Wow, my blog's been quiet lately.

Since my last blog...

1) Been playing guitar with the lovely Fanfarlo at some of their gigs. Great band, good fun.
2) Done lots of production with new acts like Tawny Owl (whose new single is out now on Milk Bar), Paul Dixon, Kit Richardson and Stricken City.
3) Oh and A Classic Education's first single, which I produced at the end of 2007, is out now on Bailiwick.
4) I sung with the mighty House Of Strange at their amazing gig at The Space.
5) I put together what might be the best backing band I've ever had. I'm not going to tell you who's in it because if I do someone will poach them. That's what normally happens. (Speaking of which, catch my old bassist Gbenga rocking it with Metronomy at a stage near you this summer. Awesome!).
6) Oh, I made plans to record album #3. It's a rockin' tribute to the impotence of love and the futility of hope. And it's a glorious celebration of why life is worth living anyway.
7) And I made plans to finally, finally, finally, premiere my "lost album" [well, EP, really] The Ragged Choir at the Union Chapel on 26th September. And possibly record it later in the year, too.
8) I accidentally booked myself a really busy summer full of gigs.
9) Hanging out with my one-year old nephew, Julius. He's a nice guy.
10) Started writing a screenplay with Elizabeth Sankey (www.readplatform.com). It's kind of a cross between Kes and a Beach Boys documentary. I say starting. Don't expect it to be finished any time in the next few years.
11) Oh, I toured Germany! Hey Germany, it was nice to hang out. And I played in Paris a couple of times.
12) And I did loads of fun solo gigs all over the UK just for fun really. Thanks for the good times Wolverhampton.


Anyway, here's my upcoming news (taken straight off my e-mail bulletin. If you want to sign up to it, send me your e-mail address. It's worth it, you get two free mp3s. Gosh wow.)


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I was going to take the summer off but people keep on asking me to do things. So I have a bunch of stuff happening in the UK over the next couple of months. If you're not in the UK, you can skip this bit and go straight to the end of this e-mail, where I've included a ROCK FACT and a bad joke to entertain you.

3rd July - Manchester: This Friday, I'm playing at the Deaf Institute at Same Teens' club night as part of the Manchester International Festival - the Mystery Jets after-party, to be exactly. This'll be the first show with the line-up of my new band. £5 entry I think. http://bit.ly/3BwRq
11th July - Lounge On The Farm festival, Canterbury. I'm on at like 1. This is a sweet festival on a lovely site with Edwyn freaking Collins headlining. http://www.loungeonthefarm.co.uk/
15th July - London: Acoustic gig in aid of War Child at the Tabernacle, Notting Hill. http://bit.ly/c9XPC
17th July - Latitude Festival: I'm playing a set of Daniel Johnston & Tom Waits covers, with my side project Little Words.
25th July - Truck Festifval, Beathive stage. Latitude is the bee's knees. I'm sure you knew that already.

1st August - "The Great Escape" - a charity festival somewhere in the south of England. I literally don't know anything more than that yet, and google just found me a kid's camp in Philadelphia. It's not that.. We're headlining the Communion stage. If anyone knows anything more about this, please e-mail me and let me know. Lol.
2nd August - Kendal Calling festival. This is a lovely festival in the Cumbria. Mumford & Sons are headlining our stage, think The Streets and Ash and others are playing too http://www.kendalcalling.co.uk/.
3rd August - my side project Little Words is doing a set of Magnetic Fields covers at Stars Of Sunday League's EP launch at the Luminaire. Stars Of Sunday League is an awesome singer-songwriter friend of mine.
12th August - London: Great Banana Hoax at the Boogaloo - this is a cute acoustic night in Archway, north London
14th August - Summer Sundae Festival - I'm playing a little solo show at this wicked festival in Leicester. You've got Mystery Jets, Bon Iver, etc etc. http://www.summersundae.com/. I'm also playing guitar with my friends Fanfarlo at this festival.
16th August - Bloom Festival. Another cute festival in Gloucestershire. We're playing in the Communion tent alongside Johnny Flynn & others. Also playing with Fanfarlo etc.

After this, I'm going into the studio with my new band to start putting down album #3. EXCITING.

Then...

26th September. London: This is it. In January 2007 I started writing & demoing a project I was calling "The Ragged Choir". It's basically the best thing I've ever done. It's a story I wrote about two kids who find a magic world in their back garden, set to music, with orchestra. If we actually manage to pull it off in time, we'll be premiering it at the Union Chapel as part of Transgressive Records' 5th birthday, in support of Johnny Flynn. It's 25 mins long so we'll play it and then do a couple of older songs too. bit.ly/xUFFU. Hopefully we'll record it soon after.

That's about all my news that I can think of. Thanks for your time.

As a prize for reading this far, here is today's ROCK FACT

Today's Rock Fact is to do with Neil Young, who I think we can all agree has once again proved how awesome he is this week with bravura performances at Glastonbury & Hyde Park.

In 1977, Rod Stewart's execrable version of "I Don't Wanna Talk About It" topped the official Uk pop charts. This would be unremarkable except

1) The song was written by Danny Whitten. Danny Whitten was the guy about whom Neil Young wrote "Tonight's The Night" and "The Needle And The Damage Done". He was a founding member of Crazy Horse, played a fat guitar on Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and was generally a total dude (or at least he was until he descended into heroin-addled rubbishness and died. Stay off the drugs.)

2) Number 2 that week was the Sex Pistols "God Save The Queen", and a lot of commentators are pretty sure that the chart officials rigged it to save the British public's morals.

So there you go. Danny Whitten, the archetypal rock junkie & Neil Young's best friend, wrote the cheesy sadsack ballad that kept punk from hitting #1. Well, it's better to burn out than it is to rust.

Crazy Horse – I Don't Want To Talk About It on Spotify.

Rubbish joke:

Snow White received a camera as a gift. She happily took pictures of her friends the dwarves, the beautiful forestry, the cottage, the queen, etc. When she finished her first batch she took the film to be developed. After a week or so she went to get the finished photos. The clerk said the photos were not back from the processor.

Needless to say, she was disappointed, and being a bitchy drama queen, she started to cry. The clerk, trying to console her, said,

"Don't worry. Someday your prints will come".

(literally that's the first joke that comes up if you google "rubbish jokes").

(also, has anyone read Neil Gaiman's version of Snow White from his short story collection? it's great).

See you this summer! (Unless you don't live in the UK or aren't coming to a show, in which case, enjoy the sunshine. Unless it's not sunny where you are. Etc.)

JW