Special Guest Blogger: Gregg Allman

You’re likely wondering what it’s all like. The other side. Is it all clouds and harps? I can tell you now, if I hear one more bloody harp, I’m going to set it on fire. It’s all a bit too polite for my liking. No whiskey, for starters. They offered me something called Nectar of the Gods which tasted like watered-down tea so I told them where they could stick their nectar.
When i died all i left was a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s, a collection of songs that people still insist on playing far too loud in their cars, and a liver that officially resigned in protest.
My voice may have been a bit gravelly, a bit sweet, like sucking on a peach that’s been rolling down a dusty road and I spent a good thirty years trying to kill it with smoke and spirits but after a few bands, and the unfortunate accident where I avoided being drafted into the Vietnam War by shooting myself in the foot, we became the Allman Joys and then the Allman Brothers Band and made the album Fillmore East which made us so rich and famous that we could now afford to get high on a much better class of drugs.
Crikey, we were on fire on that album and I’m still rather proud of it. My brother Duane… well, Duane was untouchable. The rest of us were just trying to keep up with the bloke. Being an Allman Brother was like being in the world’s most brilliant, most chaotic and most likely to explode at any moment family. We loved each other dearly, which was a good thing, because we frequently wanted to kill each other but Duane got in first and was killed in a motorcycle accident not long after we hit the big time.
As for the hard-living, tortured soul bit, it's a bit over the top, i had a great time and it was more  of a profound and sustained lack of common sense.  Debauchery for us, it was just… Tuesday. You’d wake up, nudge the tattooed stranger sleeping alongside you and think, Right, seems the day is underway.
As for my tragic descent. It wasn’t tragic! It was absurd. Was I vain? Of course I was bloody vain. I had cheekbones that could cut glass and a fabulous wardrobe, my only regret was not taking more pictures and i got to marry Cher, yes that Cher!
Everyone seems so terribly solemn about my grand exit. They said i died surrounded by love and i did but  I also died because my internal organs decided to form a union and go on permanent strike with my liver the ringleader.
It wasn’t some painful, dramatic scene. It was more of a gentle winding down. One minute I’m on the bus, wondering if we have any pickled eggs, the next I’m being greeted by a chap who looks suspiciously like my old tour manager, handing me a clipboard and a white robe. A bit of a letdown, to be honest. I was rather hoping for a hazy, psychedelic light show and the opening chords of Dreams. Instead, it felt more like arriving at a rather dull spa where you’re not allowed to smoke.
I was just a man who loved music, and women, and alcohol and occasionally, in the quiet moments, loved himself just a little too much. I made some beautiful noise, caused a spot of bother, and looked damn good doing it.