Star Blog

Apologies to those of you that keep coming here and finding nothing. It's been one of those weeks again. Too busy to eat my own shit. With all this activity you might think things were looking up. They're not. Why? Ah, why yourself. Look around. Even those of you with nothing to worry about now have the swine flu to think about. Or the banking crisis. Boo hoo, what will we do? Strictly for beginners, all of it. And please don't start on at me about the poor orphans in Africa. I know as much about it as you do. But that doesn't make it any easier feeding my own kids. Or keeping my own money swine from spreading their germs around my door, ya dig me?

Meanwhile, back at HQ, I recorded the Classic Rock show in London today. It went well, tunes-wise. But I didn't feel I was at my best. It's hard to tell, of course. Sometimes when you're convinced you died it turns out you didn't, and vice-versa. Like looking in the mirror trying to decide if your bum looks fat in this. It does and it doesn't. Just depends who's doing the squeezing. Yeah, keep telling yourself that. By the way, entries for the two previous days in this blog will be filled in. Just not today...

Was up early again today - 4.30 a.m. Or possibly 4.33 a.m., something like that. The body didn't like it but the brain just wasn't switching off, whirring away like the ugly little rat on a big shit-sized wheel that it is as I lay there in the dark listening to wife sleep peacefully beside me in the bed. Found myself creeping downstairs drinking tea and eating toast while watching Sky Sports news, then finally feeling sleepy just as the rest of the house was waking up. Dragged myself back upstairs and picked out a bed, any bed. Crawled in and still didn't sleep. Not fully. By 9.00 a.m. - or possibly 9.37 a.m., something like that - was in my office trying to finish off some reviews for Classic Rock that should have been delivered on Monday. Unfortunately, the muse had been leaving me for dead all week so it wasn't until this morning that I finally got my head screwed on the right way long enough to add some full-stops and etc.

The rest of the day was spent building this week's Classic Rock radio show. I like doing this - a lot. One of the things that used to frustrate me about the shows I did for Planet Rock was that I had zero input into what we played and eventually it began to feel like Groundhog Day. Sometimes it became too much doing virtually the same show every time and I would sneak something vaguely different in but then I would get angry phone calls and emails asking what the hell I thought I was doing. I'm not saying I was always right, or that Planet Rock is bad - it's very good indeed at what it does - I'm just saying what a relief it is not to be tethered by Rock Radio to the same playlist week in, week out. It means I actually have something to say about the music too. Building the show takes time, though. Far longer than you might imagine, if you want the show to be good. Far longer than it takes to actually do the thing. And even then you can feel like you haven't put enough preparation into it. The best buzz, actually, is when it's all over and you're walking back to your car. Having just finished doing a show, it's about as close as you can ever get to satisfaction, or that natural high you get when it goes really well. It's also as far away as you can physically get from doing the next show, which feels doubly great. Though not if you don't know when your next show is. No wonder musicians who do months and years worth of gigs all in a row end up so fucked up. It's like the best and worst drug there is. And there's no end. Until suddenly it's all over. And then you wish it wasn't. I imagine if you're God, or a god, life might look something like that to you. Endless, nameless, beautiful nothing, aimed at something you don't know what except for when you find it, momentarily, before it goes again. Only to be repeated. Like a double-A side back in the days when they still did double-A sides... you know?

THE ROCK'N'ROLL DETECTIVE, CHAPTER ONE...

I was sitting in my shithole office in Ealing, wondering if I'd ever get out alive. The VAT were after me. The tax. The mortgage cunts too. It was so far beyond a joke I wasn't even worried anymore. No more sleepless nights for me. I had simply given up.

On the laptop, I had found the One From The Heart soundtrack on Spotify and it had sent me right back to the summer of '83. A hot one. The movie had just come out and we had gone to the cinema to see it six or seven times. The arty one in Curzon Street. Or the Curzon in Soho, maybe? Something like that. You could smoke inside in those days and we would sit there smoking with a plastic bag of beers under the seat. She would have her little quarter bottles of vodka in her bag too. And her speed. I never found out about that until later. I was in love and my head was full of cheese. All I knew was we were together. Just like the couple in One From The Heart. They were breaking up and we had just gotten together but somehow we related. Mostly, I think it was the music. Tom and Crystal. Was there ever a better combo? Now, suddenly, 25 years later, more, here I was again, digging it. On my own this time, though. No more her and no more cigarettes either. No more nothing. Just this.

The phone rang. I nearly jumped out of my skin. You still got calls on your mobile occasionally but the main phone? Only the call-centre cunts called you on that. "Hello, sir, and how are you today?" Click...

I looked at the face, expecting Witheld or Unavailable. This caller actually had a number. One I didn't recognise. I thought about letting the machine get it then had a change of heart. I picked up.

"Yes."

"Mr Wilson?" A female voice. Young, sexy.

