(Soundtrack: Public Image Ltd “Public Image”, Ramones “Ramones”)
September was a relatively busy month for the band. We did a tour of Germany and then our “A Week Away” show at the ICA. Germany went well, with all but one of the gigs being very good. The one that was less good was our fault for attempting something inappropriate in a town we hadn’t played in before. We started out in Freiburg which is always very welcoming thanks to the continuing support of our friend Papa Chico who promotes the shows there and is a top gent. This was Neil’s 100th Spearmint gig. I find that very hard to believe. I find it surprising that we have even played 100 gigs, let alone that anyone would go to them. Neil now comes along and drives the van for us. This seems more sensible than him making his own way behind in his car.
So we wanted to get Neil something to celebrate the occasion. But what do you get someone who literally has everything to do with the band already? We toyed with the idea of a gold disc, but the answer eventually seemed obvious: more Spearmint songs. So we gave Neil three songs which are exclusive to him: “A Large Grey Cat” which is about being solely indoors, “Bachelor Gardens”, about I flat I shared with my friend Graham while we were on the dole in Newcastle, and “Cocker” which concerns being bothered, hounded, tormented, well, stalked by a celebrity.
We also gave him a 100 Gigs Of Neil t-shirt and some rare promos. He seemed chuffed and it was our pleasure, as he has been wonderfully encouraging. If you come to 100 gigs then we will give you some songs too. I don’t think I have seen anyone live more than ten times, so a hundred is devotion indeed.
There were some issues with the German shows that ultimately were my fault. The gigs was originally booked earlier in the year by our German promoter, as a Shirley Lee tour. I am not sure I made it clear then that it would be the whole band playing. So some of the fees were low, and we were booked into some inappropriate places for a full band to play. Also by the time the tour came round, it was more of a Speamint show than Shirley Lee. It was still good, it just meant that the money wasn’t great, and in the extreme case of Hamburg, we were booked into a bar with no PA or monitors. This was compounded by the fact that the venue we were originally booked into closed down so this bar was confirmed late, but not really advertised. So we had no PA and virtually no crowd. And of course, this turned out to be the best show – there is something about being up against it that always makes you pull out your best, and this one was really special. Thanks to Margaret and Ali, who got married the day we DJd in Brixton and came along to that, then were really supportive at the Hamburg gig and the ICA too.
The hotels and hostels we were booked into in Germany seemed to be exercises in how many people you can get into one room at one time. I have had enough of bunk beds and Ronan parading around nude at 5am to last me for a while. In one hostel you don’t get towels, you sleep in your sheets, then use them as towels. This seemed daft to me, but actually worked well, and is pretty sound if you think about it. The drives were slightly less punishing than usual, and we did a pretty good job of eating well and not drinking too much, and not getting ill.
I loved the ICA gig, it went pretty much exactly as had hoped. The crowd were lovely and it was great to see some people we hadn’t seen for yonks, including JB, who produced the “A Week Away” album – he was on fine form. It all went by very quickly, and before we knew it we were loading the gear back into the lock-up in Shepherds Bush.
We are not planning any shows to do “A Week Away” live again, but it does seem a shame to only play it the once. I really like playing the whole album as one piece. Most of our albums were designed that way anyway, so it feels right to play them live like that.
After the gig, Bridie and I slipped away to Cornwall for a week’s holiday, which was fabulous. We stayed in Carbis Bay and spent the week walking the coastal path and beautiful beaches, watching movies, cooking, eating out and drinking plenty. That is said Bridie in the photo an said beach. It was so nice that I am now feeling depressed at the prospect of work tomorrow. London was a bit of a shock to the system too. While we were away we watched one of those crime shows where they follow two policemen round a borough, in this instance our borough. There were all kinds of awful things going on, and we kept recognizing them as being on our street. It solved the puzzle of exactly what happens in the cafe down the road. Made the area look really dangerous. Of course we just cruise through it all, oblivious, as you do in London. We went to the local pub last night and there must have been ten police cars and vans all speeding up and down the street for ages in pursuit of somebody. We wouldn’t normally comment on it, but it was just such a contrast after the peace of Carbis Bay.
