Me human. Me man. Me musician. Me artist. Me uncle. Me here now.

To even my own amazement, I have been living away from Jozi for 4 years now. In that time I've figured out how to become totally water self-sufficient - off the municipal grid and onto raintanks - I have learnt to drum - fulfilling a childhood dream - and am now in a band performing 5 gigs at the upcoming Grahamstown ArtsFest (which is also where I now live), have participated daily in the upbringing of my niece and nephew who have become extensions of my soul, now live at edge of a 60km valley view, and  have never had less disposable income in my life. But that's just money, and for the first time ever I've paid attention to reducing my insurance frills and the resultant premiums, to changing bank accounts to less service-fee-heavy options, to finding thrills for free - and let me tell you, the walk I'm taking on the mountain in about fifteen minutes is the greatest literal high for miles!

More than anything, I've made music! I've had the time, the space and the people around me to learn to drum and actually perform. That first 300 bucks I made when our band, SunshiP, played its first ever pub gig, was better than winning a million smackeroos! "There", Larry said to me, handing me my money. "Now you're a musician." He had his first band in '78. What a privelege for me to walk into that experience! And our bassist, Anton, has been so generous in making the two of us function as powerful rhythm section. What they've been doing for 30 and 40 years, I've been doing for two - but they believed in me, stuck with me, guided me, and we're about to record our first 'garage album'.

Ultimately, as the drummer in a blues-based rock-funk band, whose repertoire spans almost 40 covers and 25 originals, I get to pay musical homage with the sticks in my hands and the pedals at my feet to legends that range from Robert Johnson, to Son House, Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf and BB King - I get to become part of a history that began in West Africa, got to America with the slave trade, evolved into the Blues, crossed the Atlantic to inspire the 60's British Blues explosion of the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, the Animals, Taste, and Cream, bounced back to America to reawaken interest in the Blues there, and together with the original Mississipi Blues, lit up South Africa in the 80s. Peter Green songs that Dino, Socs, Andrew, Basil, George, Theo and I sang to in the summer of '89, I now play. Music they introduced me, is now part of my repertoire! Greater homage to what they gave me as brothers, I cannot pay. The day I perfected Hoochie Coochie Man, one of the first songs I learnt to play well, I cried. 

Yeah, sometimes I miss Jozi - and my friends there. But I'm up often enough. And they live in my heart, and distance regardless, for me they're always there. And my laughter and my tears and my family, and my music and my legacy, live in Grahamstown now.