Well since Christmas I have been at home for about 35 minutes until two days ago. First of all i spent time in Grongingen Holland as part of Frisian Writers week where I spent the time in a studio with great musicians from Berlin, Holland and Sweden writing collaborative songs. Man the Swedes are great at writing in major. I’m a minor boy or so i have been reliably informed, so it was nice to sing outside my sphere of comfort. We wrote about 10 songs and performed them as part of Eurosonic at two shows. I also had two shows of my own there which were great. The first time i played with Vincent Martinez my new guitarist from Paris. It turns out the lad plays for Gibson around the world. Serious chops. Had a great time playing with my Dutch comrade in arms Floris too. A good time. It was really trippy to see everyone skating around the canals.
Then I hopped on a plane from Amsterdam to Dublin to Abudhabi to Mumbai to Goa for my sisters wedding. Punjabi madness, the best hooley i have ever been too. Mad dancin and music and good times had by all from Russian mafia heads to Bollywood actors and Irish cailíns.
I brought a harmonium back with me on the plane after much arguing about the fact that it was 400g overweight for handluggage. I pointed out i weigh over 11o kilos. I made it back to Dublin where it was snowing and the taxis were on strike. Somehow i got home, grabbed my guitar and a bag with random clothes in it and headed to Paris just before they closed the airport to snow. I arrived at the rehearsal with Vincent and Maeva on cello like a brain dead hamster.
The next thing i know it is the first of three nights at the famous sunset club, a jazz club in the centre of Paris. What a great time we had, Christopher Board joined us on Piano for someday soon and the crowds were really brilliant, nice and attentive people. Thank you all so much.
After the show in Switzerland we went to eat and discovered that Vincent has a form of obsessive compulsive disorder with…cakes. Cakes are the most important thing in his life and they are indeed like pornography to him, his eyes light up, his face twitches and his leg stammers. Naturally me and Maeva think this is the funniest thing in the fucking world now only refer to him as “cakes”. He actually gets up really early in the morning to go to a boulangerie to find cakes. I really can’t convey the intensity of his cake love. It is beyond what is right.
As for Mulhouse, it was a huge fucking hall and i thought how the fuck are we going to fill this? Walk onstage and the place is full…worst sound of the last few years. It’s one of those cultural centers where 100 people are employed to do nothing and no one can actually help you with anything unless it’s in ther job description. It was like going 12 rounds with a heavyweight. We made it just. The rest of the night is documented in the previous post.
And as for the last two days? Surfing a perfect right in the west of Ireland and starting on a new project I will tell you all about soon.
The place is Brandon Bay.
For those of you who know Sir Bernard Chumley all is good, for those of you who don’t he is a fictional comedy character on the series Little Britain, an aging gay ex theatre actor living in a block of flats. We met the real life Sir Bernard while on tour in Mulhouse, France. He is working at a hotel we stayed at. When we checked in he proceeded to speak in exaggerated English straight out of a nineteenth century English Royal court drama. He told us this was his cockney accent. Ahem.
