http://www.reverbnation.com/grahamsnumber

www.grahamsnumbermusic.com

 

http://www.swtimes.com/features/article_3ca08b76-d79f-11df-a74c-001cc4c03286.html

TIMES RECORD • BAD COMPANY  

The Perfect Holiday gift for a music fan of the 60s/70s

Free Paul Rodgers Paul Kossoff “Heavy Load - Story of Free” Biography Excerpt (Repost)

FOR SALE HERE

1. What inspired you to write Heavy Load?

I was a big Paul Kossoff fan and didn’t think that story had been told properly. Originally the book was specifically about Koss but that proved very difficult and the first project ‘Long Way Down To The Top’ was pretty much abandoned around 1985 as it wasn’t going anywhere. I’d been running the ‘Free Appreciation Society’ magazine since around 1979 and that sucked up most of my time but finishing the book – or rather how to finish the book – was always at the back of my mind. Todd Smith (Co-Author of ‘Heavy Load’) turned up around 1993. He was originally a subscriber to the magazine. He was pretty pushy and wanted to see what I’d done. We actually met at a Paul Rodgers show at ‘The Forum’ in London as Todd came over to see him. From there things picked up again. I would guess that was around 1994 / 1995.

2, Did you originally plan to have another company publish it?

Originally I wanted ‘Northdown Publishing’ to handle the book as I already knew Michael Heatley, who runs the company and I liked his books. At the time he was going through a rough spot so we did talk to ‘Cherry Red Books’ for a while but I wasn’t happy with the way that was going. They wanted a softback with a few pictures in the middle and that wasn’t really my thinking of how it was going to look. It was around then that I started to think of self-publishing.

3. When you decided to publish it yourself, did you have any idea of the costs involved and how much you’d have to sell to break even?

Nope. In fact we were very naïve and unprepared. We didn’t really think about the selling initially as we were just trying to get it finished and looking good. That was sucking up all of our time, literally. I told Michael Heatley what I wanted to do and he put me in touch with some people (Printing Agents) who handle the printing process and we went from there. I was writing and checking stuff, trying to sort out photographs and such while Todd was setting up all the pages. He was doing that kind of thing for a living so he had some experience but even so we were both breaking new ground on a personal level and it was a steep learning curve.

4. After writing a book, can you take me through, the process of getting it physically pressed into a book.

I thought the writing was pretty tough, particularly getting things rounded up and smoothed out but writing the magazine it wasn’t totally new to me. Once we moved into getting things ready to print it opened a whole new can of worms. For us it was all about text and pictures as both tell the story and go together as one whole piece. The printers are exactly that, they print and that’s all. There was no way we could afford to pay someone to set the book up so we had to learn by trail and error really. There are plenty of ‘Adobe’ type programs to help with this, but you still have to learn how to use them. Todd handled this and was amazing. I just made his job harder by making him move things around and stuff. We flipped copies of the pages back and forth in the post for probably about a year before it really started to come together. At the same time I had a music journalist friend Phil Sutcliffe help check and edit my writing. I’m a bit dyslexic so that was a bit of a problem even with spell checking and also the book was WAY to long. The first full draft was huge. Phil went though it with a red pen removing what he felt didn’t need to be there – and then I went and put most of it back in! That went on for a while. Phil did a great job though and while he was doing that, we were re-writing and resetting up the chapters with pictures. It was a pretty frustrating time and really full on. I flew to the States a few of times to work with Todd in Philadelphia and slowly we got through it, often working most of the night at his workplace. Eventually we set up and printed off every chapter and we felt it looked great. We then had to get it ‘saved’ in the format the printers could use and we waited for a ‘printers’ proof from them.

