tag line of the day was "no bread heads" need apply. I suppose after the gig in Lebonon I had become one and was looking to continue earning money by playing music.

Among the ads one week was a bass player wanted for a band playing a residency in Bremerhaven, in Germany. I went along to the audition in Holloway road and got the gig, but the guys that I auditioned with were not the band, they were sort of a surrogate who were choosing the musician to send out to Germany, so it was a bit weird, but I'ld got the gig so I took the ferry and my gear and set out for Bremerhaven on the north coast of Germany.

The band had been playing these residencies for a few years and this was a months work at a non-descript club in the town. It was not a great band, they did covers, and I got paid, thats all I recall. A month turned into two months, but I was soon back in London, and the back pages of the MM.

I was in and out of a series of bands that wern't going anywhere when I joined a country rock band with a guy called Wez Mcgee who seemed to be on the cusp of breaking into the fringe country rock thing, and I liked his stuff, and best of all I seemed to be on the same wave length. We recorded an album, my first taste of pro studios so I stayed with it but in the end it didn't fly and it came to a close, although Wez continued to be a mate, and the drummer Maurice became my next door neighbour, and we did lots of other gigs together over the years.

Next band was born out of the remnants of the band that went to Lebonon, plus a guitarist from birmingham with a fashionable afro haircut of the time who's name was Smoke, and this band was called Gnasher and it was 1973