Rehearsal, Horns

Well it was very nice to see Tony Trumpet again, I must say. He is as genial as ever.
The Christmas traffic almost stopped play, and we had only 45 minutes in the end, but we ran through Two Strings to your Bow, Freight Train, Lonesome Country Boy, Snakebite and My Black Rose. We had to abandon Footsteps at my Door because we have too many versions of it to find our way around. Pity, as it's one of my faves to play and sing. Funny to have been in such different bands, such different flavas, man. It was nice to play the old stuff: second time around, the sax and trumpet started to gel and I remembered what it had been like when Helen and the Horns was in full flow with everything all neat and tidy and punchy. You get such a buzz out of knowing your band is good. I always thought The Chefs made great records but weren't so good live- we were always drunk and I sang out of tune, as I couldn't compete with how loud the band played. On the other hand I thought Helen and the Horns were best live- our recordings sounded good sometimes but there was a real joy to the sound that came over really well when we had an audience geeing us up. I remember people standing in the front row with set lists requesting songs from us, and people pogoing at Warwick University one week then playing the Cafe Royale in Regent Street, and people in full evening dress waltzing around in front of us the next.