So long and thanks for all the fish

I could tell you all about Tim’s new guitar pedal, or I could say we’re really looking forward to recording the brass parts for the album soon (which we are), or I could say we’ve got two gigs coming up so get your gigging shoes on (which we have), but really that’d be fudging.

Leon has quit. There it is, in black and white, like a restaurant bill or a departure board reading ‘train cancelled’. I can’t say we’re not upset, but there you go, what can you do?

Clearly he has to follow his dreams, which sadly lie elsewhere, and you have to respect that, regardless of how much it makes you cry, like a young child who comes home one day to find their parents have sold their Star Wars toys at a car boot sale because they thought they didn’t play with them any more. You have to move on. Even if it was the flippin’ Millennium Falcon.

So, “Drummer needed, must be capable of interpreting Tim’s air drumming, have sturdy nose for enclosed practice spaces, be patient of the odd mistake from Adam, have new ideas for the ongoing ‘jazz and bass’ project which will possibly make up the majority of our difficult second album, preferably though not essentially be from the north (Andy says there’s only room for one antipodean), and be capable of bringing the ‘big sound’.”

I feel a little reminiscing coming on. In particular I’m thinking of Leeds when the usually mild, yet crucially enlivened Leon took exception to the chap who stole our taxi and threw Tim’s hat into the road in the process. Quite a frustrating scenario you may think, well indeed, but of all the people to step forward non of us expected Leon. And though I can’t actually say what he did, let us say that the dry cleaning bill for a size ten shoe print must have made the thief think carefully about his taxi etiquette the following day.

Farewell Leon, it’s been emotional.

Farewell