I’m back at home in Somerset, it is English Summertime... and its raining. That two months we spent touring the USA seem as far away as the warm sunshine of L.A that I left behind four weeks ago. So I’ve got time to reflect on the stories of that tour and the adventures we had. This is the story of one special day from my diary.............

fade in...

I’m sitting gazing out at perfect woods, glades, picturesque little houses and  rolling hills on a perfect Tennessee spring day. Its still surprisingly chilly. Us English people think anywhere south of New York in the USA is gonna be Florida sunbaked warm... but no matter, I just picked up a second tray of delicious barbecued food from the generous kitchens because the pork was too good. Even Mj is tucking in to an admittedly pork free veggy version. They are serving home made lemonade. Everyone is relaxed in the soft afternoon sun.

Life on the road feels really good today.

Richard Archer from Hard-Fi , his guitarist Ross and the rest of his genial crew are similarly engaged, all laughing and joking, taking in the view. We’re all sitting on the terrace of a huge open wooden Chalet ..we could be in Disneyland waiting to introduce the kids to the mouse one if it wasn’t for the fact that the birdsong is repeatedly ripped apart by someone playing a note perfect Hendrix riff with that confidence that all American guitar techs have.

Our Guitar tech whose his first name “Phil” is the same as our tour manager had already got used to us saying “oh yes he’s called Phil as well”, which after the first days of this USA tour got shortened to the individual moniker “Aswell” . Everyone on Rock tours needs a single name callsign, makes things work. Actually in my Generation X days common named persons would always get digital increments to clearly identify them, such as a series of girlfriends known with absolute clarity as Debbie 1, Debbie 2 and Debbie 3. Ahh whatever happened to Debbie 4? Married an Estate Agent I heard and left the Life. Thats what you get for dating a drummer.

Ok and the other clue to our woodland hideaway is a huge sign that kinda gives the game away. It says quite honestly “Jack Daniels Distillary”.

Six months before we were sitting at London’s Dockland O2 center with our manager Clive Banks. I wasn’t feeling particularly great because although The O2 center is a great purpose built venue it’s just .....soulless. Its like playing a gig in a shopping Mall. When I first went there I was thinking, well OK this at least is a proper venue, good sound system, nice dressing rooms, proper stage and lighting but when you step back it seems like here is a Rock mall designed to take every last Pound/Dollar off the hapless punter from overpriced identikit restaurants (You almost can’t hear the bands from dinging of Microwave cookers) to the expensive car park...its like Brandland - at a serious cost. Maybe I’m being too harsh? I wonder if people really like going there... Anyway Clive with typical understated humor looked at us all serious and said “I’ve got a bit of a difficult gig request here and wanted to see If you wanted to do it as I’m not  sure its something you might be interested in... Its a Gig at the Jack Daniels factory. Er .....

Now I’ve been a lifelong devotee of this particular beverage, knowing from and early impressionable age here was the elixir of Rock and Roll..I guess it was all those photos of Keith Richards clutching the distinctive bottle.. yes the Jack, well it just  WORKS if you’re a guitarist in a Rock and Roll band. I must have sipped a few at every show I’ve ever played during the last 30 years. A glass of Jack before you go on and you’re ready. I always used to drink it with Coke in the “Jack and coke” days but this has dangers. How many times have I staggered into a hotel lobby trying to wipe something off my cheek and realising it was the floor? crawled across the carpet, sobbing never again. Once in a northern England hotel I was trying to call an ambulance but was unable to reach the telephone as the only part of my body still conscious was my forehead but someone was stabbing that with the spear of Satan laughing as he sprinkled my stomach lining and lower intestines over the bathroom floor. I love this drink. All of life’s pleasurable pursuits come with a payment for over pleasure usage. As you get older you learn moderation, experience brings learning. I now drink it with ice, or just with water. Moderation, sometimes. There’s still nothing like cracking a fresh bottle and watching the amber liquid rattle into a clean glass. Only took me 30 years to learn this. Today I was to find out why this keeps a killer hangover at bay.

