Well, Julian, the 9 year old hurricane, has been with us for about a week and a half and it’s been fun (well mostly fun!), as Jules and I saw Hellboy II the other day and loved it. Been working on music with Rusty and the band has been rehearsing for the 16th September show, as well as the UK tour!

Now, a bit of news, as there has been some changes and additions to the world of Baby Lemonade. First off, unfortunately, drummer/ co-founding member of Baby Lemonade, David “Daddyo” Green, won’t be able to make the UK tour.

As i may have mentioned before, no one is making money on this tour. But making money isn’t the point of this tour. As a matter of fact, we’ll lose money. Which is fine, as we are trying to build something very special and have so many great friends and family behind us we feel it’s absolutely worth it. And, although none of us can really ‘afford’ the trip over, David Green would be hit the hardest and his job (this time around) isn’t flexible for this fall. But the future is different but for this tour we’ll miss Daddyo a lot, as I’ve never played a set of Baby Lemonade or Love without him on the kit behind me. Now, Daddyo isn’t a very replaceable guy but the fellow we were lucky enough to snag to take his place on the drum throne this October/November is our good pal, Malcolm Cross.

Malc played nearly all the drums on a project Rusty and I produced and co-wrote parts of for an artist named Jillian Wheeler (www.jillianwheeler.com). Originally from London, Malcolm played drums in Spiritualized before moving to L.A. about 7 years ago with his band, Mini Bar. He’s also been in the Wallflowers and is a solid studio ace as well as a kick ass live drummer. Rehearsals with Malc have been really good. In with that mix are rehearsals with Daddyo for the Sept 6 Benefit show!

So with all that going on, Phil and I also run the HTO pedal business, which is hard work! But it’s cool. Oh, and I got to meet one of my idols from when i was a teen. Billy Squier! Billy came into the shop a couple nights ago with Hamish Stuart and our pal, Colin Hay. They are on tour with Ringo Starr and were stopping by to look at guitars and stuff. Billy was really nice and i was quite shocked and surprised how thin and frail and small he was. I nearly didn’t recognize him. But when I was just learning guitar and learning to sing, Chrissie Hyde and Billy Squier were probably my two favorite singers then. I still can belt out “Lonely is the night” when challenged! If you do not have a copy of Billy Squier’s IN THE DARK and want to be reassured SOMEBODY actually rocked in the 80’s, then go on amazon right now and do the right thing.

Peace, I’m out of hair.

Mike Randle