News From The Bunker

I stand at the beginning of the longest stretch of time off without a show I've had since about 2003, which is kinda weird. It's not all gravy though - I'm starting serious work on writing / demoing album #2. I've rigged up my studio gear in the spare bedroom (see above) and I'm clocking in at 10am each day and working through (with a lunch break) until I start losing my mind, usually at about 5pm. It's a weird way to work, but then I've always felt that there's a myth of "inspiration" that surrounds writing music. Of course there are moments when things hit you, but to turn these flashes into songs takes hard graft, nothing more or less. The last time I was demoing songs like this was at the end of 2005 / start of 2006, when I was just getting started down this route. Many of you will have these demos from the CDs I was selling back then. It's kind of strange to return to that set up. But things are going well.

6 songs are now fully written and in the process of being recorded, and I've got about another 10 that are in various stages of completeness. I want to then get on and write another whole batch before hitting the studio in the autumn. For those that care, song titles thusfar include "St Christopher Is Coming Home", "I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous", "The Swimming Song" and "Imperfect Tense". Can't wait to get some of this stuff out into the public domain...

Finally, just to keep you all posted, I'm going to be doing a short UK headline solo tour in September, with my good American buddies Jonah Matranga, Josh English and Ian Love. The dates will be posted up as soon as they're confirmed. It's going to be super.

"Things will be much better, in the summer..."

It's been a little while since I posted on here, so I figured it was time for an update from FTHQ (a.k.a. my bedroom). The summer is chaping up very nicely gig/festival-wise, most of my dates are now confirmed and up on the gigs page. It's a pretty good spread (apart from Scotland, sorry) and I should be able to catch some decent sun if this weather holds.

Speaking of festivals, we're looking for a few volunteers to help out over the summer with a bit of flyering. It's important for me to stress that I'm conceptually opposed to "Street Teaming" (ugh), being, as it is, a cross between organized blagging and child labour. But basically, if you're going to be at one of my festival sets anyway (in particular Reading, Leeds, Wireless, Truck, but any will do) and you ave 10 minutes of time to spare, we've got some flyers to be handed out. If you're interested in helping, please email dani (at) presscounsel.com and she'll fill you in with details. We can't offer much in the way of payment, but I will be eternally grateful, and I'll get you a beer too.

Aside from the gigging front, my mind has started wandering over towards album #2. It's not going to be released (or even recorded) for quite a while yet, but I'm taking some time off this summer to write new material and to start thinking about production and so on. So look out for new songs in the set. I'm pretty excited about new material myself.

The DVD is shaping up better than I could have hoped, people have been amazingly enthusiastic about it all - thanks for that. The first submissions for videos are coming in and they're great. To answer a regular question, the deadline is the end of July. Also, bear in mind that these are for DVD (not YouTube) so better quality is... um... better.

See you at a Festival somewhere.