But back at the O2 center it took me 2 heartbeats to say “yes call them now and say yes.. please Clive” and to quickly scan the room for a blunt instrument to put inside a sock so as I could bludgen Mj should he show any signs of doubt. I needed the sock - we were just about to go on stage and bloodied fresh bruises would just not do.

Even better the gig would involve a tour of the factory a “tasting” (are they kidding?) and a performance with, of all the groups they could have picked, Hard-Fi.

The gig was also on April 12th - my birthday.

The day proper started with a talk by the ‘Master Brewer’. There have only been 7 master brewers in the lifetime of Jack (lets just call it Jack from now on shall we, with a capital ‘J’..actually there are only 3  Jacks I’m interested in, Jack White, Jack Daniels and Jack Bauer from 24...but I digress...all right and the movie ‘One Eyed Jacks’). The master brewer explained how the whiskey is made in fine detail from the spring water to the home grown corn they grow locally to making and smoking the barrels themselves. They own thousands of acres around the factory and make sure nothing on the land can pollute the water table because the factory is sited at the opening of an underground stream and it’s this pure water which is still used to this day as the basis of the drink...

We all sat there in raptured silence, Mj and I in the front seats watching the 6 little tasting glasses placed tantalisingly in front of each of us. One of the most enlightening things I found out was that when you mix it with Coke the sugar in the coke reacts to cause the hangover effect! Why had no one at school told us this along with the facts of life? He told all these stories in a jovial but evangelical way from someone truly touched by the hand of Jack. Finally we were supposed to sip a taste then clear our paletes with water. I noticed out of the corner of my eye Mj had already drained the first taster glass, tongue cleaning the little tumbler to show room condition again so I followed suit. We both knew why.

We had spent the night before in Nashville. We’d done the Nashville thing, walked the Broadway in the afternoon dropping in to several bars and seeing authentic Country boys playing great Country music and finishing the late evening drunk and having the most superb side of Ribs in the classic strip takeaway called  Jacks Ribs Barbecue...(shit, OK 5 Jacks I like now!) You eat a side of Ribs, fried beans, corn and coleslaw out of a polestyrene container that tasted as good as any celebrity chef meal I’ve ever eaten. I’m telling you all this because everyone we met on hearing that we were going to Tennesee told us the enigma of the “Dry State phenomena” - Irony of Ironies - The Jack Daniels Distilliary is in a state where you CANNOT BUY DRINK. No I am not kidding. So everyone said, we wouldn’t be able to drink alcohol there. You cannot walk into a bar and buy a drink. I kept thinking they were having us gullible Brits on, but again at breakfast today  we met another man who told us the same thing. We were going to the factory where they make the stuff but we wouldn’t be able to drink it!

Hence draining the sample glasses like condemned men - could be the last Jack (well apart from the 3 million gallons stored just up the hill ) that we would see all day. oh yes and someone also explained something I did not know - that a mule is a donkey crossed with a horse and they cannot reproduce! Can’t get pissed in Tennessee and Mules don’t have kids. Enlightenment day.

The tasting continued explaining the difference between the Jack brands from Gentleman Jack to the regular. We made sure we fully tasted each just to make sure we were clear on these essential differences.

We finally left the Master Distillers Jack tasting room already feeling a little ..unstable, but hey, its a dry state. Out into the sun before the actual factory “Tour”. Would we like a little drink before we set off. A man was dispensing from a giant magnum of Jack. Sensing we were about to be “punked” we decided on two large ones before spending the night in the Cells. Things were looking pretty good already.

We then set off on the factory tour. Now if Disney could have designed and built a more fairytale “factory’ from the amazing corn Vats to the barrelling plant I’d like to see it.  They even had Mr Jack Daniels original office, still intact with the original safe in the corner. The story has it that one day the dimuntive Mr Daniels (he was just over 5 feet tall- thats a scale model of him in the opening picture...), not being able to open his safe had kicked it in frustration - gangreen ensued, but he was too embarassed to tell anyone, and eventually they had to remove his leg, then more. That simple safe kick eventually killed the Master Brewer number one, inventor of Jack Daniels whiskey. But not before had passed on the secret which lives today in Brewer number 7.

