Prague • Jamie Marshall Singer-Songwriter News 2007/8 Page • Czech Republic

28th January 2008
A belated happy New Year to you all.
So where was I .. oh I know .. back in 2007.
I made it home to England for Xmas which was fantastic. A big family occasion .. and we cheated too by having two Xmas days, one on Xmas Eve and the other on the 25th.
The reason for the first one was that it was the one day all the extended family could get together, including my niece Laura, who was visiting from Beijing, and my great niece Ella, who spent most of the time being very cute and wearing her food.

We're a very close family, despite the miles that separate us, and Xmas has always been a special time.
Food was eaten, drinks were taken, and gifts and stories were swapped.
I spent three days with my family, then drove down to the South-East to visit friends in Cookham, Paley Street, Windsor, Wraysbury and Teddington .. some I hadn't seen for ages .. including Marcus, best man at my wedding and my former house mate from my days in Chertsey.

I was on the chocolates mince pie and cups of tea diet.
You tend not to hear too much about this one mostly because it crap frankly, and whilst it undoubtedly works, it does so .... in reverse, leaving the dieter lardier and more at risk of type 2 diabetes than before.
Add to that, a great Indian buffet meal at the Bilas Tandoori with the two Ems and David.. and a pint or fourteen at The Lion in Hampton Wick, and needless to say my waistband felt decidedly tighter. I love beer .. reaally love beer especially here in Prague .. but it is the biggest lard accelerant my body knows.

What else .. well my nephew Tom came to visit just before Xmas .. it was great to hang out with him .. we spent a lot of time just chilling .. playing guitar (he's a talented musician and singer as well as a fiercely bright kid studying maths and Physics at Cambridge) .. and drinking Bernard dark beer. Tom was looking for me on Facebook and managed to unearth this wonderful surprise .. a fansite dedicated to .. er wait for it ... ME!
It's been a while since my ghast has been more flabbered .. I was over the moon .. what a fantastic thing to have happen ... incredible ... anyway I should stop the gushing now (it's not the bloody Oscars FFS).. if you're on Facebook and you like to join the group, please feel free.

I did a gig in the Sumava region with Věra just before Xmas ..
Sumava is an area in the South West of the Republic .. and is largely farming and skiing country, it looks a lot like rural Switzerland but without the mountain ranges. The gig was in a brand new community centre at the rear of a pub.
Wonderful people .. totally sold out .. 250 or so locals of all ages .. from Grannies to young kids .. they loved the show, and queued patiently while Věra and I signed autographs. I sold out of CDs too!

Playing in some villages and small towns in the Republic, I've become very aware that when I do autograph signing and chat to the audience after the gig, I am very probably the first English person some of them have ever met or spoken to.
Sure they've seen sports stars, musicians and the like on TV, but it's entirely conceivable that, for them, I'm an almost David Attenbourough-esque oddity .. but this isn't Papua New Guinea or some remote part of Borneo .. it's less than 800 miles away from London .. it's very bizarre.

I was at Věras for New Years eve too .. the first I've spent in Prague. She, her husband Jarda and daughter Anezka live in a very small town called Cernocise about 10 miles to the south of Prague . I took the train .. my guitar ..and a bottle of Champagne.
Food was eaten .. wine was drunk .. ( much like at my Xmas in England) songs were sung and the New Year was ushered in with fireworks ... hundreds of fireworks .. for when we'd finished admiring ours, we were able, because Věra lives high on a hill, to observe what seemed like 30 or 40 separate displays. The sky was lit up in ablaze with colours and flashes .. truly magical.

I love fireworks, always have done, and remember especially fondly the Bastille Day Celebrations Keith Floyd used to have at his pub "Floyds Inn" in Tuckenhay Devon. There would be the most spectacular show I've ever seen in a local pub (ever the showman, Floydie doesn't do things by halves) .. and generally I'd be playing in the bar .. or one year on the balcony over looking the creek with a five piece band.
On the subject of Floyd .. whilst I was in England recently I read with sadness a magazine article about him and his life now .. he's just separated from his wife Tess (I think she was his 4th) he's living in a room above a pub somewhere near Faringdon in Oxfordshire ...

I was in England at the end of January for a wedding. My old mate Steve Simpson
got married to the lovely Zoe .. and the reception was at an Hotel in Cobham Surrey. Needles to say many of Steves' muso mates were invited and the "wedding band" was just brilliant .. I gave my renditions of the old Ike Turner song"I think it's gonna work out fine" and was joined on vocals by my mate Dan England for a storming version of "Wooly Bully"

The band at the point was Me Steve on electric guitar, Sam Kelly on drums,(voted British Blues Connection “Drummer of the Year” for five years running.) Gary Twigg (Kiki Dee, Roger Chapman, Kim Wilde) on bass, session meister Ian Gibbons
(keyboard player in The Kinks for 10 years) on cheesy organ and Dan on Electric guitar and two verses of Wooly Bully ..

Other guests included Roger Chapman (from Family) who didn't sing.. John Lingwood (ex Manfred Manns Earth Band).. Poli Palmer flautist and vibraphone player (Family and many others)..Pete Stroud (Peter Green Splinter Group) and very possibly my favourite Kiwi.. Ian Hunt .. I knew he was a great singer .. I had NO idea he could play guitar like that .. Papa George ...great blueser diamond geezer and Steves' best man ... Alun Davies from the Good Men In The Jungle .. and for many years Cat Stevens guitarist ... suffice to say there were a number of venues in London missing great musicians that night .

"Anthony James Marshall you stand before me accused of being a terrible namedropper ... how do you plead"? ... oh ... er ...guilty as hell m'lud

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Hiya and welcome, Another month flies by .. and I'm STILL playing catch-up.
Lots to tell you though.
My sisters came for a short visit .. which was wonderful.
They have both been to Prague before, but not together, and only one of them since I have been living here. It was great to share some time with them both.

I'm the middle child in our family.
My elder sister is a Mum (and a Gran) and a biologist, and my younger sis a Mum (and very recently a Gran) and a psychologist. And I'm ... well .. in the middle single, (sort of .. not legally you understand) and doing heaven knows what!
We decided not to do real touristy things but instead opted for a few decent meals
and lazy walks around the city.

Breakfast at Cafe Savoy is always good, so much so we did it the two mornings that they were here. It's also only a minute walk from my flat which is even better.

I opted for the French breakfast, (baguette, French toast with maple syrup, grilled merguez sausage with French fries, Prague ham, boiled egg, French blue cheese, butter, home made jam, croissant, grapes, fresh orange juice, café au lait) big enough to set you up for most of the day.

The ceiling in Cafe Savoy is wonderfully ornate. Beautifully painted and gilded, plaster work. During the communist era I've heard it said that it was boarded over because it was deemed too decadent and bourgeois. The old gas chandeliers are still in place, but have been modified, these days light bulbs are used to illuminate the Cafe.

