Lets Separate The Man From His Machines

So .... What About Me?

I write my truth in my blogs and I have no problem with sharing personal details, sharing difficulties allows them to travel far and wide, and in doing so, my words might connect with others.

It's a strange time at the moment, I don't like January it always feels so miserable and sad, I try not to get into the whole New Year crap, but I believe somewhere in the recesses of my mind it has a negative effect. I find myself thinking way too much about all the wrong things, my life was on a very different path before I had my breakdown. I'd played drums from the age of 6 and started earning a living as a drummer at the age of 12, I knew exactly where I wanted to go. 

I didn't choose music, it chose me, it was in the blood. My dad played drums, he was very different in both his style and approach compared to all the other drummers of his time, he played for Gene Vincent and Chuck Berry along with other very cool rock n roll legends. The second video down is my dads band The Houseshakers, that is a recording from 1972.

I'm The Moody One In The Middle

He was a very unique man with a brilliant mind, January 8th this year marked two years since he died, I basically watched him drown, he couldn't breathe, he had smoked all his life. I will never really get over it, I believe I will learn to live with it as the years pass. It's because of my dad that I started metal detecting, he purchased me my first metal detector when I was 10 years old. 

When I metal detect I feel I still have a connection with him, the last machine he saw before he passed was my Nexus Standard MP V2. That makes that specific detector even more important to me, my Nexus machines are far more than just metal detectors, they're like a set of crutches that inspire me to keeping walking my own path in this cesspit of a world we live in.

It's been 13 years since I got sick, I think I've always been depressed but my drums, bands and music were always a distraction, add alcohol into the equation and I managed to maintain walking on a tightrope for many years of my life. Everything I was as a human went into my drums and my music, the little that was left went into obsessively writing poetry and drinking to pacify and escape the boredom that came with everyday existence.

I wish I was the type of person that didn't live inside his head, it makes life so fucking hard when it needn't be. Everything went wrong when I left my last band, I thought, for the first time in my life, it might've been a sensible idea to take some time out, this is something that I was never prepared to do. It turned out to be the worst decision of my life because 'the devil really does make work for idle hands & minds'. All the shit in my head that had been kept distracted for all those years now came to the forefront and proceeded to take me down.

My Last Band 'Dogs'

I won't go into every detail but I ended up having a complete mental breakdown, what I went through was beyond words and will haunt me to the day I die. I ended up in a psych ward and then the priory, along with various addiction clinics. I became suicidal and wanted to die, I was suicidal for about 8 months, I didn't want to live anymore. If I hadn't ended up seeing this one specific psychiatrist who sorted my medication out I wouldn't be here now, I would've killed myself. I've been heavily medicated with both antidepressants and antipsychotics for nearly 13 years now. 

I hate the meds, they make me feel like a ghost, totally fucking dumbed down to everything around me but I can't come off them because I'll find myself back at square one. The tablets have given me chronic acid reflux that makes me feel even more like shit, I never ever saw myself being in such a horrendous place in my life ever. This whole situation has left me with other 'invisible' issues that makes existing more of a chore than a pleasure.

The one saving grace in my life was the fact I met my soul mate so early on, I met my wife when I was 22,  at the Camden Falcon music venue in London when I was playing there way back in the mid 90's. All these years later, through some extreme shit, squats, bedsits and fuck all to our name. We live in London where we own our flat and everything in it, last March 2023 she got diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. It's a very aggressive form of cancer, she's on various treatments but I genuinely don't know how long she will be here, I can't put into words just how hard this situation is, it's actually beyond belief. 

She was the only part of my life that really worked out and she is going to be taken away from me in the worst way. The slight release I have is when I'm metal detecting, I love it so much, I enjoy making the videos and writing about it and I love all my analog machines. All these detectors are like life-lines to me, they really mean something, they're all connections and for the short time I'm swinging them everything feels ok.

Eric Is Always Trying To Help

Taking everything I've written into account, it should now come as no surprise to anyone why I can't be bothered with fucking dicks turning up on my videos to argue about metal detecting brands and performance. The ego bullshit that's involved in the hobby is laughable to me and all these big mouthed rednecks and simpletons starting controversy about specific companies and their machines, really need to try to understand what a real problem is. I'll admit, I do get quite defensive when people slate Nexus without knowing anything about the brand, as I touched on earlier in this post, they're more than mere machines to me and I have a huge amount of admiration and respect for the people behind the company. 

I don't play drums anymore, I had to walk away from the music, it doesn't feel right, it will never feel right but it's just the way it has to be. I do mess around on guitar with ideas and still occasionally write poetry but I'm trying to stay outside of my head as much as I can. Below is an audio visual concept I recorded with a very basic recording set up, I built the samples over visuals and played all the instruments. 

The concept is simple, I'm the astronaut and whilst travelling through space I hit a load of space debris, I evacuate the shuttle and slowly drift into the universe, and whilst running out of oxygen, I think about how fucked up the human condition is. It's best to listen to it through headphones because I messed with the final mix from the view of listening to it through headphones. 

If you've made it this far then I thank you for taking the time to read what I've written, this blog is about reality not sugar coated bullshit. Don't take any of this the wrong way, it's not written to try to gain some kind of sympathy, it's really just pointing out where I've come from and why I'm doing what I do. It also gives an example of what an actual problem is, I can tell you what isn't a problem, someone who loves using single frequency analog metal detectors.