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| Sorry we're late again, usual stories, usual excuses, hope you all had a very Merry Christmas. Christmas found this lot of travelleling minstrels sampling the delights of December 25th a la Los Angeles style. No turkey, no Christmas pudding, no cold weather and only a six inch tall Xmas tree thoughtfully provided by Howard. We'd only arrived in town the day before and spent most of the day recovering from travelling, sitting in a daze by a swimming pool! The closest we got to a Christmas Dinner was a Chinese meal and even that was almost impossible to find. Not much of a Christmas. Still, these sacrifices have to be made once in a while, I suppose! |
| The original reason for going to America again so soon after the last trip was for the mixing of the second LP, but as 'New Clear Days' and 'Turning Japanese' were still doing well it made sense to do a series of gigs around the same time. we won't bore y'all (Southern expressions creaping in already) with details of all the gigs, but there is an account of the west coast gigs supplied by Rick Gershon who we met in L.A in September on the first visit. He turned up at all the L.A gigs this time around and never looked back. He also proved a great host in a city which we knew nothing about, CHEERS RICK! Throughout the tour, the gigs were far better than we'd hoped, the venues were slightly larger than the last tour in many cases and all but a few sold out. Obviously growing popularity in America and not much happening here makes things difficult for us: a lot of time needs to be spent gigging etc. at home but at the same time there is an ever present demand for us in America. We hope to be able to balance things out a lot better this year though. |
| The new single, 'Spider' (we told you we wouldn't do the same forever!) is out now, as hopefully you already know. 'Magnets', the new LP will be out on March 9th by which time a series of gigs on Britain will have started. |
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| Mr. Tickle as yo probably know was the hero behind 'True Colours' by Split Enz, a previously unknown chap who produced and engineered the LP. What you probably didn't know, was that a school friend of Howard's years ago was a young Tickle, all four feet of him, (well almost!) He also used to help out a group that Ed unsuccessfully tried to barge his way into at the tender age of 14. Mr. Tickle mysteriously disappeared from those haunts favored by the Guildford youth about 5 years ago. This was because he'd begun working at a studio in Ascot, Berkshire which was then owned by Ringo Starr.We bumped into him on a train coming back from London a few days after signing with U.A in September 1979 and were astonished to discover he'd worked with Blondie, disgusted to learn he'd worked with the Knack, and not really interested about others he'd worked with as we'd never heard of them! August 1980 saw us do our first gig off British soil in Melbourne, Australia. Of course who should appear afterwards but Monsieur Tickle. we then learned that he had bought a house in the street next to Ed's flat, and two minutes walk from Dave Fenton's palatial bedsit! At Melbourne, mutual interest in each others careers was expressed, hence the decision to work together on 'Magnets'. This my friends, has been the coincidence riddled story of Mr. Tickle and how he came to do what he did between November 1980 and January 1981. |
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