Star Blog

By the time wife presses the 'send' button on this one for me I will be halfway to paradise. Well, according to the cunning plan anyway. Paradise in this case not being what you're thinking but that mythical place writers go when they need to be beyond the call of email, phone or kids i.e. a small room buried in the heart of some distance forest. Or whatever the nearest equivalent is you can come up with. In my case, a room. Somewhere. Not telling where cos that would spoil the whole idea. Anyway, I am gone not long, and will be back before you can say, 'Is he still doing the blog or what?' Give me a few days first before you do try saying that though, awright?

A writer's day. Young son jumps into bed around 6.30a.m. "Daddy?" "Uh..." "Will you read a book with me?" "Uh..." "Now?" "U... uh..."

Half an hour of head mud later you realise it's hopeless and drag yourself out of bed, stagger for the loo. Just letting go when youngest daughter appears in the doorway. "Daddy?" You look. "Mummy said we can go to Toys R Us today cos I finished my SATs and was a good girl." "Talk to mummy..."

Another half hour or so and you're on another world. Upright, functioning, body and a bit of mind. Tea, cereal, TV (I know but fuck off about it OK), lunch boxes and... mummy.

"You know what I like about that Ford Focus?" (The one we've been lent by Ben at the garage cos both of our cars are out of action.) "I just really, really love it. Why don't we tell them to keep your MG and we'll keep the Ford...?"

You take a shit, forget to lock the door. Boy yanks it open. "GET OUT!" Boy laughs out loud. Or BLOL. "You look funny, daddy."

"You'll look funny if you don't bugger off..."

Lord, lord. Just another day and it hasn't even got going yet.

Later, you sit there at the desk, the fan blowing. Always too hot or too cold or too rainy. Always too much. The phone goes. A text. You ignore it. The email pings. You shut it down. You open up the chapter, see where you left it and begin to groan. There's a reason you left it there last night and now it stares you in the staggered face again. You go to fix it. The doorbell rings...

An EBay package. What the fuck has she ordered now. You go back to your desk but the smallest of the three dogs gets tangled in your feet and you fall over the chair. The text goes. You turn off the phone. Hours drift by, all blown in the head. You finally get a groove going, thinking I'll fuck this bitch hard then it will be all OK. It doesn't happen. The bitch fucks you instead. Right upside the head. And down the other.

Wife comes home from work. Tells you all about it. Goes off to get the kids from school. They tell you all about it, over and over until you feel yourself spasming. You drink A LOT of coffee. Not good for a man with a bad heart and a big gut. All that's left though so you grab it while you can.

You risk the email and there it is, number four of 37. "How's the book going? You must be nearly finished by now?"

You slide open the draw, take out the metaphorical gun and hold it to your head. Press the trigger.

Then go back to work.

Just a quick line for all the dear hearts that have mailed in recently wanting to know if maybe I'm dead yet, there being no bloggage to speak of these past weeks. Well, I might be dead, I'll have to check, but I'm still here. Where I been? Oh, the usual haunts... there was the wife's car crash, nobody hurt, just an awful lot of being put out for days (still going on now). Wife's other topple that left her on laughing crutches. The kids in and out of hospital can't even recall now what for, something serious probably.  There were the sleepless nights spent talking to strangers in dreams that curled into waking hours and refused to leave. The crying of babies and grown-ups, all in the same overstuffed room. What nearly did it, though, was Dylan's cold black cloud coming down that took me like a Hawaiian wave on the beach at Maui that time, trunks yanked tight around my neck. Then just as they were throwing dirt on the casket, the sudden influx of honey, god bless the honey. We all need a taste now and then or the whole damn shoot turns to shit, am I right?

So... you can see why the last thing that occurs to me at night right now is sitting here putting it down for so-called fun. And that's before we get on to the book that writes itself when the moon shines and snaps its teeth in your face when it don't. The customers that don't pay or bitch and moan because you ain't their kind of super-whore and don't know what the fuck it is they want from you or them or it anyway, dig?

Moving though to know someone actually misses this shit when it turns to crust and falls away. I promise to try harder. Always.

Sitting here listening to a Youtube clip of Nora Jones singing Ride On, that beautiful song by that great beauty Bon Scott. 'One of these days I'm gonna change my evil ways...' Nora sings, channeling The Old Man, as those naughty brothers Young used to call him. Wish Bon could have stuck around long enough to find out what fun that is, though. First time I heard him sing it, way back you know when, I kind of assumed, like I imagine he must have, that if you could just do that, change your fucked up days, you really would have made it. I don't think either of us knew that it would be such a long-term, day in night out process. That, in fact, that was the real fun part, though it wasn't any fun at all sometimes. Not like we used to have, us bad boys who did stick around, some way too long. Anyway, Nora seems to get it. Or maybe she doesn't, she's just good enough to sound like she does. Or maybe it's me. Anyway, blame Bon. What a fucker he was. Met him a couple of times, over at the house of no-pain, and he was one sweet guy, gentle as a dove, one wing a little longer than the other. Not that you noticed. Not at first anyway...

