This post was supposed to be about New York.

On a plane from New York back to Los Angeles. It ‘s always hard for me to leave that city. Hands down, my favourite city out of any I have traveled to. I could live there in a heartbeat. Who knows, maybe I will.

The person in the seat in front of me is a fuckhead. I have angled my air nozzle set on full onto the back of his Jersey Shore wannabe head.

Where was ?  Oh Yeah, New York. I was there to meet the broadcasters, production companies and multimedia people who will be working on “Keepers” the show I co created with Jesse cleverly. It was the first time everyone was in the same room, Aussies, Canadian, Irish and English. I didn’t do anything drastic like piss in the coffee or burn down the room, so it appears to have gone quite well. Everyone knew their stuff, had great ideas and were cool people. I can’t work with pricks for love nor money. These were all really nice. Phew!!!!!! Anyway, it is all moving ahead and should be on screens late 2013. Takes ages. It will film in Australia and Canada, I will try and do some tours in both when I’m there.

Now I am thinking of set lists. The next month is all about rehearsing fro the European tour. I want my voice and guitar to be on point. Practice, practice, practice, puke a bit, then more practice. I am realy looking forward to seeing everyone and sharing some shows together. I should get the rest of the tour dates up in the next few days.

So for the moment it’s back to La La land and Hollyeird. The land of TV and film.  If you write film you can work from anywhere. If you write for TV then you have to live in LA. So for the moment that’s my home.

I tend to laugh at the insanity of the place rather than bitch about it. Actually no, I do bitch about a few things…

A. Plagues of vacuous urban assault vehicle wielding fucktards, who think that indicating (using a turn signal) is a once or twice a year thing. Maybe around Christmas, just to add to the festive lights. I go fucking spare, hurling obscenities that would make a crack addicted sailor, who majored in international swearing from the University of Motherfucker, blush.

B. The air. Wow…the air is the colour of congealed gravy at times. Brutal. I am thinking of taking up smoking to filter the air and reduce my risk of cancer.

C. Coffee. Not just LA. This is more an American problem. TV would have you believe Americans drink copious amounts of coffee. They don’t. They drink some form of diluted leper piss. Dear sweet Christ on a stick it is awful. Left stewing for hours to get that perfect taste of jus du ashtray. What is worse is that there is some absolutely awesome coffee companies, roasters and Baristas here. It’s just that they are as rare as a sane thought from Glenn Beck.  I suggest Intelligentsia and Paper or plastik – lots of fair trade micro roasted goodness.

D. Surfing in the shit of 10 million. After rain it is unsafe to surf for 72 hours due to storm water runoff and untreated sewage, lest you want some hybrid form of strep, amoebic dysenteryry, Hep A to Z and Black Death.

Okay I should balance all of that.
Plus sides of living in La La land…

A. Surfing…without having to wait 3 three days for me balls to come out of hiding, after surfing my usual frigid Irish haunts.  Where I surf is lousy with dolphins. I see them and their sea lion sidekicks most days, sometimes within a few feet of me, the occasional few will let you dive near them while they circle you, laughing their little dolphin holes off at the ugly fucker in the wetsuit. How can you be in a bad mood after surfing with dolphins? Impossible. On the flip side the place is also lousy with Great White sharks too – hopefully they wont eat this lump of black pudding.

B. Insane people. La lLa land is not a misnomer. At any given minute you can have a conversation with someone dressed as Jesus on roller skates, sit beside someone who believes that they re the reincarnation of spongebob (who was secretly killed by Patrick, a Chinese spy, for his support of Tibet) or skate by a man with a Pompadour, silver lamé jacket, no trousers or underwear holding a tazer and drinking some form of monkey piss they call “Budweiser”. Oh , and Zorro catches the bus near me. Really.

*note – since I wrote this last night I saw a woman walking her 2 foot high mini pony on a leash down sunset. It had a sparkly collar.

C. Sun. It is a big orange hot thing in the blue, yes blue, sky. It is there all year and the are no seasons despite what people here  tell you. There is just summer and Diet summer.

D. People listen to your crazy ideas. You can have crazy Comedy, Sci Fi and Horror ideas , pitch them and people listen.  Sometimes they give you money for having an imagination. This is good.