5. What were some of the problems in physically getting it published?

Actually getting it printed is easy. You send it to the printers in the format they ask for it and off they go. The problem is that once they set it up and send you a proof they are ready to go, and want to get it done straight away. This caught me completely unaware and when our agent said he was BRINGING the proof I thought, ‘why doesn’t he just post it?’ then when he arrived I learnt that he wanted me to authorise the print run to ‘go’ there and then! I thought we’d have time to browse though it and check it but actually we had to give and answer really quickly. That meant that in the first print we missed a few things that were changed in the second edition. That was a bit disappointing but it wasn’t the end of the word as they were mostly little things. Odd spelling and grammar errors. What freaked us out most was that some of the pictures had moved and were in the wrong places but we did fix most of that. We had to learn about ISBN numbers and all that stuff. The cover was tricky with barcodes and spine sizes. I asked Phil Smee to help with that and he was very kind. I knew him from working on the Free boxed set and the album remasters as he does all the artwork for that. We also had to pick the paper stock, the cover type, again all kinds of things we’d never thought about. It was just one step at a time, one decision then another until we got to the end of the process.

6. How long did it take you to write the book?

Well I started in 1979 / 1980 and it was published in 2000! I spent about five years initially but that was on and off before I finally give up and the text sat gathering dust in my front room for years and years. When Todd arrived I got dug in with research and then spent six weeks solid on it. I took my years vacation and wrote every day and night for that time. Never drew the curtains and went out only for food shopping. I drank about four pots of coffee a day. Not very healthy really. I wrote until I fell asleep and then when I woke up I continued from where I’d stopped. That was pretty intense but it was a good way to do it on reflection. I was completely engrossed in it and didn’t allow any distractions. By the end of the six weeks I had a huge volume of text and only the end of the book was a bit scrappy. I think by then I was going a bit bonkers with cabin fever and lack of sunlight! I was very pale!

7. How did you manage to get names and phone numbers to interview people for the book? Was everyone cooperative?

I already knew the band a little bit. Simon I first interviewed around 1981 and he’d always been very helpful. Paul Rodgers I met when Stephen Croxford was managing him and Andy I eventually ‘found’ through Island records in America. Paul and Andy were tough to deal with but I think once they knew we were going to do the best for the band we could, and that we were both fans it got a little easier. I interviewed all the band and Todd then dealt mostly with Paul Rodgers. Paul was moving back abroad at the time, to Canada, so the time difference made it easier for Todd to work with him. Outside of that I’ve been in touch with John ‘Rabbit’ Bundrick for years, and he’s a good friend so he was very helpful and the same goes for the Back Street Crawler guys. There were other people I already knew that had been involved in the story and some we contacted via record companies and management. Most were pleased to help out but we had a few that didn’t get back to us, promised interviews but never gave them or simply declined. Sometimes that was a surprise. It took us a while to get to Chris Blackwell but Todd was real persistent on that one. Some people were tough to find and some came to us, which was nice. There is a lot of love for ‘Free’ in the musician fraternity and that helped a great deal. Also David Kossoff was a really good friend and his name opened some doors for sure. Al Kooper, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and some of those guys were huge Free fans. They wanted to be involved, and they were great.

8. How did you manage to get photos for the book? Did they cost you any money?

Again from running the magazine and also from the bits of work I’d done for record companies and the music press I knew some of the photographers already. Generally they were very helpful and knew what we were doing and that we were paying for everything ourselves. There were a few that wanted more than we could afford so we didn’t use them. This isn’t to say the pictures didn’t cost anything though. There is one spread over two pages in the book that cost £500 ($750) alone! There were four photographers who were particularly helpful, and to whom I am extremely grateful. If I’m ever doing a project where photographs are needed and will be paid for I always mention those people as sources as a way of paying them back for all their help and kindness. The ex-band members were all helpful too and provided family photographs which were totally exclusive to the book. That was great. Those photographs really make those initial chapters work.

9. After your initial draft how many revisions did you do till the existing book was ready? Did you send any drafts to the principles?

There were lots of constant revisions. I’ve not idea how many but we were revising right up to sending the files to the printers. All the principles were sent copies and some changes were made at their request. We tried to show anyone who helped what we were doing, not least because we needed all the help we could get!

