Heading Home

 The Camaro SS was wasted on the roads around Sunset Boulevard so a trip up to Mulholland Drive was far more fun than was legal. I wasn’t sure the tyres would last the 4 day rental!

  From Lookout Point I could see the fires away in the distance. The wind was blowing stronger today and as I stared out across the valley towards Big Bear and then south following the massive smoke trail, I felt for all the people and animals struggling to make themselves safe and save what they could.

  The following morning from my balcony, I saw what I thought was a large drone in the air some way off. The perception and scale had fooled me. It was over a mile away and was in fact a V-22 Osprey. A military vertical take off and landing aircraft with a swiveling rotor blade on each wing. With news that the fires were headed for Bel Air I guess the million dollar military fly by made the locals feel that they were safe and something was being done.

  It was good to catch up with some of my friends in L.A.. Around dinnertime I would get some good Mexican food and Margaritas at El Compadre and listen to the trio making the right sound to complete the early evenings combination. I’ve been going to El Compadre for 38 years and it never fails to be a great start to the evening.

  Goodbye to my layover on the West Coast and back to the UK. Within hours of arriving at Heathrow I was driving down the lanes to my quiet home. There had been a small flurry of snow and all looked as it should.

  A few days later I went to see Robert Plant play his last show of his UK tour in Birmingham. I had missed Chrissie singing with him at the Albert Hall a few days earlier. It was a great night and the band were truly amazing. Robert has such great command of the stage.
After the show I had a few words with him about the gig and missing him at his London show. He always gathers a great collection of musicians around him. In a way it was a home gig for Robert and I thought I may see some old faces backstage. Birmingham is only an hour from Hereford and was a source of many gigs like Mothers and Henry’s Blues House not to mention the Birmingham Town Hall that I had played with my band Karakorum on a UK tour with Alexis Korner in 1971. I was very pleased to meet with Bev Bevan who was the drummer from The Move and other collaborations. A delightful man.

  Robert mentioned to me about our possible USA tour with him in the summer of 2018. Much to my disappointment nothing was to come of it.

  That week I called Johnny Borrell. It was obvious he was burning with a load of enthusiasm and had written more material since we spoke in Los Angeles. I told him it sounded like we should get on with it before Christmas, which we did. In the new year the majority of the album was completed.

  I had met Johnny a few times before at rehearsal rooms and liked the fact he worked on old motorbikes. Bass, guitar and drums were the way we worked. With Johnny and collaborator David alternating between playing guitar or bass, the arrangements were formulated. In the new year during the recording process I awoke at 4am one morning with the shakes and sweats. The following morning I continued as normal, but the bug put Johnny in bed for 2 days and David for three. Nevertheless, the songs tumbled out well and I’m sure they will get a lot of airplay. I look forward to hearing the finished mixes.

  During this time, I managed to fit in a trip to the historic and picturesque city of Bath, where I saw my two grown up children for a little food and a catch up. They looked great and happy as usual. With being away so frequently and the continuing work back at my home, it is always hard to find the time to visit (not to mention feeling exhausted and being so burnt out from the travel.) It is, of course, always great to see them both. I look forward to having a home soon that can accommodate a visit from them all together.

  True to form, rehearsals for the South American tour loomed quickly and suddenly there were lots of preparations I hadn’t seen coming. Yellow Fever inoculations for Brazil and a second passport to enable us to get visas for Argentina because our other passports were at the Peruvian Embassy and then with the U.S. Embassy.

After a lot of rushing about, things were in place and a new set of songs were arranged and placed in a running order for our opening show at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro.

M.D.C.

Entering a New Year and into the Recording Studio!

Milford Sound. Technically it's a Fiord, not a sound!

  Coming home is part of the reason I go on tour and this time, upon my return, I find myself in deepest Herefordshire remembering some of the greatest tour moments for many a long year.  

After all the hectic travel around this planet I count my blessings that I have a quiet private life in an area of outstanding natural beauty to return to.

 We seemed to raise our game during the European tour, specifically the Iberian leg. How or why is a wonderful mystery but we rode the wave in style right down into Dunedin in the south of New Zealand.
.

 After getting an MRI Scan and seeing a sports injury specialist, my knee felt quite normal and the meds were working. In Auckland a bike ride was arranged out on Waiheke Island, and we rode 35 kilometres on our electric bikes. No one got injured, although Gaz Fail almost lost it on a fast downhill right hander. He gathered a considerable amount of undergrowth in the moving parts of his transport system and almost parked it in the hedge. The end result was him looking like the commander of our camouflaged support vehicle. 

