TV is off…

Sorry for the ridiculous delay in posting - nearly three months. I’m going to adopt the Leo Abrahams model and post once a month… hopefully in that amount of time I can scramble enough hit and miss nonsense to fill a couple of paragraphs, rather than let the blog languish in the appalling void it has become of late.

I love these summer evenings. There’s something really magical about sitting out in a suburban London garden at night after one of those super-warm days. A smell, a gentle drift of wind and sound, windows open in the neighbourhood. If you have a fine Scotch in hand, it only serves to accentuate the joy of this banal beauty. The rain will come back and it will return to what is more familiar, but I’ve enjoyed the heatwave. Plus it made Wimbledon all the more magical.

So what news? On the music front, its been cool. I’ve been getting quite excited about doing some more stuff recently - from getting guitars out and practicing, to working with Apple demonstrating MainStage, to producing and mixing some new stuff for myself and some others… and MONIO (more in a sec).

I was very inspired after working - albeit briefly - with Foy on his EPs. I just found a clarity in helping Foy complete the work himself… that’s all it took. He acknowledged it with the lovely gesture of giving me copies 1/1000 of both the EPs… which I found very moving.

I am delighted an idea of mine from years ago - MONIO :: Music Of Northern Irish Origin (yes, its a twist on MOBO :: Music Of Black Origin) - has taken shape and become a real living, breathing festival taking place in Belfast in August.

I got as far as doing a rather poor site, but came up with a logo that I thought worked quite well. But that’s as far as I got. You know how it goes - other stuff just takes over and before you know where you are, these cool ideas are under a pile. However, that rather compelling chap by the name of Foy Vance would just never let me forget it, would never lie down and let the concept die, and the engine in the operation has been provided by the mighty Paul Hamilton. Its pleasing that we were all in Foy’s band for a while, and are good mates… and Paul’s skills in just making things happen have been in force in no small measure.

David Holmes is headlining the first night, Iain Archer the second, and some other excellent acts are lined up - Wallis Bird, The 4 Of Us, Ed Zealous, And So I Watch You From Afar, Five Ants… the list goes on. There’s more on this over at the official MONIO website, so I shan’t go on too much. For me personally its been quite a journey listening to the music of all the bands taking part. I knew there was some serious talent spilling out of Belfast, but I really wasn’t aware of the extent - so many great bands with attitude, vibe and some great songs and playing. I want the MONIO site to become a real showcase for all that over the next 12 months or so.

Alan van Kleef and I have been back at the desk mixing a new record for Burning Codes which is to be released later this summer. I worked with Alan during the mixing of Sayonara Deadweight, and it was just great fun… so I was delighted when he came on board for “The Codes”. Jules Maxwell and I produced the record together on our Wednesday night rendezvous up at the studio - tremendously free sessions using Paul Archer’s original vocals but writing and recording completely new arrangements from scratch to explore the beauty of Paul’s work. The first mix was completed last night and I’m genuinely really happy with how it is sounding.

I did some backing vocals for what I think is a cracking new track by Leo Abrahams. His new album is going to be stunning - if the songs I’ve heard are anything to go by. I shan’t say any more, as I’m not sure he’s ready to talk about it yet.

I have also been working on some of my own stuff. The core of the material is what started life as the “cinematic playout” from Sayonara Deadweight that Jules (as producer) ultimately decided would not be a part of the album - a good decision, I think. But its making for a fun and groove-filled piece of work now. I’m releasing it for free, hopefully in August, as an application.

Web-wise, things have been busy at G-RAFF as we are preparing to deploy a nice little app for Hotels.com as well as finishing some other stuff that’s been in the pipeline for months. I’m hoping for a lull in the workload so I can brush up on some new skills and, like every other self-respecting developer, learn how to code iPhone apps. I insisted about 4 years ago that all albums would be released as apps eventually, and I still think I can see it coming. As someone who loves both music and coding, I am excited about trying to do some cool things in this sphere.

TV is back on. My wife is watching a replay of the tennis final from today - awesome stuff. Congratulations to Mr Federer, the physical poet of the grass court. It was a very enjoyable match, during which my father, missus and I consumed nearly a whole bottle of Pimms (the cucumber and fresh mint mix - the best in my opinion). Game, set & match…

A couple of years ago, Foy recorded a version of one of his songs called “Stoke My Fire”, on his own with limited equipment, and it was just stunning. Our friend Big Ken Haddock (whose photography is something you should see before you die - love the latest series from his trip to the USA) used to talk of how he would be driving over the back road from Belfast listening to it in tears. And it was awesome… an edgy sound which, although technically not great, was layered with vibe and feel. Anyway - this recording is not available to the public so I shall stop going on about it and get to the point.

He has recaptured that feel on every track of these new EPs. It will surprise some people, but the man is so mercurial and talented - able to change his sound like a chameleon - that this is no bad thing.

I liked his album “Hope”, but somehow I felt it was missing the essence of Foy in a lot of places, and was never able to put my finger on why that was. Maybe it was just the fact that he wasn’t fully “let loose” to do what he does… but no such accusations can be levelled at these new recordings. He has thrown so many elements in - beautiful guitar playing, wonderful layered harmonies, left-field arrangements and just an overall sense of purpose that it left me speechless.

