Radio Radio

I shall be nattering on  Wolverhampton Community Radio tonight.

It's on between 10pm and midnight on 101.8 WCR FM which is Wolverhampton's Community Radio Station available in that area on 101.8 FM and everywhere else at http://www.wcrfm.com/

I have no idea what I shall say - it depends on the questions... :-)

Otherwise all is going well the album is in repress and it has featured in two 'Best of 2009' critic's charts in Classic Rock presents Prog.. I am really delighted...

Harpsong is in the running for a much admired Hancock Award on the Talkawhile forum for 'Best Original Song' and that has delighted me even more..

The songs for the new album are coming together and plans are afoot for a one-off Trader Horne re-union gig later this year.. Gulp!

An Excellent Book

A very quick post to publicise a book that Search Press are producing to help their daughter's, (my niece) school to raise money to build a school in Ghana

Here is a link to Search Press and the book is only £4.99.

Excellent eh?

New Year - New Adventures

A very happy New Year to everyone (anyone!)  who reads this..I suspect it will be full of lovely things and possibly scary things, of joyful things and a few sad things, of daft things and annoying things...much like most years really, but with the added excitement of the unknown. So I will be very positive and say that I am looking forward to it.
My New Year's resolution is that I will stop using the word 'that' when I really mean to say 'who', unless of course when I really do mean that. Like just now for instance. I'm confusing myself now...

I have been doing a little bit of singing for one of the new album songs, but I have no idea how it will fit where it needs to be fitted...and I am impatiently waiting to hear the melody for another song. So I am in a kind of limbo. Waiting for things to appear and trying not to be too impatient because I do know that these things take time and drumming my fingers won't help at all. Or stamping my feet. Actually stamping my feet might warm them up . It's freezing tonight.. I took Whizzy on her last walk of the day just now and the frost was thick and sparkling under the moon.

Somewhere else, the question was asked. 'What were you doing 10 years ago?'
My children were away from home, both had sweethearts (who they subsequently married) I had been widowed for 6 years and was just getting the hang of being on my own with dogs for company.. I had no internet connection or indeed a computer that it could be connected to, for anything I wanted to type in a straight line, I used my trusty old BBC B computer with a huge printer..

I was working in the library as a casual assistant so I got called in when they needed extra hands. I loved that job, no responsibilities, books all over the place and lovely people to work with..and I had no intention of singing again, apart from the one speedy re-appearance at Cropredy to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the band...
The island pond field where I had walked my dogs for years, had been bought by the village and the Woodland Trust from the developers that who had tried unsuccessfully for years to build 300 houses on it, and the whole field was now full of newly planted twigs in plastic protectors  that would in ten years time become a respectable young wood of forty-foot trees (or possibly more - I can't judge that sort of thing) and where I would find songs hanging in the wind for me to play with. But ten years ago that was all in the future.

So. Ten years later I am still on my own with a dog, smaller and scruffier than ever (me, not the dog,they just get more elegant and graceful), but with four albums created, the latest of which is the one I am most proud of. The others may see the light of day again one day. I may redo some of the songs because they are almost 'there', but not quite... but then againI may leave them as they are -  a snapshot of my past. And I did fall in love again briefly, but it was a fragile thing that had no air to breathe. But who knows what is in the future? I am continually curious....

New artwork, new releases, new things...

Now this is such a cheating thing to do.. I have cut and pasted all the following info from my myspace blog. 

Talk about lazy......

 Well, to celebrate various releases of the album in different far flung places in the world, as you will see, the artwork for Talking With Strangers has had a complete overhaul. Thanks to John Hurford and Koldo Barroso for the lovely images on the first UK version (which is all but sold out now) and so the next UK pressing, and the Scandinavian release (Termo Records, Jan 25th 2010) now features the simply lovely artwork of the very talented Jackie Morris. please do check her website out -

The new version has an extensive booklet, featuring stunning gold leaf backed paintings, in the style of the front cover you can see.







Please do support Termo if you are in the wintry reaches of Northern Europe, and especially as that version has a currently exclusive bonus track 'Fragile'. You will be able to buy the album from all good record shops throughout Scandinavia.



Right, what else? Well, recording continues with Lee Fletcher and Markus Reuter, we have the beginnings of 6 songs now, which sound absolutely lovely, and we will be continuing to work on those over the winter.



Recording has also started in earnest with Tim Bowness and Alistair Murphy for the follow up to TWS, so far, we have one song written with Julianne Regan which is as wonderful as you might hope it would be, and 3 others in various states of readiness. I will keep you updated on progress...



Live shows in 2010. Yes, (gulp!) you read that right, I am likely to do 2 or 3 festivals next year, with a very special line up. More news on that early next year.



It is also very possible that Jack and I will reform for a one off Trader Horne reunion show, and that will be quite enough live singing for one year, thank you very much.



Finally for now, 2010 will see a re-issue of the Trader Horne album on vinyl, which rather wonderfully will include exact replicas of the two very hard to find vinyl singles. I am told this will be in March, and details of how to order will be available soon.

Oh, and the small matter of the 'single' from TWS, the Fragile box set, a compilation with a song of mine on for the very clever man who formed Creation Records, and TWS to be released in the USA, France, Australia, and Japan.

Retirement seems a very long time ago.....

'Best of 2009' -- well that's what it says

HMV in Manchester have got TWS in their Best of 2009 'Specialist music' rack!

Isn't that lovely!! I've got a picture of it if I can figure out how to post it.....

Last Week - Meetings and Songs and Workings...

Last week Markus Reuter and Lee Fletcher came to stay for a couple of days. I had met Lee for the first time at the 100 club launch, but Markus I had never met, although I had been exchanging emails and messages via myspace and facebook for a long time..

This was to be a pretty intensive recording and writing session with the hope of creating some interesting music, Lee had been writing music for some of my words and I had been writing words for some of Markus' music so this was a chance to put everything together and see what happened...

They were both delightful visitors and we got on famously (I think!). The Pink room was once again filled with musical instruments and bits of electronic machinery and cables and pieces of paper with scribbles and transpositions and extra additional words.

The end result was the beginnings of 6 seperate songs, one of which was a cover, but the others were all new.. I love this bit, when ideas are being formed and harmonies and dissonant chord sequences are being invented, taking shape and becoming surprising and delightful bases for the songs to grow on..
They both left on Friday to go to London where the album 'This Fragile Moment' was being launched at the Estonian Embassy. Produced by Markus and mastered by Lee, it features Markus, Toyah Willcox, Chris Wong (both from 'the Humans')and two Estonian musicians, Robert Jurjendal and Arvo Urb

It's lovely, as is the album that Markus has produced for Chrysta Bell

It's so good to be working with such creative musicians :-)

And I hope to start working on Jude2 with Alistair, very soon.
Coooo!

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