I woke up today to a raging snowstorm, giant flakes, wind, and white fields. I thought we’d left it all behind in Minneapolis at Christmas but it seems England is going through some arctic blast that they call ‘The Beast From The East’, I thought that was an Iron Maiden album. No, that’s their third album, The Number Of The Beast (1982), but there is a live DVD, The Beast In The East, which seems to be a DVD with original singer Paul Di’Anno. The Number Of The Beast with new lead singer Bruce Dickinson has sold 20 million copies, one wonders how a band from East London could sell 130 million records with little radio and media coverage – I’m going to have to listen to the album, aren’t I?

At 3 PM today we had a meeting with Michael, Ariel’s doctor. He showed us her innards, the cracks in the cylinder head, and the wear and rust on the thermostat housing. He said, that if he could find the parts he could put her back together in a day, but at this point, he can’t find the parts. The parts we need are a Nissan Vanette 1993 cylinder head and thermostat housing. Any ideas out there? Don’t be shy. It was quite emotional seeing her sitting there, her body full of holes where her heart has been dismantled. If we can find these parts before the end of the tour we could drive her back to Portugal where she belongs, if.

Back to the house where I’m trying to organise the next batch of sessioneer projects, scheduling, budgeting, general planning, and the creative choices we have to make with the material we record. It’s quite a process from where you stay to how much treble on which amp with which guitar and which microphone on which speaker. From the idea running around in your head to the record store opening and your record sitting in the racks waiting to be snapped up by some enthusiastic music lover, it’s 10,000 miles.

I started on the legendary Tak 12-string guitar today, re-attaching the battery compartment and restringing it. The strings on there looked like they had come from a Victorian soot factory. I broke one of the pegs in the bridge during the process of stringing so I hope I can find a replacement somewhere, and I hope the broken one won’t be a problem to remove.

I’ve been getting some requests for songs, it’s surprising how many of them we don’t usually play, haha. I wonder if it’s because there are just so many songs to choose from but also there are a lot of different kinds of projects and I suppose different people like different things. Keep the requests coming and we’ll see what we can do, you should probably say where you are from and if you are coming to a show.

Music today has been the heavy metal scream of Iron Maiden’s The Number Of The Beast (1982).

Music Of The Daze