Practice: Monkees Song and USB Key

Present: Ad, Eg, Gi, Tom

Had recording planned for tonight but Ben couldn't oblige. So the cellist and violinist were cancelled.

Eg has recently returned from China and brought with him a USB key that claims to have 360GB of memory. No-one believes him. Tom gets the spoils to play with.

The Monkees songbook provided the lads with an opportunity to learn Daydream Believer. Passers by would have been forgiven for thinking that this opportunity had been spurned.

Eg drops guitar and loses jack socket. 'Want You Back' - well remembered. 'It's All About You' - not so. Was that 'Dream A Little Dream' we heard on the ukulele?

Upcoming gig dates were discussed including a Schools' Tour. Basically that just means the band plays in three schools - an assembly and a couple of music workshops. And a wedding - of two Loopy Groupies - approaching fast.

Post Practice Pint Topics of Conversation: Loopy download profits declared: $15. 'Then She Said' topping the Loopy charts along with 'Ben & Jason'? What is China's currency, actually? Shooting a video of the band doing a dance routine and put it on You Tube.

Birthday at Band Practice

Present: Ad, Fea, Tom

Along with Ben the boys celebrated Ad's birthday with four muffin cakes, some microwaved mulled wine, party hats and hooty blower things.

They all, uncertainly, guess his age to within a year or two and, as with every year, work out that he is, indeed, still the youngest member of the band.

Tracks Secrets & Lies and 21 were painstakingly mixed; Ben spent the first hour doing the basics while the three band members went into a side room to work on songs new and old.

Take On Me was rehearsed while potential new songs, Live This Life, Kingmaker and The Sky Above My House, were worked on.

Ben secretly recorded Take On Me with one of the microphones in the room that was patched through to his desk.

Recording

Present: Ad, Eg, Fea, Tom

Ben's moved his control room again. This time to a different building. Into some loftspace over an adjoining unit.

Cosy.

Ad brings notes on previous recordings, Fea brings wine, Eg brings Fea [and Ben's tobacco], Tom brings cold and his own peppermint teabags plus universally loved Big Red chewing gum.

The team work on Secrets and Lies [Vocals], Hearts Pumping [ukulele], Love the Way [Vocals], 21 [Vocals, Ben Cymbals] and discuss violin/cello/trumpet usage.

Also discussed was how to release the current batch of recordings. Two 6 track albums?

More discussion/bribing/negotiations required.

Loopy Christmas Do

Present: Ad, Eg, Fea, Gi, Tom

Venue: Bella Napoli, Abingdon

The annual Christmas backslap involving the entire band and some poor unsuspecting small restaurant near one of the band members' houses. This year it was Gi's turn to source, book and disown the subsequent food quality of the eaterie he had chosen.

It receives the thumbs up from all.

Teetotal Tom gets roped in as Taxi driver for Fea but can't quite make it to pick up Eg. Ad scrounges a sofa off Gi for the night.

The Christmas crackers, as supplied by Minty again, fail to top last year's football themed cracker snapping bonanza. This year, each cracker houses a santa sitting on different coloured sleighs that zoom along the table after a short pull-back. When all the other diners finally leave, the restaurant owner and his wife look on bemusedly as the Loopy boys set up the cardboard race track and jostle for the perceived best lane.

One race. Winner claims glory.

All sleighs crash into each other in the middle of the track apart from Eg's whose outside missile zooms past the finish line and into the wall to take the podium.

Great food. Great company. Appalling crackers.

Present: Ad, Fea, Gi, Tom

To warm up, the boys managed a few old favourites including Small Town Boy, Starting Out, Change, Someone, Some Summer's Day and Blue Cortina. Couldn't remember OX4 though.

Tom used a new pedal sound, Ad had to tune for the first time in months and Fea & Ad's voices were shot to pieces by the end of it. Edgar audibly missed, of course.

Secrets & Lies, Corner Of My Mind, Smile and Doing Somersaults were all brought out for a polish and progress was made on the jammed song which is on the way to being titled This Life or Beautiful Day or something equally Loopyish. Sparkle You continues to grow promisingly.

Post-Practice Pint Pub Prattle: Gi needs a Humax; Tom is rescued from airport hell by the latest Smashcast; Ad has bought some new shoes; Gi's daughter's, Polly's, Birthday today; Fea's 'Guess The Name of the Bear' guess was 'Polly', in her honour - she's 22 now!; Being unnecessarily competitive; BBC Licence Fee, is it a subscription?; Tom doing things to married ladies on coaches around Eastern Europe while their husbands' best friends are the driver; Fea's Ofsted inspection; Ad rescuing a scruffy acoustic guitar from a local amenity tip for the price of five pounds - a new set of strings later and it's as good as 'almost new'; Martin Potter worked for Unipart not Unilever; Work Christmas Dos; The Loopy Christmas Meal in Abingdon in two weeks time and Tom defenestrating himself into the snow, followed by his clothes, when a highly protective unexpectedly father returns home. He was fifteen and loved the excitement.