Album, Tabs, USA

No matter how many times I do this, I never get used to turnaround days, or find ways of dealing with the stress, or focussing on the good side, or whatever. Session 1 of the album finished this afternoon in triumph. We got more done than expected, everything sounds amazing, and I now have the problem of choosing which songs will make the album and which won't. Tomorrow morning I fly to the States for the tour, which is going to be great. The DVD is out, finally, which is awesome. So, despite the fact I have 9064937 things to do before bed and have to be up at the crack of dawn, all is well. I'm listening to monitor moxes of the album right now and it sounds great.

Something I just did: put tabs on the website. They didn't come out so well on the DVD, so here they are, high resolution, for everyone: The tabs page. Enjoy, share, learn the songs and play them yourself.

Studio Update #1

I've been let out of the farm into the land of the living for an hour or two to catch up on my corespondence, while Ben goes to get Nigel from Oxford so he can start drumming for us. Things are going really well, the location is simply breathtaking. We've been making friends with local cats and horses, and roping in really old friends of mine for backing vocals (the studio is in the valley I grew up in). We're starting drums today, which is a little daunting. Up to this point we've been working on acoustic / drumless songs, and actually taking the time to focus on that has been great, new ideas have been arriving and things have generally taken a more English folk turn than I had been expecting. This is a good thing. I even bought a mandolin yesterday, learned how to play it and then laid it down on a few songs. I could spend a long time living like this...

The live room:


The control room (Ben's lair):


Some guitars....:

The Great DVD Saga of 2007

RIGHT.

Apologies, profuse apologies to those waiting on the DVD. The story now is that the pressing plant fucked up and so the official, in your hands release date is now 22nd October. Words cannot express how pissed off I am about this further setback, so massive massive apologies to those waiting on it. I can only say that I hope you think the wait is worth it, I do.

For those not waiting on it, well, you should be. Go here.

Thanks.

So It Begins...

This morning me and Ben are heading into the studio. We set up last night, it's an awesome space, in a barn on a farm in a valley where I grew up, totally isolated and peaceful. I have even shaved off my beard in celebration. We'll resurface shortly, with a masterpiece...

Last Minutes and Lost Evenings

I'm currently enjoying the fact that Norwich has crashed headlong into the 21st Century by having a FREE WIFI ZONE in the city centre (actually a small patch of land around the library). My show here tonight is going to be my last UK show until December. Ireland was a lot of fun, especially the chaos that was Belfast - thanks to Johnny Black for the hospitality and the cack-handed Springsteen covers in a bar until 2am last night - I'm now exhausted.

Within a week, Ben and I will be hitting the studio to commence work on album #2. The first session will run until the end of the month, when I go to the states, and then we'll be back finishing it all off before the end of the year. I'm really excited about this one, the work has come together in my head an awful lot in the last month or so, and I can't wait to actually start laying some music down. Roll on next year...