E. Good MMA. I have loved fighting, training and sparring since I was ten. Since being here I have learnt lots of new techniques, (anything that is on the ground is new to me). Plus some of the guys who teach are cops. So I get to punch cops legally. Win. (In fairness, they then proceed to put me in a a choke in under 3 seconds flat)

E. Everything can be funny. Because everything is so surreal here, everything has the potential for comedy. There is a Jacuzzi on the roof of the place we live. No really, a Jacuzzi. No one else in the building uses it. I like to sit in it at night and laugh me self stupid. Me. In La. In a fucking Jacuzzi. Hifuckinglarious.

Jesus, this was supposed to be a post about new York. Let’s just say it is a crucible of entry, culture and creativity where any fucking thing is possible. Right here comes the trolley man, I am going to steal 8 packets of peanuts while he is not looking. Viva la revolucion!

Declan

European tour shaping up.

This is how it is looking so far, all the TBA’s should come together in the next few weeks detail wise. We have a hole for 21 and 22 in Spain at the moment. So if any of you there want a house show with Holmes and myself get in touch with info@blackstarfoundation.com

The covers for the cd and Vinyl have arrived and Emil at Blackstar reckons they look deadly. Should have them scanned soon to show you.

Right, I’d better book a flight…and learn the new songs!

MARCH

15 Germany – tba
16 Germany – tba
17 Germany – tba
18 France – Paris – Festival
19 France – Clermont Ferrand- Baraka
20 Spain -Elgoibar
21 Spain – tba
22 Spain – tba
23 Portugal – tba
24 Spain – Don Benito
25 Spain – Arrasate
26 Spain – Barcelona – Heliogabal
27 France – tba
28 Germany – tba
29 Germany – tba
30 Denmark – tba
31 Sweden – Uddevalla- Mortens krog
APRIL

01 Sweden – Göteborg
02 Sweden – Vänersborg – Biblioteket
02 Sweden – Sandviken – Kungen
03 Sweden-  Umeå – Hamnmagasinet
04 Sweden – Luleå – Föreningsgatan
06 Sweden – Jönköping
07 Germany – tba
08 Germany –  Trier-Exhaus
09 Germany – Landau – Fatal
10 Germany –tba
11 Germany – tba
12 Czech rep – Prague – 007
13 Czech rep – Brno – Foyer Divadla Bolka Polivky
14 Germany – tba
15 Germany – tba

Ag Scríobh – Writing

Well, well, well, three holes in the ground. Promised I would fill ye in on the other crazy stuff that has been happening. So…

The good people at Jam obviously didn’t learn their fucking lesson the first time because they hired me to write a few episodes of the second season of Roy for BBC. I have just handed in the final draft of me script for the first episode “Spot On.” It shoots in a few weeks I believe.  The outline for the second is under a coffee cup somewhere in a BBC office. I should get notes on Monday and then the fun and games begin. The notes I get are usually fine, I grumble for a minute or two about a cut scene or gag that I love. Then I realise I am a cocktard and just take the notes and make the script better. I have been really lucky in working with great script editors. I don’t take notes personally. You would go fucking spare if you did. All that matters in the end is that the story on screen rocks.

You do hear stories of ridiculous notes though. My favourite -  ‘Can “Witness Protection”  be written on the side of the van so people would know it is a witness protection van?’

And then of course there are notes about adding whatever is hot at the moment into the script. At the moment that seems to be good looking metrosexual vampires and zombies. Haven’t had any of those requests…yet.

It is the total opposite of writing music, which is an entirely selfish pursuit in that I write for myself only. If people like it then great, if not well that’s fine too. I cannot take notes on music from people unless I am jamming in a room with other musicians. THAT is fine. Anyone else usually gets “the stare” if they try and tell me what kind of music i should be writing. If they continue they get told to fuck themselves in no uncertain terms.

Writing for TV, I am just one part of a massive machine and you can’t be totally selfish. It is a massive collaboration. So any ego is best left at home in the freezer.

Writing is all about…well…writing. Watch movies, read books, and fucking write…a lot. You always need to have about 10 projects cooking at the same time. Because if you are very, very lucky, one of them might get picked up.

So at the beginning of 2010 I flew to London and was picked up by the very talented Jesse Cleverly. We spent a few days trudging through forests, drinking cardamon coffee and bashing out an idea for a teen Sci Fi/Fantasy show based in three different countries. We called it Keepers. I flew back to Dublin and we started work, Jesse in London and me wherever the fuck I was that week. By April we had a pilot script written and Jesse went to work pitching it around the world. To my amazement lots of companies and TV networks liked it. Finally in December, almost a year later, contracts were signed and away we went. It is now in development and it is all very exciting. Of course these things are notorious for falling off the rails along the way, but if all goes to plan we should start shooting late this year for a 2012 release. So right now I am putting in the hours at the keyboard, working out worlds and plots, fixing plot holes and answering those tough questions that headbutt you in the face as soon as you start to fill out story lines and arcs. I want it to be fucking great. I hope it will be fucking great.

