I generally set my alarm to go off at three different times, but I always wake up before the first call and then spend the next half an hour switching it off as I potter around trying to get into the day. I only do this when I have a sesh or a torture session at the dentist, or a torture session at the airport getting through security and onto a flying tin can for hours. Otherwise, I sleep till I wake which depends on when I go to sleep, I’m a night owl and generally catch more of the morning in darkness than in light.

The day started post papaya, cereal, and tea with an Arktik Lake progress sesh with Tony in Sydney. There’s release news coming soon, watch this space. Soon after, Luke arrived from Dublin, he is on holiday here with his family – it was Luke who sent me all the NME/Sounds/Melody Maker/Record Mirror magazines for The Archive. Today he arrived with some examples of American magazines he had from his time living in Boston – Creem/Trouser Press/Bomp and others, classics for The Archive written library. Thank you, Luke. I need to find some way to have them accessible to peruse. It’s tricky with magazines because they are usually on top of each other, especially if there’s a lot of them. Luke also brought an In Deep sign for the studio, to be revealed later.

He stayed for the Chelsea/Liverpool game, Rohan arrived back from a famous cathedral here that we haven’t visited and we watched the game, a 1-1 draw, a revamped Chelsea look like contenders and Trent Alexander-Arnold’s revamped haircut is nothing short of a terrible disappoint. Rohan and Luke left together, Luke to figure out where his hotel was and meet the family who’d been at the beach and Rohan to figure out where the beach was, so he could watch the sun sink into the sea.

Olivia had been out buying bits and pieces for The Archive, including a nice piece of Indian cloth for the inside of the front door. This meant that I had to get back into cleaning the windows in the entrance, I’d started after the inner mega clean but hadn’t quite finished. It was quite a job on the stepladder, a famous place for older men falling to their deaths, but I survived and now the entrance is looking lovely – time for a professional to come and clean the impossible-to-reach, filthy, large outside windows.

We ate and watched three episodes of Star Trek – Strange New Worlds, Season 2 before considering a busy week of seshes, analysing mixes, and hanging with Katarina and Keith from The Fleshtones, Ricky from Brian Jonestown Massacre, and if we make it to Luna Fest next week, The Only Ones.

Music today was the unlikely choice of the third and largely underrated City Boy album Young Men Gone West (1977). Only really remembered for 5.7.0.5, their one hit from their fourth album Book Early (1978) that doesn’t do them justice, they were lost in the punk rock frenzy, they may have done better in a trend-free world.

Music Of The Daze