One doesn’t want to talk about afflictions all the time but when you think of The Small Faces’ Lazy Sunday and the line “How’s old Bert’s lumbago? He mustn’t grumble”, you realise that in youth, pain is generally self-inflicted or an accident and not nature telling you that from a certain point to your death you are going to be like an old car, oil leaks, rust, scratches, rip in the seat, glove box latch broken and eventually the head gasket goes and that’s it. Still, it’s your car and it has character, much more than one of those new-fangled computerised, clinical, shiny robots. The reliability and convenience is enticing but an old man in a sports car is never pretty, better a Rover 90 or a Morris Traveller. Worst of all you can’t have the best of both worlds, it’s either/or and perhaps having affection for something that breaks often is better than having no feelings for something that doesn’t.

Where’s this leading, you wonder? Well, today I got up before the studio to go and swim and half an hour before I left I had my optic nerve vision thing happen which leads to that dull headache and puts a damper on the day. Plans out of the window, I was so very close to cancelling everything but I put the lights out and waited in silence. I had to leave at least 20 minutes before the swim booking and that’s what I did. I didn’t feel too bad so I stood up and marched up to the leisure centre and tried to ride the wave. I was feeling ok, hit the water, and did the mile, I was working on the theory that blood flow, water (drunk and immersed in) might help rather than a stuffy room sitting still and waiting. I went to pasty land, greengrocer land and then the studio where I set my guitars up. Dare came in and we started work. Around then I felt average and so we decided that we would do little things and share the workload – a small amount of guitars for me, Olivia violins, Dare keys and I would watch the Liverpool/Leeds game and take it easy when it was Dare and Olivia’s turn to play. Next studio day we would get our teeth into the last song that needs me to be in tip-top condition with acoustics and electrics, leads and rhythms with fully functioning brainpower. Liverpool won 4-3 – great game.

On the way up to the leisure centre, there was a big van parked outside the parcel pick up office. There were huge letters on the front above the windscreen and on the back doors that said: ‘BRAINS, 24 HOURS’ and then something about servicing on the side. I thought to myself what a great idea, being able to call up a company 24 hours a day that services, readjusts, restarts and fixes your brain. It was then that I realised that it actually said DRAINS 24 HOURS. (I hope they were a better service than the 24-hour plumber.) But as the body fails often the brain doesn’t and if it does deteriorate like the body, well you’re screwed. If it stays alert there are many positives that endure till the very end, your knowledge, your wisdom and your experience. But there may also be stubbornness and the impossibility of changing your ways because you’ve been told something your whole life and your brain won’t let it go. But it’s you who decides what to believe and what’s right and wrong based on rational thought and observation, not everything passed on is worthy. Your limbs are failing, your insides are failing, your muscles are aching, your bones are creaking, but it’s what you let your brain get away with that’s the most important of all. Youth grows old and is replaced by age but wisdom carries on and allows measured and thoughtful reactions, plus the ability to listen never grows old. I fear that people don’t stop and contemplate what they are saying and doing, they just say it and do it, one must think before one expresses a fear unfounded, an opinion learned, a knowledge that is unchecked. Awareness is the greatest gift, an old wise brain that continues to learn with a fit and healthy body, add lots of books, records and guitars and rational people around you, add love and empathy – sign me up.

Nicklas from Anekdoten was talking to me tonight about the great sound that some records have with the mellotrons and the guitars (the general sound) and the way things were recorded so I started by looking for Monster by Steppenwolf but I couldn’t find it in my collection. I’ve only ever sold my records once, that was when I lived in a bedsit in Manchester (I was about 20) and was about to leave with my friend Lesley for Perpignan in France to do the grape picking (now there’s a story that I might tell one day). I had that record then and 43 years later in my mind I still have it. I listened to it on Spotify instead but need to find it again.

Music today was actually all the other records Nicklas mentioned that I do have: Steppenwolf – 7 (1970), The Moody Blues – Seventh Sojourn (1972), Fantasy – Paint A Picture (1973), and Family – Family Entertainment (1969), all chosen for their sound. Monster was Steppenwolf’s fourth album and the first not to have any Top Ten hits but the album still made it to No. 17 and two singles made the Top 40. Lots of political songs, lots of Vietnam awareness and that sound of then. It’s like the forgotten art of illuminated texts.