Leo brought a fantastic touch to some of the songs that have been around for a long while - particularly “Itchy Feet” which is jawdroppingly spacious and beautiful thanks to a phenomenally tasteful piece of slide guitar playing (of Foy’s original part). There is one piece called “Time Lays Low” which evolves into something truly beautiful. Its the musical equivalent of watching a magnificent sunrise… and offset by “Portraits of Ailsa Craig” which feels like standing on the Scottish shore by night, gazing at the silhouette of the track’s namesake out on the ocean with twinkling ships’ lights on the horizon. Mystical and mysterious, a ballad to the soul of the artist.

I could go on. But this feels like I’m trying to tell you how brilliant people you don’t know are… it just doesn’t work until you meet them. The only problem is that these EPs are only available for now at the gigs on his tour, and there are only 1000 of each. I don’t think they’ll last. If you do get a chance to see him on this tour, go and do it. He’s in an interesting space, and I think the tour will provide magic for those open to it. And whatever you do, if you DO go, do not leave the building without these records.

So I spoke to a nice girl on the ring road outside Bangor (where Sainsbury’s customer service is now located) who kindly reorganised the delivery for a week from that day.

It arrived tonight. This would have been good, as I was ready for a nice glass of red, but Sainsburys managed to mangle my sanity.

I discovered a neat little trick on their part - a lovely little condition buried under bad web design and ambiguous copy even when you find it - that you actually pay the price of the item on your delivery date. This is laughably insane. The offer had expired since I checked out, and the price I paid at checkout was absolutely meaningless. I was charged the full price for the wine - £10 a bottle, so an extra £120!!

Even when you read the terms on their site it says :

Add to your trolley the stated combination of products from the list below and you’ll only be charged the offer price at checkout.

Is it just me, or does that imply that when I check out, I get the offer?

As far as I am concerned, this is in line with all other websites, and is what the user expects. If I buy something at Amazon that is on offer, I check out and I get the offer price. I don’t wait a week for delivery to discover that in the intervening period, the special offer has expired and therefore I have to pay full price. That’s how things work, right? Not at Sainsbury’s. Its ridiculous. And combined with their rule about bulk orders taking an extra week, it seems particularly unfair. Never once in any email or conversation with customer services was this fact mentioned.

Sainsbury’s web designers also seem to have an issue with usability. They use the same elements in their pages - sometimes as ‘information’ graphics, sometimes as buttons that link to crucial information. As far as I know, pathfinding should be made clear. On one page (I will not put a link, as that would work in their favour), there is a little graphic:

It is not clickable. Yet on another page, there is exactly the same image - but this time it IS clickable, and in fact is the very thing the girl at customer services I spoke to tonight told me was the essential link to find out the terms of the offer. Appalling design… and misleading.

I am aware that what I describe above is a bit of a “grumpy old man” whinge about something that is not very important in the grand scheme of things. But I just felt the urge to make sure this information was on the web… along with a strong advisory note to stay away from Sainburys Online Shopping bollocks, and use Ocado instead, who are much more efficient and present their offers without ambiguity.

I’ve succumbed to Twitter (alarmingly, for both G-RAFF and personal). I actually find it quite lightweight and fun, in the same way I find Facebook utterly invasive. I’ve actually started writing a Flash API wrapper for it, just for a bit of fun on the side. Hopefully, FlashTwitter will make it easier for people to use Twitter in Flash apps, with features like being able to add TwitPic (listen to me!!! What have I become?) images right into the posts.

In days gone by, I used to write letters. It took most of an evening, often accompanied by a scotch and music… but I enjoyed it so much. The person to whom I was writing would become my evening. The ritual of sealing the letter in an envelope (I was a bit of a geek with stationery) and heading off to post it was always something to look forward to - particularly when I was living in Japan, and the postbox took me on a night walk by paddy fields filled with that most romantic sound of the cicadas chirping, some fireflies in the sky.

Then email came along, and it was much easier to “drop someone a line” - much shorter, quicker. Now we have updates that are a couple of lines long, in Facebook and Twitter etc. Your day mapped out in chunks of 140 characters, filled with shorthand and crunched links that are meaningless until you click them. This post’s URL is http://bit.ly/BzsS for example. Clever but ugly. People laud it as a business tool, but I don’t buy it.

Actually, I am beginning to think that my approach to web design is so far away from the current trend as to be laughable. Call me old fashioned, but I actually think that striking designs and memorable ideas are where we get our inspiration, not tactically thought-out sites where the information is presented in a clear, easy-to-follow fashion which has been rigourously tested in Google Analytics to make sure it gets the most clicks. To put it bluntly, fuck that… I have no interest. If everything in our lifetimes had been designed like people approach websites, the world would be a pretty dull place.

One of the sites we did that still gets us a lot of referrals is the site we did for Rhubarb Food Design a few years ago. Its completely OTT - even we knew that as we were doing it (a gold-leafed theatre - in Flash - made of rhubarb leaves with curtains made of rhubarb and all kinds of mayhem). But at least it was a memorable homepage. No trace of “We are a food design company based in London. We really do wonderful canapés” in large text. There’s too much of that around right now.

