I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year break. Ours was more eventful than usual. We took to the road trip (surprise, surprise) and had a real Southern holiday, spending time in Chapel Hill, North Carolina with my son’s family. Then we said our farewells and took a few quiet days on the Cape Fear River in Wilmington N.C., an interesting town I’d never visited before. Having lived in a small New England state for most of my adult life, the South is relatively unknown to me but I always enjoy visiting and increasingly, we get to learn more about it. The great thing is the weather. Most days were in the 60s and 70s so, to sit out on the porch on Christmas Day, in the sun, was sheer bliss.

Had some interestingly whimsical moments over Christmas. I was very happy just acting the goofy grandfather to my darling granddaughter Sophie Rose. Her current obsession is pirates and for some reason I figure into this since she discovered I have some gold teeth. The discovery was made while she was supposed to be listening to a bedtime story I was reading. First she asked where all my hair went.

Me, “It blew off in the wind”. Sophie, while looking into my mouth, “Are those cavities Grandad?” Me,” No, they are my my pirate teeth, now listen to the story”.

Anyway, later, no doubt making some connection in her young mind, while listening to the Wishbone Ash song Almighty Blues (which her father had been playing to her) she insisted on a different slant for the lyrics. In fact, according to her, the title and words to the song were actually All My Doubloons. I simply fell about on hearing this. Thinking further, it summed up song writing for me in a way. Sometimes songs do take on new meanings depending on the meanings the listener attaches to the the words. All My Doubloons takes it a little far but how many times, when listening to our songs or those of others, have you put your own words of meanings to them? I’ve done it often enough. In fact, during the recording of our recent song Big Issues, the engineer and I kept ourselves amused by retitling it “Bigger Shoes”.

Sophie is gradually getting the idea that I have a somewhat unusual job. She asked me on the phone, “So, how DO you rock & roll, grandad?” She’s heard the ancient term on some kids TV show and really did not know what it meant - just that I ‘did it’. The words grandad and rock & roll are so strange to hear in the same sentence, I can tell you that.

There’s a hint of a Southern accent in Sophie’s language these days and I love it. People use words differently in the South and sometimes it’s difficult to understand folks because the rhythm of their sentences hits you differently. On this trip,I could see people I met there, concentrating on my accent as well. The usual question these days is,” Are you Australian?” I then go into the whole story of how we (the Brits) shipped all the British criminals out there back in the day and that’s why they speak a kind of cockney English (Don’t tell an Aussie that)

Talking of accents and fun with language, I saw a great billboard while driving through Wilmington. It proclaimed the low-cost benefits of exercise at a local gym. “Pay Diddly for Your Squats” - I loved that. On another poster I saw an ad for formal wear. I really wanted to buy some clothing from Cape Fear Formal Wear, just for the label alone. It wasn’t to be though since there just aren’t that many formal occasions in rock & roll.

We wound up our stay in Wilmington and I’d recently been in touch with an old Wishbone tour manager and friend, Russell Sidelsky. He’d moved to Atlantic Beach Florida with his family, some years ago. He ran things for us when Wishbone first moved to America in the 70s. So on a whim, we decided to invite ourselves for New Years. I’m really glad we did because it was worth the 8 hour drive to go walking on the beach and eat oysters and sea food. New Years itself was celebrated twice. At 7.00 (Midnight GMT) we saw the New Year in with a Celtic meditation ceremony - a touch of the Druids in Florida - and then 5 hours later we were at the beach home of a wonderful female artist for yet more oysters (roasted this time). A tradition down there was the collection of all the neighborhood Christmas trees and a giant bonfire was set on the beach. Pine trees go up like rockets so it was pretty spectacular and I thought it was a nice touch that Susan Walters from TVs Vampire Diaries, made an appearance.

So now I’m back in chilly Connecticut, set to hit 8 deg. F. tonight, where I’m preparing for the upcoming European tour . We’ll kick off in Verviers, Belgium on January 11th. Guy Roberts just announced the resumption of AshCon in Chesterfield UK once more so hopefully there will be plenty of time to make plans for that PLUS we have the new Roadworks II CD ready for the road and for you to order online. Oh yes, and there are two Elegant Stealth T shirts currently in production for the upcoming tour. Finally; I just got word that there are some good things being said about us in this month’s Record Collector Magazine and also Total Guitar from the UK.

Myself and the band wish you all a happy, healthy and peaceful year for 2012 with great music and great times ahead.

~ A.P.

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