"Roll Down the Window And Let The Wind Blow Back Your Hair..."

I write from Copsale and the depths of a hangover induced by an album launch party, last night. A good time was had by all. The album is out in three days' time, and this is good. To celebrate, there's a whole shitload more dates up on the gigs page, including a bunch of festivals, and the main support slot for my old friends The Holloways in May. No rest for the wicked.

"We're Heading For Venus..."

The final countdwon begins: the album is out a week today. I'm excited, but also a little stressed, and quite looking forward to it finally being in the public domain. Some bits n bobs for you:

1. THE SINGLE IS OUT TODAY - Photosynthesis is now available for download from all the usual places.
   
2. The first part my my Latvian Tour Diary is now up. You can read it here. Part two will be up in a few days.
   
3. Tonight I'm playing at Van Aid at Nambucca. It's a worthy cause and a fun event, so come on down.
   
4. On Saturday at noon I'll be playing an instore at Fopp Records in Bristol, it's reopening or something. The album will be onsale early, and it's free, so no excuses!
   

Right, back to the grindstone..

Baltic Ebola

Back from Latvia and sick as a dog. As a man, it is my sworn gendered duty to estimate that my condition is at least fatal to me, and more likely threatens the continuation of the human species as we know it (i.e. I have a cold). Grr. Being ill is tiresome. The good news is that Latvia was officially awesome, and the tour diary should be up very soon. Watch this space.

In the meantime, while you're all waiting for me to find a cure by draining lymph out of monkeys (or whatever), you can have fun with this - me doing some acoustic covers in the Joshua Tree desert, where, I should mention, it was pissing freezing. There's also a bunch of instores being added to my schedule, so check those out, including one in Bristol on March 29th at midday where the album will be onsale early.

Last but not least, Jay (Beans On Toast) was in a van crash recently. He's fine, but the van, which belonged to Captain Black, wasn't, so on March 24th there's an all day show at Nambucca to raise money for a new van. The London show of the tour is sold out now, so come on down and help out.

To The East...

Tomorrow morning me and Ben MD leave for Latvia for a few days. We're going to keep a tour diary for rocklouder.co.uk which will be up shortly after we're back. From past experience, this is going to be life-threateningly fun. Full report in good time.

To business... Stickerers! Your packs will arrive sometime at the start of next week due to a minor delay. But it's happening. Other people need not apply any more, please. And here's one more of many thanks I'll be dishing out.

Two Thousand Trees Festival seems to be becoming a flagship festival for me. You should clearly go if you can, tickets are on sale now and the rest of the line-up is being described by trained medical professionals as "fresh".

Last up: My sources tell me that I will not be selling the new album at shows on the forthcoming tour, due to contractual stuff and record distribution and all this kind of stuff. So, if you're waiting to pick it up at a show... don't! Get preordering, from all the usual places (see posts below). Have fun.

I Win

Jesus, it's almost like I'm a real blogger these days. I'll start telling you what I had for breakfast before you know it...

Today's lesson: (1) Neil Young is amazing live but needs to have one less guitar solo in his electric set. (2) PLEASE can people stop mailing in for street team stuff, I'm flattered but we're already oversubscribed by about 200 people. (3) London is now SOLD OUT. No more tickets. Other shows are close, so get your arse to a ticket site!

Steady On!

Wow. OK, I've had what can only be described as an overwhelming response to the below request for stickering people. We were looking for like 50 people, in 24 hours we've had more than 300. I'm flattered. For now, we're going to have to close the entries, as it were, we've got more than enough folks on board. If you have already mailed, expect either an email response or a package sometime in the middle of next week. And a massive thankyou to all of you.

Also, just to clarify, Zane is a mate. For what it's worth, the man has worked over and above the call of duty to highlight and promote new music for many years now, and he both helped Million Dead and is helping me now. Just for the record. So, get the joke people.

Help The Revolution / Me vs Zane

Two things for you. Firstly, as everything hots up for the album launch, we're looking for some of you guys to help out. Basically the deal is this: if you're willing to help, you send an email to help@frank-turner.com with your address in it. In the next few days you get a package with a ton of stickers and some rare signed records (as a thankyou). You then spend the time between now and march 31st (or longer if you want) putting stickers EVERYWHERE. You also take photos of the best / weirdest / most anarchist places you've managed to get em, and I post the best ones up here. Ta-daa. Get mailing.

Incidentally, two little things about this: firstly, as an artist who is not on a major, I constantly rely more than most on the generosity and dedication of people who are into my music. This kind of grassroots stuff gets me nominated for XFM awards and the like. I am eternally grateful, and it's wonderful to feel like the underdog, taking on the big-spenders, and every now and again claiming a small victory. Kudos to all of us. Secondly street-teaming is something I'm generally opposed to because it's cynical and non-devotional, if you see what I mean. I've agonized a little over setting this up, but I think it'll help and I hope that you lot will understand that it's geniune. Yup.

Also, it's come to my attention that good old Zane Lowe has been referring to me, on air, as "Old Beardy Balls". I can only surmise that this is because HE CAN'T GROW HAIR ON HIS BALLS, LIKE A LITTLE GIRL (or something). Let the battle commence!!

Knuckle Down Dearest

I said goodbye to partying at the weekend with my cousin's 21st birthday, which also happened to be my 400th solo show. Not bad going, I think. Anyways,the build up to the album release begins in earnest now. You can pre-order from lots of places online, HMV.com, Play.com and so on... My personal preference is for the good folks at Banquet Records. To entice you all, I just posted another new song, "I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous", on my myspace.

On a related note, a few people have started picking up review copies of the album in second hand stores, and though I haven't heard about it being on any download sites just yet, it probably will be sooner or later. It's a weird one, basically I'm champing at the bit for people to hear it, so it's good that it's out there, but at the same time it's bad for business. So if you're one of the lucky few, do me a favour and buy the album properly when it comes out. That way we can all be friends.

I just found out that, thanks to your voting efforts, I won the Rebel PLaylist thing on Steve Lamacq's show for BBC 6 Music. Thanks everyone, and thanks to Steve as well.

Finally, for the UK tour, a lot of the shows are on 90% of sold out at the moment, so if you're hanging off buying a ticket, I'd hang off no longer...