I'm back in Cambridge, it's a sunny day but I've had hardly any sleep so I'll try and crank something out while my eyeball still has steam in it! However, three days in Cambridge is enough to do as much un-doing as the Gods of Non require!

Hamburg - I love the place, yow. Third visit this year, all my black and white visions of Beatles and beer battles have been replaced, in coloUr, by the amazing musicians and friends I've met. It's a city that has a shaping vibe, no question, but it's too vibrant, too alive for me to be able to lean back on the jukebox and tell you how it is, tell you what's going on. IT's going on, way faster than I can see!

Played three dates/stayed three days with Alaska, one of Hamburg's finest. Sweet guys, and a pleasure to travel, stay and play with. They're a great band, excellent songs and full, colourful and rocking arrangements. I felt a bit like I was spying on them each night, sneaking around the room to catch different angels of their set.

First night was in Kiel - small crowd, but fun gig. We watched some of "Woodstock" before showtime, and it was funny to go on after Richie Havens. The ride home to Hamburg featured Kraftwerk on the stereo as we rolled the autobanh. Of course!

Second day was in Hamburg, and I snuck off with Dan and Karsten to their rehearsal room for a few hours of run-through. I'd come to Germany with a slight cold, and I wrried during rehearsal that I was getting chills and fever until I saw that Daniel had turned on the fan. Ok! Had a blast with the lads, innit, and off to Indian before the gig. There's a little place that Lorna and I found on our first visit, and I was sure I could easily take the guys there no prob. And so I got us lost! Did finally find, ate, and off to soundcheck. Nice venue - Silber - but then to me, anything with a proper stage and more than three lightbulbs is fancy! I bashed through a good rockin' set with Daniel and Karsten, aka xrfarflight. Really great vibe, heavy on the eye contact, something I don't always find here in merrie olde! I know I'm an odd dude onstage, but given that I rarely have a rehearsed band, I always rely on visual cues. Having a band that knows how to read the eye is a blessing! We re-discovered "Went All Wrong," from "The Automatic Door." I hadn't played this song since the peak of the Su year(s), and even then we only did it a few times. But the xr gang were keen to try it and it really worked well! Hell, I don't even have to write new songs, just find old lost classics!

Early drive next morning with Alaska, the 6 of us divided tween 2 cars for the long road to Grevenbroich, the "capital of energy." Funny, as the town itself seemed well-sleepy, VERY Catholic. I'll just add that in the midst of all this how much I was digging the Alaska vibe. I'm so much always on my own, so it was important for me to feel like I was part of something, and I greatly enjoyed the company of the guys. I met Bjorn at my first gigs in Hamburg, via a connection through Pat Fish. Anyway, the only downside of our hanging out was my increasing addiction to second-hand smoke. We'd all stop to get petrol and take a break, they'd all circle up for a smoke and I'd stand amongst. Next I know, I'm breathing deep, trying to get my fix. I'm handling it ok, and now that I'm home, my housemate has been kind enough to let me use his Nicoderm patches after he's had his moment with them. But I digress!

The venue in Grevenbroich was some sort of Catholic youth centre cafe, something of that nature. Very home-y, quite odd and VERY drug free. One of the members of Dharma Bums, sharing the bill with us that night, works at the venue and provided all of the gear. Handy! Soundcheck seemed maybe too long, little wobbly, and at first all I could hear of Alaska was the drums, which were mic'd up. They took the mics off, turned up the bass (yay!) and the Alaska sound took a much more righteous shape. It was a while before we actually had to play, but not much to do in the meantime. I took a walk, got some gum and ordered some food in a mix of French and German. Uh...

Gig time, and I was happy to jump up and play. Didn't realise how shot my voice was, however, until I opened my head to sing! Not much other than a not-at-all sexy rasp came out. Fair enough! It was one of my fave solo sets in a while, me remembering how to enjoy my own solo set. Bit of stomping, hassling the crowd, awkward handclaps... it works! Alaska joined me for the final three songs and that sounded so good. I mean, they're a five piece - Torben and Carsten on electrics, Patrick on drums, Christoph on bass and Bjorn on keys. Stick me in the middle and that's a big sound! Gorgeous, and much fun. "Ring Never Bell," "Keep My Face Clean" and "Drug Free."

