Thursday 22 October 2009

Updating..updating..updating

Right then, news and plans for the end of this year and next year (heavens!)

I have done a bit of singering on the forthcoming Kings Cross vinyl single Every Sentimental Moment available here

that's released on the 2nd of November

An ep of 3 songs that weren't included on Talking With Strangers, and one song of Sand Snowman's that I have sung on will be released in January

It will be called 'Fragile'

And my own single with Tim, Grey October Day will be released in October January as well :-)


Tim (the Crooner) and Alistair (the Curator) and I will be working on my next album currently called Jude2 until we think of something better! I expect there will be more collaborations with startlingly nice people.....

I have also just begun to work on a collaboration with the lovely Lee Fletcher and the fantastic Markus Reuter on music that will probably be extraordinary and different..

Talking With Strangers is being released in the US, Australia,France, and Scandinavia early next year

And we will be releasing a vinyl re-issue of the first Trader Horne album, 'Morning Way' early next year

And there are more odd things in the pipeline...to be continued

Thursday 15 October 2009

Sad

It is an uncomfortable thing when people fall out, as sadly I seem to have done with the creator of the illustrations in the inlay booklet of Talking With Strangers. He requested that he should do the illustrations and I was delighted for him to do so and very beautiful they were, although they were his interpretations of the songs and not mine. I was a little perturbed, that, having agreed that he could write in his blog about how the work was progressing, that he was posting the illustrations wherever he could on the internet, thus removing one of the nicer surprises of the release. But what was done was done. And a couple of times I had to remind him that it was my album and that the drawings were definitely secondary to the music and not the other way round.
So all was well and under the terms of the contract copies of the album were sent to him after release, many more than he had asked for, and because the first box didn't arrive, more were sent to him in the USA where he lives. No more was heard, so the assumption was that they had arrived. But they hadn't as I discovered from reading his blog of yesterday and he has been really quite unpleasant about me and this has been most upsetting. I have commented on his blog, but it probably won't be allowed to appear... As he was also really quite offensive to Jon the manager, and was not happy to have his work on the US release, I have decided to take all his work off the inlay booklet and replace it with something else for all future releases. So this is very sad when a working relationship goes wrong. I have tried to fix it, but c'est la vie....

Onwards and upwards eh?

Thursday 1 October 2009

It's......October..

...and I haven't written a thing for ages..

So what have I been up to? Well I got on a train and went to London one fine September day, I met up with the lovely Stuart E at Marylebone and we set off through the tunnels of the underground to Old St where I was to meet and do a short interview with Robert Elms, for British Airways. To go on the in-flight audio whatsit that gets played to all the passengers (if they're not watching the film, that is). There would be a review of Talking With Strangers interspersed with nattering from me.. I knew I should have made sure beforehand that everyone knew that Dyble rhymes with libel and not scribble, so I had to interrupt Mr Elms and say 'errrr sorry that's a bit wrong'. Hated doing that but there you go.... He seemed happy about it and we nattered about this that and the other, and then back on the tube and the train and home... Hope it was ok but I haven't heard anything more about it so no news is good news..

An old friend from my primary school days contacted me and came up to visit with her husband and have meal at the pub with me. It was lovely to be nattering after (good grief!) 50 odd years, but lovely too, our lives have some interesting coincidences.
Then another radio interview, this time with Roger 'Twiggy' Day at Radio Kent. He was very nice and it was only later that I realised just how far back in my radio-listening he had been a part of, Radio Luxembourg and the Pirate Radio Caroline and the early days of Radio One (I think) as well...

Through facebook I have been virtually introduced to Jackie Morris whose wonderful status updates just flow like magical streams of consciousness, but with the added piquancy of her wit and practicality. I swapped a signed CD for a copy of her latest book 'Tell Me a Dragon' and I think I got the best of the bargain because it is a totally glorious book. I think it is aimed at very young children, but I suspect it would become a favourite and would be a treasured book forever. When Freya gets bigger, I shall read it to her, but I might have to buy her her own copy because I love this one so much. And anyway Jackie has drawn me a singing dragon of my very own on the title page..
I hope to be collaborating with her in the near future. How lovely will that be?

I am also looking out songs and ideas for the next album, which feels odd because Talking With Strangers is only just out into the world, but that's how it has to be. The vinyl version has just been released as well and is now available from Tonefloat. There is a signed postcard in each copy and there are only 500 copies for sale of this beautiful thing..

The CD will be released in the USA and in Australia in January and talks are going on for Japan and France . And Scandinavia. Well well. Who'd have thought?

Oh yes.. I have done a bit of singing on a new single release from Kings Cross, called 'Every Sentimental Moment' That's released in November.. and somewhere along the line, Grey October Day will be released as a single. Should be in October shouldn't it? Well we'll see.....

Onwards and upwards... Whizzy sends a toothless snore to you all... :-)