Note To Self: Sleep

Hey people, well, I'm back from France / Belgium, and I had an ace time. There's going to be this full diary-style update as soon as I get the photos and get round to writing it up, but in the meantime, just a brief note to say thanks a million to Chamoule for everything. Thanks, "mec". I also had a great time at Coleford Music Festival, thanks everyone there too.

A few days off for me now, catching up on sleep and food and all that kind of thing. Coming up soon we have more shows, and the split with Jonah, which is now scheduled for a late June release. I'm also hitting Ireland for the first time solo next week. Cahir from Fighting With Wire (who are doing some of the shows) called me at 5am the other day, from a trampoline in Manchester, to tell me he was going to fuck me up when I get over there. How I'm looking forward to it. There's also more festivals getting confirmed here and there, and an big ol' Eastern European trip between July 20th and August 5th, which currently looks set to take in Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Estonia and Finland, if not more.

Finally, some musings... The 'folk' genre is, much like punk rock, very diasporic these days. In the same way that the initial canon of Ramones, Pistols and Clash was superceded by a massive explosion of different punk rock scenes in the 80's and beyond (making it hard for anyone to be on the money with every single 'punk' band), there's a shitload of folk music out there, beyond the original greats, and it's not easy to be completely familiar with it all (and have a life). This is made harder for me by the fact that, while I'm something of punk nerd, folk is still relatively new pastures for me. So what I'm really trying to say here is that it's only recently, on the recommendation of a few talented friends, that I've discovered the pure, unadulterated joy of Townes Van Zandt. If you already knew all about him, bully for you. If you don't, check him out.

It's "Frank" Not "Fronk", For God's Sake

Apologies about that last post. It was actually for real (at least to the extent that it wasn't me posting when drunk, it actually was Chamoule, who's the promoter for this tour). Anyways, waking up in the Alps right now and forgive me for gloating, my English chums, but it's fucking gorgeous. Not so many French dates left now, but I'll be doing a full diary Latvia-stylee at the end of it all which is going to be hosted on roomthirteen.com, so look out for that.

The other things to mention today: my friend Johno is raising some sponsorship money for his Cross-Mongolia Charity effort. Information and donation here. Also been checking out some killer French bands of late - particularly The Pookies, who I played with the other day. Check it.

Bande de batards

Hey, you bastards! I am Chamoule, the french organizer of your little beloved singer.
I have kidnapped him and he is now in a room, naked, with James Blunt and Johnny Halliday coming out of a real loud speaker!!! If you want to have back this Gandalf-like english guy, you'll have to do some things in the UK...

First, give a call to your girl/boyfriend to tell him/her "YOU ARE A STUPID JERK, AND THAT'S WHY I HAD SEX WITH FRANK TURNER"!
Second, learn one song of the EP and scream it in a police station dressed like a lamantin!
And Third, send a love letter to Frank's adress and the best one (or the worst...) will be sang by Frank in a special surprise show day!!!

You better begin now because a i have spies everywhere in the UK, watching and reporting me the facts. If not, i will put Frank in a room with naked one-bra girls with a moustache, a baguette, a stripped pull, a beret and a garlic collar; and they will all begin to sing "My Humps" of Black Eyed Peas!!!

Now stop playing to World of Warcraft and go do all i wrote you bunch of little brats.

Le Chamoule

French Keyboards Make No Sense

It's true. I have to use shift to get a fucking full stop, and the "w" and the "a" are the wrong way around (it took me about 5 minutes to type that sentence). So I'll be brief. The EP is finally out! People seem to be enjoying it for the most part, which is gratifying. Thanks for bearing with me people... After all, it's pretty much exactly a year since the last MD album was released, and I've headed off down a pretty strange route, but I think it's the right one for me. So thanks. Au revoir.

The Way The World Works

Well, finally back home after the end of the tour on Friday and a weekend of fun which has left me with a monster cold and stiff arm muscles from playing tennis (no seriously). Time to chill out in bed for a few days. A big thanks to Gabby Young and the collective - Spam, Al, Rob, David - for a cool tour, and thanks to everyone who made it down to a show. I've got a few radio sessions later this week (more on that soon) and then I'm off to Europe next weekend. But there's also...

Campfire Punkrock, as most people reading this site will probably know, is due for release on May 15th, i.e. a week today. This is ace news. However, I may require some of your assistance. The problem is that the way record stores run their ordering is somewhat prejudicial against smaller artists. Basically it's a chicken-and-egg thing - the stores won't preorder any copies of smaller artists' releases in for the release date unless they think that they will sell. So usually they don't bother, the CD doesn't sell (because it's not in the fucking shops!) and everyone goes home empty-handed. The way that you good people can help out is to drop into your local record store and ask them to order the release in (it's on Xtra Mile, which is distributed by Vital, which means everyone should be able to get it) for the 15th. That's the best way of circumventing this little problem. As ever, your help will be much appreciated.

And in other news I finally got my hands on the Mcluskyism B-sides comp, and it's fucking excellent. "Hippies, hippies everywhere and never a drop to drink".