Their set was a blast again, maybe my fave as I'd gotten well into the songs and
now knew when to move close to the drums to catch Patrick's freak-fills etc. Dharma Bums also did a fine job, mixing a sort of American sound with some trippery, and closing their set with a musical saw solo!

We had a time afterwards, flopped out in this odd venue, the band all set to sleep on the dormitory floor upstairs. The lads was all a bit drunk, laughing and laughing. It was good, almost made me wish I was a drinker! Would have settled for just the slightest touch of tea, but it was such not a tea-drinky scene, in a '64, not '65 kinda way. We suffer for our art in so many ways!

After lovely breakfast next morning in the cafe, soundtrack was the "new" Prefab Sprout (made me get weepy, I can tell ya!), we hit the forever road back to Hamburg. I said my goo-byes, and headed across town to Daniel's. We went to eat, then caught a couple bands. I can't go into it here, a whole other story, but just know that my own musical head has been troubled and filled with frustrations for a while now. Seeing the two bands we caught, really tripped me, but in a forward-falling way. Hmmm. Maybe another time I'll tell.

Next day it was off to the xrfarflight bunker where we recorded a pair of songs. A remake of "Went All Wrong" and a new one called "Skunk Hungarian." I'm so used to doing one-take, trying to get in and out of studio quick, so it was a delight to have Daniel saying, no, let's try it again. We pushed and pulled the new song into various shapes. It was basically finished when I presented it, but structurally a little loose, and we were able to find places to really play with it. We got good takes of the songs, but when Karsten arrived from work, it was decided we should re-do the new tune with all of us playing, rather just overdubbing his bass. Oh, yes - a BAND! See how far gone I've gotten, stuck in this Cambridge corner, cursing latency issues and struggling with cheap borrowed gear? But making music with real people, and excellent people... yarp! So we did a few takes, finally settling on a good one. The song is so new to me that I'm not even sure how it's supposed to go, but I'm thrilled with where it's at. Might even post it here! So, 12 hours in the studio - that's how I used to do it allll the time! That's how "Splendid Tray" and "Village" got made! We got out of there around 2am, crashed at Dan's then up in the morning for a round of tight-voiced Ant vocal overdubs. Just messing about, trying out circular singings. I think the song could turn out to be a good one, yeah. From there we headed out to hit some music stores, Daniel looking for a new compressor. I tried out the xr loopstation, and am keen to dig into some sorts of new gear, something to shake up my ancient "I Am A Folksinger" mindset. Cos I ain't a folksinger! Anyway, it was coffee, pastries and then off to the train to the bus to the airport and home to merrie olde. Poor Lorn had lost the headlights and arrived at the airport a bit panicked, but thanks to miracle of fog lights, we shone light the sun and made it to Cambridge.

It's good to have no heavy travels ahead for a bit. End of Nov we head to Berlin and
Hamburg, then I fly to SF. But meantime it's nothing freakier than Swindon. I've got to do something about my musical life in Cambridge, though. All the heavy and good energy of my Hamburg head so quickly gets pushed deep into the pit of the pocket of blank depression. Everyone's got ideas - a side-project, join someone else's band, and my own 3am fantasy was a a Velvet's 3rd cover band. Etc! But focus seems to be at heart here, and my focus is all over the place. Maybe an Oxford band, as that seems to be my true musical home in the UK. But playing with Alaska and xrfarflight really drove home how much I need to play with people, and how much my songs are served. We'll see - there's not much time now before I head towards the Bag of Kittens zone, so that's a whole other thang anyway. Still, at the end of this particular line, I'll say how lucky I feel to have these experiences, to have these wonderful people to connect to and play music with and talk to. All my smoking jokes aside, to spend a week feeling like I was part of something so good, that we were all connected through our love and lust for music, yeah, I'll take it!

"Six white horses, that you did promise..."