(Soundtrack: Public Image Ltd “Public Image”, Ramones “Ramones”)
September was a relatively busy month for the band. We did a tour of Germany and then our “A Week Away” show at the ICA. Germany went well, with all but one of the gigs being very good. The one that was less good was our fault for attempting something inappropriate in a town we hadn’t played in before. We started out in Freiburg which is always very welcoming thanks to the continuing support of our friend Papa Chico who promotes the shows there and is a top gent. This was Neil’s 100th Spearmint gig. I find that very hard to believe. I find it surprising that we have even played 100 gigs, let alone that anyone would go to them. Neil now comes along and drives the van for us. This seems more sensible than him making his own way behind in his car.
So we wanted to get Neil something to celebrate the occasion. But what do you get someone who literally has everything to do with the band already? We toyed with the idea of a gold disc, but the answer eventually seemed obvious: more Spearmint songs. So we gave Neil three songs which are exclusive to him: “A Large Grey Cat” which is about being solely indoors, “Bachelor Gardens”, about I flat I shared with my friend Graham while we were on the dole in Newcastle, and “Cocker” which concerns being bothered, hounded, tormented, well, stalked by a celebrity.
We also gave him a 100 Gigs Of Neil t-shirt and some rare promos. He seemed chuffed and it was our pleasure, as he has been wonderfully encouraging. If you come to 100 gigs then we will give you some songs too. I don’t think I have seen anyone live more than ten times, so a hundred is devotion indeed.
There were some issues with the German shows that ultimately were my fault. The gigs was originally booked earlier in the year by our German promoter, as a Shirley Lee tour. I am not sure I made it clear then that it would be the whole band playing. So some of the fees were low, and we were booked into some inappropriate places for a full band to play. Also by the time the tour came round, it was more of a Speamint show than Shirley Lee. It was still good, it just meant that the money wasn’t great, and in the extreme case of Hamburg, we were booked into a bar with no PA or monitors. This was compounded by the fact that the venue we were originally booked into closed down so this bar was confirmed late, but not really advertised. So we had no PA and virtually no crowd. And of course, this turned out to be the best show – there is something about being up against it that always makes you pull out your best, and this one was really special. Thanks to Margaret and Ali, who got married the day we DJd in Brixton and came along to that, then were really supportive at the Hamburg gig and the ICA too.
The hotels and hostels we were booked into in Germany seemed to be exercises in how many people you can get into one room at one time. I have had enough of bunk beds and Ronan parading around nude at 5am to last me for a while. In one hostel you don’t get towels, you sleep in your sheets, then use them as towels. This seemed daft to me, but actually worked well, and is pretty sound if you think about it. The drives were slightly less punishing than usual, and we did a pretty good job of eating well and not drinking too much, and not getting ill.
I loved the ICA gig, it went pretty much exactly as had hoped. The crowd were lovely and it was great to see some people we hadn’t seen for yonks, including JB, who produced the “A Week Away” album – he was on fine form. It all went by very quickly, and before we knew it we were loading the gear back into the lock-up in Shepherds Bush.
We are not planning any shows to do “A Week Away” live again, but it does seem a shame to only play it the once. I really like playing the whole album as one piece. Most of our albums were designed that way anyway, so it feels right to play them live like that.
After the gig, Bridie and I slipped away to Cornwall for a week’s holiday, which was fabulous. We stayed in Carbis Bay and spent the week walking the coastal path and beautiful beaches, watching movies, cooking, eating out and drinking plenty. That is said Bridie in the photo an said beach. It was so nice that I am now feeling depressed at the prospect of work tomorrow. London was a bit of a shock to the system too. While we were away we watched one of those crime shows where they follow two policemen round a borough, in this instance our borough. There were all kinds of awful things going on, and we kept recognizing them as being on our street. It solved the puzzle of exactly what happens in the cafe down the road. Made the area look really dangerous. Of course we just cruise through it all, oblivious, as you do in London. We went to the local pub last night and there must have been ten police cars and vans all speeding up and down the street for ages in pursuit of somebody. We wouldn’t normally comment on it, but it was just such a contrast after the peace of Carbis Bay.
I am listening to the first Public Image album. I was reminded of it as they are doing thirty year anniversary live shows of the Metal Box, which is an amazing album. I have always been a big admirer of those first three albums, they are so bold and fearless, and Lydon’s lyrics are dazzling.
No more band activity for a while. I am looking forward to getting on with writing the next album, which is always the most exciting thing for me. Am trying to get the guys together this week to have a beer and do our regular Pop Wishes thing, where we see how we have measured up to our last set of wishes (about two years ago), and set out some new ones for the year ahead. I need to do some rounding up to get those boys in the same place at the same time. Rounding up; that’s what you do if you form a band, spend your days rounding up.
Best of all, Bridie and I are off to see Cliff and the Shadows next week – how good is that?

