Strolling along Kingsland Road in east London, Jesse Tabish shows no interest in the vintage clothes emporiums or charity shops that might engage a visiting American musician. Neither do the bars appear to hold any fascination. For this resident of Stillwater, Oklahoma, is instead gabbling madly about the fact he has been able to eat breakfast "at any time of the day. Breakfast here is great! We're eating a full English twice a day." On stage with his band Other Lives in London the week before, Tabish had sung the praises of the black pudding he had devoured that morning. "You probably have black pudding everywhere here!" he tells the crowd, as if the dish held the key to the magic kingdom.
It's Tabish's first time in the UK he comes from a town in the vast plains of the midwest, famous only for being where the parking meter was invented and he's in full kid-in-candy-store mode. "I've always wanted to come over here," he beams, cradling the first of several lunchtime espressos (it's breakfast time all over again). Recording a session at the BBC's Maida Vale studios has been another high point of the band's trip to rival black pudding. "That was cool," he says. "In my mind, I was imagining George Martin in the basement, conducting the orchestra."