As I said, you have to have lots of projects running at the same time to survive. The wastage rate is crazy. I know people who have been paid to write lots of screenplays and none have never been produced. So I am simultaneously working on another few ideas, which is not that hard as they are very exciting to me. Plus some of them are projects with my wife, which makes it very easy as she and I love the same nerdy Sci Fi dark horror stuff. Plus of course she is a very talented, experienced writer and is deadly at creating worlds.

Plus I am organising the album release, tour, video, website. Any time I do have off is spent surfing where all that matters is the wave and “Is that a shark or a dolphin?” And training MMA where all that matters is hit the other fucker first and don’t get choked out.

So it is, quite frankly, mental at the moment and it looks like the rest of this year will be the same. Life is stupidly, annoyingly, too fucking short and I am really happy to be this busy doing things I actually care about. Anything beats being a bouncer or selling shite door-to-door. Been there done that and burned it in me brain.

Okay well I should get back to it…if i can get enough done tonight I can sneak a few hours surfing in the morning.

Thanks for reading this. I hope you and all those you love are well.

Declan

Gazan youth issue manifesto to vent their anger with all sides in the conflict

Posted this as it not available to view on Guardian Mobile.  I think it is a great piece of honest, bullshit free writing. (Full article here http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/02/free-gaza-youth-manifesto-palestinian)

The Manifesto

“Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!

“We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference like the Israeli F16s breaking the wall of sound; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this fucking situation we live in…

“We are sick of being caught in this political struggle; sick of coal-dark nights with airplanes circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers getting shot in the buffer zone because they are taking care of their lands; sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in; sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land; sick of being portrayed as terrorists, home-made fanatics with explosives in our pockets and evil in our eyes; sick of the indifference we meet from the international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and drafting resolutions but cowards in enforcing anything they agree on; we are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world.

“There is a revolution growing inside of us, an immense dissatisfaction and frustration that will destroy us unless we find a way of canalising this energy into something that can challenge the status quo and give us some kind of hope.

“We barely survived the Operation Cast Lead, where Israel very effectively bombed the shit out of us, destroying thousands of homes and even more lives and dreams. During the war we got the unmistakable feeling that Israel wanted to erase us from the face of the Earth. During the last years, Hamas has been doing all they can to control our thoughts, behaviour and aspirations. Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed. We cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want.

“ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough tears, enough suffering, enough control, limitations, unjust justifications, terror, torture, excuses, bombings, sleepless nights, dead civilians, black memories, bleak future, heart-aching present, disturbed politics, fanatic politicians, religious bullshit, enough incarceration! WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want! We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is that too much to ask?”

Where has the bear been hiding?

Dayton Ohio. 28 Dec 2010. hello!

Well, yeah…it’s been months since I have posted anything on here. Mea culpa punx. I’m sure you all survived without me somehow. For those of you on twitter you are probably sick of me by now.

What have I been up to in the last 5 months of silence? Well lots really…

I finished a tour, dealt with family illness, recorded an album, moved to Los Angeles, sold a TV show I co created, wrote some TV episodes for other people and got married.

I will fill you in on all the music parts now and fill you in on all the other happenings in another blog lest you starve to death while reading this post.

So…the last show I played was in Vancouver in August and I am itching to play again. It looks like I will be in Europe for a month or so in March/April and will hopefully be back there again later in the year.  Since I am in the States I will probably play a bunch of shows here too next year. I don’t quite know how that will work but we will see soon. I may even do a tour of house shows at fans places. Should be a lot of fun and I am looking forward to meeting everyone in person after years of seeing everyone online.

I finished recording and mixing album number 3 “Fragments, Footprints and the Forgotten” in Dublin just before heading to Canada in August. It was recorded in the same room as the last two albums over the course of two weeks. This time there were no guests, everything you here on there is me playing or singing. I didn’t over analyse anything, most songs were recorded in one or two takes, I left most of the warts in. It is different to the other two, a progression I hope. I didn’t want to make exactly the same record. The next one will be different again I hope. I make these things to satisfy myself, and I am always honoured, surprised and very glad when people say they enjoy listening to them and come along to the shows. I know one day it will probably stop and people will move on, but I will continue to make music one way or the other.

