(I'm gonna drive) 500 Miles

It’s true, I’ve done 500 miles in the last couple of days. Yesterday after a daytime of teaching and listening through the newly recorded tracks from Monday and Tuesday, I headed off down to Brighton to see Imogen Heap play again, accompanied this time just by Zoe Keating on cello. I’m really glad I got to see the duo version of the gig, as well as the full band version last week. Imogen really is one of the most engaging live performers I’ve ever seen. Fantastic stuff.

Bumped into Steve – Cathy Burton’s keyboard player – at the gig, with his fiance, and offered to give them a lift home, as their last train was only just after Imogen had started. Ended up being a v. v. long diversion, and I got home at nearly 3.

Had to be out of the house again before 9, to drive to Nottingham for a day’s teaching stuff at Broxtowe College – a load of other pro musicians and I were brought in to critique the bands, help them with arranging, rehearsing, performing etc. It was a lot of fun, and I was paired up with Kieran Pepper from The Prodigy to work with these bands together. I then finished up the day giving a quick masterclass/Q & A sesh to a group of bassists. Much enjoyment all round.

However, I very nearly didn’t make it to Nottingham. On the way up, my brakes started to make some strange grinding noises – that nasty metal-on-metal noise that means your break pads are going. By the time I’d got to Nottingham the break pads had gone completely, and the grinding noise was hanging around beyond the pedal being held down, indicating that the brakes were beginning to stick. I got the car as far as a garage (Hi-Q in Beeston, if you’re interested), and they got it up on a ramp straight away. Weirdly though, the adaptor thingie needed to undo the locking nuts on the wheels was totally threaded, and useless (a call to the lovely Rev. G revealed that this wasn’t the case last time he changed a wheel… much strangeness). A resourceful young chap in the garage was able to hammer a socket-set thingie onto the nut and remove it, so we were off again, but with the 15 minute walk from there to the college I got there about half an hour after I was intending to.

Still, they fixed the brakes, I picked up the car afterwards and paid them £128.00

So now I’m knackered, too much driving. Wanted to go and see Cathy Burton at The Half Moon this evening, but was just too tired.

SoundtrackLola Perrin, ‘Fragile Light’ (gorgeous solo piano from possible future collaborator… watch this space…)

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