I took my sisters on a boat trip on the river .. that was the closest thing to being tourists that we did. I have friends who work for a boat company so we had our own small vessel all to ourselves .. the weather was fine and warm and the trip really special .. thanks Lenka xx.

The weather was wonderful, sunny and warm, and later that day we visited the Vrbotska gardens situated almost next to my favourite bar and local U Maleho Glena. The gardens are a true oasis in the city. Italian in style and beautifully kept they are a UNESCO funded heritage site.
I tried without success to find a website for Vrbotska gardens .. if you come to Prague do try and visit this tranquil oasis.
My only gripe about their visit is that it wasn't long enough.

Gig wise I was mega busy too.
I played the biggest festival since I arrived here, in the small South Bohemian village of Hostice. It's an annual festival to celebrate the life and work of the most famous Czech country singer Michal Tucny (literally Michael Fat) .. Věra recorded a number of duets with him.
I was amazed by the number of people in attendance .. there can only be 200 or so houses in the village, but there were 8,000 fans at the festival!
It reminded me a little of "Cropredy", the Fairports annual bash where the Fairport faithful descend on a small Oxfordshire village .. but with klobasy (Czech sausage .. actual ingredients somewhat indeterminable) Pilsner Urquell and Slivovice.

A massive stage in a huge field, plasma screens, amazing PA and lights, and people as far as you could see. People huddled together in sleeping bags, families, adolescent lovers and guys who looked like extras from "Deadwood".
I even bought a cowboy hat myself to wear on stage a la Alan Jackson or Garth Brooks. Looked pretty damn sharp too.

The festival is a two day affair on Friday and Saturday.
We played on Saturday. The day was split into two halves, and our performance was the last of the first set. We were very well received. Věras work with Michal is very special to his fans.
The second half comprises of an "All Star" band and different singers all covering a Michal Tucny recording. I chose to do "Je Mi Lito" (I'm sorry) which was his
re-write of Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" .... just me and my wonderful Lowden guitar .. oh and my Washburn analogue delay, set to slapback.

There I was ... right at the front of the stage .. my toes edging into the early evening twilight .. I look out directly into the follow spot and begin ......

da da da da da daaaa da - da da da da da daaaa ......
(great guitar lick Scotty Moore)
.... then I pause ...

Well since mah baybee lef me .... ah foun a new place ter dwell
it's down at the en a Lonely Street ..... ha ha heartbreak Hotel
oh Je Mi Lito baybee, oh Je Mi Lito
Ah feel so lonely I could die ....

They loved it, as much as I did working them ... I sang the Heartbreak Hotel verse and the Je Mi Lito chorus .. and absolutely reveled in the whole 4 minutes .. this is why I do this I reminded myself.
After the concert we (Věra, Lenka and I) went to visit Michal's grave in the village cemetery .. it was more like a shrine.
Fans had lit dozens of candles many of them tealights in votives and placed beer bottles on the grave too .. which sounds naff, but I thought that it was a very human gesture.

It's mostly been gig crazy these past few months.
In one period in October I managed to do 10 in 11 days, three of them with Věra which were a very mixed bag.
The first was in the town of Policka .. it was our first big theatre gig as a trio with Jarda (Věras husband) doing the sound. Věra is a nervous performer .. quite why I'm not sure .. she has talent, loads of experience, and the respect of tens of thousands of loyal fans.
It had been about three weeks since we played together and her pre-gig nerves showed. The gig itself was great .. for all her nervousness, she's very natural with an audience and the theatres are just the right to foster a bit of banter between her and the audience.

We stayed overnight in Policka, at the Hotel Pivovar (pivovar is the Czech word for brewery) .. Policka still has a town brewery ... and the beer sells for a whopping 13kc a half litre in the Hotel bar.

That's about 31p (or 65 US Cents .. depending how quickly I finish this ;) for really good, fresh beer.
In truth the Hotel was a bit of a shithole .. not because it was dirty, but because everywhere and everything smelled either of damp or cooking oil ..or both.
Everything including the guest towels in the room .. not nice.
I always look forward to my post gig shower followed by chip fat rub down ..

We didn't eat in the Hotel restaurant that evening .. partly because of the cooking smell, and partly because of the smoky atmosphere ... Both Věra and Lenka are recently reformed smokers and notice all too readily what I have been pointing out to them for ages. I read a survey recently that said 57% of Czech people are in favour of a smoking ban in public places .. the reality is that hell may freeze over first.

Instead we opted for plates of cold meats and cheese sent to Věra's room.
Another bargain 80kc (£2 ... or $10 .. only kidding American readers) for a plate of food so big I couldn't finish all of mine. People who known what a keen appetite I have will probably be astonished but it's true.

From Policka we travelled to Třebíč an historic town we played last year with the band, and one where Věra has a very good following.

There are a number of UNESCO protected buildings here including a restored Jewish Quarter and the Basilica of St Procopius which dates from the 11th Century. Architecturally stunning as it is, there's a lot more to the Czech Republic than Prague and Třebíč is but one example of this.

I have been very privileged to play in some amazing venues. Like the town square in Cesky Krumlov and umpteen chateaux and castles .. the one at Frydlant near Liberec was another movie set location .. beautifully preserved, it's just such a pity we took an age to get there because of the Prague friday night grid-lock and could only see it in the fading twilight.

Click the links to see some of the sights.

We arrived in Trebic in the early afternoon because Věra and Lenka were playing a charity show for handicapped kids in the local civic centre.
Our show time was 7:30 to a packed house ... not 1seat free.
The gig was fabulous, the audience very warm and welcoming, and generous with their applause. Another vivid reminder of why I wanted to be a performer in the first place, and leave behind me the life of a cog in a corporate wheel.
We ran out of encores ... back to Prague that evening and out again to Votice the following day.

And back to earth with a bang.
First of all Lenka and I who had travelled to the gig together couldn't find the venue, then, when we did our faces fell .. and fell .. and fell still further "this can't be it surely" I thought. "What ... a ...fucking .... dump" .. I thought a nanosecond later.

Let me attempt to describe the place.
Kharzi and toilet are apt descriptions but not nearly detailed enough.

Our gig took place in the town "club" which was in two parts.
The front part is a horribly smoke filled bar the ceiling of which is brown from years of people abusing their lungs, and a bookies, and the rear part is a cinema which doubles as a concert hall and indoor five a side pitch. No joke about the last bit .. there was a definite green nylon turf with white pitch markings.

The stage was about 4 feet from front to back, and on two levels, so the mic stands were perched on one step, and we were on the other, with barely enough room to swing a gnat let alone perform.
Then there was the smell .. a delightful combination of cigarettes, body odour and damp .. we could open the door .. I thought .. but it's bloody freezing a voice in my head nagged ... tough choice .. I put my coat back on and flung the doors open.

Got the gear in .. set it up .. did the sound check .. dressing room .. now where's the dressing room ... I pondered.

The "dressing room" was in the bookies/bar part of the building .. and it was someone else bedroom ..well two rooms in fact, one with a bed and TV .. the other with a desk and mountains of stuff stacked up against a wall .. mostly ice hockey related ... later that evening when we were reflecting on the nature of our evening and laughing I pointed out to Věra that this was someone's life .. day after dreadful day. I'm so glad it was only a small part of mine.

But every cloud really does have a silver lining, the gig was brill .. the audience who were so welcoming, and loved us from the word go. Věra was presented with 6 bouquets of flowers throughout the course of the show by members of the public .. I on the other hand stood around empty handed .. like a fat bloke at a swingers party .. but in the bar after the gig was bought not one, but 5 very large Slivovices.
I distinctly remember my tongue not working very well, talking utter bollocks in the car on the way home, and waking with a monumental hangover.

We also did another live one hour show on Country Radio.
I abandoned the idea of a limo there, and instead caught the tram and walked the 400 or so yards to the station from the tram stop. Rock and Roll eh .. what a crazylife I lead! Drug fuelled parties .. porno grade sex with supermodels ..and taking the tram to the Radio Station.

The studio we used this time was even smaller than the one we had previously .. so our working at close quarters experience gained on stage in Votice stood us in good stead.

Before we occupied the studio there was a bloke (no idea who) being interviewed for some programme or other.
My gaze was fixed on his hair ... I broke down laughing .. what does he think he looks like? He was about my age, maybe 4 or 5 years older, tops.. .his hair was white .. not grey, ... or silver, .... or saltandpepper .. WHITE.
The nylon wig that was perched on top of his head like some mutant cowpat, was jet black .. not a fleck of any other colour .. jet ... black as if he was trying somehow to recreate the ying/yang symbol atop his bonce.
Instead he looked like a sad old git, overly conscious of the fact that he didn't quite have the same head of hair he did 20 years ago. The wig and the total contrast in colours just drew attention to the fact that he was obviously bald

I said to the presenter, himself a slaphead but young and with very close cropped hair, .. does he get up in the morning .. put on "Wiggy" the wig, look in the mirror and think that he resembles Robert Redford? Věra was convulsed with laughter.
As we stood around the water cooler outside the studio trying to suppress our sniggering .. he strode purposefully out ...

Only then did I see the wig in all its glory.
And for the first time I noticed .... he had a pony tail ... yep .. scouts honour .. a white haired pony tail ... tied up with a red rubber band. I sooo wanted to have a photo taken with him so I could post it here but alas he was in too much of a hurry to oblige. Also he might have twigged I was taking the piss if I'd asked him for a shot of him in profile too!!

The show went well ...despite the cramped conditions. We managed to fit in 8 songs plus some chat and a phone-in. We said our goodbyes, and I headed off into the night towards the tram stop still giggling about Wiggy.

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19th August 2007
It's festival time here.
In July I played three festivals with Věra and Lenka one in the Czech Republic and two in Slovakia. There are outdoor cinemas in parks all over the Czech and Slovak Republic and these very often serve as festival venues.

The Czech festival was in Františkovy Lázne a spa town in the North-West of the country close to the German border. West-Fest is a folk, country and bluegrass festival spread over a weekend.

To date it's the best organised festival I've played in the Czech Republic.
Warm water AND a shower in the dressing room .. great PA and monitors ... even a decent light show, and a back stage bar and decent catering too!
The audience were great ..very welcoming and enthusiastic .. all in all a wonderful occasion.

Slovakia is a bit of a trek by road.
The trip to Turzovka, the location of our first festival gig, took about 8 hours including stops ... knackering .. and I wasn't even driving.
Motorway sandwiches .. (yuck mostly) .. gallons of water and diet cola .. Czech drivers .. who are by and large absolute nutters .. aggressive, ill-tempered, inconsiderate .. wannabe speed freaks.

The road connecting Prague to Brno, the main highway running West to East in the Republic, (and by default one of the most used routes to Slovakia) is almost always affected by an accident or two. Luckily for us we weren't hampered too much by this and were only held up for about 35 minutes while the firemen cleared up YET another RTA.

In a surreal totally non-rock and roll interlude, we ended up in Tescos (yep .. they get EVERYWHERE) car park in Turzovka eating pre-gig, unsure of what the festival catering facilities would be like.

The gig was fantastic. Věra is very popular in Slovakia and there were at least 1000 people in attendance. Slovakian audiences are animated and passionate in a way that Czechs aren't. They're also very black and white .. if they like you they really like you, and if they don't, as Czech singer and first " TV pop Idol" winner Aneta Langerova found out recently, they will not shrink from letting you know.
Again great PA fantastic monitor sound. Oh and GREAT catering.

We stayed overnight, in a Pension, which had a trout hatchery (?) and drove back the following afternoon in time for my regular Sunday night gig in Prague.

The following week, we made the return journey to Slovakia, only this time it was a longer and more time consuming trip. So much so, that we traveled there the day before.
From the time I left my flat, until check-in at the Hotel Smrek (couldn't resist calling it the Hotel Shrek) in Liptovský Hrádok, eleven pretty dull hours of my life had passed.
The Hotel was, to put it bluntly, a bit of a shithole .. but I was so tired that I fell asleep almost the moment my head touched the pillow .. and slept very soundly for 7 hours.
During the course of our journey, Věra had mentioned that she wanted to visit a lake in the Slovakian Mountains in the afternoon before our show .. so off we drove North in the direction of the High Tatra mountains the town of Poprad.
From the road the heavily wooded mountains looked very impressive .. Lenka and Věra, both country girls, were enraptured.

We arrived at the lake we were going to walk around .. gorgeous location ..and from the lake shore we could see a 90 metre ski jump hill.
You know the kind of thing I mean .. Eddie The Eagle (nutter AND from Swindon) was famous for jumping off them and coming last in competition ..failing heroically in that way that only English people can be lionised for.

Whilst we walking round the lake I spotted a sign saying the ski jump was open.
"I'd really like to go up there" says I .. "it's not so far away" ... so off we headed up a stony mountain path in the direction of the ski jump.
Naturally it was further than any of us thought and when we reached it about 20 minutes later, looking up it was enormous .. almost intimidating .. and there were people bungee jumping off it .. !!!

Thankfully, a lift took us up most of the way and we only had to climb about 8 flights of stairs. We could feel the structure sway in the strong breeze, there were no windows in the stairwell, and the metal steps clanked and reverberated as we climbed them. At the top the view was amazing.

But what first caught my eye was a guy stood outside the tower on a very rickety parapet (a bit of 4 x 2) .. about to jump .. 3..2..1.. BUNGEE ... and he fell like a very big stone, with a ponytail into the blue below.

