War photographer

I just watched this. I will watch it again and again I’m sure. I really encourage you to watch it. It is downloadable in a few places. Make google and bit torrent your friend. I tried to buy it but they wont sell outside of the states ( crazy). He, James Nachtwey has sacrificed everything to do what he does, a family, a partner, his health and no doubt his ability to sleep and have a normal human emotional range.  I think i am hardcore sacrificing things so i can play music, when in reality what i do changes little and will have little or no existence or relevance after I cease or am forced to cease singing. Here is a clip. Fair fucks to people like this. Here is his site with gallery.

Great song – brilliant video

Chris Cunningham directed so of course it will be genius…

would like to see these guys live…

Where the hell have you been?

maxima mea culpa…i know it has been literally months since I’ve posted a blog about my adventures.

Truth is i have been using twitter a lot from my phone to give mini updates. But i know that it’s really a cop out from a proper meal.

So i will give you a rake of posts. Your reader will be groaning.

Last you heard from me i was in Sweden having a grand old time eating cheap sushi and playing great shows to great people.

Well since then i have had a jam packed few months, playing in France and the Netherlands, buying harmoniums in India, hanging out with Tibetan refugees and trying to figure out the insanity  of being a creative in a rapidly diminishing pool of resources.
All in all i had been home only 3 weeks of the year until I stopped last week. My body finally said “fuck you buddy” and shut down on me during a writing session with Maeva le Berre. We had two days of work done before i went down for the count.

The sessions had started well and we got seven pieces sketched out. All very different than my own music. Which was the whole idea. So we will continue to work online using garageband of all things to finish the ideas before we meet again work together. Overall – excited.

Of course the risk with talking about a project before it is finished is that it may fail or never get off the ground. So be it. Whats life without a little failure…boring and safe.

A few Swedish Live reviews

Here are some links to that show i enjoyed the other night, if you can’t speak Swedish you will have to use google translate (always good for a laugh)

The links are:
http://gd.se/noje
and
http://arbetarbladet.se/noje/recensioner/pascen/1.825631

Sweden

Well I’m about half ways through this tour of Sweden. I have always wanted to come here and check it out, so it’s even better when you get to come and play for people too. I am doing most of the shows with a great band on the Black Star Label Holmes.

Really great players and singers. The disturbing part is that two members of the band don’t like sauce. Yes, Sauce. In their words it makes the food “wet” and is unnecessary. how do you reply to that? And they are vegan. vegan with out sauce…that’s inhuman.  The singer is an mma fighter so we have been having a few brawls for fun.

It has been great traveling through the snow, really hypnotic and you can’t beat that crunching sound under your feet. I went walking on a frozen river today. Freaky.Will post some photos tomorrow.

Supposedly Irish has a lot of old Norse words, so far all i have come up with is Conín.

So far the wildlife count is 3 moose.

I have been fighting a bad cold/flu since i have been here, the show with Meleeh (great hardcore band) the other night was really hard, i didn’t think i could sing but it turned out to be one of the best so far. I played int he middle of the crowd and didn’t use the PA to try and jar myself out of normality and sickness and it worked a treat. People were really good and it was nice to see such a big crowd. The venue was a church and it was really inspiring to see a load of young people organise this so well, they even cooked us vegan pizza by the ton. Brilliant to see the spirit of creating is alive and well, It renewed my jaded spirit no end. I was reaching a little bit of burnout in the last few days.

I’m not vegan or even vego but on tour it’s pretty much a vegan diet to help the voice as dairy is shit for singing, and wheat and sugar.

Have been talking with Emil at Black Star about how to survive and thrive as a label when peopel don’t buycds anymore. I hope he can continue making such beautiful releases with gorgeous artwork.

Anyway i’d better go and do some work. ( i have a secret project i’m working on while touring, it’ will take a long time and i will only tell people about it when it’s done so there )

hope everyone is happy and living life xo

dec

Singing to Hanibal Lecter.

Sometimes life is hilarious,

I played a show for Radio France called  “le fou du roi”. The two guys you can see sitting on the audience panel below me are Jean Renaud (Leon) & Gaspard Ulliel (Hanibal Rising). Both were very nice people but when i had to go down to sing they were right in front of me and all i could think was i’m singing to Hanibal Lecter and Leon. You can listen to the show here, i sing about 39.40, click on the recouter button top right. You can practice your french.

Waiting now to go to soundcheck for the first show in Sweden. Eating Chococlate vegan ice-cream at Emil’s, my Label owners apartment. Life is tough!

Swearing.

I often talk onstage about swearing and give a preamble to the show warning about the copious use of it when i speak between songs. How it is geographically potent. “Fuck” in Ireland for instance is like “the” or “and” in a sentence.  Whereas in Canada calling someone a “cunt” is likely to stop time itself.

So here is a clip on swearing by the person i would probably most love to sit down and have a coffee or seven with, Stephen Fry.  What I love about this clip is his use of the phrase “…is fucking lunatic” instead of “is a fucking lunatic”.

Why I love Irish Winter Surf.

This pic is from MagicSeaweed.com

The place is Brandon Bay.

400 Babies…

Good morning,

Hello from the mould growing on my wall. His name is Harold and he has started a mould party in my piece of shit flat. He is friendly but now his power is being threatened by the evil sewerage pipe which has gathered its evil hordes and is trying to usurp power. His first action is to erupt in the back garden outside my window. He may well have beaten me.

I have kept this flat for so long…i get two rooms (that are falling down) that are relatively dry and safe and I put my cheap rent (for Dublin)  in the landladies bank and we leave each other alone. The way I like it. But now the shower is threatening to die, Harold’s fungus party is keeping me awake at night and the evil Lord sewerage pipe mocks me as i cook on the one remaining ring on my cooker.

I think i must admit defeat…so if anyone has a couch i can crash in Dublin for a night or two a month (I’m going to move my stuff into storage down the country and need somewhere i can crash for a few hours before heading out of Dublin Airport on tours) until i can sort something more permanent then please let me know.

Apart from that i am taking suggestions on places to live, doesn’t have to be Ireland.  All i need is an airport somewhere near. Surf within 2hrs drive is a plus. All suggestions and insider knowledge of places to rent welcome…

this cheered me up…Thanks Brandy!

What the fuck have you been up to?

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.