Long Distance

I am writing this from the train, a train riding the unexpected green of the north of England through to my final destination of Glasgow. It is here that my band’s three week tour of England, and the occasional other, will kick off in about four hours time. I am apprehensive, touring is not my bag. My mother’s kindly parting words to me yesterday were “remain strong and calm, Matt“. I’ll try, Mum, I’ll try.

Today’s train ride up hasn’t been the greatest omen for the weeks to come, however. The seemingly endless fuck ups of Virgin Trains have meant that the relatively straightforward journey from my house to the gig in Scotland has in fact been a story of three chapters (London - Birmingham, Birmingham to Stafford, and Stafford through to Glasgow). While the second leg was uneventful, the first and third have provided (and are still providing) much food for thought. In London I set next to a man who was to be condemned. An overheard phone call revealed to all in close attendance that this crammed train ride was to be his last, at least until 2012 (tomorrow’s sentencing, for god knows what, was likely to be four years behind bars, “at best“, he said). The more northerly I travel, however, the lighter things seem to get, and I now seem to be stuck on the same carriage as the set up for a children’s TV show, with cameras and zealously camp presenter included. Perhaps I should be worried about crossing the border.

The reason I am travelling today (the other feller’s having made the trip already) is because yesterday I graduated with an Mphil in Divinity from the University of Cambridge. Two degrees Edmonds, that’s right… The day was brilliant, the weather shining like the faces of all those who have ever attended these unashamedly happy occasions. Specific to Cambridge’s ceremony is the over over-dressing, the processing to the senate house to hold the hand of an old drunk who speaks Latin and doffs his cap to all and sundry, the bizarre spectacle of a sort-of fervent kneeling on behalf of the graduate before a man or woman dressed in Henry 8th’s hunting apparel, and the giving out and receiving of a blessing in the name of the Trinitarian formula with all the trimmings. All this for nine and a half months reading about Ghandi and his Christian friends. Not bad.

I’m getting into my flow now, and while I’m switched on and writing I should and can mention that the band did another Radio One session at the also soon-to-be-condemned Maida Vale studios last week. It was a session for the oily voiced Steve Lamacq (Lamo to his producers) and though this time no one was allowed in to cheer us on, the session went well and was enjoyable. One oddity must be mentioned, however, namely the head engineer’s slightly disturbing small talk. His raison d’etre, it seems, is not in the recording of some of the greatest musicians past and present in one of the greatest studios ever built, but rather in the evangelisation of the perils of milk. He didn‘t stop there, no, he also insisted that as he could accurately guess what blood type each of us were, and as certain blood types should not be drinking milk in any shape or form, he could also accurately tell us whether we were wrong to be going anywhere near the white posion - semi or fully skimmed. My blood type, he opined, HAD to be A - He got this from my mangled responses to his own less than stringent personality test, which consisted of questions like “Are you an extrovert or an introvert” and my answers of “sort of…well, either” - and surprisingly, after his first diagnosing, the second followed: I should stay away from Cow juice. I consider myself warned….

Well the train is coming nearer to its inevitable end, and so I must unplug my computer and get to the taxi rank, but I just wanted to say quickly that I have finally heard the band’s album finished, mastered, polished and all of that stuff. It is really special, not just to me but objectively, I think. It works as a record, and I am really excited about people hearing it. Listening to it was an odd dead of night experience; emotional, joyful, sometimes sour, but never confusing. It is the closing of a chapter, and I am pleased to have perceived that as clearly as I did when I listened to it.

News from tour and some actual proper writing soon.

Over and Out.