I am listening to the first Public Image album. I was reminded of it as they are doing thirty year anniversary live shows of the Metal Box, which is an amazing album. I have always been a big admirer of those first three albums, they are so bold and fearless, and Lydon’s lyrics are dazzling.
No more band activity for a while. I am looking forward to getting on with writing the next album, which is always the most exciting thing for me. Am trying to get the guys together this week to have a beer and do our regular Pop Wishes thing, where we see how we have measured up to our last set of wishes (about two years ago), and set out some new ones for the year ahead. I need to do some rounding up to get those boys in the same place at the same time. Rounding up; that’s what you do if you form a band, spend your days rounding up.
Best of all, Bridie and I are off to see Cliff and the Shadows next week – how good is that?

(Soundtrack: Elvis Costello “King Of America”, Elvis Costello “Blood And Chocolate”)
It is now bordering on autumn. I just wandered up to Acton to get some vegetables and as it is quite windy there are conkers all over the pavements. Quite good large ones actually. I am not complaining; I love autumn, it’s just that the seasons seem to come round faster and faster as time goes on. Those seemingly endless summers of childhood are long gone, and were pretty boring at times anyway… Just part of getting older I guess. There are probably paintings cavemen did bemoaning how quickly the seasons pass now. There are still random hot days at the moment and I keep seeing dead bumble bees on the ground, which has been a feature this year.
When I walk through to work in the morning I cut through a little park where there is normally a group of dogs being exercised. One of them I call “tall dog”. I don’t know what make he is, but he is whippet-like, except a lot taller. No matter what commotion all the rest of the dogs are creating, this guy just stands there, tangential to the group, staring into the distance. He is completely oblivious and imperious. The others have given up trying to get him to join in and play; he is impervious to everything. His attitude strikes a chord with me – he is my favourite and it cheers me up to see him.
Bridie and I were trying to figure out where all the male ducks have gone. They are the ones with the bright green / blue necks. I came up with the theory that the males stay here for spring in order to mate and have kids, then in the late summer fly off to a country where it is spring again. Bridie got to the truth of it though – they are still there, they just shed their bright plumage so that they look very much like the females. The green / blue will gradually re-appear over coming months.
As I write this Bridie is talking to Nic Roeg – how cool is that?
We went to see “(500) Days Of Summer” the other night with Jim and Andy. Neil and Cheryl came along too, but Si and Arn couldn’t make it: moving house and lack of childcare being the reasons. So we sat there eagerly awaiting the Spearmint dialogue to appear. I had pretty much decided that it had been edited out as it doesn’t come until three quarters of the way through. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character says “It pains me to live in a world where no-one has ever heard of Spearmint”. Zooey Deschanel’s character says she hasn’t heard of them… Gordon explains that he put them on the mix CD he gave her, in fact they (us) were the first track. It was a bit surreal seeing this on the big screen at Odeon Marble Arch. I thought maybe we would give a rousing cheer, but we just shifted about a bit. Jim raised his arms slightly, in celebration.
I got a mail from a chap called Michael Leibowitz in the States explaining that the writer of the movie is a friend of his and a big fan of the band, his favourite song being “The Beautiful Things” (cool choice).The best thing is that it is a really good film and some aspects (the dance routine, the split screen, the animation, the numbered days) make it a bit of a classic romantic comedy.
Which brings me back to how many great movies are being released at the moment. In fact they are coming too thick and fast to keep up with. We went to “Inglourious Basterds” and absolutely adored it. Same goes for “Funny People”. Again these are films that have attracted bad reviews – further proof to disregard critics.
How on earth did Costello make these two albums in the same year? I am awed…
Jim really poured heart and soul into getting the artwork finished for the special edition of “A Week Away”. The booklet is lovely, but I think it took a toll on him, with trying to keep things going at home, the day job, our rehearsals and a gig for his own band Telley all falling in the same week. He hasn’t been the same since in fact. So I am trying to divert band work to other people and keep it away from him for the moment. We are heading over to Germany next week to do some shows. These things are always booked way in advance, then suddenly they are upon you and there is no time to get ready or rehearsed, all a bit stressful.