"Who's calling?"

"Are you Mr Wilson?" Sharp, no messing.

"Who's calling?"

She sighed. "Look, I'm not from the tax or anything like that, OK?"

"OK," I said. "Then..."

"I have a job for you, if you're interetsed. Bob Kirby gave me your number. Said you were the best."

"Bob Kirby? I see. How can I help?"

"Well, it's my brother..."

"He's missing?"

"How did you know?"

"Most of what I do is missing persons, unfaithful husbands, nuisance neighbours, run-over cats."

"This is different."

Of course it was. We are all different when it comes to needing help. Nobody needs it more than you do. In the background, Tom was singing "I beg your pardon, dear..."

"Well, you better come to my office."

"When can you see me?"

"I'll have to check my diary. This week already looks bad."

"Oh. Well, if you're too busy perhaps I should go somewhere else."

"Wait," I said, trying not to sound too desperate. "I might be able to fit you in today sometime, if you can make it."

"Today would be great."

"I'll have to move things around."

"I could come now?"

"I should warn you, if I take the case I'll need an advance."

"That won't be a problem, Mr Wilson."

"Oh? How about this afternoon, say, 3pm?"

"That's great, thank you. I'll see you then."

I gave her the address and she put down the phone. We both did.

A case. Money in advance not a problem. Things were looking up. I opened my desk drawer and took out the quarter bottle of vodka, had a little nip as Tom and Crystal treated the room to a little Instrumental Passage. Felt the nostalgia hit me like a train.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Multi-task. Horrible word. Fun to do, though. I was always into it, even in the days when having zero to do seemed like the most fun of all, and often was. Gone now, though. Are you kidding? These days you have to know how to butter your toast while wiping your arse. Which is how I have spent today. As usual. So... began by doing a short piece live on the radio while sitting in bed, got up and ran on the dreaded running machine, showered, ate, felt the pain and paid a couple of credit card bills, then rang the mortgage people to tell them things they don't want to hear. They said they'd call back. And reviewed a couple of albums, including a couple of Hawkwind albums. Man. Also... been reading books, sending out packages to the US, talking to my new best friends at Rock Radio, some of my old best friends at Classic Rock, and chatting via email with Dr Peter Makowski about the best cover versions to do if you were in a band which we're not but you know, if we were. Now off to look after youngest children while eldest girl and wife go off to their karate lesson, one a blue belt, one an orange, or is it green? Dunno, but you wouldn't want to catch it in the solar plexus from either one, I can tell you. Not while you're buttering your arse or wiping your toast, that's for fucking sure...

Good yesterday. I ran, I ate, I gave some time to the kids and family, and I got some work done. Then in the evening we all went out for dinner at a village pub wife and I used to go to regularly in the days before we had kids. (Culinary point: village pubs serve the best food around these parts.) I think we've only been back there on our own once or twice in the past eight, post-kids' years and this was the first time with the actual children in tow, not including eldest girl who was off for a sleepover last night with a friend. We knew it would either be a disaster or a great success and to our jittery relief it was not a disaster. Of course, boy and youngest girl hardly touched their food, except for the strawberry ice-cream and Coke but they did at least sit at the table and not upset any other diners while wife and I tore into our food like savage dogs. You learn to eat quick when you have kids around, especially in public places. Then we came home where I stretched out on the couch in front of the TV while wife and kids went upstairs to bed (and TV). Not very exciting for you, sheer bliss for me, believe it.

Today I am back working. Got a lot of stuff to finish off still that's been gathering dust in various corners of my mind. Feeling so tired, though, could sleep a thousand years. Feel a holiday coming on. That is, a break from... this. Not that we can actually afford to go away anywhere right now. But I know this kind of tiredness, and it's not the kind that gets cured by a good night's sleep, even if I knew how to have one. The last time I had a break was last August when I joined the family down in Dorset for the last 10 days of what was supposed to have been a three-week holiday, and even then I worked for the first four of them sitting in the cottage mouldering while they all went about their fun as if I hadn't arrived yet. Not feeling sorry for myself, just figuring out the pain, and why I can't get my head straight right now for longer than a few hours. You know what they say: all work and no time off for good behaviour makes Mick a sick bunny. And I'm sick of feeling sick.

And on that high note, allow me to remind you where you can hear the best rock music on the radio, FM, net or otherwise. Live from 8pm UK time tonight, the Classic Rock magazine show, find me at... http://www.rockradio.co.uk/

Oh man, tired today. As in... fu-ck-ing-tire-ed. You know? Pain from head to toe, like they just picked you up from the middle of the road tire tracks all across your back nowhere left to go. You know? Thought huffing and puffing across yonder woods and hills with wife and dog early on might blow the cobwebs away, and it did. From the tired old graveyard mind. The body, being even older and more beat up, was less accommodating, though. Then I got into my office and the pain only increased, looking round at the work piled up like so many dead bodies, ignored all week while I flounced around London town, doing ma thang, let me tell you about ma thang.

