Beginning to not feel like a beginner

What a palava it is at the minute getting around Kingsthorpe and Northampton! Every route we took to try and get to the gig there was road closed and diversion signs. At one point I was starting to think the town had been quarantined and they were keeping it hushed up! We got there, despite our 10 mile journey turning into 25

Despite that, it was a good night last night at the Sunnyside. KRAB were a lot of fun as always, Ben Weston who I hadnt seen before was brilliant, there was another bloke I forget the name of coz I'm crap at that - and the 2 Stevies who were hosting did a great job!

I enjoyed playing a lot. I'm slowly reaching the point where I feel at home on stage with a guitar in my hand now. It feels like I've been playing and singing forever, when in reality it's only been just over 3 years (and a chunk during that nearly the size of a year I hardly played).

Realising that has made me realise how much I've over-achieved in that short space of time. It's quite remarkable when I try to cram all these memories into that short a timescale - it doesnt seem to fit! And now that I'm practising more and playing more gigs, I wonder where I can go and what I can do. I'm not setting any grand ambitions or lofty desires, I'm just curious

I owe a lot of this comfort to a guy named P00kah, who probably barely remembers this titbit of wisdom that stuck with me, if he remembers it at all. I'd been playing guitar for only about a month and was in Germany for one of the Artistic Freedom Collective "Gatherings" (I was on percussion, not nearly ready for guitar on stage).

It was the day after and we were all chilling out, sitting in the courtyard and jamming away, when suddenly the guitar got handed to me. I looked at all these great guitarists around me and said "no, I aint good enough" and went to pass it on. P00kah said "it aint a fucking competition man, play the guitar"

So I did - very badly admittedly, but I did - and that philosophy has stuck with me ever since

Here's a bit of P00kah for your listening pleasure :-)