Many apologies for failing to keep up to date with my blogging. It's been a bit hectic being out on the road with Paul Weller. I've had my mind on other things... still I have a bit of time to reflect and to recuperate now, and whilst going through my computer deleting stuff I found the beginnings of a tour diary that I kept. I'll be posting bits and pieces up over the next few weeks, but there's a lot to go through and much still to do! The most important things over the next few weeks being Pimlico's first gig in ages at the Enterprise in Camden on Friday, and my guest appearance at Da Doo Ron Ron's Christmas party in Brighton on December 12th.

Anyway, here's Part One of my Paul Weller tour diary, such as it is... enjoy!


Well, I've been on the road now since August and it's now September and I'm in Los Angeles airport waiting for a flight to San Fransisco. I'm not wearing any flowers in my hair but I do have a rather fetching paisley trim to my off-white linen shirt, which seems somehow appropriate. The inevitable scramble through security has led to the comparative calm of the departure gate, and while we wait for our plane to be ready to board I've got the chance to reflect on the journey so far.

Flying into Japan was like flying into a dishwasher. Hot, thundery rain greeted our arrival at Tokyo airport. The heat and humidity, combined with the generous in-flight hospitality of British Airways and a nine-hour time change, meant that we were pretty spaced out for a couple of days, but not so spaced out that we didn't enjoy the sights and sounds of Shibuya and other neighbouring districts. The first show was in fact in Shibuya, at the AX club. I had forgotten how polite Japanese gig-goers are compared to, well everywhere else in the world. Respectful silence during songs followed by frantic cheering and applause which dies away to more respectful silence takes a lot of getting used to. However, the vibes were extremely positive. Following the show, Paul was presented with an incredible, nay an edible, recreation of the "22 Dreams" album cover in the form of a giant cake. A scrabble of autographs and a scramble back to the hotel for post-gig refreshments completed the first working day.

The next show was at the Tokyo leg of the Summer Sonic festival, a huge event that saw Paul Weller on a bill that included The Sex Pistols and The Verve amongst many others. I think we acquitted ourselves quite well… the promoter seemed to think so as when I arrived back at the hotel I found an ice bucket full of booze, some flowers and a little card reading "Thanks For A Great Show". It's nice to be appreciated.

Travelling at breakneck speed to Osaka on the Shinkansen bullet train the next day, I couldn't help but wonder why there's nothing really like that in Britain. We invented the bloody railways after all. Oh well, just sit back and enjoy the fact that while others struggle to get across London in a couple of hours, in the same time we'll have travelled a good couple of hundred miles in a degree of comfort you only usually get on a business class airline cabin. Osaka's another huge city, and the home of the "away" leg of Summer Sonic. Another huge auditorium, this time not quite packed to the rafters. Just as well, because it's swelteringly hot.

A few post-gig refreshments left us all a bit bleary-eyed as we made our way back to Tokyo to catch the plane to Perth the next day. Nine hours later, Paul Weller set foot on Australian soil for the first time in ages.

I was chatting to a mate of mine in a café in Perth's CBD later that day and he told me that this year two people of huge significance were journeying to Australia; The Pope and Paul Weller. So it's with some trepidation we take the stage at Perth's Challenge Stadium. The crowd's expectations are high, but I think that we deliver. A few old favourites have entered the set- "That's Entertainment", "Shout To The Top", "Carnation" and a rousing encore of "Town Called Malice", though the new material goes down equally well, especially tunes like "All I Wanna Do" and "Have You Made Up Your Mind?".

Adelaide's the next stop, the trams and showers making the whole place seem a bit like Manchester. It's easy to forget it's winter in Australia, and the cold and damp are a bit of a shock after the heat of Japan. Again an expectant crowd, and again a great reaction. I discover some absolutely top wine at the venue- our drivers' family own a vineyard, and she'd bought down a bottle of two of sensational reds,


A stonking red wine hangover later, and we're flying in to Melbourne for the first of three gigs at the Forum venue on Flinders Street. I'm introduced to the delights of Melbourne institution Pelligrini's Italian coffee bar, where the coffee's strong and the food hearty and above all cheap! I make a point of going there every day, and achieve the highest honour of getting to banter with the head man himself, the suavely dressed patron of the establishment. Suffering from extreme cravat envy, I head back to the gig. A packed house greet the set with rapturous applause. It's the closest Australian show yet to a UK audience.