True story.

Finally we were ushered into the ultimate inner sanctum. You could purchase your own barrel..... brewed especially for you. A name plate added to the wall of Jack celebrity and your own barrel shipped to your home anywhere in the world. The nameplates filled the walls glinting as my eyes glazed over as I realized here in this room  was the heaven I had searched for. Penelope finally managed to drag me out, my fingernails scarring the floor forever. Well at least I had left my mark.

Next I found myself sound checking. All around me in the evening light  men in Jack Livery were silently setting up stalls at the gig..... with hundreds of bottles of ........Jack. Hell, better get a drink in before I wake up from this dream.

The wooden Chalet had been turned into the nightime venue for what was called the “Jack Daniels Legendary Mash”. Well I was feeling pretty mashed already so was perfectly in the spirit to play a great show. The form was that we Carbon/Silicon would play a short set followed by a short set from Hard-Fi and then in the tradition the two bands would play some songs together. Tonight for the special occasion we would have both drummers, both bass players, guitarists and MJ, Me and Richard perform “Why do men Fight” “Stars of CCTV” the old BAD song E=MC2 and finally MJ would step up for a massed rendition of “Should I stay or should I go?”.

Oh did I mention the whole event was played in front of 200 journalists from 50 countries and live webcast to all those countries.

No extra pressure at all for a man now fully testing those Tennesee “Dry State” laws to the limit.

Somewhere in the haze of our set I remember MJ telling the audience that it was my birthday.. and to mark this special occasion he had bought me a..you guessed it? A whole Barrel of Jack Daniels to be shipped home to Somerset,  with my name on the wall of barrel fame!! Thats 250 bottles in one of those barrels - a lifetime supply. What did they say in Scarface? “don’t get high on your own supply?"  I intend to...

Sometimes Micks generosity astounds me.

He then lead the whole audience in a rousing chorus “Happy Birthday Tj”. Quite surreal seeing an NME journo singing along with all the others and I was given a barrel lid to be going on with. We both hugged on 33 years of friendship.

The rest of the night?

I have no idea.

Can you wish for what you want?  Does it sometimes come true if you wish hard enough?

Way back in 1975 I’d just left Brunel University with a first class degree in maths and computers..... and also just met Mj ...I already knew that normal world was not for me - I had a bass guitar. To make matters much worse and to the extreme disappointment of my parents who were still hoping I would become head of IBM, I decided to further a career in coolness by following certain rules laid down in Jack Kerouac’s book ‘On the road’ by trying to pursue a temporary lifestyle in his ‘Sal Paradise’ character vein. Flatbed railroad truck riding was out in 70s London but a cool car parking job was a definite possibility, so following my first summer off spent laying around playing guitar, I got a job delivering, collecting and parking cars at a local auction house.  I adopted the requisite outfit of leather jacket, jeans and shades, one arm nonchalantly placed on a wound down window. I travelled all over London delivering.

There was one particular place I had to deliver cars to nearly every week- it was to a tiny garage business in a busy little street called ‘Pindock Mews’. It was in an area of London called “Little Venice” because of the canals that passed through it.  (If you’ve ever seen the 50s film ‘the Blue Lamp’ or the 70s film ‘The Omen’ - that’s Little Venice around the canal).

I had always read about these romantic corners of London - Mews’s were the small cobbled streets behind London’s grand mansions where they used to stable horses and carriages. They were all pretty much alike with a big area on the ground floor for the horses and a open plan living space above. They had all been converted now, with the horses and straw long gone, to become big 6 car garages with cute living accommodation above. People seemed to care about living in these places -  there were trees and flowers in pots outside, the old openings on the first floor where the hay would be delivered still opened, it was like being in old London in the heart of the modern city - to me they seemed like fairytale places to live

Mews houses were also very cool. Mrs Peel in the cult TV series the Avengers lived in one. Christeen Keeler in the Profumo scandal lived in a Mews house, in fact many, many cool literary and TV show characters lived in London Mews houses. And I wanted desperately to live in a Mews house. Perfect for rock stars. (.....well future rock stars).