Music has been great. Jules Maxwell and I have been working on a new record for Burning Codes and its been inspirational. Leo Abrahams came down the other night and did what Leo does best - bamboozle you with a heady combination of outrageous wizardry and earthbound humility. Jules’s brief to encapsulate “the spirit of a provincial firework display” was handled with grace, elegance and yielded a marvellous result. Jules’s description reminded me of a time when a singer (now excellent artist) Louise Wallace asked me to create a sound on my SH-101… “You know if a comet was approaching the earth and you were out in the desert. And just as it was approaching the edge of the atmosphere you began to hear something, but as the sound formed in your head, it turned and flew away… can you get that sound?” She was incredible.

I’ve been asked to go on tour with the mighty Brendan Perry later this year, which should be amazing, if I can just figure out a way to do it. The old “where there’s a will there’s a way” adage will hopefully come to my rescue. I’d love to do it. At least it would give me something to Twitter about.

I heard the news on Radio 4 that John Martyn died today, aged 60.

I’m sure tributes will be flying around all over the place… well-deserved for the most part. What an incredible musician and songwriter…

I was lucky enough to get to play on stage with him one night. Juliet Turner had been supporting him for three nights in the Temple Bar Music Centre in Dublin, and I was in her band. On the last night, John decided to wander back up on to the stage and do a few tunes, and I was asked to play bass - for some amazing old-school JM tunes - Solid Air, Over the Hill. I will never forget the intense gaze - whether deeply alcohol-fuelled or not, it reached for a thousand miles in pure darkness - as I played music with the man.

During the USA Fleadh season of 1999, I was touring the USA with Eleanor McEvoy, a wonderfully lovely Irish singer-songwriter from Dublin. Every week, our dressing room tent was sandwiched between Beth Orton and John Martyn. Niall Toner (the guitarist on that tour) and myself used to wander up and watch John’s gigs in sheer amazement - one man with his Les Paul gold top, swaying in the evening breeze, cool as anything, playing this phenomenal music. In San Francisco, he helped us out by opening bottles of beer with his teeth when we found there was no opener… a well-known party trick of his, I’m sure, but a novelty for the likes of me.

As I was picking Luka up from nursery tonight, just after I heard the news, I got out of the car, to see the most beautiful crescent moon and one bright star in the sky. It just seemed to sum up everything I was feeling… this guy is dead and once more, the beauty of life and all its transience, its fragility, seems more than I can bear.

As John sings at the end of a song called “Father Time” on the Cooltide album, “I won’t go ’til I’m ready and you won’t catch me I won’t go ’til I’m ready…” Guess he was ready.

So here goes.

I’m sitting in the kitchen, semi-comatose after a monstrous feast in Chinatown with my in-laws. The extractor fan is humming away, as Di’s mum is brewing “hung-dao tong-sui” - a bizarre sweet soup that my son just adores. He was so excited on hearing that it was being made that he could hardly sleep. Chinatown was beautiful - thousands of red lanterns hanging over Gerrard Street and a great buzz about the place made the winter air come alive. Upstairs in the Golden Dragon it was absolutely manic and wonderful. I always love the trek home afterwards - down through Leciester Square to Charing Cross station, over the Thames with that magnificent view of the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, St Pauls on the other side. It feels like London, and I’m just that wide-eyed tourist kid from Northern Ireland all over again.

Like I said to Foy, there has so much beauty and horror in the media recently its just hard to keep breathing. From the Belgian creche where, in an unthinkable act of inhuman behaviour a crazed 20-year-old killed toddlers, to the Californian hospital where eight new lives began at once, from the chimpanzee leaving the White House to the man entering it, there seems no end to the chaos that makes up this thing we call “life”. Deep in forests elsewhere, cermonies happen and hunted food gets eaten, and none of this means anything. I am back in the dream, waking, walking.

I have no idea if my resolutions for this year mean anything either - in a nutshell… less wine, more music. Its kicked off well - Jules Maxwell and I have just commenced our production work for a new Burning Codes record, which is very exciting. I am hoping to finish two albums this year, although one is a one-off piece for a friend and is unlikely to see the light of day unless he chooses to release the bootleg.

I have to press “publish” on this now or it will languish again in the “drafts” folder…

I’m doing a gig this Friday night at St. Olave’s church near Tower Hill in London. Five Ants and Jules Maxwell will be there and we’ll all be doing a few tracks each… and for sure it will be a fine evening.

It starts at 8pm. Its on a donation basis, and any money raised will be going to help the church get some new lights… but you will get a free glass of wine, so the suggested amount is £10.

Things are as they ever were under this roof. I’m sipping a cup of tea, sitting scanning through an iTunes selection of some stuff I’m going to put on my new record - possibly even tonight when Foy Vance and I gather to finally drink the Nuits Saint-Georges I’ve been hoarding, and do some recording. We will laugh and have a good time, as always… but yet it seems the underlying system of Western capitalism really is crashing to the ground.

I find this tremdously exciting. Please don’t think for one second I’m sitting some immune position… I have no idea what to expect, but I’m just reacting viscerally to the news, and that’s how it feels. I probably won’t be saying that if my company goes under or we lose the house.

