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Going into a recording studio is always a very exciting time for me.

I first started putting my own songs on tape my nearly a quarter of a century ago. Of course nowadays, tape is nowhere to be seen in your average studio. It’s all Logic this and Pro-Tools that – a world away from reel-to-reel and the era where if you recorded a 99.5% perfect drum take but made just one dodgy snare drum hit, you had to either live with it or record the whole damn thing again -which at £15 an hour wasn’t always the smartest option for a band of eager yet meagre musicians.

My previous blog was in tribute to my late friend Dave Hodgson who passed away on New Years Eve – thank you for reading it in such numbers.

Suffice to say that his memorial service was held this weekend just gone in the church where he and Tatty were married – it was every bit as he would have wanted it to be and the sheer number of well wishers who packed St John The Baptist church as well as the Kings Head pub next door for the wake afterwards spoke volumes.

Well what a dreadful dreadful start to 2012.

Dave Hodgson, one of the bravest men I’ve ever met in my life, finally succumbed to cancer as 2011 ended. My immediate thoughts and condolences to his young wife Natalie, her daughter Olivia and all of Dave’s nearest and dearest.

His bravery came in the way in which he faced blood cancer head on and tweeted every stage of his fight with no small amount of humour along the way, never once descending into self-pity or overstating his situation.

So 2011 is almost done and what a strange year it’s been in some ways for yours truly – mostly in a musical sense! Having to leave the ultimate tribute band (Dressed To Kill natch), helping out 2 others and now, as the year draws to a close I’m finally getting the chance to be at my most musically creative – namely, to record my own album of original material.

Just by chance whilst channel hopping the other night, I stumbled across Later With Jools Holland on BBC2 and in particular a performance that he was introducing from Metallica and Lou Reed – together at last, eh? Not bloody likely.

I am just one of countless broadcasters (especially in the sporting field) who is asked one question more than any other – namely “How did you get into radio?” or sometimes, as it was asked by a chap who met me at Gems TV once “How the hell did YOU get into radio?” Seriously, it has been asked in that way without the slightest concern over my reaction to the tone of it. Charming.

Arsenal win 5-3? at Chelsea? Man City win 6-1 at United? United thump Arsenal 8-2? What the Dickens is going on in English football? Freak results come along of course...Spurs thumping Wigan 9-1 at the Lane 2 years ago for example - but we're barely a quarter of the way into the season and those 25 goals in 3 games between Champions League sides have rightly raised questions about the balance English sides are trying to strike between offensive ideals and defensive solidity.

I do love my rock biography films.

Thanks to the recent ‘Back and Forth’ DVD I’ve been playing Foo Fighters stuff constantly on my iPod and subconsciously wishing I was Dave Grohl.

It’s not often you get to meet one of your heroes, never mind act as his personal shreeve for a weekend and introduce him to the delights of the Balti. But that’s what happened when I met a total hero of mine in 1996.

It’s coming up for a decade since the most terrifying day of my life. Not a week goes by when I’m not reminded of the morning when I was carjacked/kidnapped in broad daylight in the centre of Birmingham.

The day had started like so many in 2001. I was presenting 4-7pm Drivetime at BRMB Radio with my ‘Barmy Brummies’ show, but in order to prepare all the sketches and songs we wrote every day to keep the programme fresh, it meant coming into work at around 10am to do stuff with my co-writer Sean and record it all from lunchtime into the early afternoon.