Steppenwolf are most famous for Born To Be Wild and the line “Heavy Metal Thunder”. Most people think they were American but they were, in fact, Canadian, originally called The Sparrows. They moved to California in the sixties and that’s where it all took off and why they weren’t drafted. But in actual fact they weren’t even Canadian, they were essentially German.

Lead singer John Kay’s real name was Joachim Fritz Krauledat. His family fled the Russian advance from East Prussia to East Germany and eventually found themselves in Hanover before emigrating to Canada. That’s where The Sparrows formed with Nick St. Nicholas or his real name Klaus Karl Kassbaum. When they changed their name to Steppenwolf, Kassbaum had decided to play with another band but he was back in the fold in 1969 for their third album At Your Birthday Party and Monster the same year. Guitarist Michael Monarch, drummer Jerry Edmonton and keyboardist Goldy McJohn with original bass player Rushton Moreve were the core band that had the well-known hits, Born To Be Wild, The Pusher and Magic Carpet Ride. Rock Me was on At Your Birthday Party. (Moreve died from injuries sustained in a car accident aged 32.) On Steppenwolf 7, Monarch was replaced by Larry Byrom and Nick St. Nicholas by George Biondo. Last but not least it was Jerry Edmonton’s brother and ex Sparrow Dennis, aka Mars Bonfire that wrote the world-famous song, Born To Be Wild.

Fantasy’s Paint A Picture is an obscure Progressive Rock album that was really good but nobody noticed. At times I hear Bowie although all members were credited as vocalists, I think it’s Paul Lawrence who is the lead singer and plays 12 string. David Read plays bass, David Metcalfe on keyboards, Peter James on lead guitar and John Webster on drums. It’s moody, it’s melodic and although you’ll never find an original pressing under £1000 you have to have it and you can buy a reissue vinyl copy or a CD for a very reasonable price on Amazon. There’s a CD of their second unreleased album Beyond The Beyond that I just ordered. It doesn’t seem to be on Spotify but you can hear it below if you’d like to investigate before you commit.

The Moody Blues released Seventh Sojourn in 1972 and although I love all of their early seventies and late sixties albums, this one has a special place in my heart because it’s the first one I knew well enough to almost sing along with (I know lots of the words on various songs). Only I’m Just A Singer In A R’n’R Band I can live without. All the other tracks are beautiful. If you don’t like this you don’t like rabbits and who doesn’t like rabbits. It’s so lush with Mike Pinder’s Mellotrons and Chamberlins and Justin Hayward’s great guitar lines. John Lodge sings Isn’t Life Strange and Ray Thomas contributes For My Lady, Graeme Edge plays drums. Beautiful melodic songs and heartfelt meaningful lyrics, look out rabbits, you have competition in succumbing to an irresistible spell.

Family released Family Entertainment in 1969 and like all these sixties and seventies Family albums, if you don’t have them in your collection it’s like having a classic car museum with no Aston Martin. Original, innovative, moody, aggressive, melodic, angular and with Roger Chapman’s ridiculous voice you can’t have lived on the planet Earth without experiencing it although on this album Jim King sings a lot of the lead vocals too. The original band was Charlie Whitney on guitars, Jim King on sax, vocals, and harmonica (real name Alec Woodburn), Rob Townsend on drums, Ric Grech on bass, vocals, and violin with Roger Chapman on vocals. King and Grech had gone by the third album, A Song For Me (1970), replaced by John Weider on bass and violin and Poli Palmer on piano, vibes, and flute. John Wetton joined on bass for the 5th album, Fearless (1971), and the sixth album, Bandstand (1972), that had their biggest hit, Burlesque. I bought the single when it came out (I still have it) and the love affair has continued. Their first album, Music In A Doll’s House (1968), allegedly beat John Lennon to the same idea for a title (The White Album?).

