6.20am - not too early - just the slightest hint of pink in a grey sky.

My inner ear is locked onto a Television riff from their 1992 CD - which I strongly recommend. Certainly better than the red album which followed Marquee Moon. Probably better than the solo album which Tom Verlaine did a decade earlier which I picked up in Boston last November. When I was browsing a record store in Greenwich Village in February I was surprised at how many live albums were available - a temptation I managed to resist unfortunately.

The Tom Verlaine story picks up when he is asked to produce the second Jeff Buckley album in 1995. Apparently Jeff was attracted to the fact that Verlaine was a strong songwriter who shunned samples but who had a strongly orchestral sense of the guitar's possibilities. Fair comment I would say.

(The Live at Sine EP has Jeff playing a Telecaster and a Fender combo. The classic Verlaine sound is Fender single coils and valve amplification. When I saw him he certainly used a Tele.)

In the studio Verlaine proves a hard taskmaster - well what did they expect?

Verlaine also features in Bockris' bio of Patti Smith. Somewhere in the extraordinary chain of relationships she has while she is planning her big push - Sam Sheppard and Robert Maplethorpe (sp?) are also in the list - notches on her creative bedpost. Maybe I should add that I think that "Jesus died for somebody' sins - not mine" is one of the greatest ever opening lines on a recording career.

I saw Patti when she celebrated the work of William Blake at St James Picadilly in support of the recent anniversay show. Rob - father of the bassplayer in Fellthru - and Yvonne came along. We were all transfixed - as we sat in the front pew. I think the event was organised by the Tate Gallery.

(St James Picadilly is thoroughly progressive - Heather the dancer I sometimes play for worships there.) Patti managed to let her personality and love of Blake come through in equal measures.

One of the most exciting things she did was to play abstract expressionist clarinet - like Beefheart plays abstract expressionist altosax on Trout. I shook with escitement at that point. I am always on the lookout for people using this strategy. I tried it on my first real studio session in 1969 with my soprano sax with John Cole's band White Unicorn. The producer just didnt get it.

After her marriage to Mike Sonic Smith Patti settled down in a Detroit suburb. It took me a while to understand why Detroit but I am gradually getting there. The Detroit Institute of Art would certainly be one reason, the domestic architecture another.

Sonic Smith was a strange character - an original member of MC5. (When Rob and I saw Jeff Buckley at the Junction in Cambridge he played Kick Out The Jams). The "sonic" comes from the Fender Duosonic which was his guitar of choice - this is the guitar that Leo Fender designed after the Strat. He was pleased as punch that the "sonic" in Sonic Youth is hommage to him. By the way one of Sonic Youth is playing RFH at the end of April - for me this is a must.

My Duosonic was made in China and cost a little over �100 new - it is the ultimate in value for money. The pick-ups are more powerful than the 1973 bridge pick-up I have on my Telecaster. I bought it on impulse at a music shop on the Great West Road near where I went to school. It looked interesting and I asked if I could play it - it sounded great unamplified - always a good sign. Its what I call my jobbing guitar - to take the knocks and risks of everyday gigging. I think it is about as close to owning a Strat as I will ever get - although I am tempted by the cheapest Japanese Strats that you see in Tokyo - for around �200.

Peter Buckle - Steve Pheasant's literary executor - whose house I can see as I write this - has Japanese Strat. His is green and it is the yellow ones which are the cheapest in Tokyo.

I have put the unaccompanied Duosonic and Tele back to back on the 2nd track on the Plundafonix album. Partly because people really seemed to like the picked guitar on the Serious Music CD. The Duosonic is quite heavily processed and has a full middle on the edge of distorion. The Tele is very pure and clean. It was set up by someone with a music shop near the railway bridge on the A3 - indeed he put that pickup on. He has made it so that it sounds very country - fine by me - when you pick it and pull hard then an upper middle timbre emerges which is classic.

My only "honour" is to be a Honourary Citizen of Knoxville Tennessee - I am very happy with that. (I got a Christmas card from the Governor last yearwhich I am keeping). Knoxville is at the other end of state from Memphis - where Tom Verlaine was producing Jeff's second album at the time he died. Its near the Smokey Mountains (which some think is the place where the fusion which led to rock n roll actually took place) - they look very Britsih to me. The Knoxville people have also given me a book all about the history of music in Tennessee - a great subject.

So although my take on country is my own - I always try and play with respect. I love the country style of the fills on Time has Told Me for example. The Duosonic is a nice guitar on which to try that style of playing.

Although my Fender combo is not valve it does have a Fender reverb and good 3 band EQ - and it is a good partner to the Duosonic. I got it in a music shop in Farnham - at the other end of the Hogs Back.

I nearly bought a 1974 Champ about a year ago - for under �100. It would have been a good deal and I now know thatin New York they go for two or three times that. But the shop took ages to get it sorted and I (foolishly) lost interest. It would have suited the Telecaster well I think.

I met someone at a party given by Philip Spencer - a piano player I sometimes work with - around that time who knew a lot about electronic systems in cars - working for Motorola. But he had also been a session player in the 70s. I asked him what the point of playing the guitar is at this great age when there are so many people of all ages who can do it better. He said it was the sound that made us do it - there's something in the sound that feeds the emotions in a special way.