  The Forsyth Barr Stadium was our last show for 2017. My drum tech Justin Welch had been exceptional the whole year solving little problems and remembering all the things I would forget, so I presented him with an engraved 'over and above' Pretenders tour medal as a memento and a NZ highway police hat. He seemed quite pleased.

 We were invited to the stage by Stevie and said our farewells to the Nicks band only to see them again at the airport 16 hours later. Everyone flew off to Auckland and home and I went to pick up my 4x4 rental car. I was heading west to Milford Sound for some peace and quiet.

Last gig.

  Oddly enough, the following day I started off playing 3 or 4 songs with my good friend Jimmy Taylor at 5 in the afternoon in a bar in St. Clair on the coast. I then visited the only mainland albatross colony in the world and saw the magnificent royal albatross. 

 After 6 hours sleep I drove to Gore where I stopped for a bracing cup of tea and carried on to Te Anau on the lake for supplies. 

  I needed this time alone but now having no work on at all the 'end of tour rundown bug' attacked me and I felt as if I was all stuffed up with a cold. This stayed with me until I caught another bug in Los Angeles on my way home.

LA friends.Carmen Vandenberg, exceptional guitarist of Bones!

 Whilst in New Zealand, I stayed in a back packers hostel and made a few friends. I walked miles, got buzzed by nesting terns and encountered a lot of wildlife that I couldn’t readily identify. Now in my element, I sneezed my way through a pleasant week.

 I caught my flight from Dunedin to Auckland in the morning of Saturday the 2nd of December and then on to Los Angeles through the night. I arrived at LAX at 10.30am on Saturday the 2nd December, gaining a day.

The following day the phone rang and it was Johnny Borrell from Razorlight asking me to help him make his new album. Although I had many things going on when I got home, I figured I should do it and told him I would call him upon my return.

Meanwhile I drove up to Mulholland to look at the gathering firestorm.

M.D.C.

                                                                                   

Magnetic Resonance Imaging

  In that Brisbane hotel room I spent the rest of the night writing out a modus operandi to Andy, our tour manager. There was no point waking him up in the middle of the night, as he gets precious little sleep as it is.

 I started writing on the hotel stationery that was an uncomfortable hobble away. This four meter journey was excruciating. 

 As with all unknown ailments, the worst scenarios are uppermost in the mind. What the hell was up with my knee? Surely it was cancer and it was a question of immediate amputation??

  I worked my way around it by starting with the words 'full investigation needed', followed by 'consultation with experienced sports doctor'. I knew enough about such things to realise I would be ‘in the right ballpark' so to speak. It turned out that I would be spot on.

 After three long hours, at 6am I made my way downstairs for breakfast. Each step was as restrictive and as laborious as the last. The idea of letting the band down was weighing heavy. On the plus side, today was a travel day to Melbourne followed by two clear days off. However, they were followed by three shows in a row: an arena show, our own theatre show and another outdoor winery.

 The flight to Melbourne resulted in the pain in my knee becoming more intense, but thankfully later that evening, Andy informed me that I had an appointment to have an MRI scan the following evening.

 Coincidentally, that evening was a tour party for all crew and band members. This was to be held in the private suite of rooms at the top of the Crowne Plaza overlooking the Yarra River.

 Chrissie, of course, was concerned about my position and supported my need for a complete and professional assessment. 

  The following evening Andy and I went out to the hospital appointment so I could get the MRI scan (beforehand I had pressed my white Barbour shirt for the party that followed the visit.) The MRI scan was a long drawn out procedure that involved state of the art equipment. To keep the explanation short, they asked me endless questions and I had to fill out forms to declare that my body contained no metals (pins, supporting bones, shrapnel, pacemakers etc.)

 After an hour and a half, Andy and I left the hospital and went straight to the party. The detailed info. of the state of my knee was stored with extreme precision on a DVD for us to take to Mr. Brian Devitt MD FRCS Orthopedic Surgeon in the morning.

 The following morning I walked past walls adorned with pictures of sports stars and was introduced to Brian Devitt who was born in Dublin. I was not in the least concerned about the outcome of this consultation. 

 After thirty minutes of all tests and manipulations, we studied the MRI on his monitor.

                                               

 I found it amazing to study every fibre of my right knee from front to back and top to bottom. The conclusion was quick and very positive. There was no tear in the tendon at all, and the diagnosis was Prepatellar Bursitis (also known as ‘Jumper’s Knee').

 This meant that I was clear to play with no fear of further damage as long as I took the anti-inflammatory drugs for one week, and stopped jumping down off risers like a boy in his twenties!