There's a part of me that thinks I'd like to have a crack at bungee jumping, doubtless some residual macho crap, but truth be told, it scares the life out of me.

And I can handle being called a wuss if it means I don't have to plummet head first at terminal velocity tied to bits of elastic .. however strong they might be.

Frankly .. it's not just the jumping, it's the swinging upside down for what seems an age while they "recover" you that puts me off. ... that and the fact that incontinence pants technology has not yet evolved to the stage where the things are completely leak proof.

As if that wasn't enough thrill seeking for one day, I tried two more things I've never done in my life before.

Karpathian Brandy (very average and NOT a patch on it's Georgian counterpart) and riding on a chair lift. I bought the Karpathian Brandy purely on "when in Rome" basis ... the guy who sold me it must have been pissing himself.
80 slovakian crowns for a nip .. later that day in a local Supermarket I saw it on sale for 199Skc for a 70 ml bottle. " well ... I got me overheads .. and I got to transport it here" doesn't cut it Buster. It wasn't even that nice.

The chair lift was scary and a real buzz at the same time.
Had it not been for the fact that Věra and Lenka were with me, I might not have even climbed aboard .. yeah ok .. double wuss.

The thumbnail with my feet in it helps to put the height / distance into context.
It was so quiet apart from the onrush of the wind and the view was breathtaking.
The chairlift took us up nearly 2000m above sea level .. where there was a pub and restaurant ... Pilsner Urquell at 5000ft!

For some reason, the return journey was a good deal more hairy.
The mountain appeared to fall away really quickly, and looking down it must have been at least 200 ft to the trees below.

I took all the pics using my Nokia 6280 phone and even took a video of the return journey ( to be honest the vid was a tad boring but at least gave me some idea of the scale of things) .I was tightly holding on to my phone hoping it wouldn't slip my grasp and end up lost forever in the undergrowth below.

On the way back we stopped by this crystal clear stream and picked wild raspberries from bushes on the riverbank.

The gig that evening was great .. 2000 people there ... and they were a very enthusiastic bunch despite having to endure not only a heavy downpour, but one of the worst bands I have ever heard.
I'm ALL for encouraging local talent, especially young female talent (I mean musically) but if you're going to let them play in public, at least have some ability threshold for them.
Cute-ish as they were, (well one of them was.. out of four) they were so duff they couldn't even sing in unison! Horrible drummer .. totally incapable of playing in time bashing a Chad Valley style kids electronic kit and no two instruments in tune with one another.

Torture.
The sort of stuff that should get you life in prison, with no chance of parole
and where being forced to listen 24/7 to Celine Dion records is a condition of being incarcerated.

Homer Simpson moment .. on the subject of encouraging young local female talent,sadly, I missed the" Miss Wet T-shirt" contest in a local nightclub (which looked to be as big a shithole as the Hotel we were staying in) .. by a couple of days. How crap culture travels!!

Back to the Hotel Shrek for a post gig drink or two in the atmosphere free bar, and up early the following morning for the schlep back to Prague so I can do my regular Sunday night gig at Fatboys.

Two gigs the following weekend with "What The Funk" at U Maleho Glena .. absolutely mobbed, and such great fun being so close to the audience.
I'm sure I've mentioned UMG before .. apart from being my second home, the bar also boast the smallest decent live venue in Prague.
So small in fact, that I ensure I clip my nasal hair for fear of embarrassment.

We recorded 5 songs the day after the gigs too .. we're putting together a CD and video package for promotion. Studio was great really big room lots of good outboard gear and old mics including a Neumann M7.. session was easy 5 songs in 6 hours .. these guys can play like demons AND read "flyshit" to use a popular muso expression.

There's just a bit of tarting up and mixing to do, and we should have something we can use as a calling card.
Incidentally, we recorded new versions of "The Question Why", "Vagabond Heart" and "Which Side Of The Line" using bass, drums, keys, sax (soprano on VH and QY) and me.

So that's July taken care of .. except to say that it was my birthday on the 8th and I had a small gathering in UMG. Mostly expat friends.
Twenty or so people turned up, and towards the end of the evening I spectacularly disgraced myself by displaying total ineptitude in the face of a flaming B52 coctail (as they spell it here).
Being clueless about such "nancy boy" drinks, I proceeded to not only melt the plastic straw, but also set the furniture alight having been told by someone to blow the absinthe out .. I blew it out .. out of the glass and on to the table.
Thanks Jay .. I'm a beer drinker .. what do I know!!

We returned once more to Slovakia. This time to the town of Terchová and the very popular and long established Rozmarin festival. Again a long drive .. though this time no overnight stay, because the poxy organisers wouldn't agree to it.
So another 8 hour haul and we arrive tired at the Hotel looking forward to an hours chill time before the show. The guy operating the fun fair directly across from our Hotel had other ideas.

DOOF DOOF DOOF DOOF went the bass drum tiss-ah tiss-ah tiss-ah tiss-ah went the hi-hat ... I was in Ghost train ride Eurodisco hell.
It was so loud he may as well have set the gear up in my Hotel room .. which incidentally had double glazing for all the good it was.
My bones shook, my diaphragm vibrated .. it was like being in the front row of a Jam gig in the late 70s. To this date still the loudest band I've seen.

I shamble down to the front desk ..
"sorry Sir there are no other rooms available"
"OK .. what time does this noise finish?"
"By 10 pm"
"And IF it doesn't you'll find me another room?"
"Promise?"
"Yes Sir I promise"

We arrive at the festival site and it's busy and very impressive .. CCTV screens for the punters, a small private army of security guards, stagehands that were willing to work. The act on before us included Vlasta Redl and Slavek Janousek .. two people with whom I played my first ever gig in the Czech Republic with eleven years ago.
In fact it was Slavek who on seeing me play in a pub in West London (the Frigate and Firkin from memory) invited me to join him at some music Festivals. Seems ages away.

There is so little changeover time between acts in festivals here .. 10 minutes is what we got .. to set up the equipment .. in my case amp, pedal board, mic and sound check and change from scruffs into stage clothes.
And the previous act has to pack up and leave the stage too.
Drives me nuts. I hate rushing this .. and then you go straight into gig mode.
Very tough. And so easy to make a small mistake. I'm slowly winning Věra over to the idea of taking the time we need, and not the time they want to give us.

The gig itself was weird .. a really crap monitor mix .. which kept changing .. continually my guitar feeding back in Věras monitors .. somehow despite the small militia of security guards, a drunk managed to clamber on stage and stand directly next to Věra in that way that drunks do .. singing off key and looking a tad over amorous.Eventually they arrived and bundled him off stage.

I saw Vlasta the following morning, he remarked that security were very much in evidence when it came to kicking the artists out of the back stage bar at midnight.

The final straw was my amp dying on me right before our encore.
The show had been very well received despite all the crap we went through, and we were pumped up ready to do the first encore but my amp had other ideas.

I was about to launch into the guitar lick for "I'm Not Waiting" and was greeted by total silence, followed very swiftly by panic .. shit .. bugger .. what's the fuck is wrong .. I re-plugged cables .. switched things on and off once, twice, three times and still nothing .. balloon burst in front of 2000 people .. great ... I'm now looking to replace the amp.
I can't be taking chances like this. The worst part is that all was fine until the last moment.
Věra finished the show with a folk ballad .. I finished it cursing offstage.

Back at the Hotel, mercifully the disco equivalent of the bombing of Dresden had finished .. calm had descended .. I had a shower and headed for the bar ..

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18th June 2007
The mystery of the US State Dept logging into my web site has been solved.

I am doing a charity gig for handicapped kids in the grounds of the US Embassy in Prague on Thursday of this week (7 gigs in 6 days!!) and people from the Embassy
have been checking my biog etc .. so they know what to expect.

A nice man from the Embassy called me and explained everything. The computers in the US Embassy in Prague (and elsewhere I imagine) are routed through a central State Dept computer Washington D.C. .. it makes perfect sense when you know. Thanks for calling David.

Bin men in the street today at 3:43 am .. I was still up tinkering with my new
Zen VisionM multimedia player .. my old Creative Zen touch, the one that Ii bought in Atlanta airport for $200 when there were $2 to the £ decided to stop scrolling .. not much use when that's the only way to navigate around the thing. Bugger.
Still .. I didn't lose the files .. I have been loading them on to my new machine for the last 5 hrs.

15th June 2007
The bin men in my neighbourhood are Nazis, working in some kind of vicious tag team.
It's really humid here right now, so I sleep with my bedroom windows open.
The glass recycling guy turns up every other day at around 5am and shakes the very full container for what seems like 5 minutes before emptying it .. the bin men come twice a week at about 4:30am they empty the wheelie bins mechanically .. and make an ungodly din. I tend to go to bed at about 2 .. sometimes earlier .. sometimes later .. either way I'm feeling sleep deprived. I have friends from England too here at the mo .. having fun ..one of them Lesley and I were at school ages ago .. in fact over 35 years ago.

I don't know if I should be bothered, but according to my web site stats package, someone at the US State Department is monitoring my web site .. no joke .. 40 hits from them yesterday .. spooky .. and weird. Maybe if they're reading this they'll get in touch and let me know what's going on. Could be I just have a fan I didn't know about .. not that I know everyone individually you understand.

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9th June 2007
I'm aware that my posting news/blogging has been a bit haphazard of late so I devised this great plan ... open up the notepad program on my computer.. make notes about the stuff that happens in my life.. save .. really easy.
In theory yes , in practice no .... not really easy.

Free time to create is a bit hard to come by these days. I don't just throw this page together .. oh no, it takes ages .. not that I'm complaining, I'm just trying to let you, dear reader, know why the updates aren't as regular as they could be.

I have been busy gigging in Prague, and traveling the Republic doing concert and festival gigs with Věra. A real mixed bag. In late April we (Věra, Lenka - Věras sister - and I) traveled to what seemed the end of the earth a town called Trinec close to the Polish/Slovakian border .. it took 6 hours to get there.

Bloody long way .. we were on stage in mid afternoon on Saturday so we traveled on Friday afternoon and on arrival, at about 10:30 pm, checked into the imposing (and very Communist era styled) Hotel Steel "your second home" is the Hotels proud boast .. well not exactly. Even though the Hotel has been tarted up using EU money , in my home, the sink has a plug and there's a double bed .. ...
They even supply a Hotel Steel complimentary chocolate in the room .. together with a sheet of Hotel Steel writing paper and a Hotel Steel envelope .. and badly dubbed Polish TV.

Dubbed Polish TV is something I heard about from people in Prague but it's only when you experience it first hand that you start to realise its truly bizarre nature. Imagine a US cop show ... or a drama or anything where the dialogue is NOT in Polish.
What the people at Polish TV do, is turn the original dialogue down but not off .. just enough so you can still hear the rise and fall of peoples voices, and then they get 1 man .. to read the translated script like a robot.
Yep ONE guy does ALL the voices .. male, female kids.. it doesn't matter .. with absolutely no modulation in his voice.
If Stephen Hawking were Polish .. he'd get the gig no trouble. It's both bizarre and hilarious .. a Polish friend has told me that THREE guys dub all the Polish TV that's NOT originally in Polish language.

The gig itself was a festival .. a huge affair with four stages a big fun fair.
We were playing to a busy animated audience (must have been the beer) who were both welcoming and attentive. Unlike the guy doing the sound, who was as big a tosspot as you're ever likely to encounter.

There are two reasons for a sound check .. the first is so that the front of house (what the audience hears) can be sorted out, and the second, is to enable the performer to get a monitor mix to work with, in order to perform to their best.
In our case it's quite straightforward ..
I need to hear me and a little of Věra and Lenka so I can pitch to them and vice versa .. bleedin' obvious really. This is not rocket science. Try telling that to the cloth-eared git doing our sound.

No sooner had we got used to what might pass for a halfway-decent mix, it was never very good .. he changed it, continually, throughout the duration of our performance. Even with a bad mix if it stays the same your ears get used to it and can compensate for the crap sound.
I'm both patient and professional with sound guys .. it pays to be .. it's "your life" in their hands .. but after 20 minutes of him dicking around .. I lost it and blurted out angrily over the mic for ALL to hear .. "look .. just set it, and leave it .. stop fucking ... about"

The day of the gig was also Lenka's 40th birthday. So not only did she have to deal with a crap sound check and 40 minutes of a less than ideal monitor mix she was faced with the prospect of another 6 hour drive back to Prague .. some birthday!
But wait .... after we'd packed up post gig, got our stuff from the Hotel, and loaded it into the SUV, Lenka turned the engine over and a terrible sound emerged from the engine. A horrible clangy metallic racket. Sounds dangerous .. and expensive I thought.
I had no idea what it was .. not able to even pin point where the sound was coming from. We didn't relish the idea of a 6hr drive with some odd and potentially problematical noise coming from the vehicle so Lenka phoned up a breakdown service.

An hour or so later, Herman Munster's second cousin drives up, lumbers towards the car and gets Lenka to turn the engine over. Seconds later he pronounces .. it's the water pump.
Bollocks I thought, this idiot knows less than me.
If it's the water pump .. then why isn't the engine overheating? No it's the water pump he insists .. in that way that clueless cretins do. Pokes about a bit more in a pathetic attempt to convince me he knows what he's on about .. he fails spectacularly.
He says the best thing is for him to tow the SUV back to his pound and he'll take it to the garage on Monday. So there we were in Trinec a six hour drive from Prague in a vehicle that was going nowhere except to the garage.

