Hi there!
I stumbled across this page by accident and thought I'd clear up a few things. I'll leave my personal opinions out of it, but I have a unique position with regards to the *facts* about Steve.

Responses to questions/criticisms/scepticisms:

Those clothes are what Steve wears all the time, and pretty much has as long as I've known him. Long before he was well known in any way, or even playing live performances or anything.

The three string guitar, as mentioned by somebody else, started as a joke and kind of snowballed from there. People love it, and it has a great sound, so he wrote some songs for it. He doesn't much like playing it (hurts!) but people get disapointed at the gigs if he doesn't.

The mississippi drum machine came into existence because Steve has habit of stomping his foot *really* hard while he plays, just to keep the beat. Now I'm just talking about around the house, playing for fun. I remember visiting him sometimes and you'd actually hear the whole house shaking, windows rattling, etc, from outside. So when he recorded Doghous Music, in the kitchen, he wanted a way to record the stomp sound, which resulted in putting a mic in a wooden box, bit o' carpet, license plate from a Harley he used to have for decoration.

The stories are true.

Most of the hobo stuff happened a long time ago. 60's etc. 70's he was in a number of bands, including Shanti, as well as playing as a studio musician, writing songs for some other singers/bands, and generally doing the 'starving artist' thing, playing on the streets in Paris, etc etc. 80's, met norwegian wife, moved all over the states doing music stuff, having a family, working as a paramedic, amongst other things, ran a guitar store, then started Moon Music recording studio in Olympia, WA (http://moon.deified.net/). After that (2001) wife wanted to move back to Norway. Started Juke Joint Studios (http://www.jukejointstudio.com/takeatour.htm) and had a heart attack. After that stopped work at the studio, and focussed on the music again, making an album with some friends (the level devils) and just releasing it cheap in Scandinavia, with limited success. I believe it was Joe Cushley (radio dj in London, resonance fm) got a hold of one of the cds and lined up a few small gigs, at the 12 bar club, etc, people just freaked out. The album is one thing, not to everybody's tastes, but people just LOVE the live shows, it's astonishing. After that, randomly got asked to do a track on Jools Holland, then played nearly every festival in the UK last summer, and the rest you know.

He is totally authentic, though there is more to him than JUST the 'hobo' thing. I'm an illustrator, so when I write my CV, I don't put down the other random jobs I've had, I focus on the relevant things. That's what anybody would do. So Steve chooses to write songs about, and focus on a period in his life that is relevant. I think that's fair.

I understand that some people may be bitter, or think him undeserving of the limited success he's now had (after 40 years as a professional musician, mind you) but please understand that he has worked extremely hard for this, and has managed some form of success *without* compromising himself in any way. He's honest, authentic, and plays because it's what he loves. He's always played, and always will, whether the success lasts or not.

If you can't respect that then your respect isn't worth a damn anyways...