Friday 24th

Meet Mel at the airport and we check in.

In complete contrast to our holiday trip a couple of months ago, it was a breeze. No queues, no grief. Indeed we were not questioned about carrying on our instruments as well as hand baggage by anyone.

Whilst I felt under rehearsed and a touch ill prepared, there was at least a great sense of relief to be flying off to foreign climes and being a musician again. Also the added joy of spending time with Mel. Asking nerdy teenage questions and learning more about his early career. Mel's early professional gigs included a stint at the infamous clubs in Hamburg following the path of the Beatles, amongst others. This band, somewhat unusually at the time, consisted of mixed races and cultures and were called 'The Dago's' A fact I hadn't heard before and something that continued to make me laugh for day afterward.

My ear popped on the flight and didn't come back, which was rather disconcerting. We arrived at the hotel at about 2:30. As the sound Check not till 6:30 this gave me nearly 4 hours to catch up of the kind of practising I should have done weeks ago.

Sid Smith was kind of our support act, as he gave a lecture on Prog before we took the stage. It seemed to go down well from where we were, which was stuck behind two closed doors with nowhere else to go. Even the jokes seemed to translate from Geordie to Italian.

And so we played. This was the first show as a solo artist since my appearance at the Morning side club in Paris with John Greaves some 15 years ago. The gear worked, apart from a dodgy stereo guitar lead, and I didn't forget to bring anything. With no crew, tour manager or sound-man there would have been no one else to blame if I had! It all seemed warmly received and any doubts that this approach would work were finally squashed. Mel, of course, played an absolute blinder.

There wasn't a huge crowd, but those who did attend where there to se me, which was terribly humbling. Speaking to people after the show I discovered that some had travelled a long way. Someone from Trieste, one from Milan and another from Rome and the very nice Mike and Eve (I hope I remember your names correctly) who had travelled all the way from surrey, no less.



Had a very late dinner in the excellent company of Sid and his pal Kimber.

Exhausted, but pleased, relieved, excited and optimistic.

Wednesday 22nd

Get to the rehearsal Studio's and set up. The previous week end was spent Mixing the Qatar job in 5.1 and yesterday was spent converting this to multichannel wav files at FX audio up the road. It then took about 9 hours to up load everything to the FTP site.

Whilst setting up the phone rings. There are some changes to be made. However this means re-mixing and editing and then reconverting the files. I tell them I'll do it when I get back next Monday. The TV company and Client call about the music. They still haven't heard any of it.

Mel arrives and we rehearse and re-arrange. Mel goes home in the evening to get his head round changes and new sections. I stay at the rehearsal rooms till I'm thrown out at midnight.
Get home and practice for a couple of hours.

Friday 17th

Went to the west end for a meeting. This is a normally an unexpected bonus. Weeks on end spent in a soundproof room with no windows mean that a trip out on business is most welcome. However I'm so snowed under that this takes up much valuable time. Still can't be helped. I meet my pal at the ad agency at their plush and large offices up town. Also in attendance are the creatives. They explain the idea and concept. they are exited and i am sworn to secrecy as this new product is, they say, the holy grail of cosmetics. Hey their secrets safe with me. Women will freak that this is available, when they find out that it is. The campaign they describe is just a viral one (internet only) the budget is still pretty large in spite of this fact. No doubt due to the revolutionary nature of the product in question. I ask if the money is a buy out that includes the subsequent TV campaign. An older chap who hasn't spoken up to this point finally speaks up. 'This will definitely not be going onto TV'.

I was rather confused by this statement. Why? I enquired innocently. 'Because we couldn't possibly justfy the claims we make about it".

Ah the joys of advertising. TV regulations are tight and they try to stop you from lying. On the internet, however...........

Thursday 16th

Very tired and not taking too well to the hassle I'm receiving from the TV production company. I have not attended any of the briefing meetings, nor have I been privy to all the e-mails and discussions. At the end of the day it's not really my job, but I have been employed to facilitate the composer and make the ideas sound full and fleshed. As DT (Danny) is now on the west coast of the states it's left to me deal with it. They need a great deal of music for just over a week. Decide that my general feeling contains the tell tale signs of impending tonsillitis. so I visit a local medical walk in centre. My own doctor can't see me till next wednesday. Which is just too late.

I see a doctor who tells me I have tonsillitis.

Well worth the money then.

Wednesday 15th

The director producer has decided that one of the pieces that I have just sent him, would be perfect for the whole event. I had written this purely for the end section. So now I have to write new variations based on this piece. A combination of serious lack of sleep (most nights I get to bed at 1:30 and am up by 6:30, sometimes to bed as late as 3:00) working on a few jobs at once and the subsequent lack of concentration see's me accidentally erase the main section.

I spend the next 8 hours recreating it from the stereo mix that I'd sent that morning.

Monday 13th

By about 10 in the morning I had sent the music that I had spent most of last week working on for the big event in Qatar. The final thing has to be finished in it's stereo form by Friday 17th. These tracks will form the basis for all the sections that I have just three and a half days left to complete. An e-mail arrives at 11:00. In the subject box it simply says 'Client Comment'. Suffice to say I have to start again from scratch.

