At 5 AM I had a shower, washed my hair and then went to bed. It meant a quicker exit and longer in bed as we had to meet Nuno the landlord and builder Julio to talk about starting the renovation of the premises. I had no idea it was Valentine’s Day, Olivia told me late afternoon, she doesn’t care about it so it wasn’t a reminder with teeth. We were rolling out of the door supping tea and leaving the cup in the hallway as we descended into the city. I called AAE Andy to find he is playing in Nottingham when we are playing in London and then playing in London when we are somewhere else. Make sure you go and see his latest thang, X Superstar, dates here. All our dates in England and Scotland are here, no daze off.

We arrived at the rusty gate of The Archive and proceeded to brainstorm about what we should do with what we have and how we should do it and when, and by the way, how much would it cost? (Small detail.) We started off with one idea, completely discarded it and after much deliberation ended up back where we started. The mannequins lay waiting for a decision on the floor, the cooker sat with the honour of being the first practical purchase, does it work? In the end, we decided to meet again on Friday when Julio has drawn up some plans. It’s time to get on to the mayor’s assistant again and put together Phase 2 of the In Deep Music Archive GoFundMe campaign. Oh my…

It’s unbelievable that we don’t have Ariel. We looked into hiring a van today and all the companies only had cars. It seems like hiring someone to move us is money unnecessarily spent as we don’t have tons of furniture, it’s just personal stuff and records/stereo/music gear, clothes, and tea. Maybe an SUV will suffice, the legendary red chair, the desk, and the studio chair being the biggest, most awkward items. It just means lots of journeys and the parking is bad down there, with a steady stream of traffic outside, especially at rush hour, maybe there are fewer cars at night? Ariel, Ariel, where are you when we need you? You are lying in hospital waiting for a transplant from one of your brothers but no suitable new head has been found so far.

Back at the temporary ranch I tried to catch up on the emails, waited for the Milan/Spurs game (1-0) and ate dinner watching before a sesh with Jeff in Ohio. In the meantime, Olivia was scouring Facebook Marketplace for all the things we need, a fridge, a table, some chairs, a sofa, and more. She had some success but how do you move a fridge from the top of the city to the centre without a car? A friend has some kind of cart, so that’s what we are going to try first and if that fails we will just get an Bolt/Uber XL and hope they don’t tell us that they don’t want a damn fridge in the car, we’ll see.

Music today has been one of the lesser-known Free albums, Highway (1970), recorded after the release of their hit album Fire and Water (also released in 1970) and after the success of All Right Now and their Isle Of Wight performance. But it just didn’t happen and only reached number 41 on the UK chart, whereas Fire and Water reached No. 2. The cover art was blamed, the choosing of the wrong single (The Stealer) was blamed but in the end, there were no hits and they split. Free Live! was released in 1971 and also in 1971 a stand-alone single, My Brother Jake, made it to No. 4 on the UK chart, not appearing on an album till The Free Story (1973). The band had reformed for Free at Last (1972) that spawned the hit single Little Bit Of Love (No. 13 on the UK chart). Guitarist Paul Kossoff’s demise was ongoing and after the next album Heartbreaker (1973), the band split up for good despite the single Wishing Well (1972) reaching No. 7 in the UK chart. All of Free’s albums are great (Tons Of Sobs and Free were both released in 1969). They were all so young, just teenagers and in their early twenties when they broke up. Kossoff died in 1976 at the age of 25, one of the great guitarists whose sound was in his fingers.

Music Of The Daze