Song Of The Daze

Strangely tonight I found myself out at 9.15PM. Strange because I realised in that moment that I can’t remember the last time I was out at that time. Sure, super late for a mad early morning walk to the sea (3AM) – early evening, afternoon, morning (rarely) but to be out when people are actually out at night, it’s been a long time. I’m only ever out at this time when we’re touring, occasionally at a restaurant but in this present climate, never. The reason I was out was because I was going down to the station (another place I haven’t been for 6 months) to meet Olivia who was on the train from Truro (another town in Cornwall) where she had been enjoying her Christmas present, yes, her Christmas present. It was a float tank and a massage in an obscure village in the middle of the Cornish countryside. It took her the afternoon and the night to travel there and back as she had to do it by public transport and we don’t have a car. Seems like she loved it, must try it myself one day.

So you’d think on the quest for such a lovely and relaxing afternoon that all would go smoothly beforehand as well because a drama on such a day would be unlucky.

We were at the studio before she left and I popped out to the shops for 20 minutes, leaving the keys with Olivia. I came back but she couldn’t get open the door to let me in. Really? So I had to go around to the window where she passed me the keys. I let myself in through the main door into the building. It was the studio door that wouldn’t open but it wasn’t the lock (which we’ve recently replaced) it was the handle, that part that retracts when you push the handle down was stuck fast in the door frame. So I had to go out again to the window whilst she passed me a screwdriver to unscrew the handle, she did the same on her side. But that did nothing, all we had was a hole where the handle was, it was the inner barrel that was broken. No stress, it wasn’t like she was trying to get to an appointment in the middle of nowhere that she’d been waiting for for 10 months or anything. And it’s not like a calm disposition enhances the experience of a float tank and a massage. And there couldn’t possibly be another domestic building drama. I won’t drag it out, I managed to get it to partly retract with a screwdriver and opened the door. I pulled the barrel out and it was broken and really, really old. So now there’s no handle on the door, great. The day before yesterday I replaced the awkward fluorescent lightbulb in the hallway that also looked like it had been there since the fifties and by the way, today my electric toothbrush broke. Stay away from me if you own anything mechanical or own a house.

At the shops, I picked up a Best Of Massive Attack CD for a pound and a Super Furry Animals CD for 50p. I talked to Richard and Pete at Smith’s the newsagents (friendly staffers) and bought some writing paper and envelopes. I went into Boots and bought a new toothbrush and noticed the woman at the till was looking at my T-shirt. I realised I was wearing my First Aid Kit T-shirt, the name must have seemed quite strange to a woman working in a chemist. I told her how great they are and that she should check them out. We joked about her probably not forgetting the name of the band.

I’ve been busy, I had another two sessions today (Carl in Charleston and Noelle in Montreal) but I had another 11-hour sleep last night, what’s going on? Ok, I’m busy, sure, but it must be the swimming. When I went to sleep last night it was like a living corpse falling onto the bed. Tomorrow I have another swim and another full day in the studio but Liverpool are playing newly promoted Leeds for the first game of the season, so I don’t want to miss that. I call it ‘leisure in the middle of pleasure’, you have to be English to make it rhyme. My old roommate in New York (Brooklyn) is Jonny Cragg, the drummer from Spacehog, Leeds supporter and although most people here probably don’t follow any football, it’s been 16 years since Leeds have been in the top division, so he’s happy. In the seventies they were one of the top teams and most people at my school were more likely to tell you the names of the whole Leeds team than they were the members of T.Rex (apart from Bolan) and that’s as fans of T.Rex and not Leeds supporters. But that’s Liverpool, music and football.

Music today had me craving some guitars so I went for the first four Wishbone Ash albums. Self-titled (1970), Pilgrimage (1971), Argus (1972), Wishbone 4 (1973). They weren’t aggressive enough or beautiful enough or original enough to break out of their fan base but as a fan who saw them twice in the seventies in Liverpool at the Empire, I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed their music, melodic, long sweet guitar solos, real songs. The two times I saw them they had different lineups. The first time was the original lineup with Martin Turner, Ted Turner, Andy Powell and Steve Upton, the second time Laurie Wisefield (from Home) had replaced Ted Turner.

