Studio, studio, studio, fingerpicking on a 12-string acoustic, not the easiest but I managed to nail it on the first take. We will be in the studio tomorrow as well but the gig with Salim is next door at the Galactic Headquarters so we can just slide on over. We bring in the new year with music and will be sliding into 2023 with sessioneer Minnesota Fred who arrives in Dallas on Sunday night for a Monday studio start. I just wanted to say thank you to everybody that has supported us this year, all who read here, and all who listen to the music we make, it’s very much appreciated.

Paul was in to help in the studio again today but just got the news that his broken car will cost more to fix than it is worth. I hope we don’t have to face any similar decisions with Ariel in the new year. She sits in a garage in England awaiting her fate. In the coffee shop today there was a man with ‘Sheriff’ written across the back of his jacket, a nasty-looking gun on his hip. It reminded me that the other day I was talking to a girl who was making the coffee and guns came up somehow. I told her that in the UK the police generally don’t carry guns, “Why?” she said. It made me think that some people need to travel to see how other cultures live. The Belgians do things differently from the Italians, don’t ask me for a list.

We are trying to figure out how to eat on New Year’s Day and we have decided to order dinner twice tomorrow. Apparently everywhere is closed but most people are home so there is allegedly no need for the shops or the restaurants and the people that work in these places want to be home too. Then there are those of us who are not home, we are not in a place with a large packed fridge of potential dinners. No vegetable rack, do we even have a peeler? No spices, no packets of dried food, no frozen food, you need to be home to have all these things.

Olivia did a great job in the studio today playing violins, stacking tracks, a one-woman orchestra. We are hoping that Paul will bring his viola tomorrow because some of these stacks need lower octaves and that’s just what a viola gives you. Real strings are something else.

Music today has been Pink Floyd‘s The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). I just felt like hearing it, I saw the album tour at the Liverpool Empire in the seventies. I was 15 and my dad got me in somehow, some connection through his work. It was obviously sold out but I was allowed to stand at the back and watch. They played the whole album as I remember and then Echoes for an encore, quite an influence on a young head. When I was playing with All About Eve, Dave Gilmour came into the studio, that’s another long story but I asked him if he missed Roger‘s bass playing. He looked at me like I was mad. I said, “What about the bass on Money?” – He said, “I played that!”.

Music Of The Daze