The second night at the Forum is every bit as good as the first. One of the lovely things about touring is the chance to meet lots of interesting people, and these gigs are no exception. Many of the people I'm meeting I have already met, years ago, in London. It's good to catch up with them after many many years.

Thence to Sydney and the high point of the tour so far, record shopping! With the aid of two friends Carolyn and Beccs I succeed in obtaining a stack of excellent Australian beat and soul 45's and albums. It's a day that Sydney's chamber of commerce will doubtless be celebrating annually in the years to come. The gigs at the Enmore theatre are a sold-out series of three and we put our all into making them extra special. Too much, perhaps…

After three days in Sydney we head further up the country to Brisbane, where disaster strikes. Maybe we've overdone it a bit in Sydney- three of the band have throat infections, including Paul. With the doctor's demand that he should rest up, we are forced reluctantly to postpone the Brisbane gigs, and two days of enforced rest and recuperation are upon us. What's to be done? Well, quite frankly, not a great deal in Brisbane!!

Behind the scenes the powers that be are rescheduling the gigs, and contacting ticket holders. The two shows are successfully shifted, and Paul and the others are finally signed off by the quacks. The first of the shows at the Tivoli is a slightly subdued affair, but the second, shifted to a club in Fortitude Valley called The Arena is a bit more riotous. It's probably the smallest venue Paul's played for a while, and we've recovered a bit of our vim and vigour.

The next day's a bit of a scramble to get back to the final show in Melbourne, which has also had to be rescheduled. Fortunately most, if not all, of the original ticket holders have been able to make the show and it's another packed house. We leave the audience wanting more, as is our usual way of doing things…

Flying out from Melbourne the next day we're faced with the prospect of a fourteen hour flight that has us arriving in LA before we've set off… work that one out if you can. I think we're all too knackered to cope with such a concept, but with a few days off before the shows start again, and with loved ones coming to join a lucky few of us, we've a bit of time to reflect on what have been the overriding impressions so far.

The biggest one for me is the loyalty and passion of Paul's fans, especially in Australia where they've waited for a visit from him for so long. It was refreshing to see people my age and older rubbing shoulders with people young enough to be our kids, all united in Paul's music and all getting something deep and emotional from watching us perform it. It's refreshing, inspiring and humbling to be doing it.

And I have to say, that Australia keeps a sensational cellar!

I'm very much looking forward to travelling to Edinburgh on Friday to DJ at Modern Lovers. It ought to be a great night... anyway, if you live in the London area you can watch me scraping my 'cello for Paul Weller on a TV show called Suggs In The City on ITV1 on Thursday night (tomorrow) at 2310. And if you don't live in the area or can't wait, you can watch it now...

A few bits of news... I'm DJing in Edinburgh on Friday 27th June as the guest of the long-running Modern Lovers night. The event's at the GRV in Guthrie Street and it's five pounds to get in before midnight. All are welcome!

Paul Weller's album entered the charts at number one to scenes of much jubilation and delight. It's his first number one album for over ten years, and looks like it has already sold around 100,000 copies. It's number 4 this week, having lost the top spot to Coldplay's latest "masterpiece"... Even so, it's still one of the biggest selling records of the year so far. The Paul Weller band are busier than ever; we've been doing quite a bit of TV stuff, and will be recording a session for Radio 2 in the famous BBC studios at Maida Vale. This will be a real treat for me, as it's where all the Peel Sessions were done and I've always wanted to go there. Next month we head off to Ireland, Italy, Serbia, Spain and the Isle Of Wight and in August the world tour starts.

One of the TV specials we did was for a programme called Indig02 Live, an attempt by ITV2 to produce a live music show that crams the quart of three bands playing an hour-long set each into the pint pot of a half-hour broadcast slot (that's around 24 minutes of actual programme thanks to the relaxed rules about commercial breaks). Inevitably there's some spillage onto the cutting-room floor, and to add insult to injury the programme-makers use split screen to superimpose interviews while the music's going on. Utterly pointless... however, there's a great audience clip filmed on a mobile phone of Have You Made Up your Mind which I will share with you...