We have been learning to play “A Week Away” live, and have even figured out what most of the chords are. These days when I finish a song I write out the lyrics in my book, and include the chords too. But ten years ago, I used to just write the lyrics, thinking “”of course I will remember these chords”. Then coming to the songs ten years later I really struggled on a couple. It’s not just knowing that it is an “A”, it is more exactly how you played that “A”. So I recommend you always make a note of such things. We are pretty much there now on understanding what it is we should be playing; we just need to find a way of actually playing it. We had a good rehearsal on Saturday, then an awful one on Tuesday. Par for the course.
After watching “(500) Days Of Summer”, we went and DJd at Ian Watson’s lovely, enduring clubnight “How Does It Feel To Be Loved”. We had a top time, I even enjoyed the DJing, which I sometimes don’t. Got very drunk. Jim sensibly left early as he has so much going on, but then spent hours getting home on the night buses. Andy was on good form and it would be nice to do it again sometime.
I have been a good boy and putting aside time for writing over the last few weeks to work on what looks at this early stage to become a big sprawling Shirley Lee album. Which probably means it wil be a concise Spearmint album. We shall see.
The photo is of a pavement in San Francisco. Some chap was telling us who the artist is, but we were drunk so I can’t remember the name.

(Soundtrack: Television “Marquee Moon”, Gladys Knight “Anthology”)
We had a few days in Oslo last week. I bought Bridie tickets to Madonna there for her birthday, which was back in February. I bought the tickets from a site called Smart Hospitality, not thinking too much of it as it was for an overseas gig. I got an email and postal confirmation from them stating that they would not dispatch tickets until a week before the gig. So I didn’t start chasing them until then. First of all I emailed, but the mails bounced back. Then I tried to ring, and realised the company no longer existed, if it ever had. I found a website where lots of people were saying that they had been conned out of money by this company for tickets to Blur, Springsteen, the Grand Prix etc.
I never thought I would get conned like that – I always thought that was something that happened to other people.
So we did our best to get tickets via other sites, ebay, but to no avail. Tried contacts in the industry but no joy there either. We then had a few days of deciding whether to go to Oslo or not, whether to just treat it as a sign, and spend the money here instead. Eventually we decided to go as we both wanted to see Oslo anyway. Then when we got there we were in two minds whether or not to go along and try and get into the gig or to not risk the disappointment. We decided to give it a go and were delighted to get tickets at face value at the tube station. First and hopefully the last time I have ever bought tickets from a tout.
As we walked up towards the stadium the heavens opened and we were treated to the biggest storm I have been outside in for years: thunder, lightning and driving rain. Pretty soon there were rivers of water running down the pavements as we got shoved along by the crowd. By the time we got near the gates we were standing in a mud bath. We were not dressed for this at all. There was a lot of confusion as the gate numbers were not visible. We found ourselves standing in deep mud in a crowd who insisted on shoving forward even though nobody was moving inside – it was horrible. After twenty minutes of that we had had enough and headed back to the tube just to get away from the crowds and mud.
Can you believe that we were then back at the tube trying to sell the tickets after all the palaver to get them? Shirley Lee, ticket tout.
Mercifully we did not sell them and after fifteen minutes we made our way back to the stadium. People were now going in through the gates so we went in and watched the show. It was a concrete floor inside and it was still pouring down .We watched the gig standing in about six inches of standing water. We were completely wet through. It felt like a northern premier league football match, everyone around us looking miserable.
Thankfully the show was great, a proper show that only Madonna can really do. Jackson used to, I suppose Kylie can do it too. I don’t just mean great lights, I mean a full-on show, and we managed to dance, splashing around So it all worked well in the end. It was fabulous to get out of the wet clothes back at the apartment, and luckily the bar on the corner opens until 3am so we had a few drinks after too.
Oslo is lovely, but those drinks are expensive! And the food too. I have always taken the stance that after living in London no other city can seem expensive, and that held true in Tokyo and Reykjavik etc, but Oslo is shocking. All food, drink, clothes and records are two to three times as expensive as London. So ironically we spent less than usual as we had to be so careful.
There is an excellent Film museum there and we spent time in there watching a festival of short film, which was fab. The photo is from the museum, it is a recreation of one of a huge number of sculptures by Vigeland in Vigeland Park. There is loads to see, with really interesting Resistance and Modern Art Museums as well as the obvious attractions along the fjord.
