Mike gave up music journalism in 1989 after two months of stressful and unpaid toil. A live review of Gaye Bykers On Acid published in the notorious fanzine Lime Lizard, had been altered so much to the negative by the enthusiastically hands-on editor that the group’s manager professed a desire to give the budding writer a "good kicking". In Mike’s first interview feature in the same issue – on The Chills – the editor had inserted abusive comments about the Queen that bordered on treason.

Along the way Mike became established as one of the principal writers for The Wire and he has been a regular contributed to MOJO from 1995. Deciding that he needed to broaden his horizons, Mike embarked upon writing a critical biography of Captain Beefheart. Seriously underestimating the difficulties of researching the subject in those pre-internet days, he worked at it on and off from 1996 until late 1998. Dissatisfied with his efforts, he ripped it up and started again, cancelling all engagements and working on it every day, even refusing to cut his hair until it was finished. Ten months later, in September 1999, the mentally shattered author – who now looked like a low-budget Howard Hughes – handed in the manuscript. The book was published in 2000 to considerable critical acclaim.

Predating and paralleling Mike’s career as a writer have been his activities as a drummer, playing all points between straight ahead rock and free improvisation. His first group, The Walking Floors, were heckled by U2 at their debut London gig in 1980, an incident that prompted a lifetime’s antipathy towards Bono and chums. The Floors were marginally less successful, although their recordings have been recently re-released on the Messthetics post-punk series. Although most of his groups have been obscure enough to barely trouble the scorers, Mike’s last three gigs have been at the Victoria Arts Centre, Melbourne, with Towering Inferno; at the Bull & Gate, London, with Damo Suzuki’s Network; and as one of the ten fuzz organists of Pimmel at the Foundry Gallery, Lewes, in January 2009. It’s certainly been interesting.