You Can Play These Songs With (Three) Chords

I've been wanting to do some sort of tour diary for the ASAAR tour, because a lot funny (and some definitely not funny) things happened. My photos have been up here for a while actually, but I'll use a few to illustrate these posts.

Our trip began with a 1,5 hour wait at Copenhagen Airport as our Sterling flight was delayed. But we got to Stoke-On-Trent in time, with Pete picking us up at the station and managing to drive the six of us (!) to the venue in his sedan. The Band Stand, as it is called, is a typical rock venue (but quite nice at that) and sitting in the backyard Rebecca could've sworn we were in This Is England. The show was probably the worst of the tour, me playing a new guitar I'd never touched before, and I'm not sure the rest of the band enjoyed it as much as I did. After all, Sunny Inside is not about getting all the people in Stoke to see the bands, but doing it because it's fun - and because they can. We played to about 12 people, but they were really into it. AND of course it was good to see MJ Hibett and Horowitz again. The acoustics were great, with the wooden walls and stone floor. And great to speak to Rocker at last, mostly about the old Bristol scene. In the car back to Pete's house he told me about the plans for a Flatmates reunion, but they had to convince Debbie to sing on the new songs because Martin's vocal tracks were terrible! Martin is doing pretty well otherwise apparently, so they probably don't need the money anyway. (Can you imagine how much money there would be in a Flatmates reunion?! They'd get filthy rich, I tell you.) Rocker had seen Rodney Allen recently - he's still under 40. And The Rosehips... both Rocker and Pete were in The Rosehips. The thing I like most about The Rosehips is that on their second single, not only the lyrics but the chords are written down. Complete with pedagogic illustrations of the chord shapes. All of Horowitz' songs are just bar chords, I learned. Ian's still a better guitar player than me though! It was very nice to talk to Ian the morning after, over some acoustic noodling. About songwriting, the real message of "Popkids of the World Unite", a new Horowitz tune that I felt honoured to hear (and even more that Ian wanted my opinion on it!). The enthusiasm easily rubs of and I thought it was an amazing 24 hours. Great people to hang out with and a nice and quiet warm-up gig.

Not to mention all the POP stuff I was given. Like the Rosehips comp on Secret that's only five years old but still impossible to find. And a cdr of demos! A few were never properly recorded, so here's a lost treasure for you.

CLOUD 58 The Rosehips - Cracked It (demo)