10. Did you have someone else edit and proof check it?

Initially Todd was doing the first drafts where he was working, and he got fired for working on it during his lunch breaks. Nice! Two months later he was hired by another company that published medical and law books and that was a good move for us as they were much more lenient and he had access to much better equipment and software. Grace Caputo was a professional editor at this company and she took about three months going through the manuscript. The people around Todd at that time were very supportive of what he was doing, a great bunch of people, and he was working real hard. I guess it was an adventure for them and us. Then as previously mentioned Phil Sutcliffe helped with proof reading and editing the final draft. As a professional music writer he was of great assistance. He used to write for ‘Sounds’ magazine back in the day and was actually the first person I ever interviewed about Koss and he introduced me in a roundabout way to Mike Montogmery of Back Street Crawler way back in about 1980, so Phil had actually been around from the start really. In fact you could say it was he who actually got me started! Anyway, there were a few ‘discussions’ about content but anything that Phil removed that we liked we put back! I find the editing process pretty tough. I want every story in there but it becomes encyclopaedic!

11. How many did you decide on your initial run and where did you store them?

The initial run was 2000. That was the most I could afford and it emptied me out financially. We were fortunate to be able to ‘pre-sell’ books in advance through the ‘Free Appreciation Society’ magazine and that helped too. In fact without that we’d never have had enough money to print that many books. I didn’t want to borrow any money so I just emptied all my savings into getting it done. David Kossoff did actually offer to help me, which was very kind, but I wanted to make sure we’d done it all by ourselves. They were stored at my tiny house in Nottingham. That was extraordinary and I had no idea how much space 2000 books is until the lorry turned up at my house. That was pretty freaky. This HUGE lorry on my tiny street and three of us off-loading all these bloody books into my house, endless boxes of them. The boxes FILLED my house completely. The kitchen, the toilet, everywhere. Every room was full of boxes of books. In the front room they filled the room. You couldn’t even see the TV. You could just squeeze down and get onto the couch. It was madness. At one point when Todd was there we were signing the pre-sales and I as we tried to move around I felt the concrete floor move. That was a chilling moment. I think it was about four pallets worth we had in there. All stuffed into my one bedroom house.

We also had an initial problem getting then to the US. Shipping large volumes of very heavy books as freight is expensive, and again something we hadn’t calculated in and didn’t know how to do. With the first pressing whenever Todd flew home from the UK, or whenever I flew over to the USA our luggage consisted of two boxes of books! We got them into the USA as luggage! Two boxes just fitted into my suitcases. That was a pain in the ass but it worked initially.

12. What was your plan to sell the books?

We didn’t have one initially! There was no way of planning that far ahead. We worried about that when they arrived. We approached ‘Helter Skelter’ in London and they took some and then the book was listed by its ISBN code with the bookshops. We then had to learn how to deal with that. Some bookshops we soon learnt seemed to think they could order books and pay for them when they liked. I wasn’t having any of that. We stopped dealing with a couple of pretty major book retail chains within six months. That was a real pain in the ass. We were very lucky that the book got excellent reviews so people were willing to really hunt it down. Free fans are pretty hardcore over here in the UK. If there’s something on Free they are going to find it, and that was a godsend for us. In the US Todd did approach a few people but with it being our only book no one wanted to take a risk on it. Amazon was useful but at the time their system was very clumsy and not cost effective. It’s much better now but initially we were losing money selling on Amazon and we stopped that for a while too. I still have books on Ebay. That was very useful, though that came a bit later.

13. What were the reactions to the principles the book was about?

Everyone seemed very pleased. Simon Kirke called me when he got his copy and David Kossoff thought it was fantastic. That really pleased me, as it was hard for David with Paul’s story being in there without holding any of it back. David did read it. I know it was hard for him but he was always so supportive and he never ever tried to influence the telling of Paul’s story. I recall the only thing we ever did at David’s request was change one photograph. Both Paul Rodgers and Andy seemed pleased that it was done. Paul sold it at his shows for a while and when his mother died he asked if we could change a couple of pictures for him so she was included, which we did on the second printing. Andy has been fine about it but I don’t think he’s ever read it. Of the others I know Rabbit loves it and Overend Watts from Mott The Hoople was still raving about it when I saw him last year, and that’s nice. Chris Blackwell wrote to Todd and said he was absolutely delighted with the book. That was a thrill too.

