Archive for May 2020

It’s 1980 and we’ve just played our first number. I’m on stage at the Electric Ballroom in Camden Town. While the crowd is applauding I look down at the set list taped to the floor by my drum kit. Someone shouts out, “Make one up!”. He’s in the front row with his black hair spiked…

A polymath, on waking up in the middle of the night and seeing this Mark Twain quote under one of his LinkedIn posts, added by a friend, might immediately think of featuring it in a song chorus while planning a TED Talk, with slides and everything, all at once. An avalanche of creativity, including a…

They say you shouldn’t but I did. Thirty years ago. I thought, “Blow this for a game of soldiers”. Which is ironic, because for decades the snare drum has sent out a bright rallying call to many groups, armies and batteria saying, “Here. Now!” However, when I gave up kit drumming for hand drumming everything…

We call our top room, overlooking a leafy bend in the Thames, ‘The Crow’s Nest’. It’s a good place to dream about new horizons. I must have fallen asleep on the floor listening to the crows calling to each other. As I surface I ‘sense’ this question. “From an evolutionary and biological point of view,…

I wake today becalmed. Our bed has turned into the Kon-Tiki raft. I say OUR bed but for the past twenty three days it’s been MY bed. By train, boat and bus, Dawn has been re-discovering Italy, Greece and the joys of solo travel. I’m on a different trip. As I surface from sleep all…

Tom: Once I’ve got them singing I’ll invite some of them on stage to dance. Client: Our people will never dance. There’s a thousand of them, how many drummers will you have with you? Tom: Just me, I’ll need a mic. ……………………….. Client: You had so many people on stage dancing with you we were…