It is tough out there in music land. Unless you are prepared to tour all year it is hard to make ends meet. I have way more listeners and it grows constantly but the numbers of records sold don’t.    Anyone in the indie world hoping to make ends meet on records sold alone is dreaming.

Buying music digital or physical is largely a dodo. That’s just the way things are and there is no use whining like a spoiled pup about it. If you want to make enough to eat and pay rent you have got to have your arse out on the road and sell merchandise. That is the hard truth.

This obviously is harder on people who have kids or a relationship. Who the fuck wants to be involved with someone you see for a few months of the year?

Tough especially for new bands or artists starting out. It’s okay for myself because I already have a small and loyal audience that allows me to tour. Saying that, EVERYBODY now has to be out on the road working it and EVERYBODY is competing for shows at venues.

A nice side effect of this has been the rise of diy house shows.  It may be the only alternative for bands and musicians starting up now. DIY to the max. Musicians now are going to be tougher that’s for sure. More power to them.

So I think you will see music change, there will be a lot more part time musos and maybe less bands. I survive by keeping overheads low, If i can’t carry it I don’t play it. It’s all in a state of flux with music at the moment. Interesting times. Anyone who tells you they know how it will all work out is full of shit. No one knows. It’s kind of cool and exciting in a way. I like things being broken down and rebuilt. A big fan.

As the final days of the record “Industry” gasp and rattle their death breaths I don’t really give a fuck. I never expected, creating the kind of music I do, to be part of that system to a large degree. The ability to make music and create full time was all I ever wanted to do. Anything else was a bonus. And the internet allowed me to do it. I would not be doing what I am doing now with out it. Without blogs, word of mouth, torrents and downloads. Without you lads and lassies. Thank you.

All that being said, the new album will be coming out for sale in a physical format. Cd and limited edition vinyl. 300 copies. I’m very fucking excited about the Vinyl.

There will be a pay what you want for digital downloads via bandcamp and 25% of all digital sales will go to charity, probably Amnesty or Doctors without borders, I have to decide yet. Suggestions welcome. It will also be available on the usual suspects Amazon and Itunes etc.

The physical release of the record will be through my good friend Emil’s Label, Black Star Foundation. They are also behind most of the shows for Europe this year. I can’t thank the man enough. A smart fucker and a good soul. My favourite label I have ever worked with. It will be distributed by the good people at Cargo.

I finished the artwork a few weeks ago and everything is out at the printers as I type.

Right, coffee is finished. Back to the world of scriptwriting. I will fill you in on that in the next blog.

Thanks for reading. Have a brilliant new year.

Declan

Shut up and play a song Irish man.

Photo by Eddy.

Oh. This blog post got lost in the fray…better late than never.

Just back from France. It was a wee bit of a clusterfuck organisationally, being assured we could fit four people, a cello, guitar, 3 bags, merch etc. inside a Twingo car for instance. But the shows were great. People showed up which always does actually amaze me. I really do love you all for taking the time and money to listen to me sing. I don’t take it for granted.

It always amazes me when people are crying or moved by it. It’s humbling and I don’t really know what to say. So I usually joke and people probably think I am an arsehole or fake about what I do on-stage. Wow it was intense and now here he is joking. I always joke and tell funny stories in-between songs. It is just too much otherwise I think.

Sometimes I get carried away and spend 5 minutes telling stories instead of playing. My agent in France is always on at me about it. I try my hardest to join the songs up and not break the flow, but there comes a point where it is just too much.

Of course sometimes I do just close my eyes and plough through them one after another, usually when I have to concentrate really hard because there are people talking or the sound is shite.

Most of the time people are great, some countries more-so than others, and you can hear a pin drop. Other times you have to eyeball the person making the noise to shut-up.

I pick my venues well, I have learned that no matter what assurances given by the promoter, NEVER play in any venue with the world Ireland or Irish in title. People will inevitably come to see you play trad and be pissed off when you don’t or don’t take requests to play Fields of Athenry. (not that I don’t love trad, and I actually like Fields of Athenry). It is hard enough when I am playing in a new place and the press mentions I am Irish. There will always be one or two who rock up not knowing the score expecting me to play Irish music.

