Articles
September 2005
Stringing Me Along
April 2005
Pace's Folly
December 2004
Changes
November 2004
Pacing Myself
October 2004
Zappily Ever After
August 2004
Changes
November 2004
Hey, you all, everybody.
So I was trying to decide what it was you might like me to write about this month, but I've never been good at the hive-mind thing, and I can't predict large groups of people. So I think I'm going to let you tell me. The lovely webmistress here has been so good as to set me up an e-mail address through dsb.com, and now I'm so very pleased to tell you that I can be reached for comments, topic suggestions, questions, corrections, and offers of dates - but absolutely no demos, thanks, I can't deal with those - at zap[at]driveshaftband.com.
Anyhow.
There is one thing I know you're all going to be asking. I can hear your little voices: "What next, Zap? What next?"
I suppose we do have to move on. Somehow. I'm not certain what the plans are at the moment. I know Liam is not thinking of leaving Sydney at the moment, and I believe Pat and Sinjin were flying down there this weekend for a bit of a summit. Yes, I did say "flying". You'd think - or I would have done, at any rate - that they'd be a little reticent to just hop a plane, but apparently not, as I saw Sinjin off at the airport on Friday, and he was all smiles about the actual flight. Now, the reason for it, not so much.
I am not privy to their discussions (clearly, as I'm in London and they're not), but I know from Sinjin that there are two major questions to be answered. Do we go on? And if so, how?
Well, I can't tell you what's actually going to happen, but out of sympathy for you, because I hate not knowing myself, I'm going to share some predictions.
I know, and you all know, that there were huge rumours going around about DS getting back together. Internal tensions (surprise, surprise) were the demon keeping us from going anywhere with that immediately. Liam didn't want to, but I think Charlie had the worst case of cabin fever I've ever seen in a bloke his age, and he actually flew out to Sydney to try and talk Liam into it. He might have done it, too... if anyone could have done it, it would have been our Chaz. I did get some kind of a phone message from Ted Tallis, that Liam wanted to talk to the core crew (that's the boys themselves, plus Ted, Allene Baker, and me) about something. But that was the night Charlie's plane was meant to get back to LA, so...
God. I keep trying to finish that sentence, and I can't. I just can't. Still can't get my head around it. I wish they'd just find the damn plane and have done with it.
Obviously, the decision to go on or not is completely up to the guys. I wish I had a voice in it, just because it really is my employment future, and I don't like not knowing if I'll have a job tomorrow, but it's more personal than that, of course. I'm sure Liam will have a very firm opinion one way or the other - although what it is, I really don't know. We never discussed a situation like this. Why should we have? But I do know there was a lot of feeling that we should get the band back together, right before the crash. Maybe that will carry us on - maybe not. I don't even know what I think we should do. Any opinions, people?
I just miss Charlie. I miss him like hell. Sinjin promised me that if we do go back on the road, they'll take me, no matter who their new bassist is. If all else fails I guess I'll tech for him. But it's so hard to imagine being on stage and being tech-focused on someone who isn't Charlie. I don't know if that will make sense to anyone who's never teched, so let me explain briefly.
When you're someone's principal tech, your job consists entirely of making them feel absolutely safe on stage. You have to watch them so closely that if they break a string you know it before they do, and have a tuned guitar to hand them. You have to be able to tell at a glance exactly how they're feeling - I mind me of one dreadful evening early on in the Manchester years where Charlie was just getting over a hellish 'flu and almost passed out onstage. I saw him go white and just ran right out there with the spare guitar, pretended it was a technical issue and held him up while we swapped basses and he got his feet back under him. I took him home later that night and he told me that if I hadn't been there he'd most likely have fallen on his face. But I was there, because that's what I do.
And of course, the last while, it's been just me and him and a bunch of little pubs and little crowds, just like the old days. Maybe I'll talk more about his "tour" next month, if anyone wants to know. But I've spent so long with him, over all these years, that by now it's second nature, reading him. To have it be someone else out there, someone new... it would be strange.
Well, I'm going to stop here, before I get maudlin. But I'll keep my ear to the ground and as soon as I have any information I can release, I'll let you all know. Meanwhile, I'm taking requests... zap[at]driveshaftband.com, kiddies, let's keep me busy!