In recent years I’ve also seen them twice but it’s all a bit silly because there’s Andy Powell’s Wishbone Ash and Martin Turner’s Wishbone Ash. Powell was one of the guitarists and Turner the bass player and lead singer. So when you see them, you get great guitar from Andy Powell with a band I don’t know, who didn’t play on any of the classic records and then you get Martin Turner, the singer, and a band that also didn’t play on any of the classic records. So in Martin Turner’s version, the guitars aren’t quite right and in Andy Powell’s version, the vocals aren’t quite right. There was a legal battle because Powell had kept Wishbone Ash going for years and one day Martin Turner decided that he wanted to do the same but of course, they couldn’t work together. In the end, Turner who formed the band and thought of the name had to be called Martin Turner’s Wishbone Ash, where Andy Powell could be just Wishbone Ash – but it was him that kept it going. I took some pics at the Martin Turner show.

It’s the same with Yes, the band with an original member (Jon Anderson) can’t just use the name Yes but Steve Howe’s can just be called Yes, I guess he must have been the last man standing but he’s not an original member – Jon Anderson is. Howe and Alan White in ‘Yes’ played on the classic albums Fragile and Close To The Edge. In the ‘Yes’ with Jon Anderson, it’s Anderson with Rick Wakeman and Trevor Rabin – Anderson and Wakeman were also on those two classic albums, but they also have Trevor Rabin from the Owner Of A Lonely Heart lineup, confusing, silly. I hung out with Chris Squire a couple of times before he died, once at the Rickenbacker 75th anniversary show, where we were both on the same bill and another time at the infamous Rainbow in LA. He was sitting at a table with original keyboard player Tony Kaye. At the time Anderson, Wakeman, Bruford and Howe had just released an album. I asked him how come they weren’t calling themselves Yes? – “Because I own the name,” he said in a rather brusque manner. Sadly the name often seems to matter more than music.

Song Of The Daze

Thanks to everyone for all the nice comments about the new MOAT song Gone By Noon since the official digital release on all those wacky platforms yesterday (the album Poison Stream is circling the planet and waiting to land). How things have changed, it’s not quite the same as going to your local record store and buying the single and ultimately the album. I remember buying I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) by Genesis in 1973 (Twilight Alehouse on the B-side). I still have it. It was unusual because, well, it was Genesis and they weren’t exactly a singles band but this catchy little number had the promo department at Charisma Records frothing at the mouth. The song managed to reach No. 21 in the UK charts which is something of a miracle for this kind of band, Wikipedia says, “The song, inspired by The Beatles, has a psychedelic rock sound”. Well, I didn’t think of the Beatles when I heard it but I did love its lilting feel and melody and then there’s the lyric:

It’s one o’clock and time for lunch
When the sun beats down and I lie on the bench
I can always hear them talk

There’s always been Ethel:
“Jacob, wake up! You’ve got to tidy your room now.”
And then Mister Lewis:
“Isn’t it time that he was out on his own?”
Over the garden wall, two little lovebirds – cuckoo to you!
Keep them mowing blades sharp

I know what I like, and I like what I know
Getting better in your wardrobe, stepping one beyond your show

Sunday night, Mr Farmer called, said:
“Listen son, you’re wasting your time; there’s a future for you
in the fire escape trade. Come up to town!”
But I remembered a voice from the past;
“Gambling only pays when you’re winning”
I had to thank old Miss Mort for schooling a failure
Keep them mowing blades sharp

I know what I like, and I like what I know
getting better in your wardrobe, stepping one beyond your show

When the sun beats down and I lie on the bench
I can always hear them talk
Me, I’m just a lawnmower – you can tell me by the way I walk

As a 15-year-old boy, this was something else and a must-have even though the song was on the album, but the B-side wasn’t and an extra track by them was also a must-have.

So although Gone By Noon is available to listen to, I truly wish I could present it as a 7 inch single with an unreleased track. Sadly, I missed the album tour for Selling England By The Pound but I did see The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway at the Liverpool Empire in April 1975, one of three nights.