My favourite quote today, from the BBC:

But the president has been wholly ineffectual in the crisis so far and it is difficult to see how that might change, says the BBC’s North America correspondent Justin Webb.

No shit, Sherlock. Its embarrassing listening to that chimpanzee trying to commentate on anything, never mind take part in discussions to save the American economy.

This is the title of the new album by Brian Eno and David Byrne. It made me relatively pleased to actually check in and see my name in the credits - guitars on on four tracks - link here. It sounds great, actually. Leo Abrahams did a lot of production work on it, so I’m not bloody surprised.

I had a nice time doing a couple of events for Apple last week, demonstrating Logic Studio - which, and I must promise this is not a partisan or promotion-led comment - is an amazing piece of software for the money. I had to rebuild one of my tracks (Happytown) using only Logic’s software instruments and effects. I feared the worst, thinking I would be left with a “preset” sounding track - but it came out sounding really cool, and digging deep into some of the features was extremely rewarding. Its got me fired up and ready to get on with the next record, which will be a refinement of tracks and ideas we were going to put into the “audacious playout” for Sayonara Deadweight before Jules decided it was not appropriate for the album, despite the fact that it was his idea in the first place. Which is why I love Jules… he is led by the spirit of work as it is created, always willing to change.

Reactions to Sayonara Deadweight have continued to come in - and are very favourable. Stars and Satellites has been a consistent favourite, but other than that, people have been picking different tracks as their top tunes, which for me is the key. I’ve just enjoyed the process so much I can’t tell you.

Normally I leave the political comment and analysis to my grandfather’s blog, but I just have to say that its been an incredible time in the world of late. It got so insane it almost made me laugh - is THIS what life has come down to after all these millions of years of evolution? We’re unable to deal with the forces of nature that killed our ancestors - hurricanes, floods and sickness - turning a blind eye as our governments keep their focus firmly fixed on our ludicrous, fragile monetary systems as they fall to pieces.

I watched in excited awe as the towering institutions of American mega-finance came crashing down, victims of their own irresponsibility and greed - not to mention some of their employees’ willingness to gamble ever-increasing amounts of (non-existent) money to feed their egos, their lifestyles and ruthless self-obsession without a single thought for anyone else. The only depressing thing is that most of these reprehensible city scumbags have made their money and got out - the big houses, Ferraris and helicopter commuting is safe, and its some other poor sod’s job to clean up the mess. Looks more and more likely that poor sod will be me and every other taxpayer who hasn’t a clue how this all began, how it will end, or why it was allowed to get this far in the first place.

It also strikes me as extraordinary that in the final analysis, this reckless gambling in the hope of outrageous profits gets propped up by the government when it all goes wrong. A good friend of mine in Hong Kong has been sending me interesting (but complex) articles on economics, as I am trying to get to grips with how the system functions at a deep level. The more I read, the more I realise that financial engineering is the true, modern day answer to alchemy - except its not just turning lead into gold, its actually turning NOTHING into gold. The entire model of the western economy is built on nothing, on the vacuum that exists between mathematics and risk… the idea of “notional dollars” - where, using the mortgage example, vast debts are bought with great big IOUs in the hope that they can be traded easily, pocketing the difference as property values go up.

People have been asking the question “how did anyone think this was sustainable?” - a laughable question that implies some ethical or strategic thinking by the short-selling traders at the end of the deals… forget it. These guys knew all along that when the music stopped in this risky game of “pass the parcel” where every layer was wrapped in cash hiding the bomb beneath, that they would just chuck the parcel over the wall and make a run for it.

So now we’re left with people whingeing about how the government in the UK should step in to help people hit by the “credit crunch”. For the citizens of this country who genuinely need the help, I can see why a proper system of establishing how much money they need to live on, and delivering it in a timely manner is essential… but for almost everyone else, I have very little sympathy. A lot of people knowingly bought houses they knew they couldn’t really afford when it was boom time, and now things are getting tough, they realise their mistake. In other words, stretching yourself to the limit when interest rates are low and house prices are going up is abject lunacy, and I don’t think you should rely on the government to step in and save your ass. Enough said.

My personal approach to getting through this will be to trust ever more in my freelancer’s mentality of believing that somehow things will be OK. I’ve been this way since I was 21, and guess I always will be. And, at a deeper level, I know that while I have friends and family around us, we will be fine.

Its been brilliant over the past few days - people downloading the record, giving me their thoughts… and many donations, which has quite literally astonished me beyond belief. I am going to make a point of replying personally to everyone who donates - without cutting and pasting.

I have to say, as I have in many of my emails to the contributors, that the feeling of getting a donation is much better than that induced by a sale. You just know that the person at the other end has seen that the record is free, yet decided to pay something. I’ve had everything from £1 to £15 but to be honest, the amount is not important - it will go straight into making more work or pushing “Sayonara” - I just get a warm feeling brought on by the knowledge that they have chosen to pay.

I’m working away on the site, thinking of new ideas and trying to engineer some proper hardcore stuff - like a map-based review system, remixing tools, stem downloads, the thanks page and a few other bits and bobs besides. I just can’t find the time I need to do everything.

