Life on a laptop!

Sounds like an invitation but it’s the end of the year and a time to look back, so I’m tapping out a few words of reflection. Of course these days our digital life is all there on a laptop (at least mine is). I was going through my collection of music and photos and organizing playlists and photo events from the year and in doing so, I realized a couple of things.

Musically speaking, despite loving rock and being a rock guitarist, my very personal favourite music is now definitely lyric based, singer songwriter stuff. “Eugh” you say. Early on in my career, I could never have told you the words to a song. It was always the musical feeling or guitar playing that conveyed the song’s energy to me. Now for me it’s definitely the words too. I used to be of the Beavis and Butthead camp. You know; “Words Suck”. But now I’m a little more thoughtful, sentimental even. I’m always quoting from songs. Love and words of love, in all its many forms, dominates my interest and of course it’s the same for most other songwriters on the planet. It is THE most perplexing question “What is love?” Truth is another one but love is enough to be going on with, right now.

Anyway, before I get all maudlin, back to the laptop; the collection of photos I’m looking at is mind boggling. In browsing through the recent photos, I’m struck by the countries, seasons, architecture, races, faces, cars, bars, boats, moats, hotels rooms, stages - you can flash over them all with a cursor and it’s truly bizarre how much a band like ours can cram in during one year. I dread to think what our carbon footprint has been. Of course we try to mitigate that somewhat on our German tours, with a kind of carbon concert ticket tax, ploughing money back, but still....

What’s amazing is how we, a group of 4 very different blokes with a common love of music, can travel around the place and still remain friendly. Mud, Bob and Joe - I salute you!! YOU are the best. LeDanos ...it goes without saying and to everyone who helps us on the way - you know who you are! We couldn’t do it without you. A Big Thank You.

This smooth operation definitely did not always come together in the good old bad old old days. We were still trying to pull it all together - musical, personal and business. It was sometimes under duress then. There was a kind of record label patronage which people don’t often realize. There was a very definite financial need to produce, and bands did in fact produce very well under this system. That system has pretty much gone for most acts. These days we do it because we mostly want to do it. Also we smell the roses on the way, and interact with our audiences more. We are less aloof but we protect our turf. I like that. We’re not as financially wealthy as we eventually became, though. I don’t mind that, but then again we started out by literally starving, which was of course itself, quite inspirational. Starving is a kind of fear and fear can be quite motivating. I feel more wealthy today though. I could function with just a small case of clothes, a passport and a guitar, just as it was back then. A reasonable amount of fear factor actually helped. That drive to do ‘it’ that creativity - (sometimes) a fear of starving or failing which I mentioned. The meagre material items were my only possessions in those days when I lived in a one room bedsit in London. But the big difference now? It’s that laptop. It’s the laptop that does it. Whereas we needed travel agents, tour managers, personal assistants, portable recording devices, now the computer takes care of it all. Life on/in a laptop.

Next year, in January, we kick off the touring in Holland and Germany. We’ll be revisiting Poland and Prague should be interesting. America's East Coast is finally back in the schedule. We’ll play London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire theatre again in the spring and there WILL be an AshCon in the Autumn - again at the Winding Wheel in Chesterfield. Only another 2 weeks or so to get your reservations made for AshFest in Port St. Lucie, Florida. We’ll be seeing you there directly after our trip to Cape Town just before the World Cup down there. There will be a novel idea from us; a single release for garnering some airplay on the wireless. Of course the album is now in progress and it’ll be interesting to see how that all pans out. Our new studio is up and running and I’ve a feeling it’ll be a very productive entity.

To all our friends, fans, well-wishers, wish-fulfillers, families, lovers, lifers, business partners, musical partners, lyricists, recordists, collectors, erectors, promoters, connectors, philanthropists, entities, enmities, offspring, underlings, overlings - to all of you a very Happy Heartfelt Christmas and Healthy, Happy and Prosperous (Emotionally and Financially) New Year!

~ A.P. and Da Bones.

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