Week after week I delivered cars to Pindock mews, parking them in the garage below, being cool. A man called George owned the garage. Every time I would fantasize about living there, gazing up at the flat above, wishing, imagining.... wanting it to be me. I became to know George quite well - I’d like to live here I told him.

Roll forward to 1980,a lot of car deliveries and a lot of bass guitar practice later, the Sal Paradise fantasy has been replaced by ‘bass player in a band’ reality. I was in Generation X making the ‘Kiss me Deadly’ album, our third. I had also started going out with an amazing girl called “Magenta DeVine” who was 6 feet tall, beautiful, with a sculpted ivory face, huge red lips (think Hilary Swank) and bobbed black hair.  Also she wore dark glasses all the time when no one else was doing that.  She was extraordinary looking and incredibly cool and she also had one of those perfect plummy English pony club girls from the shires type accents (think Four Weddings and a Funeral).  Magenta was the type of girl that boys born in Shepherds Bush fantasize about. She was a music publicist working for a famous agency called Tony Brainsby publicity (and later became presenter of the BBC2/PBS TV travel show  “Rough Guides”). She was to become a very important part of my life, much more than I realized during in those early days of our relationship.

In all my early days of being in bands, I had always shared a place with Mj, from the first days of London SS when we had lived at his Gran’s house on the 22nd floor of the famous tower block (see: Clash  mythology - overlooking the Westway) to sharing a flat in Westbourne Grove (Now that’s another tale - living the dream!).  Anyway things had progressed through different girlfriends till finally in classic rock guitarist fashion.... I moved in with my girlfriend - Magenta.

Well Magenta, some years before I met her, had bought the lease for a place, (incredible when I think back now) from a manager called Malcolm McLaren, who had installed it’s former tenant Sid Vicious there, bass player extraordinaire of the Sex Pistols.  Sid with customary flair and imagination for colour had painted all the walls a lovely Black... some of those classic Sid and Nancy photos were taken there. This was a house that already had rock and roll history.

And so I embarked on the next era of my life, the living with Magenta years.  And what extraordinary years they were too - Johnny Thunders stayed there, Jerry Nolan stayed there, Steve Jones stayed there, Stiv Bators stayed there and many many others as the next chapters of my life unfolded - all of them staying in the little second bedroom.

The soundtrack album to Taxi Driver seemed to play on rotation those early days as I gazed out of the front window in the sunshine, looking up and down the little street where I now lived, loving being there.

Magenta and I spent the next 7 years together in her wonderful Mews house.

And do you know what.  It was that very same house in Pindock Mews, Little Venice, London.... where I used to park all the cars and wish so hard that I lived there.  And George still rented the garage space below, he didn’t even seem surprised when I moved in.  And me?  Well I had found the first home I had ever wished for.  So yeah,  life has taught me again and again that you should put your wishes out there, think them through and speak them out - I’m constantly amazed at how often I’ve been given what I asked for - good and bad.....

There are a hundred more stories to come from Pindock Mews too - it’s only now I realize what punk history was to be lived in those four walls...

How do we get around America - a country so vast that all of England would fit in its back pocket? In The Tour Bus. And being the USA, they do Tour Bus like no one else..... bigger, better, smoother, fully loaded with every conceivable modern comfort.. a gliding palace that takes us through the night along vast freeways from city to city. One night you’re in Boston and you wake up in..........anywhere.