(Soundtrack: Elvis Costello “King Of America”, Elvis Costello “Blood And Chocolate”)
It is now bordering on autumn. I just wandered up to Acton to get some vegetables and as it is quite windy there are conkers all over the pavements. Quite good large ones actually. I am not complaining; I love autumn, it’s just that the seasons seem to come round faster and faster as time goes on. Those seemingly endless summers of childhood are long gone, and were pretty boring at times anyway… Just part of getting older I guess. There are probably paintings cavemen did bemoaning how quickly the seasons pass now. There are still random hot days at the moment and I keep seeing dead bumble bees on the ground, which has been a feature this year.
When I walk through to work in the morning I cut through a little park where there is normally a group of dogs being exercised. One of them I call “tall dog”. I don’t know what make he is, but he is whippet-like, except a lot taller. No matter what commotion all the rest of the dogs are creating, this guy just stands there, tangential to the group, staring into the distance. He is completely oblivious and imperious. The others have given up trying to get him to join in and play; he is impervious to everything. His attitude strikes a chord with me – he is my favourite and it cheers me up to see him.
Bridie and I were trying to figure out where all the male ducks have gone. They are the ones with the bright green / blue necks. I came up with the theory that the males stay here for spring in order to mate and have kids, then in the late summer fly off to a country where it is spring again. Bridie got to the truth of it though – they are still there, they just shed their bright plumage so that they look very much like the females. The green / blue will gradually re-appear over coming months.
As I write this Bridie is talking to Nic Roeg – how cool is that?
We went to see “(500) Days Of Summer” the other night with Jim and Andy. Neil and Cheryl came along too, but Si and Arn couldn’t make it: moving house and lack of childcare being the reasons. So we sat there eagerly awaiting the Spearmint dialogue to appear. I had pretty much decided that it had been edited out as it doesn’t come until three quarters of the way through. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character says “It pains me to live in a world where no-one has ever heard of Spearmint”. Zooey Deschanel’s character says she hasn’t heard of them… Gordon explains that he put them on the mix CD he gave her, in fact they (us) were the first track. It was a bit surreal seeing this on the big screen at Odeon Marble Arch. I thought maybe we would give a rousing cheer, but we just shifted about a bit. Jim raised his arms slightly, in celebration.
I got a mail from a chap called Michael Leibowitz in the States explaining that the writer of the movie is a friend of his and a big fan of the band, his favourite song being “The Beautiful Things” (cool choice).The best thing is that it is a really good film and some aspects (the dance routine, the split screen, the animation, the numbered days) make it a bit of a classic romantic comedy.
Which brings me back to how many great movies are being released at the moment. In fact they are coming too thick and fast to keep up with. We went to “Inglourious Basterds” and absolutely adored it. Same goes for “Funny People”. Again these are films that have attracted bad reviews – further proof to disregard critics.
How on earth did Costello make these two albums in the same year? I am awed…
Jim really poured heart and soul into getting the artwork finished for the special edition of “A Week Away”. The booklet is lovely, but I think it took a toll on him, with trying to keep things going at home, the day job, our rehearsals and a gig for his own band Telley all falling in the same week. He hasn’t been the same since in fact. So I am trying to divert band work to other people and keep it away from him for the moment. We are heading over to Germany next week to do some shows. These things are always booked way in advance, then suddenly they are upon you and there is no time to get ready or rehearsed, all a bit stressful.
We have been learning to play “A Week Away” live, and have even figured out what most of the chords are. These days when I finish a song I write out the lyrics in my book, and include the chords too. But ten years ago, I used to just write the lyrics, thinking “”of course I will remember these chords”. Then coming to the songs ten years later I really struggled on a couple. It’s not just knowing that it is an “A”, it is more exactly how you played that “A”. So I recommend you always make a note of such things. We are pretty much there now on understanding what it is we should be playing; we just need to find a way of actually playing it. We had a good rehearsal on Saturday, then an awful one on Tuesday. Par for the course.
After watching “(500) Days Of Summer”, we went and DJd at Ian Watson’s lovely, enduring clubnight “How Does It Feel To Be Loved”. We had a top time, I even enjoyed the DJing, which I sometimes don’t. Got very drunk. Jim sensibly left early as he has so much going on, but then spent hours getting home on the night buses. Andy was on good form and it would be nice to do it again sometime.
I have been a good boy and putting aside time for writing over the last few weeks to work on what looks at this early stage to become a big sprawling Shirley Lee album. Which probably means it wil be a concise Spearmint album. We shall see.
The photo is of a pavement in San Francisco. Some chap was telling us who the artist is, but we were drunk so I can’t remember the name.

