The UK tour finished the way it started with a cloud of volcanic ash. I got to my hotel room around 2.30am in Gloucester. This had been the location of the rescheduled show from the beginning of the tour, when the ash cloud first hit. Sleep by 3.30 am, only after hearing from the airline that my flight was back on schedule. Then up at 5.30 am. I had to detour via Cambridge where I’d stupidly left all my business stuff in a bank. Of course they would not mail it to me. It was brutal travelling for the others too. Muddy had to start his long drive/ ferry trip back to Finland and Daniel had to go by various trains up to Stanstead for a flight to Carcassonne, France. Some days earlier, in Wolverhampton, we’d had another much worse prang in our trusty tour van and only today I found out the cost of that little episode. Let’s just say it was a certain person’s entire tour fee.

No matter, the tour was stormer. We even had a true fan in Birkenhead - Jef, go down on one knee and propose to his girlfriend, Miranda, live on stage. That was really a 'feel good moment'. London rocked and I believe it was a serious value for money show with the excellent Panic Room and Mostly Autumn also on the bill. Their new singer, Olivia Sparnenn professed to being a huge Ash fan to me. She shared that she’d been playing our music in her dressing room, pre show. That was a nice vibe. We had some good PR on the tour including radio plays for our new single ‘Reason to Believe’ on Bob Harris’s show as well as a whole half an hour interview on Johnnie Walker’s BBC Radio 2 show. The UK still has it’s favorite DJs and FM rock radio counts for something there.

Returning home, my thoughts and endeavors have turned to the upcoming shows with Uriah Heep and Deep Purple in South Africa. Our African agent came along to the London show and let me know he was mightily impressed which bodes well. In addition to all of that, preparations for our Tokyo visit have taken up a lot of my time. The trip is all looking good. The summer sees us doing festivals in France, Canada - one with in Munich, Germany with Toto. Joe is looking forward to checking out Toto’s reknowned drummer, Simon Philips. He’s never seen or heard Purple’s Ian Paice up close, so that’ll be cool. Muddy and I will be eyeing Mr. Steve Morse’s fretboard work with some intensity. He’s a hero of mine from the old Dixie Dregs days.

Talking of mastery of the fretboard, last night Pauline and I went back to the Boulton Center in Bay Shore Long Island NY and caught Leo Kottke doing his one man show. At times I could have sworn there were three of him playing the one instrument. He played 6 string and 12 string acoustic guitars, the latter like no one else on the planet. I was a fan from way back having discovered him after my love of Tacoma’s own John Fahey. Leo is like John on speed and both of ‘em conjure up an American sound so evocative of swamps, plains, fairgrounds, railroads, cotton fields. Their influences all come out in their playing and there’s this sort of mystical side to it - some death and decay and a kind of voodoo. That’s how it strikes me. Leo’s songs and tunes sort of wind up like a hurdy gurdy. He really transports you.

I was also in Brooklyn yesterday, which of course is cooking these days, much like the Village was in the ‘60‘s. We were in the very neighborhood and on the very block where 1997‘s Donny Brasco, featuring Al Paccino and Johnny Depp, was filmed. We joined my son Aynsley and his girlfriend Tara, at a genuine Sicilian restaurant which featured a 100 year old bar carved in Africa and shipped to Brooklyn back in the day - New York is so fascinating. Some larger than life characters in there and some larger than life drinks to suit. A good day, only marred by the horrendous car accident we saw on the drive home. I shudder to think if anyone was hurt in that upturned car with the air bags all exploded, but no drive into New York is without episode, even if you are just trying to avoid the potholes!

Ciao ~ A.P.

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