I thought I’d take time out to describe this journey, as we travel around the USA from gig to gig.   It’s 5 weeks in now and everything is starting to blur as I try to remember individual hotels and journeys.... a W hotel there, with its amazing, futuristic lobby  in Atlanta, The gorgeous Rivington Hotel in New York, up on the 19th floor, with its floor to ceiling windows and view of 3 bridges, with traffic streaming towards us day and night like a toy cars with headlights on, far down below us and the Art Deco glamour of the Palace Hotel in Cincinnatti, unchanged for over 70 years with its amazing ballroom and marble halls.....

But through all these memories runs the tour bus, ever constant, taking us everywhere...... safe as home.

And it has become home to all of us.... from our clothes and possessions, all stored in huge drawers that glide silently out with secret handles, to DVDs bought and watched on the huge 42 inch LCD TV in the lounge and there is a giant fridge which the crew have already loaded with the liquor left from the first rider, neatly stacked in two rows.

Somedays its a floating magnificent Atlantic Liner, other days and on particularly long nights, it’s the cramped living quarters from the German U-Boat movie “Das Boot”... everyone living and bunking down together (even if these particular bunks have individual DVD players) and the noise of the engine droning relentlessly just like I imagine it would in a submarine.....watch out - here come the torpedoes.

I’ve been in some tour busses in my time..across Europe with Sputnik and across the USA with Sisters of Mercy when we toured with Public Enemy in 1990 .......and been in some amazing vehicles, but on this tour everything was surpassed.  They must have watched “Transformers” before fitting out this Million Dollar Baby.

However, let’s start with the usual bunks in the mid section for those overnight journeys. journeys for tossing and turning - because you never really sleep, you wake with bus lag. It’s the same as jet lag after a flight across the Atlantic, no matter how wide those beds are in first class.  It’s travel sleep, motion sleep and that motion continues long after you have ceased to travel.  So, no you don’t really sleep in the bunks, although for some reason the crew sleep like babies, you hear them snoring through the night, oblivious to the crunching and shuddering as the bus hits the edge of the road or travels the “worst roads in the USA - it’s the snow you see, tears em up and leaves all these pot holes”...as explained by Dave our kindly bus driver.  So why can’t he explain why this million dollars of computer controlled suspension renders English guitarist’s sleepless but somehow still gives the American crew a full cosy 8 hours so they wake bright eyed and bushy tailed ready for show time and P.A and amp battles....

But hey I’m still not complaining, this is such a trip across America..to wake up - or should I say to re-awaken for the 10th time that night, in yet another great city with new sights and streets to explore....I will never get over the thrill of it.

And then, when we  park up outside the gig, the bus transforms.. literally..... The front section, the lounge area, has a special bit at the side which at the touch of a silent switch, glides out just like the transformers, turning a narrow corridor into a big comfy sitting room, where we can watch the Satellite TV ...catch up on CNN and  the History channel, “Prison lock down” or “Even more Extreme Fighting” where two guys literally smash the shit out of each other in front of the baying crowd .... Or someone slides a DVD in and we watch Tarantino films, Allman Brothers documentaries, the Motown story, or MC5 confidential..... all in the pre gig build up - it all puts you right in the mood to rock and roll.

Then there’s the permanent broadband internet connection so you can get your email, upload those blogs or come literally face to face with back home through the wonder of Skype.

There’s a full kitchen and the aformentioned refridgerator....... although there is now no room for any food as we seem to be collecting so much liquor ..I assume that we are planning to open our own club once a suitable venue is reached - even the cupboards are filled with bottles of JD (more on this later) Vodka, Brandy, Beer - luckily there’s also a huge ice box compartment crammed with...JD, Vodka, Beer, Brandy.... yes folks it’s a dry ship. Thank God we got rid of all that healthy Yogurt, Granola and Salad that was wasting so much space way back in San Francisco - what were they even thinking?

There’s a shower room - still pristeen it seems - I think the crew must be using some kind of MP3 invisible neutron scrubber or some new Mac cleaning program downloaded to their many iPhones, Macbooks and iPods because I’ve never heard the shower splashing yet..