Gave up there and then, pretty much. Suggested wife and I take off for an afternoon's shopping at Asda instead. Not the planet-shitting giant in Swindon, but its littler cousin in Wheatley. Picked up boy from pre-school at midday, grabbed a giant cuppa cappa from Costa on the way and snaked our way the (pretty) way over to Wheatley. Rhymes with sweetly. Spent the next couple of hours drooling over the various food counters. I didn't eat meat for 13 years then just decided one day: fuck it. Now I eat anything, mama, including the eyes and assholes of any small or large creatures I can stuff into my gob, and Asda is full of 'em. Yummy mummy. The only thing Asda doesn't have is good wine. Which is puzzling as they have good everything else going for far less than any other store, the best beer, the best whiskey. Just no wine worth shelling out for. Just the cheap-shit shit. Just as well I'm off the lash at the moment. Into Apple Juice instead. Ice cold, organic, good for the rotting body, good for the reeking brain. And the giant cuppa cappas, of course.

It was back to work by the end of the afternoon, though. Couldn't put it off any longer. Plus I had Paul Rodgers ringing me at 8.00pm for an interview. I checked and this is like the fifth or sixth time I've interviewed Paul in the past three or four years. He always had a rep as being One Bad Mutha back in the day but I've always found him nice as pie. Him and Cynthia his nearest and dearest. I just feel bad that me and my wife have so far never managed to hook up with them whenever they're in town. They always go to the trouble of asking and we always seem to fall prey to all sorts of weird things out of our control that stop us making it. Not next time, baby. If there is a next time. Meantime, gotta go now and get ready for that interview. Then get ready for bed. Hit it and quit it, like old James Brown used to say. And hope the boy and the dog don't wake up and spoil things. Again.

In London again today, this time to record the Classic Rock show for Rock Radio. Haven't been feeling right since not getting home til about 2.00a.m. from the Iron Maiden premier on Monday. Not just cos of that but because between the boy and the dog I haven't been getting enough unbroken hours sleep lately. Long story, boring details, but it means I often wake up in a different bed from the one I went to sleep in. It also means I find myself standing in the garden at 5.00a.m. some nights. Mornings. Hell holes. So, feeling shit is us. Me anyway. This morning, instead of working on info for the links to the show as usual, I jumped on the running machine instead. Well, fell onto it. 45 minutes later, though, I was actually feeling like I'd re-entered Earth's atmosphere and could breathe properly again. Of course, this meant I didn't have any links prepared for the show but what the fuck, I could wing it, couldn't I? You know, like a real DJ.

Jumped in the car and set-off. Even remembered to bring some good CDs to listen to. Left town wheels screeching with Starfucker by the Stones blasting out the driver's side window. By the time I reached the studio in London I was ready to rock, fucker. And bugger me if it didn't all come together too. Best show yet, pure babbling, making-it-up-as-you-go-along rock genius. And that was just me making the tea and waiting for Dave the engineer to hook me up on the ISDN to Manchester. (The studio is so old it's like getting the Tardis to work before the Daleks break down the door.) Geoff Barton was the guest, new tracks came from Heaven + Hell, Chickenfoot and others. And we kicked off with Diamond Dave Lee Roth doing Yankee Rose before seguing like Real Men into the new remixed, re-diddled version of Slide It In by Whitesnake which comes out in June. Even played some live and stonking Elvis Presley from the days When He Was King. And then I drove home again, a bit out of breath actually...

Back to London today for lunch with Bernard Doherty. Bernard's one of the few people left alive that have been working in the music biz, or thereabouts, for even longer than I have, him mostly as a PR for everybody from Sandy Denny to Pink, via the Stones and etc (quite a lot of high-profile etcs, as it goes), me mostly as me, whatever that was depending on who was paying the bills at the time. Inevitably our paths have crossed a zillion times over the years - we have more people in common than most families - though we've never managed to get to know each other well. So, finally, we decided to do something about it and catch up. It was good, went to Topo's, scoffed pasta, topped up on Pinot Grigio and salad, and set the world to rights, as you do. Between us, though, there are simply too many good stories to be able to tell even a fraction of them in just a few hours, so we agreed to reconvene at some point soon.

The rest of the day was spent largely travelling to and from that lunch, because the traffic in and out of London was so appalling. The M4 was buggered on the way in so had to take a detour through Slough, with its trademark lovely smell of sewers, up onto the M40 where the traffic was nearly as bad. OK, highway chile, you know the score there. But on the way back was even worse. Before I'd even got out of London there was a cop car blocking the entry to the A40 - the main gateway out of the Metropolis going west - for reasons unknown or possibly Al Quieda-ish, which meant I spent the next two hours crawling down towards the Uxbridge Road via the cultural slums of Paddington and Westbourne Grove. Sorry if you don't know London and this is all a blur but that is as nothing compared to how I felt after three hours in a hot car with only a Word covermount CD to listen to. Fucking grim, let me tell you. I really like The Word as a mag, but that poxy CD, jeez...

