Crippling condition brings an end to musician's sound

It's been a typical morning for Wairarapa guitar legend Barry Smith: he's wrung three shirts soaked in last night's sweat, contemplated vomiting, and prayed this is the eighth and final day of his constipation.
Mr Smith has missed six gigs since March and that won't change. A bowel condition has destroyed the 63-year-old's ability to play.
"I'm constantly in pain. I'm in 24 hours of pain. I never know when I'm going to have a chronic attack and to go on the road is just too risky.
"I don't know how many times I have had to make excuses before a gig or got another band to play."
Four years ago Mr Smith played three to five times a week. "I think I have done three in the last few years."
That was before he was diagnosed with severe diverticulitis, a digestive disease particularly found in the large intestine.
Mr Smith is still writing and in the next few weeks he hopes to have a single out.
His band, Tight Lipped, has 1000 fans on Facebook and MySpace. But these aren't the rocking golden years for the boy who once jumped over to Australia "with a vanload of stuff to conquer the world".
In 1969 his band, Natural Gas, won the Wellington section of the Battle of the Bands.
After the band fell away, Mr Smith spent six years playing for cover bands before putting down his guitar to train thoroughbred horses in Cambridge and Trentham.
"At one stage I was doing both, but it's hard yakka."
It was 20 years later, having moved to Clareville with his wife, that he saw an ad for the Wairarapa Musicians Club.
"I went along to that and I got hooked back in like I had bloody never stopped."
He founded Tight Lipped, a band with a changing roster of locals. He's written some good stuff and made some even better friends.
He roped in a young man named Jamie - a former workmate when they worked together at a supermarket - to join the group and, recognising his talent, encouraged the 24-year-old to go on to music school.
"He keeps telling me I'm the best thing that ever happened to him. He went from cutting up cabbages to cutting up the drum kit."
Mr Smith makes a habit of helping young people especially if they are from a disadvantaged upbringing.
Unfortunately, Mr Smith doesn't work alongside Jamie anymore, he lost that and two other jobs because of his condition.
Medical staff say there's no quick fix that may not fix his underlying condition, although Mr Smith would like the hospital to consider an operation
"People say get out on the road but I can't, man. That's the thing. I just want the hospital to fix me up so I can get out there doing my thing."
Over the past four years he has had 30 to 40 X-rays, four or five colonoscopies and a similar number of CAT scans. He has tried every fibre diet under the sun. He coats his bed in towels each night to soak up his constant sweating. He spends nearly all day in pain and he can be struck down without warning.
While he can't go out and play like he used to, when he does, he says, it's the only thing that makes the pain disappear. "A couple of gigs I have felt really ill and Jamie has had to set up and everything, but after half an hour I have felt so much better.
"Music has some healing thing about it."