14. How many years did it take you to break even? How did you arrive at your retail and wholesale selling rates?

I’m not sure about ‘break even’. The book has now exceeded the printing costs but I don’t know if it will ever pay back all the hours, telephone calls, flights across the Atlantic, travelling expenses and all the other stuff. The hours we put in would kill me today. I still don’t know how we managed those last couple of months before the printing went ahead. At one point I actually flew to the USA and back, was home for about three days and then flew back to the USA again. I think that was the final push. Crazy. US immigration hadn’t even got the information on their computers that I’d actually left the country the few days previously. That gave them a bit of a turn and wiped the smile off my face for a minute or two until they sorted it out.

We priced the book against what was in the shops at the time and with advice from people like Michael Heatley and Cherry Red Books, who were all helpful. I seem to recall Michael thought we priced it a bit cheaply but we were also scared to overprice and drive potential sales away. I do remember when it came out somebody wrote to me and complained that it was too expensive and a music book shouldn’t cost any more than a CD. That guy really didn’t have the first idea of how much it had all cost. If we’d printed and sold 10,000 it would have been cheaper but we had no idea how many we could sell and 2000 books was at the extreme end of my resources. At the time 2000 books seemed like an enormous number. The amount we printed obviously affected the price. If we’d only had 1000 the book printing price would have been much more and probably pushed the retail price to about £35. At 2000 we thought the balance was about right.

15. Did you promote the book totally yourself? How many review copies did you send out and to who?

We sent review copies out to all the magazines, everyone we could think of. All the major magazines and newspapers, in fact anywhere that did book reviews and tried to follow up with phone calls if we’d not actually rang first to find out if they would review it. We sent out a lot of books, again something we’d really not calculated into the cost at the time. Review copies, copies to the band and people who had helped us and so on. We never even thought to price that in. There were a few things we didn’t think about there actually. Postage on the book with the box was about £7+ ($10.50) in the UK, up to £17+ ($25.50) abroad. That was because the book, being very thick and hardback, was very heavy. We never even thought about how much it would cost to mail out review and courtesy copies. Then there’s this other thing about ‘free books’. Some book archives, the British library, certain universities and societies can all demand free books by law, up to five if I recall correctly. That was real drain on our resources and if 15 of these places pop up at once and all want five books then that’s a heap of books and a ton of postage money. There was a point when I had no money, literally, and I had to wait until I got my wages from work before I could post more books. I recall that being a bit of a low period, especially as my house smelt like a warehouse with all the cardboard in there. However the reviews were all really positive and that made up for it and slowly they started to sell. It was probably about six months before I could see the TV!

16. If you had known everything that was involved in hindsight would you still have written and published the book?

That’s a tough one and I’m not sure. I think sometimes not knowing what’s involved and learning as you go along makes the hill a bit less steep to climb. You just learn what you need and then carry on to the next obstacle. When you have all the information it looks a bit like mountain of rock with a sheer face! I have thought about doing a couple of other books but haven’t gotten around to it. Any project like that is quite a commitment. I’d like to gather some of the really good ‘Free Appreciation Society’ magazine articles together for a book. I think that would be a good project. I also had the idea of writing a book about ‘lost’ classic albums from bands that didn’t make it. That would be a good project too. I did kinda start that but let it drift. I have also been asked by a publisher to write a book about Budgie, who were one of my favourite bands around the 1972 – 1975 period but again, that’s quite a commitment. I know Pete Watts (Overend Watts from Mott The Hoople) wants me to do a book about Mott, and he actually mentioned that recently while Mick Ralphs and Ian Hunter were there. This was at the Mott rehearsals for the UK shows last year (2009) and there were some rumblings from Lynyrd Skynyrd about doing a book on them when Heavy Load came out. These are all good projects but I don’t know if I want to spend the next few years doing that. I’m still writing the ‘FAS’ magazine and that must equate to writing a good sized book every year.

