Zooming down the motorway to Worcester or is it Bromsgrove or Brum or the Midlands or Wolverhampton or Solihull or West Bromwich? I’m totally lost in the area around Birmingham, I‘ve never quite got the geography right and I’ve only ever been to the area to play gigs, I’ve never stayed for longer than one night – although with the show at the Kitchen Garden Café in Birmingham tomorrow, it will be two, but I couldn’t tell you if it’s north, south, east, or west from the Premier Inn where I’m sitting right now. It’s apparently just twenty minutes away from Birmingham here, what’s the name of the main street? No idea, although I do recall New Street station. It’s the bands from here that I know.

Who’s from Birmingham? Black Sabbath, The Moody Blues, Judas Priest, The Move, ELO, Jeff Lynne, The Idle Race, Roy Wood, Wizzard, Robert Plant, Bonzo, Ocean Colour Scene, Duran Duran, Stephen Duffy, UB40, The Beat, General Public, Dexy’s, Napalm Death, Birdland, The Streets, Bentley Rhythm Ace, Hollywood Beyond, Traffic, Fine Young Cannibals, City Boy, Blackfoot Sue, Ian Campbell, Spencer Davis, Steel Pulse, Swans Way, Chicken Shack, Bachdenkel, Musical Youth, Broadcast, Pram, The Maisonettes, Godflesh, Editors, Slade.

The drive was going so well then suddenly we were stopped. We sat like that for about fifteen minutes and then we started moving towards a very bent central barrier and a car with its whole front smashed up, you could see the airbag. It was the aftermath, any ambulances were already gone, someone must have been pretty shaken up if they survived the impact. We’d drive for a while and then we’d hit downpours for ten minutes, then nothing, and then another one until by the time we arrived at Martin and Deb’s house for the show, it had completely stopped, kindly letting us load in.

A lovely, friendly, intimate crowd, we laughed, played, and chatted our way through our two sets. They all ate pizzas, I waited to eat Indian later. It’s amazing how good these little performances can be, it helps if you have someone that knows what he’s doing with a small PA system (enter Spot).

I seem to have lost my sunglasses already, I didn’t even get to a hotel yet and they are gone. My fingers are getting hard, my thumbs are up and down, my body is happiest asleep, my voice seems to be holding out after four shows in a row, we’ll see where we are at eight.

Music today was the first Move album, released in 1968. It featured two hits, Flowers in the Rain and Fire Brigade, all original songs were written by Roy Wood although they were sung mainly by Wood and Carl Wayne. The covers are horrible but the great Wood songs are really great.

Music Of The Daze