Mobile phones go into overdrive .. eventually Jarda (Yarda .. Věras hubby and fab drummer) agrees to drive from Prague .. pick us up and drive us back .. Meantime Lenka has sorted a room in the Hotel Steel so we can chill (?)and I go to the Hypernova supermarket and buy a bottle of fizz .. we check into the room and the party starts.

The fizz I'd bought was the first bottle finished .. Lenka then promptly bought a bottle of white and platter of cold cuts of meat and cheese. Věra asked me to get my guitar out, and in no time we were on bottle of wine #3 (which I went to reception to buy because Věra didn't want her public to see her tiddly) Věra playing rhythm guitar and the three of us singing classic Beatles and country songs.
The best part was the firework display to mark the end of the Music Festival and we stood on the hotel room balcony watching it .. and the Trinec steel works in all smoke belching glory .. it was almost as if it were planned for Lenka.
Jarda turned up at about midnight in vehicle #2, and after copious quantities of coffee.. we drove back to Prague and I staggered into bed at about 6am. Knackered.
Oh and the noise from the engine .. a stone in the air conditioning! What a let down .. for all the grief it caused, it could have at least been something major.
The bill was 6500kc (about £160) of which 500 was the garage bill and 6000 was idiotboy the mechanics tow fee .. not SO dumb idiotboy I guess.

What else .. well .. five really great Věra gigs .. two with the band .. whilst looking for John Mayer's Continuum album, I found my HereAfter cd in Bonton Records .. the biggest record store in Prague .. possibly in the Republic too ..
under it's own tab "Marshall Jamie" .. sandwiched between "Martin George" and "Marriott Steve" .. how cool is that?? ... I had some great compliments after a gig at Red Hot and Blues from some guys who all turned out to be music Professors from Berklee college in Boston, in Prague for a week working as visiting lecturers.
One of them .. award winning conductor, composer and recording artist Julius Williams was even John Mayer's' composition coach .. apparently he failed him in his first year. Loved what I did .. and has said he may even orchestrate a song of mine. "Grammy Award winning John Mayer?" .. I quipped .. well actually I didn't my friend Ian did but I wish to God I had ..

Two old college friends and their wives were over to visit .. I asked them to bring some Yorkshire Teabags .. anticipating a box of 80 .. they bought me 2 boxes of 240 .. some I'm ok for Yorkshire tea for the next 6 months! Ian and John I've known for 33yrs .. scary stuff really .. and they've changed little in all that time .. like me they're a little fatter and where they have hair (in Ian and my case) it's greyer
I really enjoyed their visit .. it was good to catch up and swap stories from our past. So in a really busy week for me I was Prague tour guide too. I love it that with longstanding friends you can easily pick up where you left off.

Sad news too .. my friend Richard Stone (Stoney) died as a result of pancreatic cancer. He'd been I'll for about 18 months but had a really positive attitude, he didn't even make a will because he didn't think he was going to die. I first met him at Keith Floyd's pub in Devon about 15 years ago .. he was a great guy and a good solid friend to a lot of people. He visited me twice in Prague .. and loved the city .. rest in peace and have a round of golf for me mate xx

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12th April 2007
My house guests Alex and Liz have left, thankfully they left the wonderful spring weather though. It's gorgeous again here. Sunny clear skies .. Prague looks even more beautiful.
I've just had a pretty busy 15 days of gigging, rehearsing and tour guiding my friends. Exhausting really! Only 2 days off.

I did two gigs with Věra recently, one in Prague and one in the very East of the Republic in a town close to the Polish border.
The Prague gig was in Lhotka a suburb on the South side of the city.
A forbidding looking place full of unsightly 1960s "panelaks" (medium rise 8 -10 storey flats .. made from concrete panels .. hence their name) there are a number of these panelak estates around the periphery of the city.

Built during the Communist era in Czechoslovakia , they were supposed to only last 30 years but no-one has got around to either knocking them down or finding a suitable alternative to house people.
The theatre was fantastic. no more than 5 years old, and very well equipped and the audience were a delight. Really warm and friendly.
It is said that Prague audiences are hard to play to , but there was no evidence of that at all.
The second gig was in Police nad Metuji a small town close to Nachod .. home of Primator beer (they do a great tasting English Pale Ale BTW) .. the gig was sold out .. again a really great audience .. makes all the miles travelled worthwhile.

Věra has re-jigged the band since we last gigged in November.
Beata the keyboard player has left to have a baby, and in her place come a fiddle player, and a pedal steel guitar player who also plays electric guitar and mandolin. The Lhotka gig was the first with the new line-up, and reports back from people Věra trusts consider this her best line up yet.

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3rd April 2007
Ok ok ok ... yes I have been somewhat tardy on the news reporting front .. this time I gone a whole month ("six weeks in fact you lazy git I hear someone mutter at the back) maintaining cyber silence and once again it's not as if I've had nothing to let you wonderful people know .. oh no .. but I have been busy doing all manner of things. It's just that only rarely has there been time to sit down and write .. or type even.

First item of big news is that at long last, I now have adsl internet!!
Yippee . runs around the apartment with football shirt pulled over head
in the style of some overacting Italian football primadonna ...my re-entry into he world of true cyber space has more to do with the efforts of my mate Simon who called in a favour than any action on my part.

Truth is, I'm surprised I even lasted the course.

This all began when I uprooted from Vinohrady to Zizkov. It dragged on and ... on and ..... on and ....... on for 9 months and two moves culminating in Cesky Telecom (as big a set of corporate lazybones tosspots as you're EVER likely to meet) telling me that the were "technical reasons" why I couldn't get adsl internet in my new flat.
"What technical reasons"? I enquired ... twice ..
"technical reasons" came the curt reply
"I'm sorry don't you understand the question"? I counter
.. "technical reasons" and something muttered in Czech which loosely translated means knob off you insolent foreigner .. probably.

Any road up, a word in the right ear, an email or two dispatched, the date was set, and the engineer turned up with his box of tools and his ID Badge.
The "technical" problems were of such an enormous magnitude that it took all of 10 minutes to resolve them.This includes a visit outside to tinker with god knows what too .. he was in the flat it self for a maximum of 3 minutes...
........ "technical reasons" my arse.

As an added bonus the same mate (Simon .. if you weren't paying attention) is a bit of a whiz with wi-fi so not only do I have adsl in my apartment now .. but it's
wi-fi adsl .. and yes I am looking VERY smug.

Marquis has definitely demised .. much as in the style I imagined it would.
There was I walking to my Wednesday night gig when my mobile phone rang .. and Petra (the barmaid .. I use the word barmaid only because I've never heard the term barharpie .. until now that is) said tersely .........
"Jamie .. you have no concert tonight we have problem with water".
I kept walking until I reached Marquis, peered through the shutters and saw her mopping the floor .. seems fair enough I naively thought.

