Way back in '89, I was invited by JOHN LYDON (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten) to join PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED (PiL) as guitarist, keyboardist and backing vocalist. We played in Canada, America, Portugal, Japan, Australia (memories of influenza), New Zealand the UK. The dates kicked off with a US arena tour with fellow bands NEW ORDER and THE SUGARCUBES (before Bjork went solo), sharing a bill dubbed ala Spinal Tap by PR as "The Monsters of Alternative Rock!", (which spawned the LOLA PALOOZA tours with Janes Addiction and friends). The later schedules included a live album recorded in New York, live performances for THE LATE SHOW and RAPIDO in the UK, as well as making videos which received MTV worldwide airplay.

Prior to this, I had been working mainly as a back room musician, writing and performing for fringe theatre and television, including a C4 documentary plus the theme for a CHANNEL 4 cultural magazine ORIENTATIONS and guesting for videos and recordings by bands like COLOURFIELD, LIVING IN A BOX and LAIBACH.

After the PiL tour, I took the role of guitarist for PHILLIP BOA (AND THE VOODOO CLUB) who I first met when they supported PiL at the Hammersmith Odeon several months previously. At that time Boa was Germany’s No.1 Indie Rock act.

The next few years were spent recording three albums , filming videos (MTV Europe airplays) and performing for television shows and touring a lot around Europe, some of the choice moments being the BIZZARRE Festival at Loreley, sharing the bill with THE RAMONES and THE THE (although Fields of the Nephilim were interesting when they appeared from time to time through the dry - ice, the machine went berserk in their set), and also ROSKILDE Festival in Denmark along side BOB DYLAN - later televised - where an audience of 73,000 attended. Which was nice.

During a hiatus from BOA I embarked on the swan-song world tour of PiL, starting with a video shoot in Tijuana, Mexico, continuing through the UK, and going twice across America by way of Sao Paolo, Brazil and Buenos Aires, Argentina (where we walked off for 30 minutes after somebody threw a thunder-flash pyrotechnic on stage and nearly deafened guitarist John McGeoch). This time television appearances included THE WORD in the UK and DENNIS MILLER SHOW in the US, and there was also a live session on RADIO 1 for MARK GOODYEAR SHOW. (This was also the tour that saw Pil's ex-THE SMITHS drummer Mike Joyce have a punch up with McGeoch after gutting the entire floor of our hotel with a chemical fire-extinguisher. Rock'n'Roll!!!) PiL disbanded after this tour.

During this period I supplied the channel Ident and Stings for the new CHINESE CHANNEL satellite station, which is now broadcast everywhere with a sizable Chinese community. On a UK HELLO Magazine note I also played on the demo of an acquaintance going by the name of DAVINA McCALL.

This tour was then followed by more work with BOA with continued touring, recording, video and television commitments. The collaboration with BOA finally ended (a story for some other time maybe) with a change in direction for BOA which included a reshuffling in his line - up.

Candyheads
At this point I wanted to put down musical roots of my own and I ran with an idea that started in a hotel room in Chicago a year before, (creative writing being a damn sight cheaper than a shrink). What began as a side project quickly became an obsessive quest for a Holy Grail, with the usual 'ever-popular-tortured-artist-effect' type thing, involving 'suffering-for-ones-art' style existence. Nothing worth doing is ever easy. Come to think of it, nothing is ever easy.

But it's got to be worth it.

tc@candyheads.co.uk

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