I went swimming today, managed the mile but phew, it’s tough, a real workout, no time to stop for a drink because it takes just about the time allotted to make it. I tried a different counting plan today, I counted in 4 lots of 16, usually I get to 44 and count 2 lots of 10, I used to just count the 64 but for some reason, the task seems less daunting when you split it up into smaller numbers. I always leave with a chlorine irritation that lasts through the night. There was one other lady in the medium lane, she told me she’s 38 and does the mile in 35 minutes. She was quite a large lady, but she tore past me in the pool. My technique must be seriously lacking or I’m bigger than I admit or I’m 62.

Olivia and I went for a lovely walk down to the sea today. The tide was out and we went onto the barnacle-covered rocks and took some pics. We sat there for a while looking at the waveless deep blue sea. There were some kids playing on the rocks, jumping around in bare feet, I was getting shivers in my legs just watching their poor little feet on the sharp barnacles, one slip and they’d be bleeding profusely. There were small fish in the rock pools and back on the beach a father was screaming at his small child to come out of the water and the child was stubbornly not responding to his request. It was making him angrier and angrier until he said, “Ok, I’m going home, you stay there” and the child came running out of the water.

We ran into Annabelle and her moped at the supermarket, she is also a violinist and Olivia turned her on to the octave string cellolin which she had happily incorporated into her arsenal. In keeping with the sad death of Diana Rigg today, she looked like she was in an Avengers episode albeit more of the Tara King era. She went into the supermarket in crash helmet and leathers without a mask and no one seemed to care, perhaps they thought the crash helmet was protection enough against the virus. Dare and I saw Diana Rigg in a play in the West End of London in the eighties, Medea, heavy, but the problem was that we had the cheap seats that were so cheap that we couldn’t see the actors’ heads – kinda took the sting out of it.

On the walk up to the studio, we met Indian Billy outside his flat and he ran in and grabbed the Stax storybook he’s been promising to lend me. We walked with him and took his route from the sea into town for a change. We are so desperate to travel that taking a different route from the supermarket to the studio seemed adventurous and exciting.

I had a session at 7PM with Brian in New Jersey, great progress there and I have emails to send tonight to two more new sessioneers, setting up preliminary Skype meets. Plus all those other pesky mails that I’m trying to catch up with. We watched Humans – Season 3, Episode 4 over dinner, it’s all so sad. It’s almost as if entertainment has to be sad or it’s not credible, it’s a reflection of the world, joyous entertainment would be shallow and meaningless, the world is too screwed up for artistic happiness.

Music today felt like The Beatles so I listened to A Hard Day’s Night (1964), Beatles For Sale (1964), Help (1965), and Rubber Soul (1965). Note this is four albums in two years plus there’s the singles and the B-sides they released (in England), like the double A-side, Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out, I’m Down (B-side of Help), Yes It Is (B-side of Ticket To Ride), I Feel Fine/She’s A Woman, hmmm, The Beatles.

Songs Of The Daze

Welcome to Gone By Noon, the first track from the new MOAT album which is now live for all to hear on all your favourite streaming outlets. It’s not a single as such, it’s simply a track we like from the Poison Stream album coming in early 2021. Singles are for hitmakers, tracks are for album makers. It’s interesting that people take different things from music, some people want to dance, others want joy, others want originality, strange changes, then there’s those that want simplicity, sing-along choruses, melody. Then there’s anger, politics, virtuosity, storytelling, poetic lyrics, sadness, sincere love songs, loudness, more bass, deep personal voices, screams and velvet tongues. With MOAT Niko and I give it to you how we see it and we hope you like it.

 
I slept for eleven and a half hours and it would have been longer if I wasn’t in the studio today. Last night when my head finally hit the pillow it was surrendering to desire and the welcome falling down into the deepest parts of the unconscious. It was succumbing to the mystery of sleep, the temporary switching off. What a strange phenomenon, everything we do often we accept as normal however outrageous. If you live till you are sixty you will spend on average 20 years asleep, a third of your short life! It’s another reason that you should make the most of your waking hours because if you take sleep out of the equation you only have 40 years of being awake, experiencing pleasure, getting to know the world, learning, loving. Not everybody reaches that age, Jimi Hendrix only had 18 years awake, that’s just 6,570 days, it’s a number you can imagine.

