Album Notes

Back in the '80's, I toured the Mid and West coast of the USA in a guitar duo with my brother. We were called "The Hawley Brothers" and we gigged three times a day in schools, colleges, and various other institutions. We did this for two years, out of the back of a brown Ford Pinto...Bass guitar, guitar, vocals and drum machine.
I think we covered about fifteen different states, and many Americans we met often just wanted to hear us talk!

When I came back to my home town of Liverpool, I got a "proper" job, but continued to play the pubs and clubs of the North West of England. During all this time, it never occurred to me to try and write my own songs.

The live gigging eventually fizzled out, and other life responsibilities fizzled in.
I eventually tried writing a song, with some humour, specifically about a local girl who ran a beauty parlour. I found I could remember it, and I actually quite liked it!
So, I wrote some more, and then some more, and then, I decided that I needed to record them.

A long uphill learning process followed. Splitting my time between writing and recording, I eventually got to a position where I had my first album recorded, digitally, at home (on a 16 track Korg D1600mk2, with various outboard equipment...). I mastered and burnt the album, then, through ignorance, accidentally destroyed the individual tracks!

Fortunately, I still had the master copy!

So, what you have here is unique! I poured out spirit, mental effort and as much of my experience as possible in that little studio, and to get these fifteen different tracks took about two years of spare time!

Some songs are heartfelt, like "Last Flight of the Innocent", "Cruel Mouth", and "What Matters Most". Others are light hearted reflections and experiences, like "Sleeping with Mussolini" and "Useless Youthful Hormones". In some, I get angry, like in "Pratt Police"
and "Lucky Thug". Others are probably love songs, like "All I'm Going to Do" and "That Upward Look".

My friends like it. So does my Mum. I hope you do, too.