Everywhere is beautifully finished by craftsmen.  Kyle who owns the bus and has come along for the fun of it has taken this one step further and has fully pimped his bunk which now resembles NASA control. There are 2 Sat Nav systems, presumably in case one gets lost and computers everywhere.  At the other end of the scale, Mj is in the back room still grappling with his new cellphone, forced as the ‘Carbon’ of the band to join the communication revolution. One day it actually rings and he throws it out of the window in terror (although he’s kept the charger as a token gesture).

And then of course there is the toilet.  OK so this is where they cut corners. 

All those dvd players ( I counted 12) satellites, dimmers computers, hydraulic levellers....all top dollar stuff.....it would seem that corners obviously had to be cut to bring it in for just under the million dollars... and the toilet was the first corner. They reasoned - who’s gonna need to take a dump with all this technology to keep ‘em busy......Yes, it’s a sad fact that in the age of all this technology, we can put a man on the moon but you still can’t shit on a tour bus toilet - couldn’t in the 70s when they first built ‘em and still can’t in the 21st century. Guys, surely a word to Steve Jobs (excuse the pun) would bring all us Rock Stars up to speed - the iBus with an iLoo, with storage room for 10,000 shits in one cute white pod.  Sorry to get so graphic here but please guys - let’s get working.....

Because you can picture the dilemma -  6 A.M in the middle of nowhere, you ate something dodgy the night before and nature calls.  You are of course gonna be in an excellent mood, having been sleeping on average for two hours a night for the past five gigs a week and are therefore more than happy to urgently have to sleep-slip into your clothes inside the bunk and risk sudden death in the Truck Stop Restroom (actually chaps we call it a ‘Toilet’ in Britain and we never rest there because they are still outside and its freezing).  And in these ghost stops we meet TRUCKERS and friendly though they all seem as they go about their nocturnal Trucking business, we’ve all seen Thelma and Louise, and Easy Rider and I can’t help thinking as I rush across the tarmac in search of the sign that a skinny assed fey English rocker must look like a Christmas decoration to a man who’s just trucked a thousand miles before breakfast....so I keep my head way down.....

And still this sleek golden tank that handles like a family Mercedes continues on its way.  Dave gets us everywhere safely and with constant good humour despite the long hours.  I don’t know how he does it and quite apart from his excellent driving skills, he is also an excellent story teller which makes for a good combination.

The back lounge has a floor shaking disco volume stereo - everything sounds studio quality in there. The new Raconteurs album blows out a couple of windows but it was getting stuffy in there anyway... Mj’s bunk is beginning to resemble a second hand book and record shop with a complicated plastic bag storage system only understood by the true madman.... He’s sleeping on the sofa as I write, using yet another giant tome for a pillow, this one is on the history of the Hungarian revolution (obviously boning up for the next radio interview - which is handy because they always catch us out on that one.....).

Miles pass. Gigs blur. The Bus stops and we check into the next hotel, sometimes at 2 a.m, sometimes at 8 a.m and fall into the next glorious real bed and bath. Then it’s off to soundcheck, go to radio station, talk the talk, play the gig, sign the autographs and get back on the bus. You know how in movies when you see a flame burning across the map charting your journey... Denver, Kansas. Philadelphia.... and on. The crew load liquor on to the bus and the cupboards continue to bulge with even more bottles.  Early one morning, rather worryingly I spot the crew eyeing the spare tyre compartment, figuring out that here is another possible 200 bottle storage area because for Crissakes we haven’t had one flat tyre yet.... or maybe if we ripped out the bands bunks (waste of time anyway) we could open a small after show club room, $10 entry, meet the band...... they’re forward planners this road crew.....

More miles pass.

And the bus, no matter how foul the weather, no matter how dense the blizzard, no matter what muddy rivers we cross, the bus is always ....immaculate.

Now I know why. One night just as I found myself almost drifting off, post gig, there was a sudden disconcerting silence.  The engines stopped, the lurching, bumping and roar gone, to be replaced by a gentle swishing noise.  It was 4 a.m, 300 miles from the next destination and a madman was outside a silently parked bus in the chilly night air... gently shammy leathering the chrome exterior back to showroom condition.  I went back to sleep not sure whether to be mad or proud but absolutely sure of one thing - that our tour bus is the shiniest on the road......

