This afternoon, on a battered old bird table on the edge of the wood, I saw great tits, blue tits, a robin and a coal tit, all in the space of ten minutes. They were nibbling fatballs and snatching nuts and seed. Dunnocks gorge themselves shamelessly below, scavenging scraps flung casually onto the leaf-sodden grass.
Was home from the EuroTour, where we took in five cities in Germany, three in Holland, and Ostend in Belgium, for three nights before rehearsing with Barry and James for a new set for the UK acoustic dates. The mind just switches, click, from one mode to the other. The original take on Make Me Smile came to me on stage in Tunbridge Wells, the other guys knowing nothing of it. They knew enough about me, though, to take it as part and parcel of my approach, and improvise, brilliantly I thought, without over-clouding the lyrics. Some of those dates were special, memorable. In the north they come with me, word for word, and further south – as a general rule – the rooms can be a little more restrained. I take it as it comes. The surprise package was in sleepy Suffolk, my home county. To Bury St Edmunds, to the new Apex Concert Hall. It’s a fabulous mini-Symphony Hall, seating 500 with the most perfect acoustics. This packed house was with me from the moment the lights came up. Not so sleepy Suffolk, after all! Those big, church rooms, Islington’s Union Chapel, and Bristol’s St George’s are the perfect spaces for acoustic shows. I could have sung all night at those too, as well as Bury, because for a singer the domed roofs and wood and stone surrounds give a natural resonance and are all-forgiving. Wouldn’t really want to play them with a drum kit and electric guitars, but in the acoustic setting, perfect!
Buzzing. It's all amazing, this life for me. How about this: In 1973, a young Jewish plugger took an new EMI single around the BBC, mainly banging on doors at Radio 1. He was Eric Hall, and Sebastian was not an easy sell for him. Eric got a more amenable response when he turned up several months later with Judy Teen. EMI had told him and myself that there was not another single on The Human Menagerie. I found that opinion incredible, and to this day both Eric and I despair at the lack of imagination shown by those responsible. Muriel The Actor, maybe? What Ruthy Said? Loretta's Tale? None of them suited Radio 1 according to EMI. Eric took Make Me Smile to the Beeb, too. I had Dave Most on the case, too. Dave was Mickie’s younger brother, and his company, RAK, had signed me as publishers. Together, they got a Noel Edmonds breakfast show Record Of The Week, and I think Kid Jensen gave it a massive boost on Radio Luxemburg.
Portmeirion was special, as we all hoped it would be. It’s a magical place, the Village. Mediterranean-style cottages in Mediterranean colours. They appear authentic, but it’s all an illusion. Even the damp look on the plaster is deliberately wiped on with a darker shade of paint applied to the lower parts of the walls, ageing the buildings and adding character. The town hall ceiling is magnificent. It’s a masterpiece of stucco and plaster-work. But Sir Clough reclaimed it. It came from another place, and he somehow got his craftsmen to re-establish it in the north-west of Wales, in his own village. All that stood there originally was the main house, looking at the river. There’s an element of illusion even about that building; it was burnt to the ground in 1981, two years after my own first visit, and re-built mostly in its own image.
I was thinking about some of the people I met on the recent UK tour.
There is a certain trudge about touring. Wake, breakfast, travel, check-in, relax, explore if there’s time away from promotional business, sound-check, dinner, play show, relax, sleep, wake, breakfast, travel.....always the travelling, moving around and about. But as a saving grace there is always the place at which we arrive to consider: the town, the city, the place; almost always worthy of respect and consideration. Could be worse.
Copenhagen: to see Soren again, and his fab and beautiful daughter Christina (have I spelt it right?), such a thrill.
Oslo: Finn, my dear friend of many years, sound check and dinner; chatting to band and absorbing.
Finn even brought beautiful young women along (how?), and we all stared in awe backstage before boarding bus.
And Morten: Universal and always welcome. These guys are a million miles away from my everyday life, but they are always friends when we come to their towns. Always.
Finn: so slim and fit and rocking.
We meet all sorts, some not so wonderful as others: such is life. But5 we met almost always good and helpful people as we trudged across Scandinavia.
Life could be a lot worse for someone who writes songs and tries to play the guitar.
People make it happen.
Johnnie Walker came to Bristol. Sat through sound check and took photos which he has sent me. I’ll get some to the website. Great to see an old mate, one who helped my career right from the start and still encourages me, saying the kindest words about Stranger Comes To Town. Our two night sojourn at The Stables turned out to be the joy it always has been.
Dublin already seems history, the time passes so quickly out here. But it rocked and so did Belfast. Club venues, but the air was buzzing both nights with good fans who came out for a good night, and it gave me heart to see how the new set, littered with new songs, affected them. Seems they had the good time they went out for. We did. We were ready to play in public. Rehearsals in themselves are exciting for musicians. We gel, we blend and harmonise, personally as well as musically. These are fine people. A fish rots from the head down, so I choose carefully.