One weird moment, found myself driving up Portobello Road towards Notting Hill Gate, a journey I used to do on foot, back and forth every day, when I worked at Virgin Records in the early 80s as a press officer for the likes of Gillan, the Human League, Japan and lots of other not-so-well known pop tarts. Weird how none of it appears to have changed that much. Maybe a few more 'crazy' clothes' stores. And I think the Record & Tape store where I used to flog albums for yoo-hoo money is now gone, as you'd expect in these Spotified days. But, basically, it was the same. Same wispy middle-aged women dressed as hippy-lambs wafting around, childless and bored, same skinny guys standing around looking like Bob Dylan in 1965, desperate to be noticed. Same smell of good grass in the air, dirty devils, and on the edges of all that, staring out from around lamposts, the same blacks and rasta-babes, only more moneyed-up, even more knowing than in my long gone day. Even drove past the little red Italian place the late great Giovanni Dadomo treated me to a meal in one night back in about 1979. Made you think, mutha. Then the traffic gave a little and I was up around the corner and gone again, heading with speed back to 2009 and the home I could never have dreamed of in the days when I travelled through these parts strictly on foot.

Got back late from London last night, literally on the last train out of town - the one with all the drunks and weirdos - so feeling less than wonderful today. I was there for the premier of the new Iron Maiden tour movie, Flight 666. What was it like? For some reason I was taken aback at how many people kept asking me that at the party afterwards but I suppose it's not an unreasonable question. I just don't know what I thought. I suppose it was... very well made, of course, with some great live footage. Fans will be thrilled, and that's what it's all about. Certainly for Maiden anyway. For the rest of us, though, it was... OK. Compared to, say, The Song Remains The Same, it wasn't close, though. Compared to Some Kind Of Monster, it didn't even get off the runway. Too many bloody great blokes and not nearly enough smelly reality. Not any at all, in fact. Some nice moments here and there, though, specifically the overwrought fan in Argentina, crossing himself and wiping the tears from his eye. Makes you realise how you really shouldn't take things for granted. Still found myself cursing though as I lined-up at the five-people-deep bar at the party afterwards to pay £18 for two drinks. What was really nice for me was meeting so many people I haven't seen in way too long a time, JJ, Coppo, Mrs Dickinson, Adrian, Rod. Plus a couple I'd never met before but who I ended up chatting most to, my new best friends, Christian and Kerstin, cosmopolitan Londoners originally from Sweden. Into food. And kids. And for some reason talking to me. I'd go out far more often if I always bumped into them.

So... today. Struggled through the daylight hours, then found myself laughing my arse off through the twilight bits yacking to David Coverdale over the phone for a Classic Rock interview. Being Lord Coverdale, he utterly refused to asnwer any of the questions the magazine had been hoping I would ask him in my pleb-like fashion and simply went off into his own, let's be fair, far more exciting verbal world of women with "huge breasts", an occasional backhander for those beneath him like a certain R. Plant and a great deal of brilliant boasting about the two newly refurbished classic Whitesnake CDs coming out in a few weeks time, Slide It In and Slip Of The Tongue. In short, he was David Coverdale, ladies and gentlemen, and you've simply got to love him for it. And what was it you wanted to know again? Oh...

A day of rest. Or might have been for some. But not I. Even though I deserved one after Friday and Saturday. Friday I had lunch in London with Chris Ingham. Which pretty much knocked out the day right there. What always gets me is that just as I'm getting ready to crawl home he is on the moby sorting out his next pitstop. But then he is in his mid-30s still. I try and think back to how much I was like that at his age but it makes me shudder too much. Makes me wanna go back, makes me wanna stay the hell away. Makes me wanna take the rest of the afternoon off, Miss Jones. Which I do. More or less, bar the Chinese meal I had with wife and kids when I got home. It was raining by then and boy was I glad to see the car with them all in waiting noisily for me as the train pulled in to Domestic City.

Saturday should have been different but for reasons known only to my wife who volunteered me for the job, I found myself being a judge at a Battle Of The Bands competition in a village hall somewhere off the London M25 corridor. Three bands. Full of mainly little people who were charming and brave, for the most part. Supported by much bigger, much more serious people, called parents, who actually took to booing me halfway through and accusing me of "doing a Sharon Osbourne." All I'd done was suggest politely that the second band on might have been a teensy bit more fun if they'd had a singer doing the vocals and not a pint-sized sax player. "BOO! BOOO!!"