Also worth checking out it this clip of something called Paul Weller- The Rehearsal Sessions



There's more on YouTube if you want it!!

I've given an interview to Matt "The Beat Collector"'s webzine, which lays bare for all to see some of the inner workings of my soul. Or something... anyway you can have a look at it by visiting http://therightsideoffunky.wordpress.com/ .

In case you've not heard, Paul Weller's album 22 Dreams entered the UK album charts at number one, his first number one album for a while. I was involved in a tiny way in this album's creation, playing bass and 'cello on a couple of tracks-however the fact remains I am part of an album that's been number 1 in someone's chart. Cause for a small-scale, sober celebration I think...

On the subject of albums, I've started to get down to the serious business of my third solo album. Thanks in part to my day job (which I am in no way complaining about) the earliest it'll be in the shops will probably be next spring, but I'm hoping to have a new single out by the end of the year. This is the plan at any rate. What will be good about it is since working with Mr Weller I've met some truly wonderful music people, singers and players, who I am hoping to get involved to make it my strangest, most diverse and well put together record yet. As soon as there's anything new to play you, I'll put up some bits and pieces on this site. Keep checking this channel!

Here you go! In all it's glory, the Paul Weller band (or Paul Weller and the Ladies From Woking as we've been christened...FANX!) appering live on Jonathan Ross last night.

Enjoy!

Recorded live at Paul's own studio in Surrey many weeks before the tour started, this interview features some live footage of the band running through "Have You Made Up Your Mind", "All I Wanna Do" and "22 Dreams".



Next week we're on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. And I expect Saturday morning I'll be able to blog the clip on YouTube...

I was DJing tonight at the Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes and one of the bands that played before my set really made me think that in spite of all the rubbish that's out there the future of popular music is in safe hands. Those hands belong to an outfit called La Rebla Fam (no, I don't know what it means either...).

Think The Specials, think The Equals, think Fishbone, think any multi-racial lineup playing music that's a bit rock-meets-rap-meets-ska. But then think of it being done by a bunch of very young twenty-somethings in a totally honest, naive kind of style with an enthusiasm and a sincerity that is refreshing. Pilfering riffs from The Police and sending up the posturing rock of Kasabian was always going to endear them to me, but they ain't some comedy good time band. There's a serious message that they're trying to get across and it's an old cliche but it bears repeating: if the kids are united they'll never be defeated. Songs like "No Ghetto In London" and the fact that all the members seem to be genuinely ignoring their racial differences and celebrating all the different musical influences they bring to their band are a refreshing change from the cultural seperatism that divides much of modern life.

Their MySpace songs might be a bit basic, but if you live in the London area you'd do very well to check them out. I'm not the greatest A&R-minded person in the world, but I think in the case of La Rebla Fam you ought to expect good things. And the fact that I'm typing this at 3am just as I have returned from the said gig should give you an impression of just how impressed I was...

http://www.myspace.com/lareblafam

More music by Paul Weller from Later With Jools Holland...




Last night was the finale of the current leg of Paul's tour at Hammersmith Apollo. Joining us onstage were a number of special guests including Roger Daltrey who sang Magic Bus while we struggled to remember how it went. I think we got away with it. And Noel Gallagher came on to play electric guitar on All You Need Is Love at the end... making it even more Rutles like than ever in my humble opinion. Gem Archer came on to play storming guitar in Echoes Round The Sun, and Eddie Piller of Acid Jazz records led the audience in a verison of Happy Birthday To You, directed at Mr Weller who reaches the age of 50 tomorrow (Sunday).

After the show was an end of tour/birthday party in the top bar of the Apollo, where numerous cold drinks and chunks of guitar-shaped birthday cake were consumed by a gaggle of well-wishers including artist Peter Blake and DJ and sometime collaborator of mine Gary Crowley. Wes, Miles and Pete from Pimlico were all in attendance, as was the amazing Swedish singer Magnus Carlson.

So that's that for a while. My liver and kidneys can recover for a week or so, then it's back in the bus for some TV appearances and in July we hit the European festival circuit...

And in August we get on a plane and don't get back till the end of September.

So for now I'm off to enjoy the sunshine...