KEALER, alias singer and songwriter Jason Kelly from Moston, Manchester, introduces York to his debut album, My Own Worst Enemy at Fibbers on Wednesday evening.

Initially destined for Olympian swimming feats, he was expelled from a Devon boarding school at 16 for the grand theft of the school chapel's entire stock of altar wine on the last day of term. "Well, it seemed a good idea at the time," he says.

After accidentally driving an industrial forklift into a vat of acid at a chemical plant during a spate of odd jobs, he found himself back in trunks: he became a male stripper.

On moving to London, he turned from selling clothes to dealing drugs.

Gradually, however, music took over, first in the short-lived band Stroke and now, having hid himself away in Cornwall, on his solo record. "Y'know, I've genuinely had a nutty life," he says. "I'd be mad not to write about it."

My Own Worst Enemy was released last week by Jive Records. Now Kealer is touring with a sturdy band of Liverpudlians with past service for the Lightining Seeds, Ian McCulloch and Richard Ashcroft.

Updated: 09:33 Friday, October 31, 2003