Gladys Knight is under-rated isn’t she… I am listening to a double-album anthology, which is a bit of a strange selection actually, but she sounds great. She has a truly distinctive voice, nobody else like her. The double album is funny: side 3 is on the reverse on side 1 and side 4 is on the flip of side 2, which always confuses me. I have a few soul double albums like that. I think the idea was that you could have twin decks set up and go straight from side 1 to side 2 without having to turn any record over.
I have been doing a bit of reading: “Conversations With Woody Allen” which is the best book about film-making I have read, and “Renegade” by Mark E Smith, which I couldn’t put down. It really does capture how relentlessly hard and lonely it is to have a vision and stick to it. I don’t have a fingernail of his brilliance, but I really identified with the book. He has such sound views on a lot of things too. I also tried a science fiction novel: “Snowcrash” by Neal Stephenson, which I quite enjoyed, but was not exactly what I was looking for. I used to read Sci-Fi as a boy and stopped in my teens. Recently I have had a hankering for it again. It is strange to read Sci-Fi written in the 90s which still manages to completely under-estimate the present day reality of the internet. I am currently on “Greenmantle” by John Buchan which is a sequel to “The Thirty-Nine Steps” and a rip-roaring read, all travelling under-cover across Europe in the snow during World War One.
We caught another killer film last week: “Orphan”, which is a mainstream Horror, that is just done brilliantly and is exceptionally entertaining. “Mesrine” is also fab, classic gangster movie-making. Great films just keep coming, from all quarters. I know from work that the market experts were predicting a bad year for cinema as in recession people would want to save money and watch DVDs or play games instead. In fact the opposite has happened this year: cinema is well up on 2008, which was huge anyway, and home entertainment is having a tough time. I suppose a night at the cinema is relatively cheap escapism… but maybe the main reason is just that there are so many great movies around.
I moved down to three days a week at work at the start of this month, but after a couple of very stressful weeks, I have moved back to four days, as there is too much work on at the moment. Even one day a week will give me impetus to move forward with writing though. Am in the mood to get on with the next album now…

I veer between “Wayne’s World” levels of confidence and extreme terror about the gig at the ICA. Ronan asked me why anyone would come along, and I said “What? You’re joking – it’s Spearmint! at the ICA! Playing “A Week Away” live! of course they’ll come!” He also asked me why anyone in London would bother coming to see a band from Leicester (The Junipers) and I confidently explained “Listen, when a band is that good, they are going to pull a crowd wherever they go!”

At other times I am worried about it though… suppose nobody comes, suppose we are rubbish… I had one of my recurring anxiety dreams last night: the one where I am being tormented by a large bee or wasp. Bridie woke me up because I was crying out and jerking about. My other two regular dreams are being naked in a public place and either having an exam or a gig that I suddenly realised I am totally unprepared for. I suppose the worst that could happen is a handful of people at the ICA watching me sitting an exam naked and unprepared onstage while being tormented by a large bee or wasp.

We have been very busy getting the album ready. I have just signed off the master and it sounds great. We decided to lose one of the extra tracks in the end (poor old “A Mild Mannered Man”) as it was getting too long to fit onto one CD. Jim is pulling the artwork together and had designed a very nice postcard which we will use to promote the gig. Still a lot to do for the artwork – we need to compile all the lyrics and images then lay out the booklet. Jim’s friends Jean and James are going to interview each of us for a short film which will show before we play the album live.

We went to see The Pretenders the other night at the Shepherds Bush Empire. They were great and I have come to really like that venue. Last week we took my mum to see a 50s show called “Dreamboats And Petticoats” at The Grand Theatre in Leeds. The show was good fun, but the main pleasure for me was going back to the Grand where I used to go to watch bands as a kid. It is a brilliant theatre and I always dreamed of playing there when I grew up. I still do. One of the things about being in a band is that whenever I go to see other bands I find myself wondering whether or not I would want us to play in the venue. Bridie and I went to see Kraftwerk at The Town Hall in Auckland last year. What a great venue! Just the shape of it is enough to dream of playing there. I don’t own any Kraftwerk albums. I have always quite liked them, but avoided seeing them live originally, thinking “it will just be four blokes stood there behind keyboards”. So we went along to give it a try, and when the curtain rose, there they were – four blokes stood there behind laptops. They were great though, and the robots did the encore. I must get the albums.