At which point, one of the organisers of the event, my eldest daughter's clarinet tecaher, Tracy, leaned over to wife and whispered: "I'd keep the car running outside if I were you." I had been supposed to get up and tell "some rock and roll stories," at the end but I'd lost my bottle by then and did a fast-horse-out-of-town job instead, hoping wife and kids would be able to keep up as I sped through the door clutching my complimentary bottle of red in one hand and what was left of my balls in the other. I am definitely not doing one of these things again, cheers. Not without bodyguards anyway. Or maybe a Ross.

Then came today, which was wonderfully low-key and deeply unexciting. Just the way Sundays are meant to be. Until 8pm anyway, when the radio got turned on. Listen to the official Classic Rock show live now if you want at... http://www.rockradio.co.uk/

The old insomnia returned last night. Usual story: found myself drifting off into nowhereland on the couch, did the decent thing and took myself off to my rancid nest, where I lay in the dark wide awake for three or four hours. Or rather, wide awake intermittently, mainly just rolling around in the awful twilight of non-sleep, non-wakefulness, half-dreaming, half-scheming. As a result, woke up dead - again - this morning. Birth was the death of him, wrote Samual Beckett. Or in my case, waking each day was the end for him. Yeah, heavy. Fortunately, being rung up by Steve on the breakfast show of the Manchester network of Rock Radio to discuss - wait for it - nudes in rock, blew the cobwebs away.

After that, I was all set for another rocking Thursday driving to London to record the Classic Rock radio show. It went well. This is turning into a habit. It might even become fun, if we're not careful. And good music too. Everything from Sepultura to Hootie & The Blowfish. OK, scratch that last one. Eclectic is the watchword we're aiming for. I think. Listen on Sunday and tell me what you think. If you must. Me, I'll be on the couch, not sleeping, just fucking dreaming of it. Still.

One of those days that starts out bad and just gets... better. Eventually. Thank god. Saved by work, I was able to lose myself in my office for most of it while the family - still off from school, teachers lead the life of Riley, doncha think? - galavanted around town. Like a whirlwind when they all came home, of course, me still hiding out in my office at the Not OK Corral. Now the evening stretches before us like a taut elastic band about to snap any moment, and my arse just inches from it too. Sort of time you could use a drink, except I don't even fancy that. Maybe a drive then. Around the bend. And back. Again.

No blog yesterday. Things were going too well for that. The sun was out and so were the Wall tribe. First stop: Challows, our favourite set of big barns in the middle of nowhere, selling you name it, but only one of each, hence the super-low prices. We were looking for a small bookcase, secondhand hopefully, for the children's books. We found one but it was riddled with woodworm so no dice. The burger truck outside was in full swing though so we treated the kids to a lunch of hot dogs and cheeseburgers, heavy on the ketchup. The woman taking the orders was nice too, giving them all little chocolate eggs for afters.

From there we cruised on down to Chilton, to another we-sell-any-and-every-kind-of-shit stop we frequent, the kind they specialise in out here beyond the cities of night. And there we found it, small, imperfectly formed, and so ancient even the cobwebs had dust on them, all ours for £39, we'll take it. Got it home and wife went to work, polish, love, and all sorts of activity in the conservatory - the children's playroom - changing things round till they were... better. I was even allowed to bugger off and read the paper if I wanted but somehow I didn't fancy it. Things were going too good elsewhere, so I hung out with the kids, doing, er, chores, you know. Stuff. Until we found ourselves stretched out on the couch watching TV. And... well, what more do you really need to know? Sometimes nothing times nothing equals something.

Today it was back to work, and I don't mind that. Being skint it's immensely reassuring to realise you still have some work to do, there's plenty of people we know right now that haven't, make our troubles seem like what they are, pebbles chucked into a deep pool where the ripples are, frankly, very small, if never-bloody-ending. Sun was out again too. And somewhere down the line I got a big cuppa cappa from Costa. That'll do me. For now.

I don't know about you but I could do without this whole Easter egg trip. It wasn't so bad when I was a kid, though I was traumatised more often than not by the fact that my parents usually forgot about the whole thing or bought me such a poxy little egg you'd think Chicken Little's little sister had laid it right after her breast reduction. It got better as I got older, of course, and various girlfriends thought it cute to buy me some Belgium-priced white-truffled monstrosity that you'd have to be a - can we get real here? - FUCKING PIG to eat. These days, though, living in the Land of Plenty my three kids inhabit means they have so many eggs lined up they could live off them for a month in the event of a nuclear attack. Very depressing this, at six in the morning, when the first cry goes up. "DADDY... CAN I HAVE MY EGGS NOW PLEEAASSSEEEEE?"

Anyway, I did get to chat to Ross on the phone, who's just back from LA (obviously, he's always either just back or on his way) which is my equivalent of seeing Jesus roll back the stone and ascend to the sky.

