Inspiration to get up in the light today was twofold, Olivia was meeting her friend Sophia and I was going to Nobbi’s Record Store. Olivia was given the great news that Sophia is preggers and then that I was preggers with records. Every visit to Olivia’s parents is coupled with a trip to Nobbi’s Schallplatten where I seem to find rare gems like Van der Graaf Generator‘s The Least We Can Do is Wave To Each Other (1970), their second album with the original poster (wow). I work on the theory that if I haven’t ever seen it before then this must be the time to pick it up. Somehow I know what is in The Archive and when I see something that doesn’t compute, my brain’s vinyl filing cabinet sends out an alert to my wallet which generally freaks and runs down the street screaming. I need to chain it to my leg because when it smells the whiff of vinyl nearby, it gets that empty feeling.

At least it wasn’t raining today. Olivia’s mama lent us the car so we could drive into Bonn for our appointments. On a garage roof next to houses by the road, I saw Spiderman crouched ready to spring, really I did. I promise I don’t usually see random superheroes but this one was really there. The men in the tunnel were actually working today, I was wondering if they ever find anything like they do in Italy when they start digging up the road. They recently found “a mysterious statue of Hercules” whilst working on the sewer on the Appian Way, an important Roman road. Still, wondering about Spiderman though.

So tonight we have to pack for Ryanair. They have luggage limits of 20kg instead of 23kg, so we have to rearrange everything. We are also going to send some boxes to Porto with books and clothes and records, CDs, liquids and bits and pieces. Let’s hope we can find a new place to put them otherwise they will just go into storage with everything else when we fly to England for the UK tour. Finding a new place isn’t going to be easy in the short time period that we have so we may have to come to England earlier, how great it would be to come and pick up Ariel fixed.

I just got a message back from my luthier/fixer Jorge in Porto. He has fixed a couple of my messed up guitars, including the broken Reptile Rickenbacker, my M-III Les Paul and my Roland RE-501 Chorus Echo which is by the way now selling for a ridiculous price on eBay (not mine). While I’ve been away he has had my Roland Chorus Echo RE-301 and my Electro Harmonix Attack Decay Tape Reverse Simulator (this one has been problematic and I’ve been told before that it can’t be fixed, Jorge doesn’t give up so easily). So thanks Jorge, result. I’ll be taking him my latest addition to the armoury, my Fender Baritone for a set-up.

Music today is continuing with Tom’s first instrumental album release, Warm and Cool (1992). He could have made so many records like this one (look at the cover art again).

Music Of The Daze