I also never play where people eat. A recipe for disaster (see what I did there?). My fave places to play? Churches. Yeah I know, Mr. Heathen non believer himself. What can I say, the acoustics are just amazing. I could sing for hours in them. I really want to record in one.

Speaking of which, I am in talks to record a live album in Paris. I am loathe to talk about it as most things you plan in the world of music don’t actually happen. There is a lot of back slapping and bullshit. So I like to announce things when they are done rather than disappoint people. I always only believe it when I am on the stage singing the first note or the cheque has cashed. You cynical old bastard Declan.

While I was in Paris I checked out my good friend Maeva le Berre’s show at the Theatre le Rond Pont. If you are in Paris check out http://bit.ly/ayIAdr . Maeva composed the music and plays it live with many fantastic interesting instruments, water crystals on metal domes etc. Plus of course her excellent cello. Check it if you can. My French is shite and I only understood 1/ 3 of what the actor was saying but is still worth it for the music and timbre of the actors voice.

I saw no rollerblading cops this time, did my jokes about them upset them? Are they sulking? Hope every one is happy and content and has something to look forward to this week.

How I fell arse backwards into writing.

I think we may need a bigger laptop…

So, I just heard that ‘Roy’ the TV show I wrote some episodes for has won a Royal Television award. Nice one! I hope it means it gets a re commission from the BBC.

I kind of fell arse backwards into writing.

It all began with not wanting to pay someone lots of money to make a video for Clann Zú, a band of mine. I had always been a painter so I figured animation is just moving images right? How hard can it be? So I became a Ramones animator i.e. I only had four chords at best but made them work for me as best I could.

Mark at Jam media in Dublin called me up after meeting me at a Film board grant lunch  that I had somehow blagged my way into.  He  mistakenly thought I was a real animator and hired me as a compositor. Literally moving animated pieces around and placing them all together in the scene.

The company wanted ideas for some new shows and I pitched a few. They liked my writing on the proposals and I got a chance to pitch some ideas for a show called Funky Fables they were planning for CBBC. They and the CBBC liked them and so I wrote a bunch of episodes solo and co wrote some with my sister and a crazy Spanish animator called Borja the insane. The show did okay and I got a chance to work on ‘Roy’, now showing on RTE and CBBC.

Around this  time I was writing short films and animating them, funded by the Irish film board, Filmbase and Irish language TV channel TG4.

I applied for every grant under the sun. My policy was to throw as much shit against the wall and something was bound to stick. I got funded for about 10% of my proposals. I was so crass I even sent in the same script again if it was rejected. Sure enough one of them got picked up the third time I submitted it and was funded. I had no knowledge of the ‘done thing’ and really couldn’t give a fuck. What had I to lose?

I blindly walked into the world of writing and picked up what I needed to know as I went along, getting notes back, reading scripts I liked, following writers I liked on twitter and on their blogs.

I may have been lucky as it wasn’t something I had planned. If I had always planned it I may not have had the neck to say…’Why not? I can write.’

I am still learning and I know I have a long way to go. I will always be learning. I love that. It all still seems new and fun to me even though in reality I have been writing for the last seven years. But it has always been something I do on the road when touring to keep myself occupied and sane on planes and trains and lonely hotels. I don’t get drunk or snort coke off hookers, what else am I supposed to do?

So that’s probably my tip for aspiring writers. Don’t drink or snort coke off hookers in hotel rooms.

A dose of the 3ams.

Good morning/afternoon/night a chairde (my friends)

I am one cup of Lebanese coffee into a sat morning. My life of late has been similar to said cup of Lebanese coffee, intense, rocket fuelled, beautiful but also cloudy and 1/3 undrinkable mud.

It has been a while since I posted on here. Sometimes I just think I need to shut up and run deep and silent. Other times I am sure you are all sick of me posting random shite from my life, twitter updates in 140 characters or less bite size glimpses and random photos that have no particular significance.

I am on album three. It is currently being a pain in the hole and not behaving. In other words, I am being a pain in the hole and not behaving.

Last night was another of the 3am ‘I will never create anything brilliant again’. By brilliant I mean something that I am proud of, something that makes me excited and fueled-up and ready to go out there again and present it ( with all the insanity, good bad and indifferent, that involves)

I am having trouble focussing. This year was a strange one for me creatively. I toured a lot and played for many wonderful people whom I cannot thank enough.