Meanwhile, live right now - the Classic Rock radio show at www.rockradio.co.uk/scotland (or Manchester, or the Northeast). S'good. Better than sicking up over another egg, trust me.

I was first down the stairs this morning. Never a good sign. But then you wouldn't be feeling great either if you'd had Kevin and Yvonne over for dinner the night before. Not cos they're bad company. Because they're such good company. Too bloody good. Not that I'm against the very occasional glass of something medicinal and red, you understand. But that Kevin is a bad influence. Before you know it he's forced you to open a bottle of the Irish as well and next thing you know you're sitting there in your underpants and vest singing old rebel songs.

So... this morning. Drank two cups of tea, ate two slices of hevaily jammed toast and... lay down on the couch with the dog licking my feet. At which point the Celtic God of whiskey must have taken pity on me because the children stayed asleep longer than usual and didn't come down and drive me mad for another hour or so, good wholesome little blighters that they sometimes are. They got their own back on me later though by forcing me to take them shopping. How I staggered through that without pulling out a semi-automatic and dropping several innocent bystanders only my wife would know. Fortunately, the fact that the Doctor Who Easter special was on TV tonight meant we had to come home earlier than usual. After that... who knows? I think it was just me and the couch again. Or it was the next time I looked. No rebel songs tonight though. And definitely no red or Irish...

No time to shit let alone blog yesterday. Had to be in London to record the Classic Rock show, which went really well. You might think I'm bound to say that. Unless you've been reading this blog for a while, of course. In which case you'll know I never say things like that unless they're true. No, this week's show was one of the best yet of the seven or eight we've done so far. Sian Llewellyn was our guest and she's always good value, and as well as all the usual good stuff we play (please note, old Planet Rock listeners, we never play the same track twice) we played some tracks from the Chickenfoot album. It's a great piece of work if you like that classic good-timey Van Halen type stuff, maybe even better considering Joe Satriani is the guitarist. Anyway, tune in this Sunday at 8pm UK time and find out.

The day went downhill after that, though. I had to ride-like-the-wind-Bullseye to be home in time for a phone call from a Very Important Person in America. I don't mean to sound mysterious but that's really all I can tell you right now. Except to say I got home late only to discover he had called early and told to call again. Later. Which he didn't do. Or rather he did, but by then it was so late I was lying face-down unconscious on the couch - no, not drunk, just very sad and tired, you fuckers - and only woke in time to hear the end of his answer-phone message blaring from the next room. So I staggered to my computer to look up his number and called him back, only to be told he had now left for the day but that I could try again tomorrow - early. Or in my case, being eight hours ahead, late. Geddit?

Anyway, by the time today came around I'd forgotten the whole thing because wife had invited our friends Kevin and Yvonne over for dinner, along with their three kids, Ben, Chloe and Kate. All good except guess who was supposed to be cooking dinner? Well, obviously, I mean you wouldn't want to risk wife's cooking. I wouldn't, anyway. So... by the time Mr VIP America called again this evening - early, I think, for him, but way too late for me - the dinner party was in full-swing, the noise level so tucked into the red even the neighbours had given up throwing stones at the window and... I didn't actually hear the phone. Or the resulting message. And you wonder why I don't live in Hollywood anymore...

Made like a good normal dad and went for lunch today with the extended family: wife, kids, nanna and granddad. And me. T'was good, actually. Granddad has sussed out a great country pub a short drive from where we live where they serve all day lunches and dinner, anything from the obilgatory these days Thai eat-as-much-as-you-dare buffet, to traditonal roast dinners, via yer pannini sarnies and suchlike. And beer, of course. Mine was a pint of Hobgoblin. Oh yes. You know you're liviing it up in ye olde English country style when you find yourself sitting next to your three-year-old son drinking a pint of Hobgoblin. Came home via the 21st century, mind you, stopping off for a v.large cappa from the local Costa, in order for daddy to stay awake long enough to finish his work. What that was I can no longer recall but it seemed quite urgent at the time, I'm fairly. You don't interrupt your Hobgoblin for nothing in these parts.

Another prosaic day sitting in front of the laptop trying to 'focus' on the 'positives'. In my case, building this week's Classic Rock radio show while working on 'other projects' that may or may not yield some long term 'benefit'. That is to say, ackers. Speaking of which, found myself surfing the net for the best credit card deals. It's amazing what's out there right now. Nought percent on balance transfers, various low interest rates, etcetera. Of course, none of this actually reduces your debt, it just means you're paying less in minimum payments each month. But it's all a 'positive', isn't it? Mmm. Then found myself checking out the big loan companies but pulled myself back from actually applying for anything. Not that that stopped the bastards immedietly 'noting my interest' and starting to phone me on their godforsaken 0800 numbers, the first call at about 8pm. "You applied for a loan, Mr Wall?" "No." "But you were looking on the internet?" "So what?" "Well, do you need a loan?" "No." "May I ask what changed your mind?" "The thought of dealing with cunts like you." Click. Some days it can't get dark quick enough...