I submitted a new mix of my track “Happytown” to Apple today (to a rousing reception), as they’re going to use it in a big Logic Studio demo programme that’s rolling out in the UK in September. I have to go along and take part in the demos, playing some guitar and talking a little about Guitar Rig for Native Instruments. Should be fun.

BORING WINE BIT FOLLOWS… I had a wave of madness a couple of weeks ago and started to clear the cellar, drinking all the wine I have amassed over the past couple of years. Nothing was safe, and its been a wonderful time! Chateau Phelan Ségur ‘04 was good, Chateau Beau-Séjour Becot ‘01 even better, but a 2003 Chateau Kirwan on Saturday night was the highlight - absolutely marvellous - left us reeling with every sip. I have only a couple of bottles left (apart from some I have in a cellar in Devon somewhere) and then I start all over again… there’s a nice Grant Burge “Meschach” from the Barossa Valley and a 2004 Faiveley Nuits-Saint-Georges which is reserved for Foy Vance when the two of us finally get to sit down for an evening.

Right - off to enjoy the last drops of this golden nectar…

Sayonara Deadweight artwork by Gerry Murphy

Behind me in the kitchen I can hear the BBC voiceovers in China as the Olympics begin… trumpets and fanfares, a sea of applause and excitement.

In a much less grandiose way, I have released my new album Sayonara Deadweight into the ether… and yes, the Chinese numerology of “all the 8s” did come into play with my decision. The luckiest day for 100 years… official launch time was 08:08 this morning.

Anyway - this is just a short post to let one and all know that you can get the album now. I’ll be posting again shortly with much more, but as the album has begun… small and organic, expecting nothing, letting its journey unfold step by step.

I am up late, trying to gather a few moments of peace and quiet. We had our second baby (Poppy) on 14th June, and ever since, I’ve been up every morning looking after Luka… the days are much longer now, and its quite tough to keep going at this pace, but we’re stepping on through day by day. I just find that by the time the pups are in bed, its late, and I’m wrecked. I just have to wait until that precious time after the shipping forecast when it becomes truly quiet round here… though right now its swelteringly warm and I want to jump in a pool of cool water. If I lived near the sea, that’s what I would do.

So, not long until the release of Sayonara Deadweight now.

Foy Vance came round last week and laid down some funkier than funky backing vocals. The man is just an outrageous talent - what a voice. He must have sculpted 5 or more different tones to just add a lovely layer of richness to the second half of the track and the playout… I can’t wait to do something more with him. We’re planning to record an acoustic version of “Angels In Drag” as a strange duet - my low voice with his high one - to celebrate his discovery of the true spirit of the song.

Another coup - Gerry Murphy has agreed to let me use a beautiful series of photographs of the old Thompson Dock at Harland & Wolff as cover art (well, there is no cover as such, but you know what I mean)… they are amongst my favourite photographs ever, and perfectly personify the spirit of this record… beauty and rust, the lost souls of long-ago-launched ships, the broken magic of Belfast, the deadweight, the fond farewells to hulks of steel and the men that built those ships.

Its just been mastered by Denis Blackham, and I’m building the website… should be ready on time, though some features for the site might have to evolve, as we’re a bit busy over at G-RAFF just now, trying to finish a multitude of projects. Still, as long as folk can download the album and tell me what they think, I’ll be happy enough. I can’t tell you how good it is to know that this album is going out for free - it takes all pressure off, all worry. I’m getting a similar feeling to when I know I’m going to be handing out Christmas presents. I gave my hairdresser a copy today, on CD.

There are definitely mice up there.

If only I wasn’t allergic to cats.

(Strange one, that. We had pedigree Birmans all through my upbringing, and the house was basically a habitable rug of long silky hairs. Then I went to Japan, and came back after a year hideously allergic to cats and kiwi fruit (which up to that point had been my favourite fruit). Must have been the diet, but whatever it was, my first gobbling of 2 whole kiwi fruit left me in a grim condition close to anaphilactic shock. Even a drop of the juice makes my mouth swell up now. Oh well, at least it wasn’t an allergy to wine.)

Right… bed.

What a nice phone call to get last night!! Foy called up on hearing a mix of “Stars And Satellites”, the final track on the record, which we’ve just finished recording and are mixing this week. (He called back 20 minutes later to say “Wait a minute - I’m not on this record anywhere, am I?” which ended up with us agreeing on an evening next week where we will drink a 2004 Faiveley Nuits-Saint-Georges and record Foy ripping up some guest vocals on “Time Once a Friend”.)

Its more or less an instrumental piece, but there are some vocals singing a repeating line. I had the good fortune to avail the lovely voice of Joanne Vance, which added a layer of beauty to the whole thing. Alan van Kleef came downstairs in his dressing gown yesterday bearing a rough mix on CD - he’d been up late after we’d enjoyed a glass of Armagnac on Sunday, putting it together.

So there you go - nearly finished now… on target for the 08.08.08 release.