17. Would you have attempted the same project in 2010 had you not done it already or are things just too economically unfeasible today?

I don’t think it would be any less hard to do it now and I still play around with the ideas I’ve mentioned above. Technology has improved so that’s always a bonus. We relied heavily on email and the internet to send information to each other as we were co-workers on opposite sides of the Atlantic. We only had dial-up then so sending large files was out of the question. These days sending chapters back and forth via broadband would be much easier and webcams and all that stuff would have been really useful when we were working on the layout of the book. Selling would be easier too as you have Ebay and Amazon. If someone is looking for your book they can always find it there.

18. Anything that you’d advise other people who want to write and publish their own books?

Like with all things to do with writing I think if you have a good story, the stomach for a fight and aren’t too scared of losing a bit of money then it’s worthwhile publishing your own work. Having a publisher is most definitely an easier option but there are compromises if you do that, maybe not so much with a novel but certainly with the kind of music biography we did. I do know that if we had gone with a publisher the book we have now would absolutely not have looked like it does. I’m very proud of it and while it’s not perfect the whole project, from the writing, the choice of the paper it was printed on, right down to how it is sold were decisions made entirely by Todd and myself. We took advice for sure but we didn’t have to compromise on things we really wanted. That made it all worthwhile. It’s our book, from start to finish.

Atlanta trip 2010

Written by Anne and Dave Hall (UK)

24/09 - 6am start from Manchester. 10.30am flight- no delays and an uneventful flight. Had an Asian Vegetarian meal cos Lucy recommended ordering a 'special diet meal' because you get served 1st. Enjoyed it down to the last grain of rice! Arrived Atlanta early afternoon in searing (gorgeous) heat. 1.5 hours ish? to clear customs & immigration. (what do you expect, it's Friday afternoon, said the guy controlling the queue!         

Met by Lucy, in arrivals - great to get back together again. Whisked off to Athens GA for a meal and to meet Richard, Anjelica & Candice at the Melting Point Bar & Restaurant for the Holdcell gig. Great food & several pints of Bass. Holdcell were awesome, but the set was not long enough, due to the Rattlers (support) going on far too long. Met the boys from Holdcell after the gig. Eventually got to Roswell at around 2am after being awake about 24 hours. Went to bed tired, happy & glad to be back "Home".

Sat. 25/09. Lazy day. Woke early cos my body thought it was 1pm, not 8am. Chilled in the sultry heat of an Atlanta late summer day & watched some college football. Evening gig at Nick's place. Had some nice food, Band was The Hollidays (formerly Soul Shaker) - great mix of covers, blues-rock-fusion (hard to quantify, but really good & including a great Hammond organ player.) Rain.

Sun 26/09 - Samara's birthday - more chillin & some rain as we accustom to the time difference (any excuse.) Watched some NFL (Live in HD & Surround sound & shared a few beers with Robert - perfect Sunday. Went to see Andrew Black at ‘Players’ in Marietta - a sports/biker bar). Andrew was playing electric, rather than acoustic and jamming with a number of great musicians. Anne met a musician friend who she knows through Facebook - & Anne declined the offer of a jam. Thought a bigger crowd would have made the night better. Got back home & watched the 'Dolphins' get beat - didn't spoil the day, though.

Mon 27/09 - Lazy start to the day. Drove to North Springs Metro station, for a trip to downtown Atlanta. Visit to the CNN building (awesome place) and then a walk through Centenary Park to "Coca Cola World". Typical tourist attraction in, the home of Coca Cola. However, part of the tour included a 4D movie about the search for the true taste of Coke. Blatant advertising – However, never even seen a 3D movie, let alone the moving seats -  making the $15 entrance fee totally worthwhile -  fantastic! Free drinks at the end of the tour, sampling all the different Coke products from around the world. Back home for tea-time & a Humungous thunder/hail storm - Lake Roswell in the garden! Not much doing on a Monday night (apart from Monday Night Football), so went to a place in the boonies to see a jam night at "The Tavern". A  local Roadhouse with about 50 pick-up trucks in the car park.  Bands comprised of a number of middle age boys playing covers of Southern Fried Rock songs - the place was  a great place for music, nice stage & good atmosphere) - then home to bed.        