Missed a day of rehearsals for The Ivors. The idea of doing so was a stress. But I like that awards very much. I was, for the third time (9th time on jury) chairman of the jury working on Best Song Musically & Lyrically. I think I’ve posted before on that. I am a songwriter, a musician, the proverbial wandering minstrel, and so committee stuff is not really my stuff. Juries not really for me. We do what we do, we move into this demimonde, onto this extracurricular plane, in order to get away from the real world. Makes us sad? Inadequate? Insecure? I expect all those and more are true. But those involved in the travelling-constantly world normally don’t care. I don’t care.
Death has preoccupied my mind somewhat of late. My two friends were far too young to have suffered that way and to be taken. And the deeply emotional tasks the relatives face once such important people have gone, this has plagued me. It’s hard for those of us hurt by the loss. You want to help, but you’re not there, you’re not involved. You’re not family. You feel their terrible suffering and want to console them, but you’re not there. They must move in a sort of purgatory, a middle land where reality is blurred. I had a call today from a very good mate, but again one I go a year or more without actually seeing. No lunch. No dinner. No bottles and tales, nor late confessions. But we love each other as close friends do. And I know it, and hope he knows it. His call came soon after he’d read my on-line diary. There are those you should keep in touch with. Stop putting it off. Manana, manana.......today! Do it today, I am telling myself. You drift, but true friends know this happens and do not take it personally. But I don’t want to drift too far from the few really good, important friends I’ve made and kept. I determine to make more effort.
Bob died. I hurt. Thousands grieve.
Two separate emails received Friday gave news of two separate old friends being diagnosed with lung cancer. Two friends. Lung cancer. I was keen to get a copy of “Stranger Comes To Town” to Paul Evans, maybe the world’s leading collector of Bloomsbury Press (mostly Virginia Woolf) literature. I called the hospice late Friday afternoon; he’d been taken there a couple of days earlier. Asked if he would be able to hear it if it arrived by post Monday. Perhaps better if you brought it tomorrow, the nurse told me. It was heavy news.
Home at last. And, really, I had it easy. The tv pictures of the stranded thousands at Frankfurt airport, a few kilometres from my hotel, were heart-breaking. Families with young kiddies; the old and infirm; the once-a-year travellers, desperate to get to a wedding, a celebration, an anniversary. They all told their stories and I listened with a heavy heart. We managed to book pretty much the last seat on a Eurostar for Monday, and I arrived at Ebbsfleet last night, after moving on to Brussels for a night and a couple of days.
Had a wonderful time with Werner Reinke on HR1 Radio in Frankfurt last night. When I get more time and better internet access than now I will tell more. Since the evening came to a close, after 4 hours on air, we have done little but fight for a way back to England. The ash cloud sprung into terrible life minutes after my flight landed from City Airport on Thursday morning.
Thanks to all who offered suggestions for a “cover” for the new album. Some interesting ideas came in, some plain stoopit, but there’s room for all sorts. Graeme Blake took first prize of something or other with the nudge towards a long-lost fav of mine, Daniel Johnston. We missed the tracks played by Billy Sloan on Sunday on Glasgow’s Radio Clyde, on account of Billy didn’t forewarn us. Also, he said kind words and will play more tracks as the time closes in on release date, May 3rd. If i’m home, or away with laptop, I’ll tune in to Radio Clyde for his show, just in case I get the thrill of hearing my new music on the radio. It’s still a great buzz. Never wanes. It’s excitement in big form. Big. It’s my babies, being handed over, nervously, to strangers, then to the public, and to hear a track on air gives a sort of stress-relief. I never have got used to it, and really do still get an enormous thrill from it.
Went today to record Jools Holland’s Radio 2 show. It’s due for transmission April 19th. Two weeks dead before the album’s release. Good chat, covering childhood (we’re both south-east London boys), young adulthood and pop. Jools glides through it, barely breaking sweat as we cover much ground. I think he’s better researched than the airy air gives credence to. It takes a lot of rehearsal to appear so ad-libbing, so the comedians both great and average tell us. His band (good players: double-bass, drums , guitar, JH himself on grand piano, and a couple of cool horn players, carried me Live through the only cover on the “Stranger Comes To Town” album, Daniel Johnston’s “True Love Will Find You In The End.”
Been clearing my study lately. It’s a difficult one, throwing stuff away. Shredding papers you’ve piled for no reason for years. There are piles even on the floor. Time passes so quickly now. I can remember adding that sheet to that pile the other day. No, it must be longer than that – like, five years longer.
All the team is now set up for the big push. Comeuppance is the record company. That’s the modern way. We have radio/tv plugger Jackie Gill, who will do everything she can to get a single play-listed on Radio 2, and all the good tv she can muster; publicist Chris Hewlett, who has already organised interviews for decent exposure with Classic Rock, Acoustic Magazine, Guitar &Bass, Sunday Times, and more – stuff that should appear in print late April, early May, timed to coincide with the release.
Got to Rome for the Caravaggio/Bacon show at the Galleria Borghese, and what a blast! The Bacons were mostly from private collections, and you have to wonder who hangs them at home? They were all (I recall uncertainly) large canvases, housed of course in large frames.
