From the Peaks of the Lake disrict to The Thames via Lyon (a day in a life).
Nov 2008
Hello Folks,
We have been very busy in recent weeks, working on both our forthcoming new studio record and various touring schedules.
We had a real whitey (Pale face through lack of sleep) this weekend, as we headed up to stay with our good friends Tina and Alan in... oh I don’t know?, "Something" Dale in the lake district. Tina and Alan run a smashing Holiday B&B up there as well as farming sheep, so lamb is always on the menu, and, the pub in the tiny village is always open into the night hours for a tipple. This weekend gone was no exception as Mr Greaves, not being the shyest of creatures brought the acoustic guitars into the oldie worldly bar and started bashing out his beloved Bad company and Free tunes aided by Brendan on Bodhran (Irish drum), and Gerry on acoustic guitar too. Now this may all sound great fun but I don't think I saw one movement or tap of the toe from a single sheep farmer in there, Needless to say we all retired to bed after the long drive up from London (7 hours).
Having woken up refreshed we ate gammon for lunch in the splendour of the lake district panorama that is evident from Tina's dining room window. A shower after lunch and it was the hair-raising experience of a 50 or so mile drive to Carlisle along sheer drop mountain roads, where you could lay dead for a month and nobody would ever know.
We arrived at the Carlisle blues festival at tea time and had a real ball with the crowd whilst delivering our set of around 90 minutes.
We now had the awful drive directly after coming off stage back down to London Stansted as we had to play a show Close to Lyon in southern France the following evening and British Airways had cancelled its flight from Heathrow the next afternoon. The only Lyon flight that was available was from Stansted at 7.20 am, so we had to get there for 5.20am. I have never seen Brendan and Dennis so knackered in my life when we boarded the plane. All was not quite over as we had a 1.5 hour transfer the other end to the members only Climax blues club.
Our show there was a real back to basics club affair with our dear French friends roaring us on to a great evening.
Our return to the Hotel was only marred by the fact that the cars could not get up the mountain due to the snow and ice, so at 2am in the morning we had to carry all our stage stuff up the hill by foot in the freezing -7 temperatures.
We thank our wonderful French host and his family for copious amounts of wine and food.
We returned to Stansted the following day exhausted.
Our new record is coming on slowly but surely beside the chilly banks of the river Thames very close to the Thames barrier at Charlton. The studio itself is owned by Glen Tillbrook of Squeeze and Dennis and Glenn have become friends in recent years as they live close by.
We have done around 10 backing tracks already with Gerry flying in from France to lay down the Bass, Brendan of course has added percussion, drums and bongos already with Dennis adding some nice guitar parts too. I have put a couple of harmonica things on too, so the project is starting to take some kind of shape already.
What i think i can say is that i believe it will end up being unlike anything we have done before, so I think it will raise a few eyebrows, we will see.
We hope to have around a March release folks, but please don’t hold this against me as I could well be wrong, although we are certainly pushing for an early release.
Just for the train spotters out there, Dennis is using Gibson 335 guitars, Fender Stratocaster and Avalon and Tanglewood acoustic 6 and 12 strings through a Marshall custom modded built head, and a Jessie Hoffs hand wired 30 watt combo. Gerry his Musicman Bass guitar straight into the desk, Brendan, his trusty Sonor drum kit, and me with Dannecker, Hohner and Lee askar harmonicas through an Astatic JT 30c microphone and acoustic harmonica through an AKG microphone.
Amongst working song titles at the moment are...
Hit the Ground running
You
Mechanic Man
Eye candy
Fair weather friends
Love supreme
Ok, folks, I’m not telling you any more so there.
Love from the band as always,Mark Feltham.