You used to hear people say you should ‘live life to the fullest’ but you don’t hear that anymore, you hear about survival on one end of the scale and indulgence on the other. I suppose we all experience a bit of both but don’t want to be fixed in either place and if in between these two extremes is mundanity, ennui, the grind, then we need to discover how to enjoy life better without just the occasional coming up for air. That’s what the weekend is for a lot of people and like a starving man, if you put him in a room full of food, he will eat till he’s sick.

Not everyone is unhappy but who isn’t anxious about everything these days, it doesn’t matter on your status or your financial standing, your personality, shy, outgoing, whether you believe in the god or the random universe, no one quite knows what the future holds. I just read that from next week here in England, gatherings of more than 6 people will be illegal but what about pubs? Where will it end? Along with people dying, we have institutions dying, the arts are crippled, so many people can’t go to work but it seems that if we ever get through this, people will be able to work from home permanently and the idea of the office might disappear altogether as your workmates become isolated computer people, people you have never met. Imagine the number of relationships that haven’t happened since March. Also, I’m only speaking from the point of view of the Western mentality, imagine how it must be in India.

Back in my little world of seagulls and guitars, Dare returned from his trip up north to see brother Dave and he was so sad that he missed all the drama, not. We started with me playing bass on the Jerome/ich project so Jerome can get on with adding his magic, helping the songs towards their predestined lives of wax. We then set about adding some guitars and ideas to the previous Ahad track that we had been working on, taking in some of Ahad’s feedback before I added my own feedback to the next track. We are getting close to the end of the guitars before the fairy dust is scattered over the songs and they are baked till they are golden brown. Mmm.

Music today is coming from the fragile sticker on the packaging on Boydy’s birthday present. Yes, I decided to listen to Fragile by Yes. What I noticed was how great my stereo sounds and how great Steve Howe’s guitar is on this album. What I love about Progressive music is that there’s always new things to discover and a proper stereo makes you notice things you may have missed, especially if you weren’t quite listening attentively. It’s not just Howe, Chris Squire’s bass is something else, to think the punks failed to notice how fuzzed up and aggressive it was. I followed this with Close To The Edge and for all the melody and complexity I hear so much aggression in this music. I suppose it’s not simple and not lyrically engaging unless you live in a pyramid house and grow your own vegetables. I suppose Jon Anderson doesn’t sound scary and Rick Wakeman’s capes might cause a stony silence if you walked into the local pub wearing one. But bands that look like footballers have often been less than interesting, that’s why I like footballers that look like they should be in bands the best! Haha.

Listening to Yes and Sex Pistols in the same session somehow makes complete sense to me. Anderson and Rotten both have melodic voices and I might be more scared being Jon Anderson’s teepee than Rotten’s local. What I love about music from the seventies is that it doesn’t matter if it’s Yes or Sex Pistols, they have so many things in common. Guitars with great tones, messages, creativity, sonic warmth, seventies music sounds like its era despite the different genres, like the sixties does or the fifties does and the nineties does. Like fashion, sound follows the day and Punk fashion and Prog fashion feel like the same era. Plus one thing that Prog and Punk have in common – the Rickenbacker bass. I know you can’t believe that I’m trying to put Yes and Sex Pistols in the same bag – but lots of energy in both, mad clothes and the aforementioned points plus when you look at how many albums the Sex Pistols put out, it’s damned indulgent considering there’s only one real one. Then there’s the Mick Tucker (from the Sweet) drum roll in God Save The Queen, haha. The guitar solo in Anarchy In The UK and the Hawkwind drum rolls throughout the album. There’s the bluesy chords and licks, if Steve Jones used his little finger he’d be in Status Quo. Last but not least there’s that great comment from Johnny Rotten that suggested that The Clash sounded like Herman’s Hermits (Stay Free). Johnny was a Prog head you know, just ask Peter Hammill. A sneer doesn’t hide the truth.