Thursday 9th

Had a very strange moment of sheer panic this morning. I sat frozen in front of the computer screens. I was suddenly struck by the sheer amount of work that I would have to cram in the next 2 weeks, culminating in a live show in Venice. I've taken too much on and was hit with the kind of bowel churning fear normally reserved for first night stage fright or major surgical procedures. This resulted in a number of phone calls and e-mails, attempting to cancel some of it.

In the end I didn't cancel anything.

Then the agency called with another Advert!

In the evening Chris Porter and is wife came over. We then took a cab to the newly refurbished Wembley Arena. Very nice it looked to. They appear to have turned it all around. The main entrance is no longer on the main road and the stage is at the other end of the venue. The last time I was here was to see Peter Gabriel back in the summer of 2003.

Tonight we are the guests of Sir Cliff! He looks remarkably fit for a man nearing his 70's and his singing was pretty damn accurate too. Not my kind of thing, obviously, but it would be churlish to criticise. Met a number of people back stage that I haven't seen in an age. Including Roger Searl the Imperious tour manager during my tenure in Level 42. An amazing, calm and brilliant professional. A dead good bloke to boot.

Also in attendance was a girl I last saw on the set of dubious British sitcom 'Birds Of A feather' It was her first job and I had managed to convinced the producer to employ me as an actor, even though I was the show's composer. I had been providing the music for a couple of series and fancied treading the boards again as I had indeed done so as a professional when I first left school. In the end I had just the one line at the end of a longish scene in a tapas bar. I screwed it up in front of a sizable studio audience. Rather too loudly I angrily exclaimed
'for fxxxx sake, i've only got one fxxxing line and I've fxxxxx it up'.

This was greeted with much hilarity by cast and crew alike.

I was later approached by the BBC and asked if they could use this clip for 'Aunties Bloomers' their outakes program. Consequently, had I been a consummate professional, I would have merely earned the basic union minimum. However as i was shit, I earned, and continue to earn, considerably more.

There's a lesson in there somewhere.

Wednesday 8th

Django's hair grows like wildfire. He has been complaining-about it getting in his eyes, so we have booked a trip to Auntie Lesley this weekend to get it cut. However, we were awoken by a tug on the duvet this morning at about 6:00 am and turned to see him proudly pointing to his head.

'Dad, I've cut my hair'

Much to our horror, he had somehow climbed up onto the sink in the bathroom and managed to grab the scissors. He then cut his hair, short and uneven, across the top of his brow. There was hair all over the floor. The back of his hair seemed to have shrunk leaving him with a savage fringe with long ringlets at either side. He looks like a very small Hasidic jew. Not that there's anything wrong with that, you understand.

Spent the day with Danny working on the TV series. Danny leaves for L.A on Saturday so I have to make his basic idea's into big epic's by the end of next week. Nik Kershaw sent me his new CD which arrived in the mail this morning. I saw Nik at the Level 42 show that I attended in Cambridge the other week, Those of you who merely think of him as the elfin 80's pop-star for young girls need a complete rethink. Some of the music, and indeed lyric's, on this record are amazing. One track called 'Old House' , a swaggering , emotive track in 5/8, has to be played at least a couple of times a day. Django insists on hearing 'All about you', a fantastic piece of bitter recrimination and anger, every-time we get in the car.

November 6th

It's been pretty blog free here for a few weeks. I have been up to my eyes.
Firstly with a week long attempt at placating the creatives and clients for a very well known games console.

Can I create a sixties style track, featuring brass? Yes.
It's great but there are a few changes. I do them.

Fantastic, only they've come up with a different idea.

This goes on all week, and I end up sending them about 6 pieces. All are 'Great' and 'fantastic', but none of them are used.

This is followed by an advert for a well known cosmetic cream. They had re written the words for a song from a very well known musical. Could I recreate this track, but change it so it wont infringe any copyright issues. Errr... well yes.

I spend a day making it sound as much like the original as possible.
I send them the finished version, but tell them that they've used a direct lift from the original, the title in fact, and we'd never get away with it. This, of course, makes them seriously reconsider the idea and I manage to talk myself out of a gig.

A few months ago, whist driving to Birmingham, an idea slipped from the 'fantasy' section of my brain and entered into the 'entirely possible' department. I became quite exited about the idea, until it inevitably slipped back into fantasy land.

What on earth was I thinking.

Anyway following this week of commercial requested dead ends, I was inspired to ask the question again.

So I wrote an e-mail and held my breath. One week later and I had composed an apologetic reply, so convinced was I by the inevitable rejection. Indeed, what the hell was I thinking! Much to my amazement the negative reply never arrived.

Quite the opposite in fact. This is genuinely a thrilling prospect. You never really know the answer, if you never ask the question.

Meanwhile I've been composing the music for a film for a charity event/film.

I have also been asked to compose the music for an event in Qatar. This is on a 180 degree screen to be mixed in surround. As ever it's a big project that is way behind. I have 1o working days to complete something that I'd rather have at least twice the time to complete.

As if this wasn't enough I'm also composing and recording the music to a new TV series with my old pal Danny. Danny leaves the country in a few days.

So, all in all, it's been late nights, every night and I'm exhausted.

Copies of the CD eventually arrived and are now for sale via Burning Shed. The official release date is February next year, but we'll concentrate on the web for the meantime.