Day 6: Set the controls for the heart of the nation

The Nightingales and Ted Chippington are en route to London where this evening they will play the famous Borderline club, supported by Chin of Britain. The evening is to be compéred by national treasure Phill Jupitus, star of stage, screen and radio and a regular contributor to much-loved family TV quiz show Never Liked the Buzzcocks. Tonight Jupitus will perform as his alter ego ‘Porky the Poet’ and the band are anticipating a certain amount of playful rivalry between Jupitus – who some tip for the post of Poet Laureate just as soon as Carol Ann Duffy’s tenure ends – and Lloyd – the greatest lyric-writer of his generation, and winner of no less than three Ivor Novello consolation prize £25 book tokens. There will be a memorable war of words in the capital city tonight.

As we journey into the heart of the city, I sit beside bass-player and fellow German, Andreas ‘Andi’ Schmid. I take the opportunity to chat with him in our native language, though heralding as I do from the civilised and sophisticated industrial north of our great country, I find it hard to understand his peculiar, gutteral Schwabian accent which, frankly, sounds like a drunken Tibetan throat singer with a cold. Embarrassed at my inability to understand his answers to my probing questions, I switch to English. Immediately, the tone of Schmid’s voice changes to the boyish melodic tones with which the world is familiar.

Taking me into his confidence, I learn – amongst other things – of Schmid’s jealousy over the role of drummer in the band. Schmid, it seems, is an accomplished drummer himself and ever since he has known the band he has wanted to drum for them. Indeed, Schmid did so for a brief tour of Europe when Daren ‘Wildman’ Garrett suddenly and dramatically left the band citing musical differences, and before Kitson could be recruited. Schmid clearly thinks of this short tour as one of the highlights of his young life, and his eyes glisten as he recounts, in considerable detail on a song-by-song, night-by-night basis, the detailed beats and rythmns, the paradiddles, flams, shuffles and linear rolls, with which he drove the Nightingales’ music forward. Like Schmid’s account of the tour, the journey into the heart of the nation’s capital seems to be taking a very long time indeed.