Back in the early 1960's a guitarist by the name of Colin came hitchiking his way through Ethiopia, ending up as they all did in Addis Ababa. Well, there was no way out to the south through Somalia at the time. So he stayed at our house, rented by a group of Peace Corps volunteers, and entertained us with Bert Jansch songs instead of starving to death or selling his body to the occasional tourist. That's where I first heard "I Have No Time to Spend with You" and "The Needle of Death." Colin lost an ear that New Year's eve after a party where he inhaled an excessive amount of marijuana, falling into a freshly dug cess pool while muttering "What holeeeeee!" We were all vastly amused and I still have flashbacks to the ambulance drive up and down the narrow streets to the Russian Hospitol. We provided him a ticket home in exchange for his guitar.

So now you know some more about the affect Bert Jansch had on some people.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble