MISSING DIARY:

Sorry

(K)

HOME:

Essex in the rain looks more beautiful than ever. 
Jet-lagged on the M25, a thin piece of wire pulled through
the head, feel sick & phasing in & out of sleep. Things
go too fast & emails come in torrents. Ha ha ha, everything
is so green & beautiful. 

(K)

LONELY?:

A strange feeling after so much time in the company of 
friends & dancing in the euphoria of electric pure joy faces. 
Last night, at the end of a week connected to all that’s good  
I returned to an empty hotel room where my Dog was waiting. 
That familiar voice of hopeless desolation keen to pick up 
the conversation. Had to laugh, a patient & dedicated companion, 
never disappoints. I should’ve known he’d stow away – the baggage
in the luggage of the past comes out to play when I’m alone. 
Laughter is the antidote, as, even in the rain, we find joy, 
my Dog & me. 
Yesterday’s fog stopped the band going home – no planes flying.
I spent the day in radio stations, doing what I love, broadcasting, 
spending time with people who love to spread their love of music
(that’s a lot’ve love).
Radio stations smell great, look great & everyone I met yesterday 
reminded me why I’m on this road. Found a poster of Bob & the Rats
in a back corridor, carried a purple key on an elastic band tied to 
a bulldog clip to a private cubical, a sanctuary with a lock on the 
door, quiet time. Heard music that made me want to make more, found 
re-connections to Jagwar Ma, a sign I was on the right road. Found a 
man, eyes full of light, who turned me on to lost John Martyn 
recordings & I made a phone call from the floor below to a girl going 
live to air who talked excited about the legend of a Dog who’s name 
became a drinking anthem. 
And then we met in the harbour, you were pulling a case on wheels. 
We drank coffee in the sun & smiled, one to the other, remembering
how far we’ve come & how lucky.

(K)

HORNS IN THE FOG:

Walking back across Sydney Harbour Bridge at 8:00am, boats call 
to one another like love sick bulls. Joggers cut a line beneath
a tunnel of razor wire that guides us safely home. Everything 
is black & white & simple, Beautiful, rhythmic poetry, the bones
of a giant beast cooling it’s self in the morning fog.
My brothers & sisters fly home today, only crazy Peter & me left 
behind. He’s lying face down in brandy & mayonnaise stupor, I’m 
heading clean back out to the streets cruising for conversations 
as Sydney slips off it’s gossamer mantle & lays back on the shore, 
inviting in the sunlight.

(K)

POST SHOW POTATO CHIPS:

Honey dipped & salty to accompany the gummy bears, pears & 70% 
chocolate in the aftershow euphoria backstage at Sydney Opera.
Familiar faces smile & grin, bodies sway in time with a laid back
groove. Mal wrestles wayward technology to the ground till it 
submits, Kester draws Expressionist Theatre out of darkness & 
Newsh guides our sound to the sweet spot. We dance & sweat, 
breathing each others breath like an Underworld show until the 
salt runs down our backs. Upminster Dave comes back for a beer,
friends from Essex smile & hug, they haven’t changed, cheese & ham,
tomatos & salad cream on dry brown slices, washed down with 
Throat Coat in the half-light of a dressing room. Matt from 
Three Trapped Tigers stops by to say hi as I drop bum notes 
in the shadows up on stage, Peter’s keyboard just suddenly stops, 
but the train is rolling & we carry on until Mal blackmails it 
into life. We smile, we laugh & for an hour & a half transcend 
our jet-lag & jam. 
Sydney – you received us with open arms, did us proud, Edgeland 
returned to the scene of it’s inception, fuelled on the energy 
of receptive party people. A long black car take the kids back 
to the hotel as I glide across the bridge in an anonymous Taxi.
Beer, Tea, Kettle Chips & Chocolate in somebody’s room, listening
to Ziggy, Sly & the Doors watching happy people dance away their 
frustration at not being able to get back up on stage & play it 
all again.

Thank You 

(K)

ON THE LOOSE IN SYDNEY:

Slept all the way from Melbourne to touchdown in sweet 
spring heat, balmy even. Strolling through Sydney with 
the band, taking time, coffee & italian cuisine in the 
bay, feeding on sunlit laughter. Street artists & techno
didge jammers sell $10 CDs to tourists as an old ghost
with a trumpet tips his hat to no one, drifting through
the holiday crowds. Another Charlie Chaplin hangs off
another lamp post, mannequin simulations for weekend 
snappers who’s children jump & squeal when he suddenly 
moves. The markets are piled high with bright things, 
hand made artefacts under canvas. Bar bands beat out
precision rhythms, mimicking genres for the nostalgic, 
whilst romantics gather in ex-pat bars to sway to songs 
from the old country. 
The puppet shop has gone the way of the fruit bats we 
also came in search of, but parrots still infest the 
evening trees with the celebration of their cacophony.
We play, ‘guess the flavour of the liquorice’ waiting 
at the waters edge for the projections to start up on 
the sails of the Opera House & when they do the crowd
cheer & begin to snap between mouthfuls of wraps & 
coffee. My favourite image is still the first year that 
Brian painted the iconic sails with his evolving light,
but this year is an undisputed crowd pleaser.
We drift away into the night like lovers, tired & lagged, 
smiling as we catch one another’s eye to see a light 
shining there that only genuine happiness could have 
ignited. 

A beautiful city on a beautiful day, Sydney, see you at 
the Opera House tomorrow.

(K)

I DREAMED:

That one day we would play in a venue as beautiful as this.
What an extraordinary place, beautiful, wooden poetry & the 
people who work at the Melbourne Recital Centre work with 
such dedication that it lifts your game even when the whole
day is spent chasing faults. We didn’t sleep, or eat much & 
jet lag was kicking in heavy as the day progressed. Our voices
thinning as our throats crusted up from days of airconditioning.
Our mouths dry all through the show & notes that came to us 
like faithful dogs on every other show evaded us until we had 
to find another part of the body to sing from. Still, the venue, 
the crew, the crowd & (for me) the band too, lifted & carried 
me through all of it until I stopped seeing double & saw the
smiles on the faces of the people raising hands in celebration.
Melbourne, thank you for this welcome to the Beautiful Land of Oz.

(K)

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD:

Trawling city streets with Tomato John, art & Japanese food.
The familiar rhythm of his Voice as he smokes another cigarette 
& drinks another coffee brings recalls me to earth & glues me back 
together. Visiting Naomi Troski’s metal clouds hanging in an 
immaculate white restaurant near Federation Square & in the gallery 
there the vibrant artworks of indigenous people, painting on bark & 
wooden poles in criss-cross earth colours that explode with happiness.
The body craves sleep in the back of taxis listening to stories 
of drivers a long way from home. Families scattered around the 
globe in the eternal search for work & a better life. Software 
programmers driving cabs for rent, fresh out of universities in 
San Diego. Drunk happy laughter in the corridor outside 
sings us off to sleep to heel, dripping with technicolor dreams 
of all tomorrow’s music.  

(K)

HONG KONG BLEARY:

Squeezed like toothpaste at 39,000 feet, I’m meat in a
metal tube with wings. Trying to sleep wrapped in a 
winter coat as Gaz lectures on technology for hours
& the smell of red wine in adjacent seats stings the 
back of my nose like an old ghost with a grudge. 
At times like this gratitude is the better antidote, 
remembering where the journey started, a rat infested 
flat on the banks of the Taff, a succession of dreams 
that never came true, another failed band, another walk 
to the dole office. Hear in this tin can,descending into 
to Hong Kong, I look around, see the smiles of my companions, 
familiar faces, good friends who extend way back into 
underworld history. The excitement in their eyes makes me
put aside my Brit-grumbling & enjoy the thrill of waking 
in the midst of a dream to discover it’s real. 

There’ll be time enough to stretch & scrub, nurse the 
throat back to health from breathing dirty air-conditioned 
wind, set the head straight, look up at the sky & laugh with 
fellow Edgelanders – couldn’t have dreamed it better. 

See you all in Melbourne Saturday night

(K)

DOGBOY CALLING:

Excited after yesterday’s rehearsal with the Edgeland band 
to be jumping into the sky-hole tonight. A long haul sleeping 
above the heads of the world to come & see you, watching 
colours of the Earth slip beneath us. Progressively ragged 
from the inside out, eight hibernating Brits breathing recycled 
breath stagger out into the crisp clean morning of a Southern 
Autumn. Australia, home of so many great memories, good energy 
from the people we’ve played to for decades. Great music like 
Jagwar Ma still coming out’ve this beautiful country & as we fly 
over it between cities the colours of the earth call out me to 
paint the memory of their vibrant dance. Circular crops fields, 
giant pie-charts in the desert, dry riverbeds snaking like the 
veins of the world, green scrub punctuation marks in the red dust 
& isolated houses like components on a vast circuit board linked 
by the endless straights of blacktop wires. 

Bring your friends, tell your neighbours, pass the word on, we’re
gathering in Melbourne on the 25th, Sydney on the 27th –
EDGELAND alive in Australia.  

Heavy tech-support called in to prepare new equipment for 
the tour. Getting to grips with a new style of vocoder, 
different from the beautiful old Rolands Underworld uses 
has taken time, but thanks to the perseverance of a gifted 
few we achieve solution! – 
‘Four legs better than two’.

(K)