This disc is the preface. The beginning. And in the beginning there was... a day job. The stick to the carrot of the open road. I had the full set... girlfriend, job, house, cats... they were hers. Normal life is tough and offers little in the way of compensation.

CREDITS: Andreas Langhorn and Patrick Fergus produced Every Day's a Joy and Viva la revolucion in Copenhagen. Kevin Wesley Williams and Chris Leggerie produced the other musical tracks in Philadelphia. Ro Halfhide recorded many in Amsterdam. And Simon Wallace from Austin played harmonica on City Life.

The tour started as a lap of the states and Canada but afterwards I kept on going, visiting most states and seeing places you couldn't even find on a map. I ended up doing two tours actually, but for the sake of simplicity let's just lump all the American songs together.

CREDITS: Kevin Wesley Williams for picking me out of a festival in Dewey Beach and giving me recording time. Steini for driving me across Canada. And the hundreds of people who gave me help, places to stay, places to play. I can never pay you back but I hope to pass it on.

These are all songs I wrote while I lived in Holland. I was there for a long time - 10 years - so technically this is an adjunct to the Chronicles. Some of them are recorded on an ipod way back. I like this sound best. Why do people spend so much on a studio?

I have played a few times in England but haven't lived there since 1998. Still I know more about what goes on there than anywhere else thanks to newspapers and following the football. Most of these songs are inspired by stories I read on guardian.co.uk

My six month European tour in the second half of 2010 was particularly hard. I'd made it my goal to visit every European country and had house concerts lined up in most, but didn't manage to do them all. It was cold weather and I was mixing the bicycle and the train. Thankfully Emma Hill, the Alaskan superstar, came on to join me and the tour ended happily.

I had a legendary tour around New Zealand and Australia, mostly by bicycle. In New Zealand I met Maria and have been with her ever since. We cycled around New Zealand with Puk (Belgium) and Yancy (USA), playing in any places that would have us, blagging hotel rooms or beds in towns along the way. The same in Australia, with different guys - Alec (Switzerland) and Rory (Canada) - fantastic musicians and we were the Peddling Troubadours for 3 crazy months. The songs say it all. A crazy time.

Sabbatical's log. A soul-searching experience. Maria and I crewed on a yacht from Cairns to Darwin with an old Dutch guy who was hell to be with. Long days of sailing, the boat listing badly. I was sea sick for three weeks and lost 5kg in weight.

After the disastrous cruise round Australia, Maria 'the dancing architect' and I jumped ship in Darwin and flew up to Bali. We bought a tandem there and cycled across Indonesia, up into Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. We had some magical adventures though, including playing in strict Muslim parts of Malaysia to people who'd never heard live music. We finished back in Italy after 4 months as Maria had an exam, we were broke and I was exhausted. Now we're saving up money and energy for the next adventure.