I’m sitting in Heathrow with an hour or so before my flight to Seattle so thought I’d put up a wee post. We’re heading off for a tour of North America, with Born Ruffians playing most of the dates with us, as well as appearing on Jimmy Kimmel and David Letterman. Coachella is in a few days and we’re playing on the same day as the guy I got my middle name from and Leonard Cohen, who I’m particularly looking forward to seeing. My ex-ex-girlfriend was obsessed with Leonard Cohen and used to give me tea and oranges on the unmade bed of her candlelit room, singing along to every word. Her ambition was to be one of his backing singers, but now works with the great Alasdair Gray instead, who recently had a long-lost mural rediscovered underneath years of wallpaper in a New Lanark pub.


We played Later With Jools Holland last week and were sitting in our dressing room at BBC centre on the day of the show when a guy with a pork pie hat wandered in.
Hi, I’m Lynval, I’m just having a look around.
Hi I’m Alex, I’m a big fan, this is Paul, Nick etc…
I realised who he was straight away. He was Lynval Golding, guitarist of the Specials who were also appearing on the show.
The last time I was in this room was when we played Ghost Town on Top Of The Pops in 1981. We played the show, came down here and split the band up. I haven’t been here since...
They were all really lovely guys. They're playing Brixton Academy which has to be the gig of the year.

I love playing Later. I can’t think of another show where you hang around with legendary musicians like that. Carole King was on the show and hearing her sing those beautiful songs a few feet from me was incredible. It was the first tv show we ever appeared on and we were terrified. The show usually starts with all the musicians jamming together which was a wee bit intimidating, especially for Bob who had only picked up the bass a few months earlier.
It’s a jam in G said Jools.
WTF does that mean?” said Bob.
Paul pointed at the third fret of his thickest string and told him to hit it in time with the drums. This time we opened the jam, with Bob playing the line from Lucid Dreams, telling the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Carole King, The Mummers and The Specials that it’s in C sharp minor. You’ve changed, Bob. You’ve changed.

We have covered Heisa Ho, by the Dutch punk band De Kift, who are covering Love and Destroy themselves for a split single. Both versions are very different from the originals. De Kift are writing songs for a musical version of The Master and Margarita, which inspired the lyrics for Love and Destroy – the chapter when Margarita flies over Moscow, destroying the apartments of the enemies of her lover. The lyrics of Heisa Ho were based on the song from Much Ado About Nothing about the treachery of men: Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more; Men were deceivers ever; One foot in sea and one on shore; To one thing constant never. Oh aye, it’s true ladies, it’s true. Dream Again from our last album was based on a song from the Tempest - Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments will hum about mine ears and sometimes voices. Nick had written some music for a friend of his who was putting on a production of it. The song and sentiment are beautiful, but you feel like a bit of a burke trying to sing Elizabethan English with a rock group, so the lyrics were rewritten.

When we were at the NME awards I met Victoria Little Boots. I’ve remixed her great new single New In Town as a version called No-one Is Safe. I made it in a similar way to the Blood lp of alternative versions of our last lp, which Domino has just released. It’s still my favourite way to listen to the record.

It’s almost thirty years since the first British general election that I can remember. I recall asking my mother who she was going to vote for as she was getting ready to walk to my school which was a polling station  and being frustrated because she said it was a secret ballot, so wouldn’t tell me. She put her lipstick on and after pausing said all that really mattered was that it wasn’t going to be her. Unfortunately, she was in the minority. It was the first act in a two part drama that was completed in 1997 when Tony Blair invited the cream of Britpop to Downing Street to clink their champagne glasses with his and toast the death of British Socialism.