To The New Year

I'm currently in Moscow. Jamie and I arrived yesterday and spent the evening settling our livers in. Gigs tonight, tomorrow and the following day, much fun to be had. Vetal (promoter) just gave me a beer already. Christ. I have to play after midnight. Spare the children...

Some thoughts on the year past. A weird one. It started out pretty intensely shit for me, to be honest - for every cool show there was a lame one, being on the road alone and far from home, not much going on prospect-wise, generally attempting to keep myself going through blind optimism alone, which isn't really the way that I like to do business. But then we had Campfire, and the reaction to that was awesome. The big day for me, really, was the Barfly show in August - after being on the road pretty much solidly since the end of MD, to get home from a manic month in Europe and get a response like that was... awesome. The album came together easier and better than I was expecting, touring got better, crowds got bigger, and everything generally seems to be pretty set up for 2007.

That said, I firmly believe that pessimists are never disappointed, and for the record my ambitions have never been solely about headlining Wembley or whatever. What I want for this next year is to travel further, play to more people (with a band where possible), write some more songs, maybe make another record. And the struts of this building seem to be falling into place already. The rest is just icing.

And thanks, also, to the people who've helped me out (and they are many). Roll on 2007.

Happy Christmas

Yup, happy Christmas everyone. Hope you're all having a good one. Those who signed up for the download should have received an email with detailed instructions by now. Any problems, let me know. There's also a Greatest Hits of Christmas Lists that I got sent here. Enjoy. Anyone wanting more festive cheer should check out Christmas songs by Blah Blah Blah and Beans On Toast. Certainly cheered me up no end. Keep safe people, to the new year.

The Kids Are Gonna Love It

This morning I played one of the hardest shows of my career... to 50 primary school children. My mum is a teacher at the school I went to as a lad, and asked me if I had the time to pop in and play guitar / banjo for a bit, show them some different sounds, play a tune or two. Honestly, it's the most nervous I've been in years. Weird stuff. But I survived!

A few titbits - Steve Lamacq has been good enough to make Vita Signs his Single Of The Week on his Six Music show. There's quite a bit of my ugly mug in the latest Play Music magazine (they're rapdily becoming my favourite music rag), so check that out. The good folks at Banquet Records have got a little page for me, another place where you can pre-order the album, and I actually signed a bunch of stuff for them the other day to give away with said pre-orders, so check it out. Also, some more week-of-release instores for you: Tuesday 16th January will see me in North London's Puregroove at 5pm, while Wednesday 17th January will see me in previously-mentioned Banquet Records at 6pm. Enjoy.

I'm Dreaming of a White New Year...

...And I'm going to get one, because I'm going to be in Russia, Moscow to be precise, and it's going to rule. Bwahahahaha! Naa, it'll be fun to catch up with old friends from the summer, get drunk Moscow-style (slightly scared) and prepare another tour diary for the site. You lucky things.

A week of meetings, rehearsals, gigs in Kingston and haircuts (thanks Jamie). Rehearsals for the tour are sounding ace thusfar, and we've only had one, so things are looking promising, to say the least!

The other major piece of news here is that you can now pre-order the album from HMV online, by following this link. It'll only set you back £7.99 including delivery, which is nice. Incidentally, in response to a few questions, I'm not waging war on independent record stores by sending people an HMV link. The fact stands that it's a very convenient way of getting people to preorder the album (thereby bypassing the usual problem of stores not bothering to order in releases by smaller artists at all). People won't get the release any earlier this way, and if you want to wait for the day and hit an indie shop, go crazy, enjoy yourself. It's just more convenient for me, as the artist, to advertize this way of picking the album up. Rant over.

On the day that the album is actually released, I'm going to be jetting around London, doing four different Fopp instores -

• Westbourne Grove Branch 12PM
• Camden Branch 1.30PM
• Covent Garden Branch 4PM
• Tottenham Court Road Branch 6PM

Which is going to be tiring, but fun. If people make it to all four instores then they get an invite to the launch party, which is that evening in London (but not generally a public affair). Starting the year as I mean to go on...

I'm currently confirming shows in the states for next year, as well as various parts of Europe and more dates around the UK after the album tour (hold out, people of Brighton and the Southwest, I WILL find you). My schedule for next year is pretty intensely insane already and is only getting more so. Hurrah.

Recently I've been rediscovering the work of Charles Kim, in particular The Sinister Luck Ensemble. I got into his stuff years ago but it's been languishing on my shelf unloved for too long. I saw them play live a long time back in a totally shitty bar somewhere in London, and
they ruled. Check it out.

EDIT: I've aleady been helpfully emailed a pretty comprehensive list of independent online record stores. So go here and have a browse. Heads up to Luke for that one.

Back in the U.U.U.K

Back from holiday now, less tanned than I thought I was going to be, but on the other hand I went on an elephant ride through a tiger reserve. Yeah, check me, bitches. Also caught two dates of the propagandhi tour, and man-oman they're still one of my all-time favourite bands. My nose is now firmly back at the grindstone though, and will remain there until, oh, next October or so at the least.

The last of the album tour shows have been confirmed - Keele, Ipswich and Reading now have dates of their very own, which you can check details of on the gigs page. I'm really excited about this tour. There will be merch as well, for everyone who's asking, and it will indeed include some of the shirts from the video. You lucky people, you can pretend you were in it or something. Actually we had to re-edit the end of it for MTV because apparently the flickering bit was considered an epilepsy risk. Who knew.

There's lots of exciting press on its way - check out Rocksound, NME, Kerrang over the next weeks and months for titbits here and there. Speaking of the good folks at rocksound, there's a poll on their myspace page about hot artists for the new year, go lend some weight to my campaign if you have a minute.

Currently sorting out stuff for the tour, starting rehearsals this week, and looking at some shows in the states in March, which is superexciting. As well as rocking out to Hank Williams and Whiskeytown of late, I've been immersed in Blah Blah Blah. They truly rule, and will be dominating my christmas compilation CDs. Go check it out.