Articles
Twelve-Bar
Blues
September 2005
Stringing Me Along
April 2005
Pace's Folly
December 2004
Changes
November 2004
Pacing Myself
October 2004
Zappily Ever After
August 2004
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Twelve-Bar Blues
September
2005
Never, ever, take a road trip with Sinjin. That is
all I have to say.
Unless perchance you enjoy endless chaos, upheaval,
loss (and only occasional retrieval) of important belongings and documents, no
sleep at all, and a near-constant hangover compounded by incipient
total hearing loss.
If that is your sort of thing, though, I highly advise you to
contact
me immediately. I may very well have the job opportunity of your
dreams.
Of course there were extenuating circumstances - aren't there
always? See, whereas I've spent most of the year quietly, at home, being
what
Sinjin so lovingly termed "an utter fucking drag and a bloody hermit
besides" (one can always count on Sinjin's delicacy and tact), he
believes himself to have been a productive member of society because
he's written yet another concept album.
Sadly, due to certain
important differences between his definition of "productive" and his
bank's, he lacked the funds to actually record it. So what does one
do
when one has a perfectly good album and no studio? One wakes one's
long-suffering best mate and former designated chief miracle worker
to
announce that one is going on tour, and one was planning to leave
tomorrow at noon so one's roadie had better be ready by the time one
arrives to collect him.
After all, he reminded me sagely, it wasn't as though I had anything
else to do, now was it.
It is difficult to resist Sinjin's plans, however mad, for much the
same reason it is difficult to stop a speeding freight train by
getting hold of the back end and pulling very hard: no matter how
you
dig in your feet, eventually you're just going to get dragged along.
You're probably all thinking by now that I detest Sinjin, aren't
you?
Well, much as that sentiment was voiced that night and many of the
nights which followed it, I don't. He's my old chum and we've done
more batty things together than I've done with anyone else, so one
does get used to it, in a way. Besides, to be absolutely honest and
fair, there was a certain attraction in getting out of my house and
actually having something to do besides repairing guitars that some
teenager has smashed up. It's rather a depressing job, some days,
actually - you wake up to a workbench full of bits of wood; by the
time you turn in for the night, the bits may or may not function as
a
unit again, but sooner or later they usually do; and within a
fortnight there's the same guitar sitting waiting for you again,
only
in different bits. It makes up for being depressing by also being
very
good money, but it lacks excitement... and if there's one thing a
road
trip with Sinjin is guaranteed to deliver, it's all the excitement I
can handle, and then some. Anyroad, I reasoned, it would just be
another living-in-a-van stint, like Charlie's last wee tour. How
hard
could it be?
Imagine my surprise, therefore, when the first thing Sinjin says to
me
the next morning is not "Hello", but "Got your passport, then?" It
seemed he'd found an agent who had found a promoter who had found
some
clubs and studios that were looking for a guitarist, and by this
process of Lost and Found it was eventually resolved that Sinjin
would
spend a month or so jamming all over the States, some session, some solo. The promoter, after some bargaining, had been willing to front
Sinjin just about enough to cover two tickets and a rental car.
Naturally, Sinjin had neglected to mention any of this to me - I
mean
really, how could I expect him to remember something like that at
2am?
He'd told me the really important bits, anyhow, hadn't he?
Luckily for my sanity, I did indeed have a valid passport, and I
knew
where it was, which put me a good two steps ahead of Sinjin until I
located it for him, stuffed down the inside of his guitar case. I am
not sure whether it is sadder that he would put it there, or that it
would be only the second place I thought to look. So it was off to
the
airport with us, over the Atlantic in just enough time to bore us
all
to sleep with two truly crap movies (I'm sure this is how airlines
deal with nervous Transatlantic travelers - if you can just put them
to sleep, they'll stay right out of your hair the whole flight. They
may have nightmares about Kevin Bacon eating their brains, but it's
such a small price to pay...).
We landed in Atlanta on the following morning. The heat in the South
bears a certain resemblance to the Spanish Inquisition - it jumps
from
behind doors straight at you, and no-one English or raised in
England
ever expects it. It did get a bit better though, as at least in the
South they are very liberal with the air-conditioning. Of course the
studios were all on A/C, and many of the clubs were as well. Not
all,
though. I do not highly recommend the experience of trying to play
with a guitar that is used to the temperature and humidity of
southern
England while in a place that closely resembles my church vicar's
description of Hell. All I shall say is, it kept me very busy
indeed.
