Strange World

Well, where to begin...? Today I sat in on some recording with my buddy Benjamin Folke Thomas who was recording some backing tracks over at a fella called Tony Harris' who was one of the engineers on REM's Fables of the Reconstruction album in the 80's. I've always been a big fan of REM, the song Driver 8 from that album being possibly my favourite REM song of all time. A song I've always had trouble playing on the guitar all because of a weird D chord that guitarist Peter buck plays which I have never managed to get right somehow. Now get this..., Tony Harris lent Peter Buck his guitar for that track on the original recordings and today got it out of it's case and passed it my way. I told him I knew the song and when I started playing the intro I could feel that it must be the real deal because when I reached the chord I had always had trouble with it sounded perfect. After playing the song and being congratulated by Tony I got quite emotional that the universe had provided me with the gift of this bit of wood with strings on that had by a small miracle somehow come my way. Man, the world is strange...!

THE LAST TO LEAVE THE PARTY

In the late 70’s I was at a friend's party in Hutton Essex, all the gang from my local the Castle pub in Brentwood were there. Somebody started passing around some funny cigarettes, I’d had a few drinks by this time and after smoking a few incense cigarettes sat down in a chair to watch colours and pixies. I remember closing my eyes for a fraction of a second and when I opened them it was dark and there was nobody there anymore. I crept around in a confused state of paranoia, whispering “Hello, where’s everybody gone?” My buddy and his bleary eyed girlfriend woke up and told me the party had ended hours ago. I’d been asleep in a chair all that time (to me a blink of an eye) but for a long while I thought that I’d been transported in time.

LUCK

This story goes to show just what kind of a world we actually live in.

I was out with buddies one Saturday in 2008, watching the wonderful Lewis Floyd Henry and his one-man-band. We arrived at the pub and I got a round in, three pints of cider and a soft drink and was charged £13.85. I inquired about about the price, £3.35 for a cider and £2.80 for the soft drink (basically a can of ginger beer and soda in a pint glass) WHAT? YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS? I paid my money and fifteen minutes later added it up... HANG ON, THEY'VE CHARGED ME A QUID EXTRA! I thought maybe I'd unknowingly paid for my friend's bag of Salty Dog crisps, but found out he'd paid for them himself, by this time I could not be arsed to go to the bar and demand satisfaction. Our lovely mate Tim Siddal (AKA BOYCOTT COCA-COLA EXPERIENCE) Sat down with his pint of Guinness and had started drinking it when a particularly pretty barmaid came up with another pint of Guinness and proceeded to explain that there had been a mistake and would he like the extra pint for free, upon which I looked at him aghast. Some people just got it lucky, which if you know Tim's music explains a lot.

PETER GABRIEL STORY

I was wanting to drop the children off at the pool (take a dump!) sometime in the afternoon one year at WOMAD. The nearest place possible away from the crowds, and unsavory loos, was a backstage area. So flashing my crew pass I headed for a what I thought a more civilised VIP latrine. Shutting the door of the portaloo behind me and opening the lid, I found what can be considered the most horrible skidpanned failure of a toilet in existence. It was a thing I simply couldn't tolerate, so I put down the lid, started doing my trousers back up whilst making a quick exit only to find one Peter Gabriel waiting patiently outside my door. The first and only thing to spring to my mind when confronted with the WOMAD head honcho was "It's got nothing to do with me!" gesturing towards the lavvy, whereupon he smiled politely not really taking what I said into account. I made what can only be described as a quick gettaway from the scene of someone else's crime. I imagine to this day he probably thought I was the one responsible. Oh, the shame of not being guilty.

AGE, MY RHYTHM BUDDY!

We played Nottingham Rock City with Iggy, the scene backstage Age was playing a game called 'catch biscuit' where he'd throw little biscuits from the band's luxurious food hamper style rider (not!) and catch them in his gob... while tripping on acid! I spied a box of those funny white ice cube sized toilet fresheners you put down the urinal and threw him one, it may have been my excellent throw, or more likely the acid that heightened his mouth-to-eye co-ordination, consequently it went straight down and almost choked the big lunk. How we all laughed and I hoped I'd not given him a bum trip. Luckily he didn't beat me up. Ah, the memories...