Day 230. Together we're magic. (18/8/13)

Look I'm sorry to harp on about this but I'm certain that you know what I'm like by now, when I've got a subject in my head I get just a touch obsessive.

And the subject in my head at the moment is my old band.

It could be worse, I could be writing about the fact that I returned to work today and within two hours I had caught up on e-mails, memo bulletins, daily news alerts and was processing and putting out a poster delivery, feeling as though I'd never actually been on holiday. See, that would be interesting wouldn't it?

But that's not the reality I said I was coming home to is it? Work is work. It's everything else that's interesting.

So, I'm digitising old tapes, one track at a time so that we can sort out a setlist for my great 'don't call it a party, it's a gig/don't call it a gig, it's a party' 50th bash which has been on, then off, then on, then really on again several times in the last 48 hours.

Tried to arrange to get all 4 of us together in ours on Tuesday night, found out singer is in London until mid Sept so abandoned all idea of doing anything. At which point bassist, who is an utter saint, suggested that we only do the really old stuff as a 3 piece. He'd do vocals. I thought about this for nearly a second before getting really, and I mean, realllly excited. It was on again and we were going to be The Jam. Or Cream. Or some other famous trio. But not Trio themselves, the German 'Da-Da-Da' hit makers. That'd be daft.

And then the drummer (another utter saint) came back. The singer could do it. No problem. We'd start, he'd pick up in mid Sept when he gets back. Suddenly we had everything again plus options that we didn't have in the first place.

The will of my friends to do this is a truly marvellous thing.

So I've already transferred full gigs over to disc with my new little Aldi purchased toy and in doing so I discovered that some songs that I'd never even considered doing again are actually pretty bloody smart and I can remember how to play every single note of them. 'Caught' is back in the set as it's 1 minute and 58 seconds of pure pop brilliance. I can say that as I didn't write it (apart from the guitar bit, obv) but even I I had I'd be saying it anyway 'cause it's an empirical truth. We had three goes at demoing this; on the first run through we hit 1 minute 30. The engineer advised us that we may want to slow down a touch. You think?

'Stand Up' was already in (the others don't know this yet) but it was confirmed by J's comment 'you were a ridiculously good band'. I'm having that. You can claim bias on J's part but she had no reason to say anything.

The thing is; I can remember every single second of the moments on these tapes. I know what the stage looked like in The Fire Station, I know how the dry ice smelt the first time the lighting guy got his hands on some and flooded the stage with it for us because we wanted to be mysterious like the Bunnymen, I remember what night at The State Mally wrote 'Maybe For Us' about. I remember three of us working on a song with an obvious hook in Mally's house in Walton Hall Park and me asking 'well what's the title then? Or is that a silly question?' Obviously the song was now called 'Is That A Silly Question?'

We played it once. We got the ending wrong. It was a bad night. I've got it on video if you want it. I look about 15.

We'll play 'I Sell This Kite' - I wrote it in a deckchair in our back yard on the old acoustic I sold to Mal years ago. I can tell you what T-shirt I was wearing and which direction the chair was facing. 30 years ago.

I remember the stage in The Rendezvous at a 'battle of the bands' - we were introduced, three of us kicked into the first song, Mark delayed his entrance, as he hit his first line I apparently span past him. We were on fire. Some of our friends left after our set telling the organisers that they didn't need to stay, they'd already seen the winners. The organisers didnt like us anyway. Seemed to think we were arrogant. I think we probably were. I think we felt justified. We didnt win. Strange that.

Do you know what? I could go on for hours and I probably will. But.

But.

But I'll tell you this....being in a band is fucking great.