Music & Video | Early Stuff

"In the 1960s you had to be in a rock'n'roll band by law. My first band was called Bad. Then I played 6-string bass in Uncle Eric, Fanny Love, and the glorious Ice Cream Yak Band. Pete Jones played guitar in all of them, and there was Jeremy Ensor (Principal Edwards, Deep Purple), Rob Tate (Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, Vinegar Joe, Gong). We had a residency at a blues club Pete and I ran called the Indigo Vat. I had become the vocalist by then. That was 1967 to 1968, I think.

My only big concert was Stockholm in 1969, as Blind Joe Deaf, to a load of Vietnam War draft dodgers and local heads. They spelled it as Blind Joe Death on the poster. Maybe they thought I was John Fahey. The harmonica player stole my clarinet."