Last night just as we were ready to post, the internet went down. It kept us up to an ungodly hour (ungodly, what a great word). We had to use Olivia’s mobile phone hotspot to get the post out and at final bedtime, the internet was still down. Today when I got up, you guessed it, it was still down. Soooo frustrating but by mid-afternoon, it was fixed and I had mixed feelings about it because my option was to go into town and use cafe wifi. As it was fixed I didn’t need to go out. I had Mike in Chicago sessioneer works in progress to listen to plus two Brian in Indiana mixes and John in Brooklyn so obviously I needed my studio setup for proper appraisal – or did I!?

My friend Andreas in Sweden is taking over on the sessioneer projects or anything else that I do in the studio. So we were talking about headphones and he advised me to get Beyer Dynamic DT250s (80 ohms). They arrived today and he uses these for mixing because they are quality and accurate, so in reality, I could have gone down to the coffee shop and listened to the mixes and given a proper opinion on them. Yes, it’s true, I’m looking for excuses to go out because the Studio Tan is burning. I see the blue sky, I see the seagulls, I feel the breeze coming through the window but a busy week keeps me inside. If the phone doesn’t ring, you wonder why it’s not ringing, when it does you wonder when it will stop. Haha, it’s so weird being a human.

Thanks to sessioneers Tony and Jeff for the photos today. One a sunny beach, the other deep snow, that’s Sydney and Ohio at the same time of year. I didn’t see winter for long periods, I was always in Australia in summer and Europe in summer for many years. Having said that I grew up with snow and always loved it when it came floating down from the sky like a scene from a fairytale. I remember as a kid living near Glossop in the north of England, being trapped in our house as the snow climbed up the outside doors. We were near the Pennines, close to the snake pass where Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen lost his arm in a car crash. It’s amazing he survived to play again but he’s only alive because a nurse was driving by on this desolate road and came to help him (I heard).

It was all about seshes today although I had none. Logistics and listening and talking. We are trying to organise the next Arktik Lake session to happen in Portugal at the end of March with Tony flying from Sydney and Andreas from Gävle in Sweden. This is where I hope many projects will be done. It’s such a nice place to visit and isn’t ridiculously expensive. So, I listened to the tracks here in home-studio land and then spoke to Andreas about all the issues of recording a record that has been started in Sydney with drums, bass and rhythm guitars. It comes to us for me to sing and play lead guitar. I spoke to Tony about it all as he was on a bus in Dee Why. How is it even possible?

Music today went proper prog as Olivia was talking to music lover Matthew Reed Baker about Seven Is A Jolly Good Time (MRB sent me two cool music books for Chrissie). So I decided to listen to the debut Egg album from 1970. Seven Is A Jolly Good Time isn’t on the album, it’s a single from 1969 but I listened to it anyway as it came up today. If you like your prog to be Canterbury prog then this is the band for you, it never gets old because they made it from inside their heads.

Music Of The Daze