THE PENDRAGON FORUM

[Nick]

Again it's been a looooong time since the last ramblings, but that can only mean one thing, we are busy as anyfink! Which his good news as there is a plethora of activity going on all over the place.

The Script tour was another blast, although some of the turnouts at the UK shows were somewhat spartan, but a great reaction nonetheless.I just figured out that in the past four months I have spent two of those on a tour bus, I was gonna film some of the dressing rooms, toilets and showers for you to peruse, but I never got around to it, as I spent most of my time off checking the ruddy new DVD.
You wouldn't believe the depravation of some of these places, Milan is an amazing venue but backstage it just reeks of sewage, right next to the buffet lunch, and what is it about the no toilet seat thing in Italy?? I am thinking of taking my own seat next time we tour Italy.


French toilets...not much better...from the Armatage Shanks 'stand and deliver' range


ice cold spag bol, stale bread, lump of mozzarella......the worst breakfast ever!

Most of us had to rough it in the tour bus, which means getting bumped about to buggery in our bunks for most of the time, the Varty Party on the other hand [that'll be Mike and his girl Sam!] managed to blag the odd hotel room now and again....lucky .



The Tulip Hotel prepares for the Ku Klux Klan convention


BUT........I love it, yes I doooooooooo!! Wouldn't change it for the world, those liccle bunks are like a little world of their own, and the whole bus has this magical quality about it and an exciting atmosphere, I dunno if it carries the vibes of all those people who have been on it, our bus has had Dylan, Neil Young, and Coldplay on it, in fact Coldplay wrote most of their first album up in the front lounge of this 'ere bus!
Why do I find Coldplay so annoying? It's one of those bizzare dilemas of life, ...I get a bit worried cos I actually like their music, but they annoy the hell outta me...weird
The bus is a great place to be most of the time, there is nothing like sitting up in the front lounge perusing the Swiss alps as the sun sets, or wending your way through the middle of Wroclaw at rush hour..it's fascinating.


bus gets stuck in snow in the Alps

And yes THAT DVD. Well true to form it was an utter pain in the ass. It has to be said, the onstage sound at Teatr Slaski has never really been easy to play with, for some reason it lacks power, obviously you don't hear this when you are outfront at the show or watching the dvd. So when the discs came though I was a little apprehensive, and I was right it sounded shite!!! But this is mainly because the sound is recorded directly
from the amps etc, so it sounds very dry and unatmospheric, a bit like decorating when you have just sanded down the door, but still have to put the paint on .......butt ugly! However , after a couple of days in the mighty Groom hands , things were starting to take shape, well sounding utterly awsome in fact!
Then there is the picture. We got the vision mix through which looked pretty good, and I only made few changes. Then as things progressed ,and we got the proofs, trouble started. We discoverd that to fit this 150 minute thing onto one dvd it had to be compressed and because the format was transfered to NTSC so it can be played all over the world, it loses a whole bunch of quality, so at each stage of me receiving the proofs is was kinda looking worse each time! Geez, it's s'posed to be getting better NOT WORSE!!! So i er....blew my top .

We then had problems with the menu, as I wanted the dvd to default to stereo sound so when Mr A buys the DVD, goes home puts it in the machine and presses play, the sound will automatically be the stereo mix , NOT the 5.1 that all Metal Mind dvds seems to default to, which means that if you are in the 1% that have 5.1, it will sound fine, if you're in the other 99% it will sound odd ,as unless you have changed the settings to stereo, you will be trying to play a 5.1 mix through a stereo set up....get me ?????
And the upshot is your dvd is late!

Which I am hugely sorry about, but this puppy had to be good as it can be.....and now , it is, in fact it's freakin' good!

A gig is Glasgow? Yup Scotland, d'you know , I litterally jumped up and down when the gig got confirmed. We did have a new agent who was going to get us about 6-7 shows in the UK, which we were very excited about, then end of Feb, he turned round and said.....er no in fact I don't think I can get any shows . Idiot. So I booked a few meself.

We've done Some HUGE adverts for Pure and the tour dates. In this new Prog Special which is coming out on March 25th, as a Classic Rock Mag offshoot, we have done a full page , with a very tongue in cheek swipe at those giving their music away for free downloads [hee hee...]
plus we have done a half page in Classic Rock for end March issue and another one again for the April issue. The Prog Special will feature an interview with me and another Pure review from dear ol' Jerry Ewing , who is doing a brilliant job getting this mag together.
ALSO, we got another review in Classic Rock from Geoff Barton in the Prog Round Up section...yet ANOTHER 8 out of 10 ...bliss!!

This is soooo good to see this kind of support from the UK press, and it has to be said I don't think Geoff Barton has been one of Pendragon's biggest fans over the years, but his review is priceless and he has really "got" what Pure is about! Also in the same issue on the Heavy Rotation you will see Freak Show is included , so the Classic Rock team seem to be listening to some serious Pendies at the moment!

Other stuff going on, we're back to Italy in June for the Verona Prog Festival, also on the bill is the Strawbs, geez I remember when they were on Top Of The Pops playing Part Of The Union, now we're gigging with them! I'm still a goggle eyed start struck fan when it comes to it.

Loreley, again another classic, AND with Hackett, this is gonna be AAAMMMAAAAAAZZZING! A great Summer gig, in a fantastic place to be in Summer. It's gonna be quite a tough one though ,as I am also playing in Micks' Script Band later that night on the graveyard shift.

Then we have the Fish convention Aug 8th, I was really hoping he was going to ask us to do this...then he did! I know a lot of you have been rallying around to try and get us on this bill, so fanks to you! Rumour has it, he's gonna do some of Script, hey I could do some guitar!Grendel....huh huh.
In fact when I last saw Fish, the first thing he said re the Script band was . "So are yuz gonna do Grendel?"

ARRRRRRGGGGGG! The one question I didn't want to have to answer....yes I said....

Then it's off to Denia in Spain for a festival on Sept 5th, we might stay out for a while as the promoter [Udo] has got us a villa...and a couple of cars, so we might make it a bit of a Pend holiday.


Bielefeld Germany


Haven't done any writing lately, but hope to get down and dirty with me new keyboard, a Korg M3 in April when we don't have any gigs, might also get some new guitar gear, it's about time, but the stuff I've tried so far is horrible. I might try a Cornford Hellcat, that's what Dave Kilminster used on the Roger Waters shows , and that DOES sound good!


a Trabby, hidden away in some warehouse in Eastern Europe

The new t.shirt caused a flutter of controversy. It's funny I guess how different people see things differently. D'you know , it never occured to me that it looked gory, the impression I had was the heart being the heart and soul of the band, and the blood, the blood sweat and tears, a bit like one of those early communism posters but with tongue firrnly in cheek.
From this angle it is a positive message, ...personally I wouldn't use it if I thought it had a negative vibe.

Well, got to say, it's all going well, I hope you enjoy the DVD, I think it's come out better than And Now Everybody, maybe not quite as full of surprises as Past and Pres, but nevertherless, with Scotty and some otherwise unreleased DVD material included I think it's the bollocks! the Sound is great.
It would be nice next time to try a different venue [after we've hopefully done the "Kowtow Project"] and have more time to really work out the video screens and lighting a bit more.....always trying to move forward!

cheers me ducks

Nick