So... after three days of recording and Jaz devouring cheese slices on rice crackers, we had a day off. Breakfast involved cereal slopping around a bowl held by hands covered in sun cream attached to a jauntily moving body propped up on legs that hadn't come around to the idea of being awake yet, as the previously mentioned meal was hastily consumed to the time of the songs we were listening to... recordings of what we'd achieved, or not, so far in Nashville.
As the long summer days turn to autumn (or fall!), the temperature is at a comfortable 30 degrees C, hotter than your average day back in Blighty. We thought that due to there being no cloud in the sky, and us being the avid cyclists we are, well, apart from Jake, Dan, Chris, George...and myself, we decided to go for a bike ride.
Kitted out with very vintage English bicycles (mine was from the early 1950's) we set off with water, no food, and less of a plan. Let's face it, cycling doesn't come naturally to everyone. Jake's trousers falling down and Chris having a stupendous crash into someone's front garden are all evidence of this. Pretty soon George and myself got fed up with the others crashing into things and taking ages to get anyway so we caned it out of sight. Me on 'Old Clanker' and George on a one-speed bike. Up hills. Quite a few.
It was fantastic to be cycling through Tennessee with the wind in our hair and the sun driving us along and burning all the sweat and bad stuff away. We cycled through intersections, faster and faster, down Granny White Pike, and slowed down to climb a hill with a sign "You are now entering Forest Hills City Limits". Looking behind me I couldn't see the rest of the band for miles, only George and his bike with a gear missing, pounding up the hill.
By this time I needed refuelling and we came across a remote gas station with children playing on the porch, and parents in wooden rocking chairs smiling at them and narrowing their eyes at these two perspiring visitors with battered bicycles in the middle of nowhere. George and I decided that one of the others had either had a heart attack going up one of the hills, or they'd turned at one of the intersections after losing us, and were now ambling through the mid-west, destined to grow old and sprout long beards that tangle in the spokes of their creaking bikes. Passers by would say "there go the wandering Englishmen on their pedals, they sure never did find the way home..."
We returned to the studio after our excursion to Forest Hills and, expecting the others to be back already, were faced with a locked studio, and barbed wire topped gate. That hadn't been part of the plan. Little did we know that Jake, Chris and Dan, with Mike the tour manager had cycled back to a huge guitar shop and were giving the guitars and the girls the eye.
Not to be outdone, I recalled Brad, our producer, giving us directions to his house nearby, and for once in my life, I had actually taken in something that someone said to me. Off we went, and sure enough I'd listened correctly and soon we were sitting in his kitchen eating freshly baked cinnamon rolls courtesy of his wife. We listened to her educating us about the lives of solitary bees in the wild west, and told her the reasons why South London is better than North London. Solitary bees don't make honey, and taxis, and tourists still don't go south of the river...
After being reunited with the gang, we headed to Tennessee State Fair, up on an old site overlooking the city and the legendary Fairgrounds Speedway, one of the oldest stock car racetracks in America. The TN state fair bore much resemblance to a large European funfair, as far as the rides were concerned. The strange thing was the lack of music, most of the atmosphere came purely from people screaming, laughing and kids crying because they let their balloon go or dropped their ice cream. The State Fair didn't stop at rides though, it had animals, (llamas, camels, cows, sheep, goats, hens, rabbits, ducks, alpacas) exhibition halls of green energy, a stage with the time-honoured country singer leading the crowd in a version of "Stand by your man", and a shed with hundreds of sheep and their owner, a woman who looked blind as a bat spinning wool into yarn, telling three entranced children that "my lawnmower makes all this wool, I bet your lawnmower can't make wool, it probably just makes noise! Mine makes wool and fertiliser..."
Come to think of it I've never seen a bat spinning yarn.
Freewheeling down the hill away from the neon lights of the fair, we got back to the studio and a car screeched up with half the band in, who appeared to have kidnapped a gorgeous country singer named Maggie and driven off with her. The car was definitely not big enough for all of us, and sitting with my head out of the window, willed the police not to pull up at the lights adjacent to us. The doors exploded open like a car in the ring at the circus and everyone piled out like bedraggled clowns who suddenly didn't know where they were but were intent on having a ball.
Have a ball we did, in a vibrant art gallery turned music venue Ovvio Arte (www.ovvioarte.com) we discovered a group of musicians who had just returned from playing in Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania and the rest of Europe by the sounds of it, this felt like their homecoming show and I couldn't resist adding my cossack dancing to the jumping crowd. They are called Petrojvic Blasting Company, four guys, sometimes five, playing accordion, trumpet, trombone, helicon and other assorted instruments. We offered them a show in London and invited them to our studio to have a party. Maybe we'll end up in Albania at the same time in the future. Check them out, and if they're playing near you go and watch! http://www.theblastingcompany.com
Not bad for a day off.
What's happening in England, cold yet?
Keep in touch,
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