I’m sitting there with my red Sony Walkman and I’m listening to the Jimi Hendrix Experience, a compilation tape – Smash Hits. It’s fucking great. The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam’s Dice. Purple Haze. Burning of the Midnight Lamp. Wind Cries Mary. All that great stuff. And we’re there visiting my grandparents. I’m just listening to my Jimi Hendrix tape. I’m reading a story in the Guitar World magazine that I took down with me. Friday night. The parents took me to see the grandparents. And I’m happy-as, got my magazine and an appropriate soundtrack. “What are you listening to?” my grandfather asks. There’s a pause – I’m not sure that I should say Jimi Hendrix. Not sure I want him to know. Not sure it’ll mean anything. God knows why I decide I shouldn’t say, fuck knows. But I go, “just a tape”. Well, dur. My mum sticks the toe of her shoe into the small of my back. She says “well, what tape?” And if she’s not entirely calling me a dickhead the toe of her shoe has already told part of me that I am. So I shrug and say, “well, Jimi Hendrix…” And then my granddad is off, “oh yeah, Jimi Hendrix. What’s your favourite song?” And I tell him I like Purple Haze and Fire and Foxy Lady and I’m naming the songs I figure he must know and then I say, “I quite like this Manic Depression too. I heard this story that he wrote this song all about how he wanted to make love to his guitar and was sad that he couldn’t ever do that. So he wrote the song instead. It’s a good song”. My grandfather has fallen asleep. But my grandmother decides to tag in. She says, “couldn’t he just take the strings off it? Or was it one of those electric ones I spose?”