I’m doing some stuff for Apple later this year - they want to use my track “Happytown” for some Logic Studio demo content in a programme they are rolling out across the UK… so I have to re-record it using only Logic Studio and a guitar - no amp, no vintage synths… the irony is that so far it all sounds better than the original, and I’m really enjoying the process of having to dig into the plug-ins to try and recreate certain elements. I do have to say that interface design is a long way from where it should be for music plug-ins… they are so cluttered and uninviting its hard to believe. In particular, there is a great little synth in Logic called “Sculpture”, but its so crammed with stuff, its almost impossible to see what you’re doing. Shame, as its fantastic and quite easy to create random and morphing sounds, which I always like.

OK - more tea.

If you’re after some cool pop music, then check out Sadpaw which has been on my car stereo for weeks now. You should check it out for no other reason than the explanation Phil Wilkinson (aka Sadpaw) gives for making the album… “I wanted to make an unashamed pop record that was also a bit wrong. Like someone giving you grapes at a disco.” I always knew Phil as a drummer, but I think I got it a bit wrong… he’s an awesome force, along with his brother Paul, who right this very moment is producing Duke Special’s new record up in our studio. Man, all these talented folk with beautiful songs just hiding under rocks when there’s so much unmitigated shite floating around.

The vocals sit high above the backing tracks for most of the record… Jules made this decision, and I went with him… the result? Well, I’m keen to see what you think.

So I can reveal the title - which will be Sayonara Deadweight. Sayonara is Japanese for “goodbye” - my connection with Japan means this word has both beauty and pain wrapped up in it. The “Deadweight” is everything musically that has been hanging around me all these years… and thanks to Jules, I will be letting it go in the final piece of the album, a long collage of work.

There is no messing about with these tracks - no long intros, no middle eight sections, no bridges - no bluffing. In the writing of them, I was listening to a lot of Beatles, and especially the extraordinary “Revolver”… which, although it is probably their best album, is only 34 minutes long. They seemed to have the gift of letting a song have its life without having to get in the way or stretch it out - which I think has ruined more than a few songs over the years. The concept of the “three and a half minute pop song” - where did that come from? One of the new tracks on the album is under three minutes long… well, no-one can say they aren’t getting their money’s-worth as it will be released completely free. But I really enjoyed being economical, almost frugal with the ideas… if I didn’t have a verse 3, well, I just didn’t try to write one, letting the song be.

So there you go. Not long to the big “free download” button.

The past couple of weeks have seen me become an incorrigible stone hermit, for one reason and one reason only - I can’t deal with the images of China and Burma that are reaching my eyes. I simply cannot cope with them. Maybe its back to having a child again, but seeing parents looking for lost children, all that destruction and death and confusion, just breaks my heart. If I so much as lend it a second’s thought, I disappear into a downward spiral of grinding to a halt, seeing my work and the album I’m trying to mix as lightweight unimportant bullshit that doesn’t deserve my time.

The other night there was a 10 minute sequence on ITV of the immediate aftermath of the quake… I was just about getting through it when a scene came on where a mother was just standing completely still with her boy on her back, unable to do anything, completely broken and stunned to the point of a daze. I had to go away from the TV.

Then the feelings of helplessness kick in and I’m left reeling. Even now, 2am on a perfectly calm spring night here, I’m blasting my head with the Foo Fighter’s track “New Way Home”, and iTunes random play just seems insane, a crazy thing to have at my disposal when somewhere else on this strange planet, people are waking to the loss of everything they had, wondering if they can get water, and will the rain stop today?

Life goes on here. Things are good. It seems all wrong…

We started in Wapping in the afternoon, heading up to Brick Lane, Liverpool Street Station, Spitalfields market… taking in a gig (The Shortwave Set at 93 Feet East) before coming back to the studio at some ludicrous hour. I don’t want to go into too much detail about what we were doing, but it all stemmed from the idea Jules had about forgetting the previous version of the track which was a simple acoustic guitar and vocal arrangement. He just wasn’t interested in that at all, and his alternative, an “a cappella” version with me walking through Soho singing into a mic, although more interesting, just didn’t seem entirely right either. Eventually we found the answer and it sounds great.

And so we’re nearly there with the album - Jules has been a total driving force behind it, and its been a phenomenal experience to have someone else at the helm. I feel like someone going to see a therapist, and can understand a lot more clearly how people come to rely heavily on professionals or friends who show them some form of guidance.

The final piece involves the magnificent catharsis that is getting absolutely EVERYTHING off my hard drives going right back to 2004. Jules is going to take some 100-odd pieces and create a cinematic collage as the final track. He’s a brave man… and the format of the album will certainly be something a little different once that is completed. I found it almost impossible to even make a start on this piece of work, knowing what it entailed, but somehow, knowing Jules was going to take all these elements and work his magic on them to create something I had no input into has made it much easier to just bounce down tracks that have hovered around me like black flies for years. Bounce them down and kiss them goodbye.

On a very sad note, my beautiful old Lowden, which had a crack in the sides, has split open very badly. Its all from a numptyhead who failed to drill out a hole when putting in a strap-bolt in 1991. I had it repaired in 1992, so I suppose getting 16 years out of it without the problem coming back is OK. Its with the amazing Jon Dickinson right now - and if anyone can fix it, he can. Thanks be to God for Jon Dickinson I say.

Its been quite a trip digging through the musical archives putting the stuff together for Jules - lots of stuff I’d forgotten about. Old friends, sometimes just passing by. But my teapot will be busy as I catch up with them all, waving them off into the folder marked “For Jules”, last stop before they leave me forever.