Songs Of The Daze

Heavy eyelids through lack of sleep, distorted vision, hope in times of resignation, the weariness amplified by unkept promises, the disappointment of another night without joy and the guarded optimism of the coming day when the world is awake and not perverted by the promise of the weekend. Reality breaks through the haze of reverie when the clock strikes 7AM on a Monday morning and the working week begins. The hotel receptionists replace the night porters, the bus drivers are already on route from an earlier call, the plumbers’ day begins in earnest and the first job is always the early one for the night owls – the musicians, the nightwatchmen, the sleeper ward nurse. Find the ones who are up all night and make an appointment nice and early. Arrive and fix four days of trouble in 15 minutes and despite a hefty price for doing it on the first day instead of the fourth, fail to be seduced because the seduction of the weekend was already in full fling.

Something so small, in this case something simple, something trivial, something overlooked, something so minor causing so much trouble. At least there’s no deaths but to think that a plastic handle that is only glued and comes off in your hand can sit there, a ticking time bomb for 28 years since its installation and nobody thinks that when this does actually break it could possibly cause some major damage and flood a whole building. No safety precautions at all, no failsafe, make it cheap, make it insecure and when it fails be gone. I was trying to think of an example on a grander scale but anything cheaper, done cheaper, made cheaper, made to be affordable might question the wisdom of its purchase where quality endures. Something of higher quality might also fail but this looks like it was guaranteed to happen. So, water and toilet and the whole building back to normal, except for the thought that if one of the other offices in the building had an issue then they wouldn’t be able to get into the studio to turn the water off, then what? Especially if the plumber doesn’t come for four days.

Going to bed late, getting up so early, having to explain to the other people in the building why they had to close their office for a day and being simultaneously relieved and stressed at all the hoo-hah. I had a swimming appointment booked today, so I waited for the man with the spanners to come from 7.30AM, he got here at 8.30AM, was gone by 9AM. Three hours to wait till swim time, I was already up, no way I was going back to bed. Would I be able to swim a mile with little sleep and a weekend of upheaval? It was a lovely day, hot in the sun, cool in the shade, a soft breeze, so I decided to amble up to the leisure centre instead of marching in steady strides, I had time. Somehow I managed to get there in the same amount of time as I usually did, despite walking slower. It must be something to do with mornings, time definitely moves at a different speed at different times of day. At the pool, I realised I’d forgotten my goggles, a disaster if you are swimming freestyle but on digging through my bag I found two other pairs, one broken and a functional spare pair that I didn’t even know I had. Sometimes when I dig through my swimming bag I find all kinds of things, secret manuscripts, carburettors, feathers, doorways into lost civilisations. Today the medium lane was initially busy and one woman was really slow but she was too fast for the slow lane, how many grades of speed can you have? It’s like notes in the scale, in the west we think there’s 12, in the east they laugh.

Back at the ranch, I had sessions, I spoke to Kadeem in London and Chris in New Jersey and Boydy and Derek returned my calls from yesterday. The new MOAT track Gone By Noon was released in the early hours through The Big Takeover online magazine and we’ve had some nice feedback. Tomorrow, Wednesday (not Tomorrow, Wendy), the track will be available everywhere – under your bed, behind the fallen statues, in the tunnels, near the beach, in all VW camper vans and free in every cereal packet. In October we will be doing a crowdfunding campaign to try and recover the cost of making the new MOAT album and the costs of manufacturing it, more on that soon, but it’s nice to have new music out. The pandemic has really messed with everyone, everything, schedules and plans have been lost to fate. But we continue to be creative and it looks like we will have a backlog of new material, Space Summit, Salim Nourallah’s album as well as what I’m doing with Jerome Froese. There’s another Noctorum album started and Olivia and I hope to record too, perhaps some songs from our live set so people that don’t know us can buy a CD at gigs if there will ever be gigs again. Also this month on the second Record Store Day, Nightjar will be available on scary red vinyl. That’s it for tonight I have to sleep now, it’s been an exhausting few days and it’s studio tomorrow so I’m going to drift off to the soft and subtle sounds of the great Harold Budd.

Music today and Song Of The Day is Harold Budd – The White Arcades (1988):