Also went to see “Moon” last week, which is a really great sci-fi movie, an instant classic, on a par with the best from the 70s. And there has already been a classic vampire movie this year: “Let The Right One In”. We also saw “Bruno” last week which was very funny, though I notice people are getting snooty about it, constantly comparing it to his other stuff, and saying it is disappointing. The fact is it is great and the first film this year I have immediately wanted to watch again. I remember when “Fawlty Towers” was first aired, on BBC 2 I think, it got a really bad response, with critics saying what a shame it was that Cleese had gone so mainstream after Monty Python. It was later re-run on BBC1 and suddenly it was a huge success. After a gap, they made series 2, and that got really bad reviews as apparently it was nowhere near as good as the first season. Critics – what is the point of them? “Anti Christ” is a cool film too. Thanks to the fuss about it being a genuinely graphic 18 cert, we were able to watch it on a big screen in town. It is great – proper film-making. Thank you Lars Von Trier.
Bridie has a flash new phone. My phone hasn’t even got an apostrophe in it. I get funny about other people adding apostrophes where they are not needed, but I have to leave them out where they are needed. It is the first phone Bridie has had with a built-in camera. So she is taking lots of photos, including those ones that look great but you don’t take, like of your foot or chin or the pavement… She is building up a great collection, but isn’t able to get them onto the computer yet, so I resort to including this shot I took of a laundremat in Innsbruck.

(Soundtrack: Regina Spektor “Far”, Charles Mingus “Oh Yeah”) . We have been busy planning Spearmint activity for September. We are releasing a new version of our first album “A Week Away”. Pete is currently remastering it from debris of mixes and versions sprawled across a sea of DAT tapes – DAT was the industry standard for masters ten years ago when we made it. It was originally mastered at Abbey Road, but I am convinced Pete and do a better job of it. We are re-instating the single version of “A Trip Into Space”, which we feel is superior; it will also have the full unfaded ending. . We have also recorded seven new songs intended for a ten inch EP to be released alongside it. I have been searching for extra tracks to add to “A Week Away”, but of course most of them are already featured on “Songs For The Colour Yellow” which accompanied the album originally. After a sobering financial review, we have decided to add the seven new tracks to the “A Week Away” CD rather than releasing them on a separate EP. I think this will work well, as they do share a theme with the original album. . In addition to that, there are five b-sides from the time which did not fit onto “Songs For The Colour Yellow”, so they can also be included. Hence the new version of the CD will comprise “A Week Away” remastered, the new seven song cycle, plus the five extra tracks. . We have also decided to include lyrics having originally resisted this. I have been convinced over the years, mainly by people for whom English is not their first language, that this really helps. I didn’t like the idea initially, as seeing them written seems to imply they should work written, which they don’t, as they are lyrics, not poetry. But I have warmed to the idea and was happy to include them with the Shirley Lee album and now this. . We also plan to play the “A Week Away” album live in full for the first time, at the ICA in London, and on some German dates. Jim, Si, Ronan and I have always wanted to play at the ICA – I remember us talking about it ten years ago, so it will be a treat to finally do it. We have fixed the date: Wednesday 30th September. The Junipers, who we saw live in Liverpool are going to play with us, which is great, as they are wonderful – so nice when you find a band who are that good! . Jim is keen to create a short film about “A Week Away” to show at the gigs, so we met his friend Jean last week to start planning that. Jim’s idea is to make it as much of an event as possible, which is great. We are also DJing at “How Does It Feel” on Friday 4th September, which is the day that the movie “500 Days Of Summer” opens. Apparently one of the main characters in this film says either “of course, the band you should be listening to is Spearmint”, or “Spearmint are the best band in the world”, or something, so I guess we can all go see the movie before DJing. Knowing our luck we will have been subtly misinformed and the quote will be something slightly different like “Spearmint are a great big pile of steaming shit”. . I was in a movie once: “Stormy Monday” by Mike Figgis, with Sean Bean, Melanie Griffith and Sting. This was when I was living in Newcastle – I was paid twenty pounds to be an extra for the day, which I thought was amazing money at the time. It was mostly spent hanging around with rest of the extras in a hall near the river where I later saw The Fall play – can’t remember its name. I never saw Sting, but Melanie Griffith came into the room once with a fur coat draped over shoulders and starting complaining in a shrill Marilyn voice. I thought she was awful, but I have since come to really like her in “Celebrity” and “Cecil B Demented”. I did two scenes, the first was walking into the Jazz Club with a girl, which seemed to go quite well. Afterwards Mike Figgis came over to us, all frizzy gingery hair and long denim collars – how camp he seemed, yet all he did was flirt with the girl, telling her how well she had walked into the Jazz Club. He didn’t acknowledge me. I wasn’t impressed, but of course, he went on to make some great films, including “Leaving Las Vegas”. The second was a crowd scene involving Sean Bean where some guy is smashing a window with a bottle. This made it into the movie and I can be seen about ten to fifteen minutes in I think, bobbing around at the back of the crowd with short hair and big bomber jacket, over-acting in fact. . Am going to try putting full stops between the paragraphs to try and introduce some spaces. Might look rubbish, but might work. . I like this Mingus album – he gets a big fat bottom end on his records, using a big band approach – really heavy. The only downside is that each of his albums seems to include one track that sounds like “Remember You’re A Womble”. Having come to Jazz backwards, via Soul, I initially found Ornette Coleman too mad for me. I have gradually been warming to him though, and Bridie and I went to see him play live on the Southbank (he has curated this year’s Meltdown Festival). He was amazing live and we feel really luck to have got to see him. . London is Michael Jackson crazy following his death a week ago. A shrine has sprung up outside the stage show on Shaftsbury Avenue – photos, flowers and sweet letters written in faltering broken English. It is touching and reminiscent of the aftermath of Princess Diana’s death. I suppose the fans of both those people are happy to sanctify them and it seems inevitable, and appropriate. His records can be heard everywhere, with “Man In The Mirror” seeming to be the front runner. I am quite happy to hear him so much, and I always thought “Man In The Mirror” was under-rated, as the lyric is stunning. Strange that my “Show You The Way To Go” which was massive at the time, and is my favourite, never gets played. “Farewell My Summer Love” doesn’t seem to get enough attention either. . We heard the news on the radio, late, in bed. It reminded me most of hearing about Elvis’s death, which I am old enough to remember. Back then I was lying in bed listening to John Peel, and odd vague reports starting to come through that Elvis was dead, until eventually they were confirmed. It was the same with Jackson – initially it was that “a man had collapsed and been resuscitated in Neverland”… then later that the man was Michael Jackson… then later that he was dead. It was truly shocking and very very sad. . I was lucky enough to see him live twice. Three times in fact, if you count the Brits where Cocker slipped onstage. I saw him on the “Bad” and “Dangerous” tours. Both shows were brilliant, but the first one particularly blew me away, especially the opening ten minutes. I have never been so excited at a show – I was lucky not to have a cardiac arrest myself at that point! I grew up watching Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movies – there is something about watching a man dance that briliantly that is amazing. It is great to see any dancing, but there is something about watching a guy, or a group of guys that is special. Michael Jackson had that magic, something heart-stopping and the way he moved, and to see that live was as good as it gets. . Michael Bradshaw (Dunston’s very own King Of Pop) used to rip him off all the time when we were in Laverne & Shirley. He was such an inspiration. I remember the day after Elvis died, I heard Cliff Richard on the radio and Cliff was really angry – angry at Elvis and angry at the people around him for letting things get so bad and letting him end like that. I wanted Michael to win. I wanted him to do the fifty shows at the O2 and amaze the world at his brilliance. He will be missed very much. Though in a way we have been missing him for fifteen years or so… He did well to make it to fifty years old; Elvis was only, what, forty-three?

