I've just uploaded 'Give Me The Needle', which I recorded recently before going to stay at the home of the person the song is about. She wasn't there but her husband took a CD copy for her, for her birthday.

The lady in question is Anne (pronounced 'Anna') Tanner. She is an accupuncturist, whom I knew through the kindergarten parents network whilst living in Germany. She treated me when I was recovering from a broken elbow, sustained in a paragliding accident. Basically, I came in to land too fast, with a following wind, fell forwards onto my elbow and presumably hit a rock in the grass. Nothing too dramatic.

Unfortunately, the doctor who saw me at the hospital put on a 'temporay' splint, which was left there without examination for several weeks. Each time I went for my weekly appraisal, I asked if they would take it off but they just looked at the x-ray and said everything was healing nicely. When they finally removed the splint, I couldn't straighten my elbow at all, which is pretty inconvenient for a drummer/percussionist/guitarist/flautist/electro-composer.

As well as Anne, I received treatment from an excellent sports-physio, Hansi Haas, who was recommended to me by various people. My first words to him were 'I'm a professional musician and this needs to be fixed'. His reply was 'don't worry, I'm a musician too; I understand'. Whilst he didn't promise that the elbow would heal completely, he was fantastic at keeping my spirits up and took great delight in putting me through all kinds of agony in the course of teasing the elbow back into shape.

Hansi had previously been one of the two lead singers for the Bavarian Blues Bandits; a highly successful Blues Brothers tribute act and continues to perform with a smaller acoustic-based act on a semi-pro basis. He is well connected in the music scene around that part of Bavaria (just near to the Austrian border, by Salzburg) and helped me to make some very useful connections as well. It strikes me I should be writing something for Hansi as well.

Coming back to Anne; I'm not sure how much her accupuncture contributed to the healing process but since I made a full recover, it can't have done any harm. And, as the song says, she did treat my elbow by finding the most painful places to stick pins in my ear. So if you're ever in South-Eastern Germany and are in need of some pain-relief, I can recommend her to you.

One last thing to mention: I was prompted to put this song up partly in preparation for my participation in a Comedy Scratch night at the Arc Theatre in Trowbridge on October 31st. If you're in the area and have an open mind for such things, come along and have a laugh.

Meanwhile, enjoy the song and write me a comment.

Love,

Brian x