[Definition: ?Pain-Train ? an early morning train journey undertaken whilst extremely hung-over.]

At the age of sixteen, I joined my first serious gigging band. Being young, keen and adventurous, I accepted gigs pretty much anywhere, despite the fact that my only real means of transport was an old and rather dilapidated pedal-bike. So it was that I came to travel by train from my hometown of Oxford to play at Chetam?s School of Music in central Manchester. But the story begins the night before?

Having committed to rehearse at Chetam?s during the afternoon before the gig, the band members decided to travel up to Manchester relatively early. Thus, a plan was made the night before for Juls and Chris, the trumpet and bass players respectively, to stay at my house, which was close to the station, so as to make it easier for us all to catch the morning train. All was in place for a military-style operation of brutal efficiency. Unfortunately, we had not taken account of the renegade factor that was drink.

Now, being a sociable fellow, and well aware of the requirements that befall a host, I recommended to my musical charges that we partake of a few ales at the local pub. One thing led to another, beer turned to whiskey and whiskey to closing time, and so we staggered home merrily, hatching plans to form an intimate acquaintance with the contents of my father?s amply stocked drinks cabinet. Therein, wine turned to Sambuca, Sambuca to Tequila, and Tequila to Champagne. Champagne turned back to Sambuca, and then we played Goldeneye on the N64 until four in the morning. Once we had realised that our attempts to rediscover hand-eye coordination were hopelessly futile, we sprawled out across what comfortable furnishings we could find and slept deeply.

Alarms are evil things, not least at seven-thirty a.m. when one has a truly evil hangover. Displaying strength and determination that far outran our feeble powers of abstinence the night before, we gathered together our instruments, amps, and made a dash to catch the train. We were all heavily laden with gear, each carrying an average of about twenty kilos. For those of you that have attempted severe physical exertion whilst in the grips of acute alcohol-induced dehydration, what ensued should be no surprise. Dizziness, nausea, sweating, panting, and many breaks spent doubled over in the vicinity of gutters; and that was just getting to the bus stop. And, as Sods? Law dictates, the train was horribly stuffy, full of noisy and irritatingly eager children, old, rickety and with no onboard refreshments to be seen. And it was delayed. And we received no sympathy from those other band members that had been tucked up in bed by eleven o?clock.

Eventually, and after several near-death experiences, we arrived at Chetam?s, only to find that we had to spend over an hour amassing the necessary (and extraordinarily heavy) stage sections and PA equipment from various impossible-to-find rooms within the deep dark depths of the school, which was unsurprisingly stuffy and full of noisy and irritatingly eager children. By the time it came to rehearsing, I was just about ready to keel over. Chalky mouthed, clammy and, by this time, in the midst of a bout of the shakes, I missed my cues, played awful solos, took breaks lying down on stage in between tunes and generally made a complete pig?s ear of pretty much everything. The gig was not much better.

I suppose that this experience was something of a baptism of fire into the hardships of jazz for an aspiring young musician. If I learnt anything from it, it was never to take the pain-train.