Friday 13 April 2018

Passionate Friends – just the second reunion since they split in the early 80s…

FRIDAY the 13th! All starts fine – I go out with Margaret on her ‘couch to 5k’ training run and she does well considering both knees are now giving her a bit of pain.

We’re planning on getting her some decent shoes later on in Glasgow, so hopefully that’ll help.

I spend some time in the studio and feel confident that there’s three songs so far with potential.

Work on the new kitchen starts on Monday and the fitters will need access to the loft to vent the cooker hood. The loft’s full of shite.

I enter the big black hole and chuck down a carload of cases, boxes and other crap we don’t need – enough to clear a path from roughly above the kitchen to the eaves.

After lunch we shove all the stuff in the car and make for Glasgow via the dump. Margaret can’t find her glasses, so I guess i’ll be on driving duties after our evening in Glasgow.

En route to town I get a call form PRS for Music – the company that looks after, distributes and pays performance royalties for songwriters. I received a good payout this quarter due, I thought, to back claims for live shows in France and some music used in recent TV shows and documentaries. Alas, there’s been a mistake. A big, huge, fuck-off mistake affecting most members and I’ve been overpaid by nearly £1000. Problem is, the payout was advised earlier in the week and as soon as it hit my bank account it was spent. We’re in no position to pay it back and while there may be an option to let them claw it back from future payouts that’s not a particularly attractive option either as we rely on the PRS royalties as part of our income stream and cash flow over the course of the year. Bottom line is, I would not have made the now irreversible decision to spend the money the way we did if we had known.  Not good.

In between times a note comes in asking if I wanna do a show with my pal J D Wilkes and Th’Legendary ShackShakers at Broadcast in Glasgow on Monday 7 May. Great. So it’s not all bad! Tickets here.

Anyway, we hit the running shop and Margaret gets some advice and some shoes, hit Costco for a cheap dinner then make our way to the Hard Rock Cafe for the Davie Halley (Glasgow drummer who died a few months ago) tribute night.

Our pal JonZip is playing with his old band Passionate Friends. Davie was their drummer way back when and they were signed to MCA and managed by a certain Mr Harvey Goldsmith. The great, good and survivors of the last few decades of the Scottish music scene are out in force and there’s a great lineup of music. 

It’s magic to catch up with so many old pals some of whom I haven’t seen ion 15/20 years. We settle down beside our pal  and compere for the night Tom Russell and his partner Jean.

I’ve an all day stag do tomorrow, so we bail just after 11pm and are home for a dram before midnight.

Grand to catch up with so many pals and, of course, JonZip 🙂

 

 

Tuesday 22 March 2016

ANOTHER day in Glasgow…a couple of PRS visits (the first of the year) and some shopping.

The visits are pretty much routine. I visit PRS for Music Members’ Benevolent Fund grantholders once a year to see if there’s anything they need and check their circumstances haven’t changed. There’s only a handful of grantholders in my ‘patch’ (Scotland and North of England) so it only amounts to about three days’ work a year…but it’s very worthwhile.

So if you know any PRS members who are needing a bit of help point them to the fund’s website – or tell them to contact me!!!

In between times I grab a coffee and get some work done online, and once all’s done I get some shopping, pick up Margaret and we head for home.

There’s some G63.scot stories to work on and I’ve found a wee bug in my new website which means anyone buying stuff form the shop on mobile needs to have their device in horizontal/landscape mode to avoid problems adding items to the shopping cart.

There doesn’t seem to be a fix for it, so I add a wee note on the shop page toe xplain the process until I find a solution.

Deadlines are looking for the the new EP release…although not ’til June, I need to get artwork finalised urgently and get the promo machine moving….