The “fault” with the MacBook turned out to be the user-modification applied by my young son Luka, who decided that putting a 1p piece in the slot-loading combo drive would enhance performance. It did not, achieving only horrific grinding noises as my burning of “Songs for the Deaf” failed at the first attempt. However, the lovely guys at the Apple Store didn’t charge me for this episode, and I am very grateful for that.

This post is getting way too geeky so I’m off.

Then I had an idea - wouldn’t it be nice just to celebrate the fact that the record was part of our collective consciousness, part of the soundtrack to the end of the 20th century? It was the record that tied people all over the world together… so the concept for MoonSafari2008 was born. The guys loved the idea and we had a meeting about it on the way to visit Apple HQ in Cupertino, California.

I’m delighted to say that after a monumental amount of work over the past couple of months, the site has gone live, and I’m very pleased with the result. I’m not going to “go all techie on yo ass” but there is a fairly ludicrous amount of fine detail in the coding. I’m hoping we’ll get another round of development time… well, that’s for sure, as AIR are so happy with the site that they’ve asked G-RAFF to do their main site later this year, which will be massive.

I have finished touring with AIR for the time being. We finished up with two sell-out, standing-ovation nights in the Sydney Opera house after perfect days of Bronte Beach breakfasts and Bondi café hangouts, Japanese food, sun, swimming and seeing old friends. Then the late-night drift - rooftop bars and Hernandez café at dawn… I do love to visit Sydney. But to get to walk down to Circular Quay, up to that magnificent iconic building - and to go INSIDE up to the stage was truly a magical experience.

The whole tour was filled with a very positive spirit, and was immensely enjoyable - one of the best I’ve ever been on.

I played the guys the new material from my album, and it got almost embarrassing as Nico harped on and on about how much he loved it - very flattering, and I was delighted. Its also a testament to Jules Maxwell, who is producing it, that he managed to get something out of the ordinary… which Nico picked up on. I just want to get it done now. Finished and out there. Now that Moon Safari is live, I might have a chance of getting some time to breathe. Ah - no - wait - there are all those OTHER projects to finish first… starting with a new site for Brendan Perry.

Ah well… its all good stuff. Creative fun, and long may that last. I was discussing that with my fine old friend, the mighty Foy Vance who has been working away on some amazing new stuff that is nothing like he is known for… if it gets out there, you’ll be in for a shock. And while I’m at it, I must mention the fact that he sprung a surprise bottle of Bushmills 1608 400th anniversary whisky - signed by the master distiller no less - upon me. I was blown away… what a man! Class.

So… please go and tell your Moon Safari Story. You can find mine tagged as “G-RAFF”

I played ball with them all of last year, knowing from the start that the machine should have been replaced at the outset. In less than one year, the logic board has blown, the screen needs replaced, the case was replaced, top and bottom, the keyboard replaced and the battery a couple of times. Now the keyboard has started to go again.

And they think its OK to put professionals through this kind of hassle… if nothing else, it takes about 3 hours round trip for me to go to the Apple Store, wait, speak to someone and come back. And I may lose my machine for days at a time. I just had the world’s most pointless conversation with “Anders”, a senior support technician who specialised in the line “Yes, I understand, but there’s nothing I can do”. Pathetic.

I just feel trapped - I love Mac OS X, and can’t possibly imagine using any other operating system, but the hardware? That’s another thing entirely. This computer has been nothing but a pain in the ass, and I’m stuck with it… have to take it in for ANOTHER repair. As I’ve said before, if you could put Mac OS X in a high powered PC, I would do that after this experience.

Not cool Apple.

Rant over.

Its been a real trip getting my hands on the original Moon Safari artwork, seeing all that beautiful work up close, being able to work with it and create something new. A real privilege, like I’ve been given the keys to the treasure room of a museum. We are going to do something lovely - very simple, but effective… watch this space. It is absolutely gorgeous artwork, I must say. Its amazing how sometimes a classic album like that just lucks out and gets a classic piece of art to go with it - a lovely synchronicity.

Martyn James Brooks and I have been discussing the artwork for my new album. I love talking with him about visual ideas - he’s a real livewire and drifts across a whole spectrum of concepts in a matter of minutes. What’s lovely is the fact that we will get right down to the details, yet at the very last moment, when the film is developed, he’ll finally get his idea… that’s what happened when we did the shoot of Emma, the little girl on the cover of Angels In Drag.

The recordings have been going very well, with Jules Maxwell steering the good ship to a result. As I’ve said many times, I have the deepest respect for Jules; his vision for my work and especially my voice, is something I would never have found in a million years. And looking at everything else I’ve done before now, it all seems fake. He’s amazing. Its sounding good. The general tactics have been to drop the vocals by an octave… I can sing really, really low, so Jules was keen to explore “the primal rumble”. Songs have started to make sense, become coherent, and sound like they were honestly delivered by the person that wrote them. I can safely say that’s the first time in my life that has happened. It also happens that all the vocals are single takes - with no drop-ins. All the flaws and mistakes will live happily ever after, without AutoTune or any such rescue remedy.