(Soundtrack: Television “Marquee Moon”, Gladys Knight “Anthology”)
We had a few days in Oslo last week. I bought Bridie tickets to Madonna there for her birthday, which was back in February. I bought the tickets from a site called Smart Hospitality, not thinking too much of it as it was for an overseas gig. I got an email and postal confirmation from them stating that they would not dispatch tickets until a week before the gig. So I didn’t start chasing them until then. First of all I emailed, but the mails bounced back. Then I tried to ring, and realised the company no longer existed, if it ever had. I found a website where lots of people were saying that they had been conned out of money by this company for tickets to Blur, Springsteen, the Grand Prix etc.
I never thought I would get conned like that – I always thought that was something that happened to other people.
So we did our best to get tickets via other sites, ebay, but to no avail. Tried contacts in the industry but no joy there either. We then had a few days of deciding whether to go to Oslo or not, whether to just treat it as a sign, and spend the money here instead. Eventually we decided to go as we both wanted to see Oslo anyway. Then when we got there we were in two minds whether or not to go along and try and get into the gig or to not risk the disappointment. We decided to give it a go and were delighted to get tickets at face value at the tube station. First and hopefully the last time I have ever bought tickets from a tout.
As we walked up towards the stadium the heavens opened and we were treated to the biggest storm I have been outside in for years: thunder, lightning and driving rain. Pretty soon there were rivers of water running down the pavements as we got shoved along by the crowd. By the time we got near the gates we were standing in a mud bath. We were not dressed for this at all. There was a lot of confusion as the gate numbers were not visible. We found ourselves standing in deep mud in a crowd who insisted on shoving forward even though nobody was moving inside – it was horrible. After twenty minutes of that we had had enough and headed back to the tube just to get away from the crowds and mud.
Can you believe that we were then back at the tube trying to sell the tickets after all the palaver to get them? Shirley Lee, ticket tout.
Mercifully we did not sell them and after fifteen minutes we made our way back to the stadium. People were now going in through the gates so we went in and watched the show. It was a concrete floor inside and it was still pouring down .We watched the gig standing in about six inches of standing water. We were completely wet through. It felt like a northern premier league football match, everyone around us looking miserable.
Thankfully the show was great, a proper show that only Madonna can really do. Jackson used to, I suppose Kylie can do it too. I don’t just mean great lights, I mean a full-on show, and we managed to dance, splashing around So it all worked well in the end. It was fabulous to get out of the wet clothes back at the apartment, and luckily the bar on the corner opens until 3am so we had a few drinks after too.
Oslo is lovely, but those drinks are expensive! And the food too. I have always taken the stance that after living in London no other city can seem expensive, and that held true in Tokyo and Reykjavik etc, but Oslo is shocking. All food, drink, clothes and records are two to three times as expensive as London. So ironically we spent less than usual as we had to be so careful.
There is an excellent Film museum there and we spent time in there watching a festival of short film, which was fab. The photo is from the museum, it is a recreation of one of a huge number of sculptures by Vigeland in Vigeland Park. There is loads to see, with really interesting Resistance and Modern Art Museums as well as the obvious attractions along the fjord.
Gladys Knight is under-rated isn’t she… I am listening to a double-album anthology, which is a bit of a strange selection actually, but she sounds great. She has a truly distinctive voice, nobody else like her. The double album is funny: side 3 is on the reverse on side 1 and side 4 is on the flip of side 2, which always confuses me. I have a few soul double albums like that. I think the idea was that you could have twin decks set up and go straight from side 1 to side 2 without having to turn any record over.
I have been doing a bit of reading: “Conversations With Woody Allen” which is the best book about film-making I have read, and “Renegade” by Mark E Smith, which I couldn’t put down. It really does capture how relentlessly hard and lonely it is to have a vision and stick to it. I don’t have a fingernail of his brilliance, but I really identified with the book. He has such sound views on a lot of things too. I also tried a science fiction novel: “Snowcrash” by Neal Stephenson, which I quite enjoyed, but was not exactly what I was looking for. I used to read Sci-Fi as a boy and stopped in my teens. Recently I have had a hankering for it again. It is strange to read Sci-Fi written in the 90s which still manages to completely under-estimate the present day reality of the internet. I am currently on “Greenmantle” by John Buchan which is a sequel to “The Thirty-Nine Steps” and a rip-roaring read, all travelling under-cover across Europe in the snow during World War One.
We caught another killer film last week: “Orphan”, which is a mainstream Horror, that is just done brilliantly and is exceptionally entertaining. “Mesrine” is also fab, classic gangster movie-making. Great films just keep coming, from all quarters. I know from work that the market experts were predicting a bad year for cinema as in recession people would want to save money and watch DVDs or play games instead. In fact the opposite has happened this year: cinema is well up on 2008, which was huge anyway, and home entertainment is having a tough time. I suppose a night at the cinema is relatively cheap escapism… but maybe the main reason is just that there are so many great movies around.
I moved down to three days a week at work at the start of this month, but after a couple of very stressful weeks, I have moved back to four days, as there is too much work on at the moment. Even one day a week will give me impetus to move forward with writing though. Am in the mood to get on with the next album now…