Something’s different. A light drizzle, a discarded Walkers crisp packet and an aroma of Saturday night from a fresh puddle of piss and vomit by the Ladbrokes doorway. My neck bristles with tension and my fists are at the ready. ‘Welcome to Heathrow’ the sign proudly proclaims. Mmmm, I must be back in Blighty. Since returning from SARS Central, I’ve … Read More

“Hello, I’m Karen and I’ll be your cartwheeling waitress for the evening.” Two cartwheels and one coffee later, I’m inclined to believe her. “You’re welcome,” she utters for no particular reason. Myself and Lord Peter are in an empty bar in Yorkville with Lawrence@50, Mr Begley and Diane. It’s midnight and an appropriate end to what’s already been dubbed Rene … Read More

Three days in and the word rehearsing has become alien to the Lord and myself. The words ‘food’ and ‘CDs’, however, find us in a frenzy. Peter takes to the staggering variety of restaurants on offer like a duck to water, or Homer Simpson at an ‘all you can eat’ buffet. A large bucket of mussels on the hour, every … Read More

After a relaxed, romantic break in the surprisingly beautiful city of Brussels, it’s a hectic afternoon at home followed by a gruelling 16 hours of travelling and waiting which eventually finds myself and Lord Peter in SARS Central, Toronto. The Bowness/Chilvers Blues Explosion are all geared up to send some unsuspecting Canadians to sleep with their mesmeric blend of lullaby … Read More

Valentine’s week appropriately saw myself and SW finally complete the new No-Man opus, ‘Together We’re Stranger’. A week of passing sound files back and forth from London to Norwich (the true capital of the nation) resulted in the last minute inclusion of a song called ‘Back When You Were Beautiful’ which, while not necessarily the strongest piece on the album, … Read More

After two weeks of shuffling around like Dickens’ Scrooge as re-written by a mightily anxious Samuel Beckett, it’s good to emerge blinking into the daylight of reality. December proved interesting with the Burning Shed mini-festival being both a pleasure and a pain. The words never and again sprung to mind on at least a thousand occasions during the two day … Read More

Probably the most enjoyable musical experience of the last month was the near completion of No-Man’s forthcoming album, ‘All The Blue Changes’. Roger Eno recorded some righteous harmonium for the album while the heavens roared (torrential rain hammering against attic windows). Lending aspects of the album an almost 19th Century evangelical feel, Roger’s playing was subtle and inspired and provided … Read More

Consider me chastised! An email from a fan suggested that there was little point in me having a diary page without me actually having written a diary on it. A reasonable point, I suppose. The last month has been quite frantic – 8 days in the wonderful City of Toronto, more work on the new No-Man and Bowness/Chilvers albums and … Read More

How much of the unreleased material I mentioned in my 12th August entry will ever see release is debatable, but the existence of Burning Shed and the economics of CD production certainly makes it all very possible. I continually vacillate between admiring musicians who release almost every aspect of their work (Davis/Fripp/Nelson/Rundgren/Zappa) and those who only wait until a project … Read More

Liase with Pete and Peter regarding the eight (!) forthcoming Shed releases. Receive a package from Lee Fletcher which includes some interesting and rare Bowie material as well as a great mix of the new Centrozoon song ‘Make Me Forget You’. Along with ‘The Me I Knew’, it’s one of the two songs I wrote with Centrozoon during my last … Read More