So I popped into Red Hot and Blues just around the corner had a drink and sauntered back home. A week passes and nothing. No word at all.
I sent 3 texts to the owner only to have them returned and when I eventually called his number the phone had been disconnected. Not looking too good I muse.

I sent Petra a text politely asking if she had any news about the bar .. a one word answer came back by way of reply "NO" .. helpful to the last. I always had a tenuous relationship with her .. the toughest part about dealing with the manager was that he spoke very little English and Petra assumed the mantle of interpreter. To hear her talk sometimes you'd be forgiven for thinking that she owned the entire building when in truth she was an employee at Marquis.

On the following Sunday the fragrant Katka (the other barmaid) .. blonde Slovakian and very lovely phoned and said
Jamie "I think you should come get you stuuf" .. here we go I thought.
So I went and grabbed my "stuuf" from Marquis and on seeing Leos the bar manager there asked him ..
"so is this it then, ... Marquis is closed"? "ne ne ne" he replied ..

I'm reminded of the quote attributed to US General Douglas Mac Arthur ...
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
Applied to Marquis it semi-translates into "no we aren't closed, we're just not sure whether or not we are still open".

More than a month later the shutters are still down, and the businesses either side of Marquis are closed too. It turns out that the "problem with water" was not a plumbing related one at all, but something much more fundamental.
The owners of the building had cut the water off!! It's a bit tricky running a bar with no water to clean the glasses and toilets that don't flush.

So that's it .. Marquis is closed. And I'm sad about it.
Yes it was a dump, smoky, shabby and falling apart, but there was something wonderfully vibrant about the place .. the people it attracted were always very mixed in terms of their origins and ages. Tourist locals and expats used the bar.
Mostly a young crowd but older (ie my age) couples too .. and hand on heart I loved playing there. It was a great sounding room which must have looked very smart in it's heyday.

I've managed to replace the Marquis Sunday with a gig at a nearby bar Fatboys (stop sniggering) .. my diet will start very soon. It's a great bar with some very friendly locals run by a very engaging Aussie guy called Norm. His directness is a breath of fresh air in a town where duplicity seems to be the norm (ha ha). I'm back gigging with Věra too check the gig page for details .. speaking of which, Id better get my arse in gear for todays show.
I'll update this with more news very soon .. promise

JM xx

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18th February 2007
The weather today is beautiful, gorgeous clear blue skies and lots of sunshine so far. I'm still in my jim-jams, and wearing a sweater. Lazy git you think, er no .. not exactly, I've got the 'flu. Me and every third person in Prague it seems. I managed to stave it off for about two weeks but finally succumbed on Friday and have been feeling iffy since then.

My back muscles ache from coughing, my eyes feel like they're huge and filled with grit, I feel exhausted, totally lacking in energy, and like I just want to sleep.
Luckily I didn't have gigs on Friday and Saturday so this evening will be a good test of my state of health. Also of my ability not to gag in a smoky atmosphere.

Meantime I'm dosed up on Coldrex (Lemsip) and Strepsils and lots of fluids.
May go for a sauna later and/or a curry to see if that makes any difference. I need some more Coldrex anyway so I'll have to venture out.

In between gigging over the last month, I've been tour guiding friends.
Two separate tours .. always fun to do too. I focus not so much the historic side of Prague which is obvious and in all the guide books, but on the parts of Prague that locals know. The pubs, restaurants, markets, music clubs, side streets .. that sort of thing.

A couple of my favourite sights are thrown into the mix, but mostly it's as I described. My tour with Cliff took in U Provaznicka for Kozel beer and garlic soup, then for to U Pinkasu a matter of 3 minutes walk away for Pilsner Urquell and Nakladany Hermelin.
I've mentioned my fondness for this Czech speciality before. Basically, it's a white rind, Camembert style cheese, which is split filled with sliced garlic herbs and chilli paste, and then marinaded in chilli oil. The recipe differs from place to place as does the presentation of the dish.
At U Pinkasu they chintz it up a bit with walnuts and redcurrant sauce, it's very tasty and great with a glass of Pilsner Urquell. Beer bore note, U Pinkasu is the first place in Prague where, in 1843, Pilsner was drawn.

Double beer bore note, I have now registered the domain name www.beerinprague.com and will shortly embark on a new website venture. The site is very much under construction so don't go looking for it just yet.

Right .. it's two days later, I've managed to struggle through two gigs .. voice fine, just low energy. Had a storming gig at Red Hot last night, slow start but gangbusters later. Played for close to two and a half hours. They just wouldn't let me go .. quite right too!
Went to the sauna too, AND had a curry and I seem to be defeating this bug. A lot better today for sure. Hardly coughing, not so bunged up (graphic enough for you?)

My other tour was with Paul and Valerie, a couple from Sheffield who's wedding I played at last September. Initially, I met them at Marquis on the night that Paul proposed and I was asked if I'd play at the reception when they married. They returned to Prague to celebrate Valeries' birthday.

High on the list of things to do was to track down some Bernard dark lager. Normally, this is served at one of my favourite watering holes U Maleho Glena so we trudged off in search of the dark, only to find that they had run out!! Oh no!! Calamity....

As a consolation prize, (truth is we were going there anyway but later) I took them to what has to be my favourite bar (in terms of quality of beer and Czechness) a great little place in the Mala Strana called U Hrocha in Thunovska around the corner from the British Embassy. Fittingly, the bar is under the gaze of no lesser a "sauce" lover than Winston Churchill himself.

The Pilsner here is widely regarded as the best kept in Prague.
It's creamy and hoppy, sparklingly clear and .. well .. just wonderful. There is a limited food menu which is very well priced, and includes Pork Knee (Knuckle) a great Pork Steak, really tasty Potato salad and the icing on the cake .. ta da .. .Nakladany Hermelin.
The place is FULL of characters. Last year I took a couple of "theatrical" friends of mine here (an actress and a former casting director) and they were enthralled at the mix of drinkers in the bar. "Like something from a Fellini film" Lin said.

I did manage a slight triumph on the dark beer front however. I half remembered seeing a Bernard pub in a back street in the Old Town close to Charles Bridge. So we hunted it down and whilst it didn't have the full dark beer it did sell "polotmave" .. half dark and Hermelin .. very nearly happy bunnies .. it was a great little place too. Later that day, I had a phone call from the barman at U Maleho Glena telling me they now had the dark on tap. Sadly I'd said goodbye to P and V and Paul had left his mobile in England .. ah well, there will be another time.

So what else has been happening.
Well, my new covers band "What The Funk" is taking shape .. we now have a core of great musos we can work with, arrangements are being written right now, and we are looking forward to gigging. The band hinges around Martin Sulc on drums, Rosta Fras on Saxes, Jakub Zitko on Keys and Me warbling and playing guitar.

