Saturday is my alleged day off. It’s also football day and this weekend is the first weekend of the new English season. But it was also guitar day today and mixing the two seems very normal to me, watch Liverpool, then listen to Nico. In the ex-band it was me and latter-day drummer Tim (New Zealander), in Anekdoten me and Pete (Swedish), and in All About Eve, it was me, Andy, and Mark (English). In the early days in Australia, I didn’t really know many Australians that followed football, our latter-day sound man Jordan did but in the early days, it was hard to find a football friend whereas if I’d been in Echo & the Bunnymen or New Order it wouldn’t have been so hard. I suppose that in those days in Australia, football as I knew it wasn’t what it is today. Where I come from music and football go hand in hand, I don’t think it’s like that everywhere, not all musicians make sense of sport.

I watched England beat Colombia in a gripping match and then Olivia, Rohan and I got on the train to Gaia where luthier Jorge lives to pick up three guitars that he has been working on. The Fender 6-string bass (the Priest=Aura bass), the alien green Burns Double Six 12-string (the same model as I used on Is This Where You Live and For A Moment We’re Strangers, pre-Rickenbacker 12-strings), and my sixties Hofner Senator bass that was getting flat wound strings, and like all three, a proper check and setup (I bought the bass in the eighties in Melbourne for $125). They are already hanging on the wall.

Back to the ranch for more football and a really good sit down. The day nearly always starts on Sunday mornings with Tony Arktik Lake seshes and the week rolls on from there, by Saturday, it’s time to slow down (hardly). This only happens when I’m in Porto, in Texas, Saturday is just another day in the studio, it makes the Porto Saturdays even more necessary. Although I’m still in the studio, surrounded by guitars and records, the only difference is I’m watching Liverpool play instead of Rory Gallagher or listening to the projects, the collaborations, and the sessioneers. Haha, the music is always on, I just hate turning it off. I leave the house, I leave the music on – when I go to bed I hate turning it off.

Music today celebrates Ron Peno who we lost on Friday. Fronting a great band in Died Pretty, I met him and Brett over the years, great music, great people, so sad to see him go. Free Dirt (1986) was a driven first album, with memorable songs, singing, and guitars. A few months ago I was in a shop in Porto and found a UK release, a 12-inch from 1990 (Whitlam Square) on Beggars Banquet records, a nice rarity for The Archive. RIP Ron.

Music Of The Daze