Tue 28/09 - lazy start, then into Roswell for a bit of shopping in ‘Jewels from Heaven’. Then, on to look at some houses. Drove to Mountain City Park. A hillside community straight out of 'Deliverance'. The properties are built on wooded hillside of maybe a few hundred acres and all very individual. The residents have formed an independent 'city' with their own fire service and a 'city hall, which was really a posh shed, but really great. Absolutely fantastic.

 Then onto a place called (mountain lookout???). Similarly, built on a hill which used to be woodland. However, each property was absolutely stunning, all houses with 3 garages & perfectly manicured lawns. It was a very nice neigborhood indeed & I know where I'd prefer to live. Continuing the house theme, we decided to visit a new housing development near the town of Woodstock. Approximately 130 acres. They managed to build 6 Showhouses, just before the credit crunch. They're waiting for things to pick up but you  can still look round the show houses. We started at the cheap end of the market ($290k ish -  Mid-range of a round $350k & upwards was stunning. 3 floors plus a basement you could build a rehearsal room in and an outdoor barbecue area. Wow! Top of the range was $500k ish - again, 3 floors + basement games room, bar, office & home cinema - the basement room alone was as big as our house. Stayed in on the night and watched telly.

Wed 29/09 - Early start for a change. Drove up north to the mountains. Had lunch in a place called Ma Gooch's in Cleveland. Not at all touristy, and a place where the locals eat. Had good, home cooked food in what felt like someone's house. Then on up to a tourist town called Helen - very German & touristy, glad we'd eaten earlier! Drove back via the 'scenic route' and chilled out before gettin ready for a gig at Nick's Place - WHICH WAS AWESOME! Saw John McKnight, James Kirk-Plunkett, Eric Frampton & Mike Martin jamming. Bit of improvised, jazzy, funky stuff & some covers I sort of recognised - didn't matter though. Just watching 4 excellent musicians playing some fantastic music - brilliant!

Thu 30/09

Did practically nothing during the day except go to the post office and pick up a few groceries with Lucy. Post Office was actually quite pleasant and a million miles from the UK in terms of service. Evening out to see Andrew Black at Atkins Park in Smyrna. Had a meal in an upper class restaurant - nothing special & the waiter was a bit too smarmy. Music was outside near the fountain. Unfortunately, not many people there, so not much atmosphere. Watched Andrew's 1st set then headed back to Darwin's for the last ever blues jam. Stayed about half an hour, then heard that John McKnight was jamming at Nick's Place, so headed off there to hear some more amazing improv/jammin from some more awesome musicians. Home to bed...

Fri 01/10

Went to the Home Depot, (the American version of B&Q) with Lucy. Picked up some violas & a rosemary bush, which I planted in front garden. Hope they survive! Evening - Went to The Tavern to see Marty Manous & his band. What can I say? Awesomely brilliant guitarist, playing a mix of covers & Marty's own stuff. Watched the 1st set which lasted about an hour and a half - each song on its own was worth the $2.00 entry fee. Had a good chat with Marty, and also the drummer. Great bunch of musicians, and really nice guys. Then off to Nick's to catch a late set by Barry Richman. We'd been waiting a long time to see Barry, having missed him last year due to him being ill. He is a great guitarist that's for sure..... Don't remember what time we got home.

 Saturday 02/10

Road trip to Savannah. 1st stop - Dunkin' Do-nuts! Long trip to Savannah, on the quite a boring road  - 2 hours of nothing but trees & a straight ribbon of concrete road. Arrived in a baking hot Savannah & found the apartment which was in a converted cotton warehouse. Fantastic place overlooking the Savannah River, Chilled out on the balcony watching the world, and the container ships go by could have stayed there all day. Went too Wet Willys for an alcoholic Slush Puppy then dinner @ Huey's and off of to a gig - Thomas Claxton, at the Bijou. A great acoustic guitarist/singer doing some unusual cover versions. The highlights were Tom Sawyer & Bohemian Rhapsody - the low was a couple of people from Idaho, screaming at every opportunity - spoilt the night a bit. However, Thomas had a few great put-downs and some great music. Cute waitress too! Decent blues band on after Thomas, 2 black guys and a guy on drums who looked like Mitch Mitchell's grand-dad!