Eldest daughter in bath to younger siblings: "Get out! Get out! I'm having a bath on my own!"

An ace evening yesterday with my mates Harry and Sue, and several of their friends (now mine) and their gorgeous kids. They know how to make you feel welcome up Notts way, and even though I didn't get home till nearly 3.00am I went to bed happy. Today, though, has been a bit of a slog. Wife on crutches, kids on endless weekend highs, and me trying to get some work done on The Book. In the end I managed to get quite a bit done. It's amazing how focused you can stay when you've only got half your brain fully awake. Clearly, Harry and Sue will have to have me back. Soon.

Off to see the Sheriff of Nottingham today, aka Brother Harry, aka Another Bald Writer Git Like Me (Only Younger). Relying on wife's sat-nav to get me there, which means I should arrive in Leeds about 10 o'clock tonight. But that's OK because I'm taking a flask of ginger tea with me (for the hiatus hernia), a large bottle of water (for the diabetes) and a Seal Of Solomon amulet around my neck (well, obviously). Oh and of course My Pills (don't ask...). Just like the old days, in fact, when I used to globe-trot with my old mucker and official Nicest Man In The World, Ross Halfin. (Only without the Ginger Tea...)

Saw some old friends last night. Amazing how a good night out amongst good fellows can bring the colour back to your life. All going well - there was raffle and I won it, in your face Lady Luck! - until I got home and wife told me she'd been to the hospital to see about her badly bruised knee (she got pulled over by one of the dogs a few days ago and had a bad fall) to be told she'd fractured the kneecap and would need X-Rays and etc. Well, you know, it's at least three weeks since we last sent to the hospital (for eldest daughter's broken arm) so it was obviously just our turn AGAIN. More hopeful news today. The X-Rays don't show a break. Less hopeful. They are now sending her to a trauma specialist at another (third) hospital to have 'scans'. Funnily enough, it's the same place she was going to tomorrow anyway - to get daughter's cast removed. Less funny, she's not allowed to drive so guess what best-selling author won't be able to keep going on his next best-selling book while all this is going on? That's right, the one with the suddenly emptied, raffle-won bottle of red glued to his lips. ROFL as I believe young net-abusers like to say. Except I would replace the 'F' with 'H', as in 'hollow'...

Before I can get going on the next part of my journey, I need to transcribe certain interviews. I hate transcribing. But today it actually made a decent change from slogging down the word mine trying to come up with suitable bon-mots (geddit?). Feeling pleased with myself because I managed to get two of them done plus half of the next most important. It means I have to finish that third tomorrow, before scavenging a fourth. The good part of this though is that it means the next couple of chapters should almost write themselves.

Suitably enough, I suppose, considering the moment, I have spent all of this Easter weekend in a cave. Part metaphorical, part all too real. Yes, I'm talking book work. That is all I'm talking right now. I even turned off my phone and red-exed my email for two days. When was the last time you did that, amigo? It all seemed to have been counterproductive though when yesterday I really couldn't take anymore and slept through the afternoon, got up, walked the dogs, ate some sausages then went back to bed - where I slept for another 10 hours. Didn't half feel better when I woke up again this morning though. Hence - tada! - I have actually finished another chapter. Just now. I mean, I still have to read the bastard through and add a little spit and polish. But basically the bastard's done and done. Now I'm off to peel potatoes. No red, either. Just juice and water. Oh, and have you seen my new halo...?

For the kids it's been the start of the Easter holidays this week so wife and I took them for a long-promised day out to London yesterday. Driving was cheaper than train tickets - or so we thought until we remembered the parking rates and increased congestion charge. Nice one mayor Boris! The rest was cheap though. Bus rides everywhere, nothing to enter the Natural History museum and see the dinosaurs - a must for the boy this trip. And nothing to walk through Green Park and see Buckingham Palace - a must for the girls. True we did blow the gaff a bit scoffing burgers and cokes in Ed's in Soho, but this morning the kids told me it was "the best day ever!" which is what they say whenever we do something they really enjoyed. And you know what, I agree. The money ogre still sits perched by my elbow spitting foul threats into my mind's ear, even as I write this, but there's not much I can do about that except keep working, keep wondering what it's like down there where I dare not look, or at least not for long. Keep going until not quite gone yet.

