Following let’s just say my ‘troubled’ teenage years, having returned to Essex at 19 years old, under something of a cloud, aged 20, only months later I’d emerged like a butterfly to become the singer in a Colchester glam-rock band. I was also still on probation, as my father dryly described it, for being stupid enough to get caught. My new probation officer was in Clacton. I think she was a first-timer. After an initial meeting she said that she’d need to visit me at home. “

It was late November 1972 when I arrived back at the family home in Goldhanger, a tiny Essex village on the Blackwater estuary. I was 19 years old, underweight, a little scrambled mentally and ill with bronchitis. I’d been fending for myself since I was 15. A working lad since leaving school, things had originally started off okay. I’d had some reasonable jobs, rented a tiny flat in London and had learned to manage for myself. Relationships with my family having become str

Out now! Four new autumnal Cleaners From Venus songs. Find them on Bandcamp or whatever digital thingy you frequent. https://thecleanersfromvenus.bandcamp.com/album/neverland-for-now

Corridor of Dreams can currently be heard on the soundtrack to The Smashing Machine. Benny Safdie's new film about Mark Kerr. Very...

The cassette reissue of Midnight Cleaners is now out via the Cat Collects label. CDs and T-Shirts are also available. See link below! ...