Wednesday 5 November 2003

Well, we finally arrived at our hosts' place at 4.20am after my navigation skills left a bit to be desired, and I went straight to bed after 27 hours of travel. Jamie wanted to get to the end of his chapter of Ulysses (light reading?), but unfortunately he fell asleep on the sofa before finishing the necessary two pages, and was greeted a few hours later by our host Keith saying 'I don't know who you are but this is my house.' At least Jamie didn't have to do his usual 'don't worry, your daughter isn't going to be pregnant' routine.

The two of us were excused the 9am school show this morning, so I didn't surface until just before we went out for a suitably Southern catfish lunch. In this photo, Andy emerges from the restaurant and surveys the palm trees - 'it's just like Plockton'. In the car, Chris: 'Hey David, bet you can't guess what I did last weekend.' 'Yeah, you're right, I can't guess.' 'I eloped.' 'What?' (he had) Then it was off to the concert hall at the University of South Alabama.

Tomorrow's gig is part-promoted by the local chamber music society, so for the first half we're in 'early music' mode, with me playing the university's luridly mauve harpsichord, which its donor had painted to match his carpets or something, and with Jamie playing viola da gamba.  Unfortunately in a relatively small town like this, this means I have to tune the harpsichord myself for the rehearsal, so I began to set about this rather dismal task in the hall while the other guys gave lessons to assorted music students. Then for the rest of the afternoon we rehearsed the classical bits, with our guest second flute, Andra Bohnet, who's on the staff of the music faculty here.

A footnote to my 'I play best when I'm pissed off' thought from yesterday: I played by far the best today when I stopped trying to be smart, and just played as simply as possible. This meant that I often found what I was doing pretty boring, but the overall effect of this when blended with everyone else was just fine. Time I learnt to be self-effacing or something.

There was just time to nip across to the Middle Eastern restaurant across the street for another substantial meal before we had a social-cum-session back at the university: basically a free-for-all with some students and others playing tunes for a couple of hours. I ended up playing bass (for the first time since I was at school), and now I have a big fat blister on my right index finger to prove it.

Then it was back to our new digs: I'm staying in the daughter of the family's bedroom (she's away at university), and Jamie seemed to blend in well with the multitude of pinups on the wall.  His day's been overshadowed by the fact that his bass has gone missing between JFK and New Orleans. There is no tracking system to locate it: instead, the airline just sits and waits for someone at its current location to report that it's there. Nobody has. So he's spent a lot of today on the phone explaining to people that he doesn't want to get angry with them, but his 200 year old $50000 bass has just vanished into thin air under their care, and he has a gig tomorrow. Not good. Several times I've heard him say 'I haven't lost anything, you've lost my bass.'

Meanwhile, Chris has brought with him a portable Estey harmonium (OK, strictly speaking it's a reed organ) for me to play, that he got from a 'missionary suppliers' for a few hundred bucks. Cue for the inevitable jokes about 'I've been practising your position for many years.' It's not in bad shape, most of it works, although the pitch is a bit high at around A444. As I now know from the book I bought in Marylebone High St last week, Estey made them for use in World War 2. Don't know who played them then though.

There's just time before bed to sleepily pick up some email and reply to Nancy at MCM about programmes and dates for a ConCal US tour in 2004/5.

I'm still adjusting to the fact that it always gets warmer when you go outdoors. Even at night it's still about 20°C and very humid. But not at all unpleasant - shorts and sandals in November is just fine.