Today we went to DC’s house in Manly to do some guitar comping. This means that we listen to the different takes of guitars that I have done and see which is the best. The best-played part, the best solo and then, make a decision. That’s the hardest of all things in making music, committing, especially these days when you have infinite tracks. In the good ole days, you had to commit, now you spend two years sorting out everything you recorded and then you decide. Somehow less is more.

We went to get a coffee on the Manly shore, on our way we walked past a dead bandicoot lying on the pavement. You probably don’t know what a bandicoot is if you are not living in Australia (see the link above). We sat on a bench and watched the surfers, one fella managed to break his board in half. DC was telling us about the sea and the surfers, this is winter and the sky was blue, the sun shone down and it looked like a fantasy paradise.

DC lives in a nice apartment in an old block close to the water, left-leafed palm trees stare in at his left-handed guitars. It’s a lovely area, a place I never really came when I lived here, maybe once or twice in years. We are halfway through our trip and as I looked out of the window today at the early winter darkness I realised how strange it’s going to be back in Europe and experience sudden summer light.

That’s all today apart from the accountant’s meeting from Porto after the studio, but that might only be as interesting as an A11 or even the A11. We did make it to the wharf for a Thai dinner and as we walked past the bay, a flock of seagulls, not the band, were on the beach at the lip of the sea. Seagulls here are small but the fig tree that led up to the hill was mighty and magnificent. Sadly Worf was not on the wharf.

Time for bed, another Manly studio day but preceded by two seshes, one with Brian in NJ and the other with Mike in Chicago. Later, at midnight, an interview with Voice Of America about the project I did with Salim Nourallah in Dallas, it reaches 250 million people but are they interested in music that isn’t metal, electronic, hip hop, modern pop or R&B? The journalist is, so that’s a start.

Music today is old-fashioned pop because we were singing Small Faces‘ Lazy Sunday today. It reached No. 2 in the UK chart in 1968 and featured on their classic album Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake released in the same year. I have the album in the special round fold-out cover. It’s a classic and a No. 1 UK album.

Music Of The Daze