random photos

Galway Town Hall and backstage at St Michaels Cathedral

Copenhagen

Me and Mary flew into Hamburg and spent the night with my booking agents Griot in the country. I have never been so spoiled in my life.  So much for the trials and tribulations of life on the road. I have not eaten so well and slept so well in years! There is a perception that 99% of the music industry is a viscous self serving soul drinking prick and so are 99% of the people involved. In fact its only 66%. There are people like the Wulf and Marion, who run Griot, that are involved because of a passionate love of music art and literature. I sat around and listened to stories of all the awesome people they have worked with and was amazed at their tenacity. The best part was right at the end where Wulf casually mentioned that he worked as a gaucho in Argentina. Holy fuck.
Julian who works at Griot was our driver, Teutonic comedian and tour manager for this short stint and we hit the road in the morning. The Baltic was not Baltic.
Mary by this stage was like a woman in luke warm water from being so relaxed. We overshot Copenhagen and pulled into to get something to eat beside the auto bahn. We walked inside and sat down and I suddenly realised from looking around that Denmark is populated by ridiculously tall good looking people. It got worse in Copenhagen and my IQ level dropped at least 20 points. Julian just kept laughing as another Danish supermodel rode by on a bike. I was looking for a hidden camera. I kicked around the city for a while and took some photos while Mary pillaged secondhand shops for lurid green 70’s tops. We got tot the venue which was fantastic. It has 5 levels and is run by the state. Every city should have one. The PA was great and the drummer from Barra Head did sound for us.
It was cool meeting everyone from PLAY REC who put my record out there. Such a good bunch of committed people. They are starting to do really well and they deserve it. Shortly before we went on master chef Simon arrived with a huge pot of vegetable curry which we all wolfed down with great aplomb. Takk Simon!
We went on and the crowd was great, you could hear a pin drop and we really enjoyed playing. Not many mistakes either, I am really enjoying me new guitar.
We improved some ends and it all flowed nicely. I told everyone to spread the word, so hopefully next time there will be more people again. Hellraiser Ten played after us and had great melodies. They used piano and i can’t wait till i can afford to take one on tour. singing to Piano is awesome, but guitar is practical and cheap to travel with. Maybe i should just cut the shit, lift some heavy weights and strap one to me back.
I am really looking forward to getting back here again. Thanks to Anne Marie for getting the show on the road!.
We hit the road and were back in our German Beds at 4 am. Julian is a driving fiend and a funny fucker.

Poland

Looks like I will have some shows coming up in Poland during mid November. I can’t wait. Will post it up on the live page as soon as it’s confirmed. I am working like a dog a the moment 8am till 1am. Scripts, animations, music…have i bitten off more than i can chew for the next few months? Absolutely. What a bad time to cut back on coffee.
Feeling good though.

the view

Pravda

I payed Pravda last night in Dublin as part of working class heroes festival. No sound check but it sounded good. I could tell i hadn’t been singing in a week or two because my throat was weaker but i don’ think anyone noticed. Mary (Barnecutt) played cello with me and threatened to kill me if i ever played Throw your arms around me in the wrong key again. That’s her above havin a pre gig tea. We had a laugh. It is funny, i wrote it in one key and played it live in a different key for months before Mary pointed it out to me. Playing in a third key was a step too far though…hahahaa. Anthony a friend and fan from New York was there and it was good to see him. Him and his crazy friends had driven from New York to Canada to see clann zu play. they hung out with us for a few days and were cool guys. We went and saw a few songs of peaches and then rushed back to see the wonderful Valerie Francis play. Kevin her cellist is a fucking freak, he had one rehearsal and remembered it all by ear. Insane. I checked out Giveamanakick who tore it up and then called in quits. I’m really enjoying playing the new guitar. fair fucks to the guy who beat me on ebay for the case for it. Looking forward to Copenhagen on Saturday. I have never played in Denmark before.

I got an email from Chris in Propaghandhi today a…

I got an email from Chris in Propaghandhi today asking me to play their show in Dublin on December 15th. If it comes about it will be very strange as they are an awesome punk band and i am sure their audience will be bemused to say the least. I suppose there is some lyrical connections with the social/political songs. I am looking forward to the hard working class heroes festival on the weekend. I don’t know if anyone will be at my show coz Peaches is playing at the same time in another venue. I hope i get to see some of her set. I really like her stuff and her attitude. I’d say she’d be fuckin deadly live. The pic is of meself and Kate Ellis the other half of Little Black Boat. This was the first time we played together and I think this was in Stanstead airport in the uk on the way to Wolfsburg in Germany where the whole idea for the project started.

Someone was kind enough to offer me a free peg…

Someone was kind enough to offer me a free pegasus guitar case to fit my new guitar. So now I’m trying to figure out how to get it from Washington to Dublin.

At the moment i’m working crazy hours to cash up for tours and the next album. I am writing an animation series for BBC and animating another for a studio in Dublin during the day and producing an animated series for Atom Films at night. Any time i have left is spent practicing the songs and running or training. Very un-rock and roll but the key to singing well is eating well and keeping fit. I’ll post my regime for those of you interested in what i do to keep my voice in shape later. All this insane workload and 7 days of 15hrs working will end around December. I plan to take a few months off to concentrate on finishing the writing of the next album. If things go to plan and i get enough good shows next year I will be able to concentrate 100% on music and nothing else besides some painting and surfing to keep me sane.

I am in the last stages of a contract with a cool Indie label in the states and I will post here when it is all signed and ready to go. It is looking like an early ‘07 release for the states.

Thanks to everyone who writes to me with cool books to read and music to check out.

Hamburg

Hamburg fuckin rocks. Had one of best meals of my life at Cox restaurant on Greifswalder Strasse 43. Was great seeing a city so set up for bikes. Can’t wait to come back and play here. Fuck it, maybe i’ll move here…or Berlin…or Morocco.

4.39am insomnia

full moon shadows of bars on dirty window panes…

new guitar!

mental note…stay off ebay…stay off ebay. I bought a 20yr old lowden g9 acoustic from switzerland. It has plenty of nicks etc and it sounds like a piano. i fuckin love it. I never name guitars etc but this one gets a name. It’s called ‘ saoirse’ which means freedom in Irish. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s lame naming a guitar, but fuck, this thing is almost as old as me i figure it needs some respect and a name at least. It’s at the shop now getting some electrics fitted. i’ll post a picture for fellow nerds soon.

I am looking forward to writing the next album on it. I have about 30 sketches and 3 finished so far. I think i will take january and february off to write…maybe i’ll go to Morocco and write there. Cheaper than Dublin!