Happy New Year!!!

2009 is getting off to a good start, with two reviews in British music magazines in which "The Devil on the Stairs" received 4 stars out of 5 - one in Maverick and one by renowned music journalist Nick West in Rock'n'Reel. The album is due to be released in France at the end of January, distributed by Socadisc, and through Koch Distribution in the USA on March 24th.
Mark is heading for the States in mid-February with his band Two Dollar Bash (www.myspace.com/twodollarbash or www.twodollarbash.net) to play showcases at two prestigious festivals/conferences, the Folk Alliance in Memphis (Feb 18-22) and South by Southwest (March 18-22). This is the third successive year that TDB has been invited  to SXSW, which is widely regarded as one of the most important live music events in the world.

Two Dollar Bash's third album, "Lost River" will be released in May in the Benelux territories by Dutch label CoraZong, to coincide with a tour of the Netherlands and Belgium.

The album "Golden Vanity", by Nikki Sudden and Phil Shoenfelt, which was recorded in Berlin in 1998 and features Mark on mandola and backing vocals, is due to be released on Easy Action Records in the spring (www.easyaction.co.uk) The recording, which had been lost for a number of years, was recently rediscovered and mastered. Easy Action have also released a compilation album, enigmatically entitled "The Fabulous Rachel Moss Album", which features Mark's song "Don't Want to Hear you Laugh" alongside tracks by Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, T Rex, MC5, the Stooges, Judee Sill, Mike Watt and Steve Marriott.
Mark played on a number of recordings by Nikki before his untimely death in 1996, including Nikki's last album, "The Truth Doesn't Matter"
Mark contributed a mandola track to the forthcoming album by Belgian band Inneke 23 and the Lipstick Painters, due to be released by CoraZong on February 23rd

A cover of "Don't Want to Hear you Laugh" is being recorded by Sharla June and the Mayhaws (www.myspace.com/sharlajune), a great band from Tallahassee, Florida. Versions of the song have already appeared on albums by The Lazy Pigs in Prague and George Stott in Scotland.