It's a cliche that we so-called creative types are just no sodding good with money but like all the biggest cliches it is horribly true. Certainly in my case. So having to focus today on money matters made this a spectacularly painful sort of day for the likes of me. The problem, in a nutshell, concerns the outrageous amount of dough apparently needed each month to keep this family trundling along, and the almost equally outrageous lack of income to match it that I have bene able to eke out of late. Yes, I was fortunate enough to receive a boost from the good folk at Orion, my gentlemen publishers, at the start of the year. But we were hideously broke by then and so that went the way of all good things, only even faster than usual. Replacing wife's rotten gas-guzzler with a car that costs less than half what that did in terms of weekly fuel bills, and nothing at all compared to the thousands we pissed away on repairs for the old crate, definitely made sound financial sense. Even my accountant said so. As for the two new laptops that arrived around the same time, my old machine was nearly four years old and would have cost hundreds to repair, and besides, according to Adam, my tech guy, three years is now the "maximum" you can expect to stay tethered to any computer before having to (dread word) upgrade. So upgrade we did, all of it tax-deductable, according to Damian the rock'n'roll accountant. And, yes, Jeremy Paxman would have been impressed, I'm sure, that I took his advice and "knocked out" one of my credit cards, in view of the (never thought I'd see those words here) credit crunch. And... well, you get the picture. So that now, almost four months into the glistening new year, we are, frankly, potless. Not that that stops us pissing it away, you understand. All of which meant that today has been a day of reckoning, of sorts, as I wrestle manfully with my good friends at the VAT office over the fact that I don't have all the lolly they need. or even the lolly stick. As for the gas and electricity bills, I found myself doing something today I haven't done since my seriously skint days back in the so-bad-I-don't-even-wanna-talk-about-it day - ring and ask them for more time to pay. The only 'positive' was that everyone else is so skint these days that all the bill-keepers are forced to be extra nice. Even my excellent new buddies at the ever so nice VAT office. Sort of. Anyway, by the end of it, I was still skint, still freaking out every time posty dropped off another batch of brown envelopes through the creaking door, but feeling slightly better about things as I metaphorically patted myself on the back for having the warrior-soul to, you know, ring and talk to the bastards. Money? Like the man said, it's a gas...

As a fat, four-eyed, overworked, under-pressure father of three you wonder sometimes how you will ever get to the end of the day without killing someone, or possibly yourself. This was one of those days. As this weekend was the start of the school Easter holidays wife and I had decided to try and make it a kids-oriented one. Well, that worked up to a point yesterday. Today, however, went downhill almost from the time the girls woke us at 7.00a.m. with their endless bitching, moaning, fighting and the kind of intense general hating that only young sisters seem able to summon on a regular basis. Even the boy, normally such a cheery chappy, weighed in with far more than his fair share of screaming, whining, crying and etc. By mid-afternoon, during a disatrous walk through the local town during which the youngest girl will hopefully grow up with no idea how close she came to summary execution, I hissed to my wife through gritted teeth: "They... go... to... bed... early... tonight..." She nodded her head wearily, only half able to listen as yet more screams filled the air.

What a surprise it was then to find the evening unfolding so... almost anyway... nicely. All sat around the table eating Sunday dinner just like the Waltons we finally found a common enemy in the gravy, of all things, which I had purchased specially for the beef but which we all agreed tasted rank. Then started laughing. And laughing and laughing. Exhaustion? Insanity? Don't know but none of them got to bed much before nine o'clock and when they did I almost missed them.

Almost.

Meanwhile... From 8pm to 11pm UK time tonight, the Classic Rock Show... http://www.rockradio.co.uk/

First day of the Easter half-term school holidays and my first weekend 'off' in a while. Happy coincidence or work of the devil? Hard to tell from where I'm sitting right now, head in two, back aching, feet burning, brain rotating like a spit. Tell you what, though, listening to Jill Scott on the radio helps. Good old Paul Gambaccini. Cool old Radio 2. Lucky old moi - et vous? What a day, though. Decided to treat the brood to our latest favourite weekend watering hole - Asda in Swindon. Well, it is the biggest shop in the world - my world. Mainly for our weekly food shop but also because it really does have EVERYTHING. Anyway, after two hours of the girls bickering over any and everyfuckingthing, I was ready to snap. Fortunately for them, I was driving home at the time the elastic band that powers the rat's wheel inside my head actually broke in two so I wasn't able to get my hands on them. Hiding in here now writing this while I wait for them to go to bed so I can get to the kitchen without shedding someone's blood, possibly my own, to cook something for wife and I to chew morosely while staring at shit on the telly before we follow them. Wasn't the weather nice, too, today, though.

