Arranging an Interview with Northern Life magazine. Was told that they couldn't do Friday afternoon as they were interviewing Bobby Ball. It's good to know where you stand on the showbiz ladder.

Phil's beloved 1964 Epiphone Texan goes back to The Cavern in Liverpool for the first time in almost 50 years when Sentimentalists play on 7th October.
By some quirk of early 1960's distribution, The Epiphone Texan guitar was distributed in the North-West of England (as opposed to the Casino which was distributed in the South-west).
The original owners of the guitar were Liverpool's The Fourmost, contemporaries of The Beatles and beneficiaries of hit Lennon and McCartney songs. 
On a late 1960s cruise, The Fourmost sold it to the ship's captain, who sold it to Phil in the early 1990s.
Especially for the occasion, the lovely Don Gilchrist has cleaned it up ("what have you been doing with it?' he asked.)

Working with such great musicians, releasing the debut album, when you think that you've written a great song, when the band nail a song, when someone says how much they like what we do; they're great moments in the evolution of a pop group, but when a drummer as good John Shepherd puts the band name on his drum kit; a 1964 silver sparkle Ludwig no less, that's the best. Makes me feel all, well, sentimental.

For anyone seeing us for the the first time when we play The Black Swan in Bradford on 19th April, I'm hoping that they will find it a Black Swan event. 
Nassim Nicholas Talib developed The Theory Of Black Swan Events to explain how the highly improbable becomes obvious after the event. It was long assumed that black swans were an impossibility and were referred to in the way that we now say 'when pigs fly'. When black swans were discovered in Western Australia in 1697, the shock gave way to wondering why it had been considered impossible; why wouldn't swans be black? 
Because we've never seen a pig fly doesn't mean that pigs never fly, so come along to The Black Swan and you'll be left wondering why you hadn't thought to put together a band fronted by a 50 year old with no previous, a classical pianist, a jazz metal guitarist, a folk bassist and an itinerant drummer.