(Soundtrack: Wayne Jarrett “Showcase”)
We just did a handful of gigs around England. Which always raises the question “why do gigs around England?”. The problem being that once we pay for a van and a driver and a cheap hotel, we lose a load of money. If you can get someone to drive for free, and you own a van, and are comfie sleeping on someone’s floor, then you can make it work. I didn’t want to put the guys through that this time, so it cost a packet – in fact the money that I had managed to save by working for the last couple of months all went on these few gigs. By playing in your home-town, which for us happens to be London, you can at least break even, but venturing anywhere that needs a stop-over costs a lot, so we certainly did not do these gigs for the money.
If we were doing them to “build our following” then that would be akin to painting the Forth Bridge with a toothbrush.  Although at least then the bridge would eventually get painted…  Perhaps it would be more akin to painting the Forth Bridge with a toothbrush and using paint which washes off in the rain. Maybe if we were out gigging most nights we could make some inroads, but a handful of shows around each album is never going to make a difference.
If we were using it as an excuse to get together and have a laugh with the band, then it definitely worked – we had a good old time listening to Bill Withers in the van, drinking too much beer, analysing life and eating chips. But then we could have got together to do all that and had a good night out in London for a fraction of the cost.
We did enjoy playing the songs though, and even though there were hardly any people at some gigs, and at some shows the crowd were just talking while we played, we still felt like we played well and were proud of what we were doing. Those moments, and at least one great gig made it worthwhile. After all, does a band really exist if it doesn’t play together in front of an audience? And it may be a chiche, but there is no substitute for playing live in order to sort songs out, to move them forward.
When we were in Liverpool it seemed there was live music blasting out of every bar. There were also several 90s nights on, which I notice are starting to appear. Up to ten years after a decade is over, it seems that it lacks a real personality compared to previous decades, then it gradually comes into focus until about twenty years after, it gains nostalgia value and you find yourself liking things that you hated at the time. It is happening now with the 80s. Bands are now making records trying to deliberately recreate the 80s. Just like they did in the 80s with the 60s, when Mod or The Smiths or The Las all owed huge debts to the 60s. Or in the 70s bands were fixated with the 50s. I guess it is about playing with the sounds you grew up with, or records that your parents liked. So 90s nights currently seems a little odd, but will become commonplace. What will there be in ten years time? Noughties nights? Which is bad enough, but what ten years after that? What do you even call that decade?
Andy did a ridiculous thing of playing our gig in Leeds, then getting the first train to London the next morning to rehearse with Weller, then getting the train to Liverpool to play a festival show with us at 5, then a doing a gig of his own at 9, then another show with us at 10 then another solo show at 11, then up first thing to get back to London to do a gig with Weller the next day. Inevitably, this ambitious plan ended with him missing our tea-time show and arriving back in Liverpool as he was due to go onstage at 9 – apart from the tea-time show it all went well though. That was a rotten set – us playing songs with no bass – though I suspect it would have been rotten anyway. Our 10 o’clock show was fab though.
Bridie and I went to a comedy show in Portobello the other night. Stewart Lee was excellent as ever, but the main attraction for me was Brian Gittings. Few people have reduced me to hysterics in my life: Peter Sellers as Clouseau, Ted Chippington, Harpo Marx, Steve Martin in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and a theatre group from Brighton called “Cliffhanger” spring to mind, but it doesn’t happen often. My very favourite, Larry David, causes me to get over-excited and thrilled by the brilliance of “Curb”, but never has me in hysterics. We have seen Brian Gittings before, and as soon as he comes on I start crying with laughter, and can’t stop until he goes off. It is extremely painful actually, but I suppose it is good for me.
We had a good time visiting Lille – it has a lovely old quarter for tourists, but feels very much alive as a town. It is currently over-run by giant black babies called the devil’s babies – see the photo. Now back in West London the temperature has shot up. We are back to drinking red stripe and photgraphing ducks – except Philbert, the unphotographable duck du jour. This is when the Uxbridge Road comes into its own – it all makes sense on hot summer days, and especially hot summer nights. Hence I am playing reggae loud!