According to the ancient wisdom of the mountain elders of Rocktronia, there are gods for everything: for peace for love for sex for drugs for work for play for birth for death. You name it, there's a god for it. Pondering this just now, I found myself composing a private prayer to the god of money. It went like this...

Got up this morning and there was an email on my phone from Axl.

Got another chapter finished on the AC/DC book today. Not to get too excited though, as this was one of those that come along and look straightforward enough before you begin, then quickly turn into an authorial crossing of the Gobi desert. As in, you get halfway across, realise the map is wrong, but also know that it is too late to turn back now and that actually you need to keep going as best you can, until finally you get there - to that place you hadn't realised you were aiming for when you started. This happens, for example, when people you'd given up on getting hold of to speak to afresh suddenly appear from nowhere, and tell you some great stuff - but which totally throws what you thought you already knew at least halfway out the window.

So... yeah, a little radio silence never did no harm to nobody. Plus, as my mum always said, if you've got nothing good to say, say nothing.

Good day, bad day. And you know what the word is for that sort of day, right? MONday.

Been ill this week. Bad cold. Again. I'd blame the weather but that's been good enough to eat. Wife says it's stress. I'm happy to go along with that. Except it doesn't seem to garner much sympathy. All my fault anyway, apparently. It's not like she's the one that spends all our money, is it?

The new Zep. Sneak a peek... http://vimeo.com/38484581

FYI, Sunset strippers...

Never been good with money, mine or anybody else's. Only ever known how to spend it, mine and everybody else's. Somewhere I got the wrong message. The one about not being able to take it with you. Which really only applies if you happen to know for sure it's your last day or so on Earth. "You never know what's gonna happen," I recall my singing Paddy dad telling his drunken musician cronies, "You might get run over by a bus. So enjoy yourself while you can." This while sitting in a house entirely furnished from the pittance he used to give my mother every week, while the rest went on his assumption that that bus was coming for him any day now. Eventually it did of course and not a day too soon, as far as I was concerned at the time. So you see, you've got to be careful with money. It's worse than gunpowder in the wrong hands. And mine have never been right yet, fuck it all.

I forget exactly where we were, out in the woods at night as usual, only a sliver of moon hanging down, feeling lost and far from the campfire, thirsty too, like always, when I heard the tinkling of his ghost guitar. We stood and listened for a moment, not sure what it was. Then edged towards it. No need for discussion, what else would we do now we were this far out? I remember pushing through thin trees, my feet wet from the mud underneath and the clutching cold.

I was sorting through the where-do-they-all-come-from piles of magazines and newspapers and books and etc that rise like uneven hills all over my office this afternoon and was shocked to find at least three copies of Mojo going back to 2009, two of them still in the polythene they were mailed in. A couple of copies of the Sunday Times Culture section going back to the summer of 2008, one of them still in the plastic bag too. Plus odd shit like a huge folder full of instructions and... stuff... to do with a printer I bought over three years ago, various large envelopes that look suspiciously like - ugh - invoices, tax things, and other assorted blind spot gear guaranteed to make me stop smiling.

Was going to write a blog but as I sit here pulling my invisible hair out a large purple ball containing a gerbil is rolling around my office as the three kids all shout and argue about who gets to go in the bath first, who goes last, who says yes no fuck it all. My wife is in the middle of it all, trying to deal with it and I'm here trying to summon something interesting to say to an audience of mostly strangers. Just like I do in my day job, exact in this case without pay. Or inspiration. As for the sodding gerbil, I'm just wondering where the other two are at this point. The dogs bellies perhaps...

Having read the first few chapters of my AC/DC book Robert my agent phoned to say how much he liked it. "The prose is very muscular," he said. Which may sound like hogwash to you but was sweet music to my audio receptors, let me tell you. For that is absolutely the effect I've been going for. To reflect their music, of course. But even more so, to reflect the personalities of the most important people in the band: the Young brothers. Muscular, don't give a fuck, call an arse a cunt prose, mate. And don't you and your horse forget it.

Another week-de-lune, which began soft with a couple of projects earmarked for the near-future suddenly looking shaky. Fortunately, the most important of the two appeared to have regained its legs by week's end but it was not the way one would have preferred to set out on the seven days in front of you. Things also quickened up with the visit to London of my old mucker Slash, whose forthcoming solo album, Apocalyptic Love, I have been helping put together a Classic Rock fan pack for. I edited the first one two years ago and it became one of the most successful Classic Rock have done. The feeling is that this next one could do even better.

