The first in a happily active two days of Assistant activity, just when I was wondering when I'd next get the chance to play. Last week Victoria got a new job which was such good news it felt wrong to rehearse, so while the rest of the band went along as normal and played without me, me and Vic stayed in. Or rather, went out and had a celebratory drink.

So yesterday afternoon, when I went over to Pete's flat to play guitar for a couple of hours, it was, if you'll pardon the expression, fuckin' great. Really nice to do it, and strange that some of our songs seem to work so well acoustically, even Get Away, which tends to get pounded into submission when we play it as a band. Some observations though... I am knock-elbowed; shifting them outwards to accomodate a stretched-out chord is near impossible - I need someone standing nearb y to wrench my arm outwards at the crucial moment. Secondly, my fingers hurt. I sound like I'm moaning now, don't I? Thirdly, I love playing guitar with other people.

I couldn't be less like a bedroom-bound guitar-huggist. Playing alone usually leaves me irritated, unless I happen to chance upon something I like; I don't play just for the pleasure of playing. But I love intermingling the experience of playing with someone else; it's fascinating and fun. It also seems improbable, creating such an improbable sound; all the notes bouncing around off eachother.

Afterwards we went for a drink with Victoria and Andrew. The Belle Vue, the pub at the top of our road, has recently been bought out by the owners of The Freemasons. They've added some lights and hiked up the prices. Hmm. Thanks guys. But we went to The Freemasons for the first time and it's lovely. We aimed for one pint and ended up drinking three or four, as usual. My obsession growing, I talked about html. What has happened to me?

Join the Assistant mailing list here Enter your name and email address: Name: Email: Subscribe Unsubscribe