Harry Potter and the Newfound Respect For R-Man

Last Saturday I was once again invited to play bass with Ginkinta, supporting The Peacocks at Camden Underworld. I pulled out pretty much all the stops: learned which key the songs were in, put some new strings on my bass, and drew a picture of Peregrine the Easter Bunny on it (I'd recently bought a new 4-pack of Sharpies). I kind of think of playing bass as a bit of a holiday from my usual guitar+machine duties, however I didn't anticipated the amount of ache and pain my hands would be suffering by the end of the set. For this I hold a newfound respect for Regan and all the bass players out there. I will now be endeavouring to practise more bass, or I'll never be Bootsy.

I mentioned the other week that we had a new track underway that was bigger than U2. Well it's still underway and we've now got another one as well which sounds like a cross between Lalo Schifrin's soundtrack to Dirty Harry, and John Carpenter's soundtrack to Halloween. It's tentatively titled Magnum Myers.

Maybe because I've spent too much of my life watching films with cool soundtracks, or maybe because I'm a grown up, I've not read the actual book that the new Harry Potter film is based on. For others of you that may also be contemplating tackling the marathon experience of this film with a similar lack of preparation, here's what to expect:

Scene 1: Voldemort says he needs a new wand.

Scene 2 - Scene 986: Harry and his pals dick about looking for the plot.

Scene 987: Voldemort gets a new wand.

In hindsight it's a mash-up of Cash In The Attic and a Hollyoaks omnibus, set entirely at night.

Chocolate Trousers

We started writing a new song last week. It's so massive it may not fit in conventional venues. The good news is that U2 can retire now.

Then this weekend was jam-packed full of awesome. We cruised down on Friday night to check out Ulterior's single launch at Electrowerkz in Islington. There was lots of leather, beer and a hilariously decrepit pool table (true to form, R-man hustled and I was terrible).

After another satisfying fry-up at Delichio's, R-Man headed off for the train with Benn's Brother while H-Town and I went to check out the Zappa happenings (or Zappanings, if you won't) at the Roundhouse. Although we didn't actually have tickets for any of the events, it was awesome just hanging out in the venue - non-stop Frank on the speakers, blown-up album covers everywhere, and some fun interactive stuff to do. Here's me with one of my favourites (the Läther album would have been rock's first quadruple album if the record company had had the udders to release it back in the 70s).

Then we caught Stewart Lee doing some new material for his next TV show. If you know Stewart Lee then you know I can't do justice to repeating any lines here. If you don't know him then you should check him out, an accomplished technical comedian - rivalling classic Harry Hill but with anger instead of silliness.

What's next for Great Men? Other than writing this new material, getting the album mixed and maybe sneaking out a cheeky live EP, we're off for a pint. See you at the Crown in 15.

PS - I apologise to all the regular readers who were looking forward to another photo of us eating in a London cafe.

PPS - Regan shared his Snickers with me in the car but I dropped a bit and it melted on my trousers.

PPPS - That wasn't a euphemism.