It was a cheap little nylon string and I remember exactly where I was standing when I decided to buy it (Wheatsheaf shopping mall, second floor, if you’re interested, on a mission to buy myself a Christmas present).


I’d held a guitar once before, the wrong way incidentally, but when my dead end boyfriend said to me, “I met this guy the other day Rose, he plays guitar. Why don’t you get one? He said he’d show you some stuff,” I knew, immediately. There


was no lightning


bolt or sudden orchestral movement in my head, no excitement or trepidation, or cosmic consciousness tapping on the inside of my scull singing “yeah!” I just knew. I remember smiling to myself. And, as is customary in my life, that spontaneous decision changed everything.


Within a few days I met said guitarist,


learnt two


or three chords, met his friends and their friends, and within a week I realised I’d suddenly been


catapulted into a vibrant network of beautiful, musical people. Everybody played guitar! Within three weeks I went to my first live gig (and the monster party afterwards!).


Within six months I’d recorded a studio demo of original material, and within a year I was bored. C onv e n t i on a l c h or d p r og r es sio ns be c ame stifling and restrictive, so, with a new and solidly condensed foundation of musical theory, courtesy of another rather good bloke, I spent hours and hours on end training my right hand until my left hand bled, searching for something interesting to play, and trying to remember it when I found it.


Needless to say, the dead end


gone and the stage had arrived,


boyfriend was although


long that


relationship was fraught with complications at the start. It’s a very strange experience to discover such a big part of yourself that you didn’t consciously know existed, and in the


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