I had learned I was no longer 25 years old, but I was good to go.

M.D.C.

Walking It Off

  After arriving safely in Perth W. Australia, things started to pick up after the first show with Stevie and her band. Having done the two tours of North America with her, it became enjoyable pretty much immediately.

 It was great having my own kit to play. Even though all the hardware was supplied by DW Drums, I was at home. Tours a long way from home are not always comfortable for me on hired equipment, but with the assistance and insistence of my top man tech. Justin Welch, we took all but the hardware and had a special flight case made for the drums alone.

 Playing a drum kit is not like a keyboard or guitar (or any other instrument, for that matter). Although those instruments have different feels of course, a drum kit is a much larger area of operation. I got into this conversation with Jim Keltner on a tour we did together with Neil Young/Pretenders some years back.

  Jim has an incredible feel and plays with such an elegant flow. He really is the cream. We spoke of the distance that some unconscious choices take the hands and sticks to that micro moment of contact with the colour and temperature of the sound you wish to throw into the mix! There is an endless amount of choices in the way anything can be struck, brushed, stroked or smashed, and that’s just with a bit of wood! There are tympani mallets, brushes of all types, and of course, custom made shaker stiks and nylon brushes with bits of wire attached for bright moments. It really never ends.

Chrissie overheard us and was (metaphorically) thrown into a coma!  

What it really adds up to is the 'feel', the 'groove', the life of the platform of the music upon which the top lines can play.

Still with me?

It's kind off important in a massive way.

  I have, on occasion, sat on other people’s kits. It's a hell of an eye opener and allows a mental view of the owner’s private creative hub. Keltner's kit is gentle and what you expect, but as Charlie Watts looked me in the eye and said of Jim years ago; 'he's a tricky one isn't he?'. I immediately knew what he meant! There's a hell of a lot going on within the beautiful simplicity of his performances.

 So, I was at home. My space is built for opportunism and aggression. It can be kind and tender as on 'I go to Sleep' or dangerous like in 'Up the Neck' or 'Tattoo'd Love Boys'. My kit is spread apart and there is distance to cover. My kit is a workout. 

 Hey man yer workin' too hard! Yeah ya got that right! I like workin' hard when the mood and lyric demands! It's about the song, dynamics and making moments hang in the air for longer than is real! That takes space.

 Around this Perth - Adelaide - Sydney period, I felt an annoyance in my right knee. It came and went and I figured I must have absent-mindedly knocked it on something, so I walked it off.

 The gigs were all going really well, and I was looking forward very much to our own show at the Melbourne Forum in a week or so. 

 The day after the Hunter Valley Bimbadgen Winery show we flew up to Brisbane to play another winery, but I couldn't walk off this pain in my right knee. It was becoming quite annoying…almost painful.

 During that Brisbane show I experienced more pain than any other show I had ever played. I’ve had severe and deep cuts to hands and fingers in the past, but this hurt more than when I broke two metatarsel bones in my left foot at the beginning of a long U.S. tour!

What was to be done? 

  After the show, I saw Dr. Bill backstage and he gave our tour manager a prescription for some special gel to be carefully applied. He said I had tendonitis. I hastily applied the gel  that night, but awoke only three hours later in screaming pain. The mind plays games at times like these and my thoughts turned to: “Is this what they call a career ending injury?”

I was in some kind of serious trouble. All I could do was swear and curse at my knee in a big way and wait until my painkillers (which I always carry in my bag) kicked in.

 We had three gigs on the trot coming up and I couldn’t even bend my leg!

This I can't walk off because I can't walk.  

Holy shit!

M.D.C.

Latin America!

LATIN AMERICA! We are excited to announce that we will be touring next year alongside the legendary Phil Collins.

Together, we will be performing at shows in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Porto Alegre, Mexico City, Lima, Santiago, Montevideo, Buenos Aires and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Ticket details coming soon…

(Via The Pretenders Facebook Page)

Merch

Hello,all! This is Valerie, Martin's page manager. 

Martin and I were having a discussion the other day as to what merch we should sell on his website (Pretendermc.com). 

Naturally, it makes sense to ask you, Martin's fans! 

A few ideas that we came up with were: signed drum sticks, signed drum heads, mugs, and t-shirts. 

If you have any ideas concerning what merch we should sell (and even what design you would prefer to have on your merch), please comment below. We are open to any creative input! 

Many thanks from Martin and I, and thanks to all of you who have been following Martin's blog posts! 

-Valerie

Classic Lineup

 
 From ‘The Book of Rock’.❤️ Photo: Fin Costello