I've bought a stereo .. amazing considering I am a musician that I don't have a bona-fide one here, up until now I've been using my computer for this .. splashed out and bought a JVC which I'm chuffed with. I may even add the sub woofer too (ooer missis).

Buying it was an event. I looked at several brands in a number of different shops.
I do stuff like that .. I'm a guy.
In one shop DATART (a big electrical retailer in the Czech Republic) in a new shopping mall in Chodov (South Prague) I spied the JVC and asked a shop assistant if he had a CD for me, so that I could listen to the unit and check it's sound quality. Simple enough request I thought.
Whilst it isn't exactly HMV, there are plenty of CDs about. A cursory glance and seconds he replied "Ne .. ne mam" .. "No we haven't got any" .. So that's it, I should just go and f*ck myself should I.
Idiot, and sadly not untypical of the Czech approach to sales and Customer service. Viz my earlier comments about Czech Telecom.

I also had two unexpected guests. Jon Coxon who came to see me play at Barrels in Berwick years ago, struggled in the snow from Liverpool, and Sandra Hoogenbosch from Holland an old family friend. Jon had brought his Slovenian girlfriend Ivana to Prague to hear me play .. how wonderful .. Sandra was here with a friend who was attending a travel conference. Did a bit of a tour with them too.

It's Six Nations time again, So when I can, I sit glued to the TV to watch the games. Whilst England didn't exactly cover themselves in glory against a very tough and well-organised Italian side, at least they emerged victorious. It's a bit of a well-worn saying, but there is some consolation in playing badly and still winning. I watched both the Ireland games too .. I was so disappointed for them against France, losing in the last minute to a pretty soft try. Clerk who won the game for France, had had a pretty quiet game up until then, but managed to charge through some very scrappy tackling in the 79th minute to seal victory.

I watched the game in JJ Murphy's, an Irish bar in the Mala Strana, who have their satellite tuned to RTE for the games. One of the match commentators, whose name I didn't catch, had a lisp .. yep you read that right.
Unfortunately for him, the first choice Irish scrum half Peter Stringer was injured and unable to play. His place was taken by Kiwi born Ulsterman Isaac Boss! .. Eye thuck Bohth if you will .. hilarious.. gaffe after gaffe .. I know I shouldn't mock, but I'm amazed he got the job in the first place.

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25th January 2007
The long expected cold snap arrived yesterday.
As I rode home in my cab last night, I saw a dot matrix sign displaying the temperature as -6 at 2:30 this morning.
It got down as low as -15 last year, there's talk of -18 this year !!
The airport was closed, I was nearly stranded in Karlovy Vary a town about 70 miles northwest of Prague where about 6 inches of snow fell overnight.
Instead of travelling back by coach, my normal method, I had to suffer a 3hr 40 minute train journey back to Prague. There were two big accidents on the Prague/Karlovy Vary road and it was impossible to drive between these two cities.
As of this afternoon the road was still blocked.

I just managed to make it back in time to do my Marquis gig. But only just.

Up until Wednesday the weather had been very mild .. I even saw one or two people (lunatics) in shorts in the first couple of weeks of January.

Scousers eh eh .. calm down .. one of my favourite stories of last year concerned a stag group of scousers visiting Prague. They arrived, 7 or so of them at Marquis shortly after I'd finished for the night .. so about 1:15 I'd guess.
One of them was dispatched (or took it upon himself) to chat to me as I packed my stuff away ....

"Ear alright dere mayte" .. I nod
"Are ya dun for the night"?
"Yep" .. I reply
"Only we've gorra mayte 'ere hoose a prefesshinul sin-ger"
"Can I stop you there" I interject .. "the answer's NO"
"Yer been a bit abrupt arntcha"
"I'm only trying to save you time"
"Yeah but 'es a prefesshinul sin-ger .. nuttin karry oakey .. prefesshinul "
I look at him squarely and say "So am I"
You could almost hear him deflate ..
A moment passed and his mind was racing .. what to say next..
"Yeah .. but 'eeess berra than you"
Good come back .. Needless to say he didn't get his Stars in Their Eyes moment.

I had a meeting with Věra last week .. she's been suffering for the past few months with Epstein Barr (chronic fatigue) syndrome .. is almost permanently tired, and has lost a load of weight. She seems cheerful enough but has very little energy.

We were talking about plans for this year which include getting a new manager, doing lots more shows together, preparing for an album for next year, and writing new material. There's still talk of us recording a version of Just Enough Of A Moon
for release as a single too.
The manager issue has been resolved .. Věras' old manager who looks after the very popular band "Cechomor" has agreed to do the job and we will be doing some shows with them as either a duo, or with Lenka as a trio.
As things stand we have about 20 gigs together this year already and are hoping for many more especially music festivals in the summer period.

Happy New Year!!
5th January 2007
How was your Xmas and New Year?
I had a great time with my family and friends
Nine days filled with festive activity. I arrived in England on Xmas Eve and stayed up in Lichfield (where my folks live) until the day before New Years Eve when I drove to London to visit friends.
Had a fab meal in The Teddington Arms with a group of friends. Calves liver and bacon with mashed potatoes and gravy .. washed down with several pints of Tongham Tea (Traditional English Ale).. yum!
New Years Eve was spent dashing around like a lunatic trying to cram a quart into a pint pot. I went shopping in Kingston, ... again ... then to my local The Lion in Teddington. twice .. drove up to London and saw friends at The Porterhouse in Maiden Lane ... then back to Teddington, avoiding the rush of revelers in Central London, and saw the New Year in at The Lion, then took in two drinks parties before I crashed out at about 3pm.
Drove back to Lichfield the following evening after another spot of house-calling in Teddington and Cookham.
I even managed to find time during my stay in England to get a cortisone injection in my right elbow .. tennis elbow caused by my very busy work schedule this year.
Apologies to those I didn't manage to catch up with .. next time I hope.

I returned to Prague on the 2nd of January flying out of East Midlands Airport.

For some reason, I forgot about the new security regulations regarding carrying liquids in hand luggage, and, after waiting in the security queue, had to check in my hand baggage, which meant going back to the baggage drop and passing through the metal detectors again. Only to realise, that I couldn't find one of my two mobile phones (I have one for England and one for CR).
So, back I went to the baggage check to see if I could get my hand baggage back and check if my phone was in it ... are you still following this ?? .... ten minutes later in another part of the airport my bag appeared and I got my phone. Trip number three through the metal detectors.
What a palaver and a relief too. Any road, the flight was sort of on time and at about 9:20 I was back in Prague. A long day!
First port of call U Maleho Glena for several glasses of Bernard dark lager .. my favourite Czech brew.

Straight back to gigging the following day .. I'd forgotten what a smoky place Marquis can be... it's a brilliant room to play .. but the cig smoke can be very thick at times. Those of you who know me well, know my views about smoking too, but in this job, in this city, it's a fact of life and hard to avoid. :(

Jamie Marshall signature