Section 1 is repeated from April 6th 2010 for the sake of continuity.

Section 1.
On one occasion, someone forgot to take a certain piece of equipment to the practice room in Erdington. This caused much friction between Heyward and Gilbert, because the former wanted to go back and get it, but Gilbert did not want to drive all the way to Water Orton (in the early days Gilbert was the only one who could drive, and he had a mini which he bought cheap from British Leyland where he worked as a paint sprayer). A massive argument followed between the two of them which endured for nearly two hours. Finally, Gilbert left, but Heyward would not go back with him out of protest. So the practice never took place and both L.H. and Deebank remained at the practice room - all night. The two of them slept on the floor of that dark, cold room with no windows, and with just two powerful floor lamps to give them some warmth. Deebank had remained passive - silent even, all the time the other two had been crossing swords. I do not know why he remained there with Heyward that night. But as he lay on the hard floor of that place of desolation, he reflected back on what had just happened. Perhaps he intuitively knew that the time was fast approaching when he would have his own explosive exchange with Mr. Heyward; one that would concern a man..., with a Kevin Keegan perm.

Section 2.

And so it was that a short while after, Felt had a show coming up at the Moonlight club in London and another one shortly after in a place that is unknown to me. Mr.D and Haybaler had already discovered Mr. Ainge through an advert in Virgin records and were busy trying him out. The advert had said that the aspirant liked Jimi Hendrix amongst others and the listing had struck a resonance with Haybaler.

The up and coming shows left the two Felters with a bit of a dilemma: two drummers and, not trying to emulate the Glitter band, only one position. What ensued was a lengthy telephone argument that once again was of a fairly incandescent kind, and one which saw H trying to convince M that the best way forward was to play the first half of the Moonlight set with Race and the second half with Ainge. M was not going to agree and the conversation ended with him virtually putting the phone down on H. Moments later, M called H again with a plan: he explained that Ainge could play at one of the concerts and Race at the other (I do not know which drummer played at which show). H agreed instantly and that is exactly what happened. This then, is how Gary Ainge became the Felt drummer; he obviously did well enough to convince the two main Felt men, as history tells us the rest.

I am not doing well with my valediction. I am going now.

Having being inspired by the flurry of activity on here again in recent weeks, I have spent much of a difficult week at work with the headphones on listening to the Felt back catalogue trying to block out all around me.

As a result I'm starting to view Gary as the star of the first two albums. Much though I admire MD's guitar playing/compositions, it is the tribal style of GA's drumming that has really caught my ear this week. I've no real idea of Tony Race's drumming ability/style (was he ever heard of again & did he actually appear on record with Felt?), but hairstyle or no style at all, to these ears the correct decision was made.

PS, what does valediction mean? A break I assume?

It comes from the Latin "vale dicere", and means, goodbye. Interest does seem to be evanescing anyway. It may be because of one or two things that I have said; they may have caused upset, though this was not the intention.

Mr. Ainge's drumming is very stylish on the first two
long players. What happened was that Mr. D wanted the band to have a more commercial sound (yes, astonishing isn't it to hear such a thing after all the stories about him leaving because Felt had a "poppier" sound from Felt 3 onwards. Again the truth is the exact opposite to what you have all been fed. Why else would his creation, "Privitive Painters sound the way it does?), so he explained to Haybaler that there should be cymbals and hi-hat added to the musical textures together with new bass lines that are "busier" than the traditional Felt method of using mainly only root notes; not only for all new material, but for the Felt back catalogue as well. Most of these bass lines he wrote himself.

Mr. Ainge followed instructions, but instead of remaining a creative drummer, he fell into a deep state of torpor and followed a single established drumming pattern that he used as a battering ram for everything that Felt went on to do (83-85).

Tony race was a rock drummer, who nevertheless served Felt well during his brief time with the band. I have a recording of "Something Sends me to Sleep"
(4-track) with Tony on drums and it is terrific.

Hope you are having a nice time.