Touring is a strange beast, you live in a bubble of getting to the next town/city finding the venue, sound checking finding some food to throw down your throat, getting into the head space to play a great show, the electric 45-90 minutes (depending on if I am headlining or not) of communicating directly in the most intense way possible with a group of people who have paid money for the experience and travelled to that place specifically to witness it and feel it. Then it is back to the hotel, house, couch/floor to grab a few hours of sleep before repeating the process.

You can spend weeks or months in this bubble. Life is disconnected. It is a form of stasis. 12Hrs or so of preparing and one hour of joy. There is a decompression after the show. Where you are sitting by yourself in a room wondering if the last few hours were real. Hopefully it was a good show. Sometimes you swear you will never play another note again. Sometimes you are coming down from the greatest high you can experience. That show where you sing outside yourself. You are not actually driving the ship. It is all a Zen like high.

Either way there is a decompression. I think that is why so many musicians end up with substance abuse problems. It is a way of dealing with the come down, the questions, the doubts.

Then there is the tour decompression. You come back home and sit in your flat house shack and look around. Silence. You go to make a cup of tea and forget where everything is.

The point being, if you tour you live a disconnected fractured life. I am sure some musicians have it all worked out. I don’t have kids. I don’t know if could do what I do if I did. I know I would need a shit load more money to do it, not in the least for air fares so I could see them at every opportunity.  I am not at a Willie Nelson stage where I can bring out my entire family with me. I didn’t plan it this way. It just happened.

How does this all relate to album three and the 3 am night sweats? Well the fractured year plus a load of personal shite (will not bore you with details)  meant that I was slack in my writing. Spurts of writing, ¾ finished ideas..then nothing for weeks or months. Writing for me is not a tap. I can’t just turn it on, every time I have been away I have to let it run. I have to write through weeks and weeks of crap and clichéd stodge until I reach a point where the ideas and feelings and thoughts are running clear from their source.

I hate beige, I hate average and I have no time for good or nice. If it isn’t pushing all the buttons then I am not happy. Life is too short for filler. I don’t want to release filler. And hence the 3am nightmare…what if I have reached the end of the well? It doesn’t take much to get to that point where my creative confidence bails on me, a day of going through all my sketches and half finished work will do it for me. I got rid of loads of my song sketches yesterday, maybe two albums worth. I am left with a handful of seeds. I am tired of the ground they are sown in usually. I need to move on and plant them somewhere else in a totally different climate.

I would love to have a band right now, that would make this a piece of piss. I could take these pieces in, add sauce to them, and bang it out live in a studio mistakes and all. I miss that a lot. But I can’t go back to being in a band situation. I can barely keep this one man show on the road. Keeping another 3-4 people alive, fed watered and sheltered is impossible. So I have to get the meat an potatoes done and get others in one by one according to when they are free to help. It is all by the good graces and generosity of those involved. No one got paid on the last record. Everyone donated their time and I love them for it. I wish I had something they needed. I hope they ask if they think of something they could use me for.

Anyway, it is focus. I am lacking in it. I doesn’t help that I have a million other projects on the boil also. Non musical, writing projects. I will fill ye in on another post. I would love if sleep wasn’t needed or days were 68 hrs long.

So here I am with a handful of seeds and no idea where or how to plant them. I don’t want to repeat myself or patterns I know that work. What is the point of that? I hope it all becomes clear soon. I know it will take just a note, a phrase or a little image in my head and I will be off again. Fuelled up and spewing forth goodness.

I have no clue what 2010 will bring. I have some cool projects on the boil, some musical some not. But right now I just want to get this album out of me. No C section. No epidural.

halloween Matt Bauer & me Cafe de la danse Paris

Maeva le Berre

The garden of earthly delights

One of the first books I ever remember was an encyclopedia set called Family of Man. I think some door to door salesman sold it to me ma. I can’t really remember the contents apart from one image which i kept coming back to over and over again. A painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. More importantly the right panel, hell. I poured over every millimetre of this panel, it was a world that made sense to me, beautiful, fantastical, terrifying, completely engaging.

I went to the Prado museum in Madrid a few years ago for the first time and ran smack straight into the original. My breath stopped. My heart I thought would burst on the spot. I was paralysed by it. I have never had that feeling with any painting. I realised this painting, created in 1503 had a huge influence on my art, my writing my music and my outlook on life shaped by my imagination.

Again, another tiny moment and random encounter that shaped who I am and what I do with my life.

To this day I often close my eyes and drop into this painting before I start a project. Beautiful.

Hieronymus Bosch