Now where are we......

Are there true gentlemen in rock and roll?... not so sure about now but I think there used to be and I'd like to think I met the best of them.......

Touring was a scary business back in those days when you were new to the game and inexperienced about life's little hazards.....

Rock and roll and sin go together (obviously) ...It was not the reason we formed bands - that was a calling -  but one of the benefits of being in a band when you’re twenty is that you get to meet girls... easily.  No hanging around with your mates hoping to spot a couple of unattached females who are hoping to meet a drunk...no, when you’re in a band they come up to you.  No date, movie , dinner or.. in the worst case scenario begging - is needed. Girls just sidle up and say  “hi” in that way that says “hi, I’d like to have sex with you , even sex that won't give me any pleasure whatsoever, no dating or small talk required and you can probably throw me out of your room before daylight and I won’t call the cops...”.

Now we are talking. This was the stuff teenage dreams were made of... say the word groupies and you can imagine what`Jimmy Page was getting  - you didnt even have to read about it....you knew.  All the books from Hammer to Motley were clear. You would get to meet beautiful, impossible to get pregnant, clean, healthy, straight out of convent blondes who wanted nothing other than to be in your bed.

Wrong.

Maybe the Stones just said all that stuff to  wind us up because if not, then why, in my early experience, were me, Idol and the rest of the band somewhat regular consecutive patient numbers down at Hammersmith Urinary Infections clinic?  Payment for dreams was required, payment in pain..... pennance in pain and worse - payment in time....

Look I'm sorry regular readers here - this is a tale of warning, unless this current celebrity obsessed Wi wielding generation have got it sussed more than us veterans.

Because let me tell you, back in the day, the unlucky groupie experience required tablets to cure and those tablets required 2 weeks no drinking.

Until we met Keith Moon, the legendary drummer with the Who, professional Hell Raiser and general man who made you wish you could do more - of everything.  Keith, as we were soon to find out, was a man who really KNEW how to party and such a man was obviously also wise in the art of easing the pain.

Generation X were playing at London’s famous Marquee club and Moon appeared.. completely larger than life, larger than I ever imagined, ear to ear grin, a human whirlwind.  He was fantastic - our then drummer Mark Laff idolised him and was even a little like him and we immediately all fell into a hilarious conversation ....and naturally he invited us all out for drinks. Except we couldn’t drink for 2 weeks for reasons I've just touched on.....

He regarded all of us with a withering but knowing look. Oh my dear boys.. let me introduce you..... to Doctor Robert of Notting Hill Gate who will sort you out immediately with the 24 hour cure.

Billy and I stepped outside to find Moon's white Rolls Royce parked handily blocking Wardour Street.  Settled comfortably in the back,  Keith issued an edict to attentive minders to set Billy and me up with an immediate appointment the following day for the miracle cure, all on his tab.... and with a wave of a brandy bottle and an hysterical laugh told his driver to move on to the next location.

Less than twelve hours later we left the surgery having both had an Elephant injection in the backside - most definitely cured, but temporarily  unable to walk.

We had been introduced to the secret club. I was a little worried when some months later I read in the News of the World of a notorious Doctor in Notting Hill Gate who had been struck off for dishing out unsuitable amounts of dangerous drugs to Pop Stars....

Ah those were the days......

Each day we roll into a new city on tour and if time permits between those Phoner newspaper interviews and radio station visits.. we go in search of the cool areas to visit... sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you miss.

Take Portland a couple of days ago. Here the good thing is the central area is pretty small allowing us to walk everywhere. Mick and I  walk out and within a couple of blocks we hit the most amazing Cool second hand comic and book store... so much stuff there to take home for the Rock and Roll Library.. within 10 minutes I already know next stop we’re gonna be heading to “Ross”  to buy another suitcase to hold the buys including so many comics at a dollar a throw and a giant hardback book on “the Oregon Trail” that I know will cause United Airlines to send us gleefully to the overweight baggage checker to pay the overage.  The place is kooky too but the girl assistant is really knowledgeble - you could buy a Time magazine corresponding to your birthdate to the Model railway magazine you bought as a child to old Rolling Stone magazines...everything, if you know what to look for -  heaven.