Sunday 03/10

Had a wander round the river front market & generally chilled. In the afternoon, took a trip to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. Had a wander down to the beach & then,  lunch in the Angler Restaurant. You can't buy alcohol in stores in Georgia on a Sunday so went to Piggly-Wiggly Supermarket for some supplies (Rob's real reason for visiting South Carolina on a Sunday!). Evening - dinner out with Jim & Kelly, friends of Rob & Lucy then back to apartment for some wine and then bed.

Monday 04/10

- Sat-nav treasure hunt with Rob, Total fail! Trip to Tybee Island. Walk on pier then lunch in Fannies on the Beach (fnarr Fnarr) then a walk round the shops & back to Savannah. Had a wander through the squares, up to Forsyth Park. Saw a guy in a Santa Claus Suit which seemed quite surreal in 70 degree heat - wish I’d remembered the camera! Later, went up to the rooftop bar in the Bohemian Hotel and watched the sunset with a drink. Had a walk around City Market, then dinner in Molly McPherson's Scottish Pub & on to Kevin Barry's ‘Oirish Pub’ . Fell asleep watching the Dolphins get stuffed by the Patriots. Lucy was watching the TV until quite late, but, luckily it didn’t wake anybody!

Tuesday 05/10

Trip back to Atlanta. Then dinner with Richard & Anjelica at Papasito's - a fantastic Greek-owned Mexican restaurant. Food was exceptional but we were full after the tortilla chips & salsa and appetizer of cheesy spinach. Ended up getting a box and taking home more food than we actually ate in the restaurant. Dozed off watching Ice Road Truckers & went to bed.

Wednesday 06/10

Lazy start then off to Supermarket for supplies. Had lunch in a Sports Pub called Brewsters - Best burger & chips  - EVER. A bit more shop browsing then a drive round to looked at some more new houses (I can see a pattern developing here!) Looked at a couple of over 55’s bungalows and still can't believe how much space you get for your money. Not sure where we're going tonight...

Off to Nick's Place to see John McKnight (who really liked my shoes!) & the house band, jammin'. Mike Martin was absolutely on fire. Really great gig, slightly spoiled by stupid girls on the table in front high-fiving, chatting loudly & taking photos. The music was great though... Band was followed by a group called 'Graham's Number' - only in their 20’s and  obviously influenced by 'Police', but really great musicians doing mostly their own stuff. (The bass player was cute). Home to watch a bit of TV and bed at about 3am....

Thursday 07/10

Another lazy start - Lucy tried to put a video on - got sound, but no picture - too many remote controls, so gave up after an hour - even a phone call to Rob couldn't fix it. Took Max (The dog) for a haircut & looked around a few more shops. Actually enjoyed one of them! Back home to chill in the garden with a beer. Evening - Up north to Alpharetta to see Andrew Black at Montana's Bar & Grill. Food was good. Andrew was totally sublime & chilled. He totally got the audience and played accordingly. Amplified acoustic - great voice - Born to Run was a standout song - brilliant - Treated dinner for Lucy & Rob as thanks for the trip. Worth - every penny. Home to watch some vintage Paul Rodgers' VHS footage, then bed.

Friday 08/10

Hometime :(

Flight was on time. Customs, Security & Immigration all went smoothly. Take-off was a bit delayed due to a queue of planes waiting for clearance. Got my Kosher meal served 1st (and hot - thanks Lucy). Already thinking about the possibility of another visit.

All of the above describes what we did - not how we did it. I forgot to sign the guestbook & so didn't tell Lucy & Rob that their hospitality and generosity make each visit not just a trip abroad, but a really unique sharing of great friendship, happiness, food, wine, special times and wonderful live music from great musicians.

Thank you so much, Lucy & Rob – love you both

XXX