P.S. - quick Spotify recommendation for those In The Know. Check out the Snivelling Shits. Anything at all but particularly Isgodaman and I Can't Come, two of the greatest rock songs ever written. If you like what you hear I'll tell you who they were - and who they might be again in the future-past. Man.

What a very, very strange day indeed. A lovely start walking with wife and dog up on the clumps this morning. You can always find new paths and stretches of woods you've never been along before up there and today we found ourselves heading towards a lake we've always known was there but never actually gotten to up close before. It was misty and beautiful and on the way back we stopped off at the organic farm and bought a dozen free-range eggs. You just take the eggs and leave the money in an old biscuit tin. In all these years we've never once seen the owners. Then when we got home I found myself eating red grapefruit and staring into space while wife showered and did whatever it is wives do in their bath and bedrooms before they are ready to face another day full-on. I could easily have sat there all day.

This afternoon was what really put me in a trance though. Digging out old - in some cases very old indeed - photographs for Julie to put onto the website. Today is her last chance to get anything done and so I had to make the most of it. The earliest pic I sent her is one I found that my mother took of me when I was nine months old; the most recent, so far, a couple from a few years ago, taken on the Ridgeway when we had our old German Shepherd, Annie. Nothing much from the 70s, of course, or Mick's Lost Years as they are known. But a surprising amount from the 80s and 90s. And how scary it has been to sit here sifting through them. So far I've only managed to go through one bulging bag of shots. There are at least two others plus a big weird box in the garage plus a lot of other pix hidden away in various files and on different shelves. I never realised how beautiful I was when I was younger, but then youth brings its own fantastic allure. I don't mean handsome or sexy with or without various shirts, I mean... beautiful. Young. Like seeing pictures from another world, which is of course exactly what they are, shots taken from before the war had changed the landscape forever.

The fact that I also found myself listening at the same time to Brian Eno's ambient back-catalogue on Spotify also added to the mood of vague dislocation of course, of time-travelling like a ghost, able to see but no longer able to touch or smell, or often even remember who or what or why. Just the sights, the imprints, left to remind you of what once was and now will never be again. Left me wanting a drink, actually. Or a long car ride. Or something. Just to get out of this place, knowing you can't, that you always carry it around in your head even when your head's no longer working properly. Anyway, the new site will be up soon and you'll be able to see and scoff for yourselves.

Weird thing work. It's like running on the treadmill. You start, knowing how far you mean to go and it feels like an impossible hill, like no matter how long you stay there huffing and puffing you'll never quite get to the crest and start to see over to the good side. Then suddenly - or not so suddenly, actually, after quite a long fucking time, actually - you get your second wind or whatever you want to call it, and suddenly you're there. And now you can't be dragged away from the machine. You stay there so long in fact - running, panting, sweating, lost in your dull-to-everyone-else pain - you can end up hurting yourself.

Like today. Got up, felt like shit, jumped in the shower, grudgingly consumed toast and tea while squinting at Sky Sports News on the Tv (there's an England game on tonight, who knew?). Then fell into my office sideways and began what I knew would be a long one. First off that meant polishing off the Metallica feature for the Hammer. Binged and banged and pronged and pranged and - suddenly, well not so suddenly but you get the drift - it was done. Done and fucking done good. Fucker. Off you go down the crackling electric line and don't come back till your carryuing a cheque strapped to your back. Broke off for lunch - a big red grapefruit, don't ask, I'm just into them right now - then tottered back to base to write and build this week's Classic Rock show.

This can take a day on its own when the weather's fine and there's fuck all else of any urgency to do. But today... three hours, tops, and that mother is put to bed. Well, almost. But I can take care of the details later cos, hey, I can do anything, right? And besides, Ian the reviews editor at Classic Rock was waiting for my review of the new Heaven And Hell album, the CD of which only arrived in the post this morning. But I've been playing it and playing it in between putting the radio show together and gradually - well, not so gradually but yeah yeah yeah - it's starting to become clear to me. It's better than I thought. Better than they thought too, I bet. Well and good. Write it up. But quick. And make it good. Ian only gave me two other reviews to do this month and both just tiddlers. Must be something I didn't write well enough last time. This will show him. Maybe.

Bingo. He mails back. "Lovely stuff, Mick." I love him. And to think I was the one that gave him the job back in the day. But there you go. Writers are all pathetic whores. Tell them something they did is "lovely" and they'll fuck your grandmother's dead bones if you ask them to. I will.

I can stop now. But it's too late. I'm on a roll, motherfucker! What else ya got? Oh YEAH! The website! Julie wants pix, and more stories, and a timeline panel, nothing too serious but still something else to be done. I get busy... What's that? I haven't rung the VAT people yet and begged them for more time to pay their cocksucking bill? FUCK THE VAT CUNTS! I'm on a fucking roll, I told you! Out of my way. Stuff to do. People to fuck. Places not to go. Come on, come on, come on...