The 'No Night Sweats' title is a minute quote from the quite wonderful Samuel Beckett that, for some reason or another, tweaked my adolescent brain in an interesting fashion and which has continued to tweak it to this very day. I also used it in the early eighties as the name of a quasi-cabaret act that Patrick Gibson and I were involved in but it has lain dormant till now, simply waiting for me to kick it back into life...

So : I was born in April 1957 at St George Hospital in Kogarah and raised in nearby Carlton (these are small southern suburbs of Sydney, Australia, by the way). Nothing much happened in the very early years - few friends (bar a gorgeous girl down the road named Vicki and Margaret next door), fairly introverted, not many interests, etc, etc, etc until...

In high school I teamed up with a couple of like minded souls (Lindsay O'Meara, Peter Nelson and Rod Pobestek) and we all came to the ultimately stunning conclusion that music was just the most wonderful thing in the world. One of the bands that I like more than just a little are Slapp Happy, who really are terrific or something. 

I then went to Art school to make something of myself but, basically, lived a life that was full of bands instead. This lead me to the love of my life - Ms Annette Jones - whom I'm still in love with, btw, after a beautific and mildly glorious 20-odd years.

Eventually I started up a job in the Public Service whilst continuing my burgeoning career in avant-guarde noise and melody (hmmm). I left this in 1984 to travel overseas and stamp my name on the pantheon of electronic music...I came back the next year many kilos lighter, totally disillusioned with myself and with the vast sum of $20 to my name.

To stave off the hunger pains, I got a job with market researchers McNair Anderson helping to set up a new grocery shopping panel called BrandScan. Shockingly, I've stayed involved in this 'survey' throughout company mergers, management buyouts and it's eventual settling down as Homescan within the ultra-magnificent Nielsen.

After living a typical inner city lifestyle for most of my life (smoking, aerobics, car fumes, etc) it came as quite a shock to realize that I loved living in leafy, beachside Thirroul on the glorious Illawarra coastline of NSW. Commuting to and from this oasis by the sea made me read an awful lot of crime fiction but, to be honest, I've come to realize that it's a silly genre when you get right down to it. 

I now also tele-commute for three days of every week and so I wrote email missives to colleagues, relatives, friends and acquaintances just to keep in touch.