The new EP of my live concert with the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast will be available from the tour! (and then later from the website for those unable to make it)

It's strange to be getting ready for a tour at this time of year.  A voice within me is saying "what are you doing going out there at this time of year....let's just light the fire and hibernate". To which I reply "sorry little voice, no can do...duty calls. Cleaners are still cleaning, drivers are still driving, road workers are still working on roads, baristas are still making coffee and those of us that aren't good at anything normal in life are going on tour". I've often wondered, if I was good at anything else would I be as committed to music?  I don't know that I would.  Early last year I genuinely considered studying carpentry and having that as my main stay and letting music be my hobby.  A hobby that needn't pay the rent. I think I considered it for about a week before realising it would be the death of me. I can be so fickle sometimes.  I spent my life thinking how great it would be to make music for a living and do nothing else and then the second it happened I began to think how great it would be to do something else for a living and make music on the side.  I don't feel like that now though.  I've found my place in the whole affair.  The peaks and troughs of the music industry are part of it's challenging charm.  I did a gig a the weekend in Belfast for ATL.  It was nick named the 'recession sessions', all about hard times.  Playing there really made sense.  In every recession the one thing you can rely on, as being important to the people, is music.  Music always does well in recession.  I don't mean that in the mercenary sense, like there's a killing to be made or anything.  What I mean is, it can somehow re-establish the importance of music.  The power of music.  There's real solace in music.  Healing qualities; redemptive qualities, if you will.

I can't imagine that there is anyone out there reading this that doesn't have a record that you put on when you're feeling down and need a lift, feeling nostalgic and want to go somewhere through a song.  Or when you a record comes on somewhere, and you're instantly somewhere else... another place, another time;  breaking up with a partner, meeting a new one, saying goodbye to college friends and so on.  I don't hear this song often, but anytime I do hear 'Get out of My Dreams, get into my car' by Billy Ocean, I'm instantly 15 years old, drunk on a shared bottle of cider, in the Matinee Club in Bangor and dancing with Louise Edgar.  I even get that sickly feeling in the stomach that you got when you first started engaging with members of the opposite sex (or the same sex, depending on how your cookie crumbles).

Anyway, enough reminiscing...although  if you fancy doing a bit of that yourself then feel free to tell all in the comments section; what song and why.... this is turning into a sort of radio show phone in eh!

If you want to hear the 'Recession Sessions on ATL' then click the link. 

There are a few dates missing from the advert above, namely:
26th Portsmouth
4th Limerick
5th Cork
6th Dublin
9th Belfast - with Snow Patrol (not doing my own set, just playing with the guys....at least I thnk that's the case...come and find out...assuming there are tickets left)


See you somewhere on the road...f

p.s. I'm using a street team for selling CDs and T-Shirts on this tour and if you want to be involved and get free entry for you plus one and some free stuff then, speak to Paul by clicking here.