In search of the Cool diner next. Miss Kooky points us across the block to “Mothers”. Kinda modern design, lots exposed brickwork and sections of black flock wallpaper and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. They’re playing Sinatra live from the Sands on the sound system. Its perfect. We eat chicken soup with Matzo dumplings - a hearty meal for starving musicians. . Fate (well, and Miss Kooky) has pointed us here and now we can sit back, discuss how things have been going and in those moments of clarity that come when the perfect music hits the perfect food plus ambience, new ideas start to flow.  It's a world away from the microwaved horror plates you get in the local corporate mall bland food supercenter. We love it. Anthony Bourdain would love it and we love Anthony Bourdain.

Quick trip to Ross and drop off the first load back at the Monaco Hotel and back out. Next we stumble on “Jackpot Records”. Now here it is - a local store run by people who are passionate about music, specialising in the records they’d like to buy themselves. There’s an amazing Psychedelic section with loads of far out bootlegs. Its inspirational. In the background we both become aware of this music playing that we’ve never heard before - it's great so we enquire -  “Skin turns to glass by Nadja”  is in the bag along with a Stones bootleg, a dvd of a 50’s live TV show TNT with the Byrds, Spector, Petula Clark, Donavon, Bo Diddley - all playing live. I’m scribbling new lyrics on the back of a local store guide before we’ve even left the building.

We pass a store selling 50's toys and then into what in the 70's would have been called a “head” shop with so many rock and roll books I had not seen. Again the owner is helpful and chatty... “maybe we’d like to see the porno section downstairs?”  he casually asks as if he were directing us to the cookery shelves - not really what we are looking for - but we liked the scale models in fantasy positions though. ...maybe next time.

We leave and load up the donkeys and we haven’t even reached Powels, the West’s largest bookshop yet - Borders it is not. People are playing chequers in its coffee shop and you can take books there to read before buying.

Over the road we spy “Judgement at Nuremberg”  the original  50s black and white movie which is playing at a tiny cinema and are tempted, but having seen it already knowing it’s a long movie we pass -  but nearby in a homely cinema called “The Living Room” they are showing “Dog Day Afternoon” - also along with each new feature they team it with a directors early work - genius. You sit in comfy chairs - hence Living room, to watch the film. We decide an hour in the foyer bar is what is needed to regroup. A man and his fiance come up to chat to enquire why we are there, sorry they missed the show the previous night but they just got in from Seattle to hang out here and soak up some of this amazing city. They did not even know we played in Seattle - damn, thats why we’re here on tour because we’re not connecting with these people yet. There’s a lot of work to do.

When we were in SWSX in Austin Texas Mick and I did this crazy Q and A in front of an audience where for over an hour we talked about anything and everything, from culture to history - anything except “how we made the record” How do you know all this stuff they asked us afterwards - well now you know.

Taking the wagon train packed with culture back to the Hotel for a quick refresh we then  hit a restuarant we’d spotted on our travels called “Clyde Common”. You sit with other diners on long tables all together. The kitchen is in the middle of the room and you could watch the chefs cooking real food - it was friendly and delicious and after finally sharing a pineapple upside down cake dessert we staggered back to the hotel ready to leave for Denver.

“That’s what living is all about..” Bob Dylan, from “Sign on the Window”

How great is being on tour when it’s like this. When we arrive in some cities we know people who can show us where is Hip and cool and where to go. Other times we haven’t a clue because we don’t know anyone and just rolled in.

We’ve got a lot of places still to visit - Minneapolis,Philadelphia, Cambridge, Cincinnati, Washington, Orlando.....

I hope we find the cool places.... we’ll be looking out.