(Soundtrack: Miles Davis “Milestones”)
We got a copy of the book of graphic novellas inspired by our songs. It is odd and brilliant to see it in print. Some of the songs are treated quite literally and some have totally different interpretations. Si and I were leafing through it, really excited. It is a very strange sensation to see things that started out as in jokes and then made their way into songs, now featuring in cartoons by somebody else. For instance, when we both lived in South London, and we would travel home late at night after gigs or the studio we would always see urban foxes crossing the road, and we would talk about Mr City Fox making his way home. I later put Mr City Fox into the lyrics for “The Last Bus Home”, and now there he is, in cartoon form, watching proceedings in the cartoon version of that song.
Devising cartoons inspired by songs really does work – it makes me want to explore it more in the future – it is a lot more satisfying than videos of songs. The book is gorgeous and we are thrilled with it and honoured that it exists. It is a great companion for anyone who enjoys our songs, but manages to stand alone nicely too. Ronan has gone off with the one copy, so hopefully we will get more soon. We are completely indebted to Eric who pulled the book together. He also sent me a copy of their Tori Amos collection of graphic songs, which is great too. In fact, Bridie seems a lot more excited about that one than ours (being Tori mad).
The two of us are now drinking again after our forty days of abstinence. I am really glad we did it, as I now feel in control of drink, rather than the other way round. After about twenty days of not drinking the cravings disappeared and our habits were reset. So by the end we were not that bothered about starting again. I found that I slept better and felt a bit clearer headed during the forty days, and it certainly saved us some money, but on the whole it did not make a huge difference. It has been nice to have a few since though! We had a lock-in at the local on Saturday night and it was great.
We were looking for something to replace going to the pub, and we came up with learning to speak French. Clearly the first thing you think of rather than a pint is to conjugate a few French verbs… We got a book and CD of thirty lessons and are about halfway through it. I spent several years learning the language at school and did well at it. However, because it was all written rather than spoken, the net result was that I could speak it falteringly, but as soon as anybody responded at as normal speed, I could not understand a word. I would like to pick it up again and actually be able to converse properly. Imagine being able to watch French movies without needing subtitles! Bridie loves all things French so for her it is about learning the language and then spending more time there. We are off to Lille in a few weeks so we can have a go at speaking it then.
The dayjob I am doing has been extended until late June, which is great, but I am getting seriously restless about getting on with some writing. I am going to talk to them this week about the chances of staying on doing three days a week. That would then give me two days to write. I would have less money, but it would suit me really well, at least until the next album is written. I have an idea for a long, sprawling Shirley Lee album, and I can’t wait to write it. As usual I will probably start out with this idea and end up writing something completely different though…
The other night I met up with my old school friend Nick to go the Hackney Empire to see Paul Merton presenting classic silent movies. I hadn’t seen Nick for six years. He used to have a huge shock of wild black hair, and I wasn’t sure how he would look after six year. It turns but he looks exactly the same, in fact his hair was blacker and wilder than before. We went to quite a few things at the Hackney Empire years ago, including Frankie Howerd and Joe Strummer (not together). It is a really nice venue and it was great to see Nick again. The main film shown was supposed to be Buster Keaton’s “Steamboat Bill Jnr”, but was changed at the last minute to Buster’s “Seven Chances”. I was quite pleased as I saw “Steamboat Bill” recently, and hadn’t seen “Seven Chances”, which turned out to be even better.
We watch a lot of Laurel and Hardy talkies at home. Paul Merton showed a late silent short of theirs which was hilarious and he told the story of how they got together, which put me in mind of when I used to work as a Video Buyer for Our Price stores. A small supplier kept ringing me wanting to meet me. I didn’t want to spend time meeting him as I knew the videos he had were a load of old baloney. Then he told me that he had Laurel and Hardy movies, so I relented and agreed to meet him. It turned out that he did have Laurel and Hardy videos: he had Stan Laurel videos and he had Oliver Hardy videos.
I remember once, when I was doing that job the marketing department came up with an idea for a promotion: the poster showed a squid sitting on a pile of CDs at the bottom of the ocean. He had a couple of legs in plaster and the line was “CDs Under Six Quid”. Get it? Unfortunately the buying team then discovered that they couldn’t make the promotion work with the CDs at less than six pounds. The net result? A poster of a poorly squid sat on a pile of CDs at the bottom of the ocean with the line “CDs Under Seven Quid”.