Found myself in the Oxfam book and music shop in Marylebone High Street today, hovering around the collector's editions, drooling over first editions by Jean Genet. Until I realised they were all plays and I had lost my joi de vivre for such things many blue moons ago. Did however manage to buy four other books without trying too hard. Elton by Philip Norman. I was once told I was the Philip Norman of rock biography and found myself bristling with pleasure. Well he is very good old Phil and well you know it's better than being compared to Heavy Metal Henry of the Gobshite Metal Monthly (very big in Bulgaria). Also bought an Omnibus book on the Red Hot Chili Peppers in much the same spirit as buying an update of the Highway Code - to brush up on my factual knowledge. Then grabbed Howard Sounes book on the 70s. He's another cool cat old Howard so interested to see what he's done there. Finally, just as I was making my way back outside into the pissing rain I bumped into Sian Llewellyn who showed me to a copy of Friday Night Lights, which she says is g-g-g-g-reat. Only trouble now I've got to backpack the damn things home on the train. Still not a bad landgrab, and all for two old pence and a pint of wallop. Gotta love Oxfam...

Tried very hard Saturday to have a Family Day. That is, I got up and made everybody breakfast, then walked the dogs then shaved and showered and locked the kids into the car and drove them to the big place whose name I can never remember in Abingdon where they sell all this secondhand stuff in aid of the injured soldiers. Amazing gaff. Eldest daughter has this second world war project going at school and needs to dress like a child being evacuated for some outing their all going on this week. Sure enough, this was the place to find exactly what she needed - including a big Captain Jack-style coat for £1. Plus the usual action-figures and dolly clothes for the other offspring, plus books (for me) and whatnots for wife. Then I took them all for a MacDonalds. Come on! Top dad scoring there surely!

His horse had died under him so when he came in he came in on foot, tired limb to limb, head lolling, heart corkscrewed with pain. The battle had been won but the war was still in the balance, would never be over, he knew that, but for now at least he'd done what he could. but as he walked through the door it hit him, the ministers, the secretaries, the wardens of his dreams, impatiently waiting to deliver their updates. He only seeing out of one half-good eye, hearing less than a quarter of what was being said, he moved slowly towards a chair and pretended to listen, to weigh up, to take in. He felt the sickness rising in his chest but what could you do, wasn't this all part of it too?

AC/DC...In the late 1970s... struth mate, the stories I could tell. Well, am actually trying to tell of course. It really is an unbelievable tale though, which I'm enjoying reading as much as writing. All books are a journey for me. You start thinking you have a reasonably good grasp on the general outline, garnrred over these past 35 years I've been tooling aorund with rock bands and their many bedfellows, or you wouldn't know why you were writing the damn things. Then you begin the long, slow process of first finding all the jigsaw pieces - far more than you could ever use in fact - then trying to put them together, but without having a lid with a picture on to guide you. Letting the story tell itself, so you don't just drag up all the stuff other writers have already trawled through, though obviously covering the same paths, but allowing yourself to be led like a blindman in search of light. It will blow your brains away often. Then you get days like today where it's hard, hard, hard but by the end of it you've astounded yourself by actually getting somewhere, finding yourself there, looking around, admiring the view, still not quite sure if this is your stop or not but at least knowing you've travelled. Making camp and sleeping on it. Hopefully.

In between falling asleep over the keyboard (it's all catching up with me) I had a pub lunch with Dave Everley today. Chilli burgers and beer. Found ourselves talking about Old Times. As in the LA Noir 1980s. He also told me I apparently once bollocked him as a young writer. This was in about 1994. Doesn't sound right, though. I was always such a nice, easy-going chap in those days. I told him he should do some more writing. He was always one of the good uns. But he just pooh-poohs the idea, like I'm just being nice or something. As if I have to try to be nice...

Monday mornings are notious for allowing you to lose the feeling and this one was no exception. The fact that I stayed up il 1.00am the night before drinking Irish and cheering on the Cardiff team to win the Carling Cup - via Sky+ - had nothing to do with it. (It had to be done that way cos I was still tooling around with the CR story between times.)

Which reminds me, as though I could possibly forget, Dave came back with his usual notes on the story today and though it wasn't an outright thumbs down it definitely wasn't a thumbs up either. Seems I have plenty more 'work' to do on it. "It's as though you got to the last third and made a mad dash to finish," he said. Can't think how he got that impression.

Joking aside, his notes are always spot on. You think the recent Randy Rhoads cover story I did was good? Dave's fingerprints are all over it. He didn't actually write the words but he sure showed me which words to write. I expect more of the same this time, jut as soon as I've got my head back on straight again.

Meanwile, just got back from a long walk down Baker Street to Marylebone High Street and back. Came back sweating: sign of a) a good walk) and b) an unhealthy old fuck. So many cool shops down there though, would love to find a day or two to explore more, preferably with wife who has not seen the like, being a good country girl. One day...

So the plan was to get up early and finish off this story I'm writing for Classic Rock. Had a day off yesterday, so that cleared the path nicely, family-wise, and off I go...