Hawkwind and Huw Lloyd-Langton continued to be the main driving force behind my guitar playing in 1987, both releasing albums that were important additions to my collection, in Out and Intake, and Like an Arrow, respectively.
Dewi and I continued our mutual passion for both, and still went to their respective gigs, including one at Harvey’s night club in our home town of Mansfield.
Even though Dancing Shiva had ended as a band by 1985, Dewi and I were still very much musically bonded by our love of Hawkwind, and we continued to jam together through the mid/late ’80s.
My jams with Jim Ward also continued more regularly, in between Stoney Road gigs and busking; and continued to be an important part of developing my skills and musical ideas. On one occasion I used my portable cassette player to record a jam with Jim and myself, along with another local guitarist called Andy Bowden; who was influenced by Steve Hillage.
Around this time I had begun to listen to other guitarists to develop my style in other directions, ranging from Frank Zappa and Carlos Santana, to Brian Setzer from the Stray Cats. I wouldn’t say that they were big influences on my playing; certainly not to the degree that Huw Lloyd-Langton, and to a lesser extent; Jimmy Page were; but if nothing else, they added different colours to my listening/appreciation palette. Particularly Brian Setzer with his obvious leanings to 1950s Rock ‘n’ Roll, harking back to my Dad’s records that I still held a nostalgic affection for.
As a band though, Stoney Road slowly began to fizzle out, as myself, Dave, and Jim began to enjoy busking together much more frequently. We began to venture further afield from Mansfield, including weekends in Lincoln and other places, kipping in the back of Jim’s van.
That summer we went down to Maidstone in Kent, and then on to Canterbury where we stayed for some considerable time, as we were very well received and the busking was very fruitful. Whilst there, we were offered gigs in pubs in the evenings, and usually finished off an evening’s beer drinking with a kebab.
We decided to busk our way along the coast into Cornwall, where we stayed with a friend of Jim’s; and along the way we stopped off at Southampton to see Hawkwind who playing were playing at the ‘Top Rank’ on August 5th. We paid for our tickets all in coin, from the proceeds of the day’s busking.
All in all, I had some seriously great fun in ’87, but in the Autumn; with no specific band to serve as an outlet for music; I decided to buy a Tascam Porta-studio 4-track, in order to experiment, develop and record my own musical ideas at home. I also used it to record some of my jams with Jim Ward.
To help construct my songs and musical ideas, I bought myself a Yamaha Portasound, half-size keyboard. Having never played keyboard before, I mainly used it to get a spacey atmosphere, but I also attempted the occasional rudimentary keyboard solo. I made my first initial attempts to record some songs of my own at the end of 1987, and over the next year or so, the majority of my creative output went into home recording.
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