[kj] Paul Raven

[Matt Tibbits]

I can't believe it's been ten years either. 

Some will have heard this before but this story sums the man up for me. After being invited at short notice to Prague for a weekend by Jaz and Geordie he basically rescued me from a night of homelessness and took me under his wing (pardon the pun) after Geordie, who was meant to put me up was, shall we say,  distracted by the fairer sex. After a bar crawl with Raven, Reza and others I ended up back at Raven's flat where he enthusiastically played me demos from Hosannas on his laptop - I was pinching myself- and I crashed on a sofa at the end of his bed, listening to him gently snoring after we'd said Waltons-like goodnights. All very surreal. I recall waking up to the sound of an opera singer practicing in the apartment above (Raven loved that) and going to his spacious bathroom where various porn mags were neatly laid out on the floor! He looked after me the whole of that day too, showing me his haunts and taking me to lunch at one of his favourite little hangouts before we headed to Faust studios to meet the rest of the band. One of the most memorable weekends of my life and I still have the Cohiba Double Corona cigar he bought me. 

Much missed.

Sent from my iPhone