We did Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana in two weeks -
Sinjin was trying to find out last week if the little place we
played
in New Orleans is still standing. We've had good reports. From there
we had a few days' grace before the next collection of dates in the
Southwest - but why am I giving you a tour itinerary? Because I'm
dull, naturally, and because when one's chiefest concern is where we
were meant to wake up the next morning, it's understandable that
what
stands out most in my mind is the insane amount of night-time
driving
that I was required to do, and the peculiarly vibrant colours of
road
signs in high-beam headlights. If you asked Sinjin, I'm certain
you'd
get a whole different story.
For example, Sinjin would be sure to mention the night in Miami
where
he decided to go along with a bunch of his new mates from the studio
and do what they called "The Bluesman's Pub Crawl" - it's twelve
bars,
you see. Only he would be talking about the ladies and the drinks
and
the terrific time he had, while I might be more likely to mention
sitting in a cheap motel room in a city I'd only ever been to twice
before, wondering where in the hell my guitarist had gone, and his
subsequent arrival at an impossible hour, heroically drunk and
wearing
only a pink feather boa, a pair of satin knickers, and a quantity of
glittery purple lipstick, most of which was not on his lips. On
second
thought, Sinjin might not talk about that night - I wouldn't wager a
tenner on whether he even remembers it...
Or he might talk about the concert he played in Chicago. Now there,
my
friends, is a fun city. We had a great audience that night, despite
the fact that probably three people in the audience had ever even
heard of him, but it didn't matter, because he was absolutely on
fire
and the crowd loved it - so much so that they began crowd-surfing.
Sinjin, never one to pass up an opportunity to break his neck,
promptly vaulted off the stage, guitar in tow, to join in. By the
mercy of whichever saint it is that protects idiot guitarists, they
caught him. Our dear Sinjin is a tad on the scrawny side, though,
and
they realised it right away: they threw him back. I called him
"Catch
And Release" for three days afterwards.
Yeah, it was a lively trip, no doubt of that. Thankfully, it ended
just shortly before I would have felt forced to schedule Sinjin a
private gig at the Betty Ford. I don't know if he actually made any
money out of the whole affair - he might have done. That wasn't
really
the point, though. I've heard rumours that he wants to do it again,
only this time in Europe and with a band. Get the old name out
there,
like.
After all, it's been a year now. Hard to believe, but there it is -
it'll be a whole year this week. And at this point, we
have to
look at moving on a little. Getting our lives back together,
throwing
off the mourning veil, all that sort of thing. I mean, it wasn't
just
us four, me and Sinjin and Liam and Pat, that lost someone. It was
anyone who loved anyone who was on that flight. We owe it to them,
to all the ones who disappeared, to remember them - but to end
grieving for them. Charlie wouldn't have wanted us to be sad
forever. It doesn't mean it's not hard, some days, to look around
the house that
is now mine, but used to be his - to see his guitars, his things,
kept
up just as he would have liked (better, even, as I was always a more
exacting housekeeper). It is. But you know, if Charlie came back
tomorrow and saw us all, the way we are, I'd want him to be happy.
And he was never happy if I wasn't. He'd do his best to cheer me up,
to get me through whatever was on my mind, so harmony could be
restored. And I've always said, right from the beginning, that
for me the biggest part of dealing with Charlie being gone is
filling his shoes,
doing the good things that he would have done if he were here to do
them. I guess it was hard to see that I was missing the first step,
the biggest step, in the process.
We're going to have a wake tomorrow, Sinjin and I and maybe Pat, or
Shaggy, or any of the old crew who happen to be around. The plan is
to get drunk, play a lot of music very loudly, talk about and
possibly
re-enact the fun we've had together, laugh until our ribs hurt and
we're too weak to sit up, and just generally have a good time.
Because if Charlie were here, that's what he'd be doing.
I'm going to step away from my role as Good Old Responsible Zap
here, and encourage all of you to do the same. Don't feel sad. Don't
be in pain. There is enough pain in the world without adding to it.
You can stop singing the blues. Have a good big party with your best
mates, and feel alive.
Because we are alive. We just have to remember that.
Cheers.
zap[at]driveshaftband.com

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