I was also delighted by the fact that my good friend, ally and power-meeting colleague Leo Abrahams contributed some wonderful guitars to a couple of the tracks. He’s made a significant mark on this album, not least the fine bottle of Amarone we shared at Il Bordello after exiting the studio doors.

Speaking of wine, I indulged a bit this week. And why not? I remain resolutely convinced that wine is to be enjoyed at the most unremarkable of moments. To take of its true magic, you have to let it transport you out of the mundane and into its world… this is best done with no distractions. Its a bit like a control experiment. If you’re having a fancy dinner with great food - sure, a nice bottle of wine can enhance the evening no end. But sometimes its great to just open a nice bottle and let it be your evening’s entertainment - or in my case drinking half and leaving the rest overnight to see what it does.

In my case, this has happened twice this week - nothing really outrageous, by any means, but a couple of lovely bottles. A “Bodegas Riojanas” 1998 Monte Real Gran Reserva on Wednesday, and a 2003 Chateau Bellegrave Pomerol tonight. Drunk slowly, savouring every drop, with the backdrop of suburban London… nothing to jump up and down about. Just that nice relaxed feeling when your child is in bed, and time comes dropping slow.

Its very stripped back - mostly just guitars and vocals, with a little bit of bass and the odd bit of foot stomping or clapping. Quite a remedy to the bombastic overblown sound of Angels In Drag, but it just seems the right thing to do. Its having a much more profound effect on my audio guinea pigs - they are bursting into tears, gasping in amazement. I’ve been fortunate enough to have some wonderful guitar magic added by my great friend and ally Leo Abrahams whose website I’m currently designing and building… its been a great creative experience and will be lovely when its done.

Recording on a Friday night is good. Especially when followed by heading back to where Jules is staying - in the rectory of St. Olave’s church in Fenchurch St., a 12th Century church where Samuel Pepys is buried. THe church was open so we went in and looked - although it was dark it had a wonderful sense of space, and the silence was pure magic in the London night. He heated up some spaghetti bolognese from last night and we tucked in over a Leffe Blond. That’s a beer by the way, not a variety of woman.

I love the drives home from the studio late at night. I stick Radio 4 on and catch the shipping forecast, usually as I cross Tower Bridge. There’s something really special about driving through London late at night. All those magnificent buildings and world famous monuments, bridges, just yours for the taking. You take a snapshot in your mind and just keep going.

I’m drinking a last glass of my Corton Pougets 2000. I had most of it last night as I cooked dinner for Diane and fancied a bottle of something beyond the ordinary. I had bought a nice bottle of Faugères as an excuse to talk French with the guy from Nicolas in East Dulwich, but eventually decided to go for something a little more on the special side from my small collection of special keepsies. The chap was amazed when I chose the Faugères the first time I went in there. “C’est pas bien connu…” Funny, it was a Faugères that made the guy in Le Savour Club in Paris stop treating me with disdain and more like his only son. I asked if he had any “Abbaye Sylva Plana” and he said “Vous connaissez ce vin?” - You know this wine? His smile was something I won’t forget. If you ever see Abbaye Sylva Plana - Le songe de l’Abbaye I think is the name of the wine - buy it. Its about €12 and tastes just fabulous. Do yourself a favour and leave half of it overnight. When you come back to it next day you will weep with delight as it touches your lips. Magic.

Diane gave me a Valentine’s Day gift of a wine tasting in June… a special tasting of the “Whites of Burgundy”. Brilliant, as I haven’t got much of a clue about whites, really. I was advised that 2006 Burgundian whites are a great investment, and while I don’t dispute the authority of the person who told me, I’d like to discover a bit more by means of the nose and tongue. Though I fear for the effect on my bank account.

Right - must sleep. I have to get up and deal with the amazing little fellow that makes me laugh my loons off - my wee boy Luka… and he could be up as early as 7am. If only 2 years olds could grasp the concept of “a lie in”.

We had a manic week of friends last week - fantastic! Some pals came over from Belgium (photo of beers attached), then the mighty Martyn James Brooks came to stay with us during a week-long shoot for Time Out.

Friday night was the big one… Nico (Nicolas Godin) from Air told me one night during the tour last year that he really wanted to eat haggis again. I don’t know why, so don’t ask. I invited him to come to our annual Burns Night Supper, but as it was September and people in general have a tendency to just agree to these things with no intention of ever coming, I took his affirmation that he would be there with a modicum of disbelief.

Suffice it to say that he made the trek from Paris, bearing Dominique Laurent Gevery-Chambertin 2001 and a big smile. Some other great friends came down from Edinburgh and St. John’s Wood; and the stage was set for our big evening. Just fabulous food (haggis from William Rose, neeps and tatties, Balvenie scotch and a tribute to our French contingent in the form of fine Burgundies).

Trick of the night had to go to Ian Hartley, who crowned the evening by announcing that he had purchased me a square foot of land in Glencairn, thus legally entitling me to be known as Laird Stephen Jones, a title which I fully intend to avail of and have put in my chequebook.

Once everyone left, I decided to upgrade my computers to Leopard, the latest Mac operating system. In such an operation, one must always fear the worst (though my last upgrade to Tiger was perfect) so I took a full backup, hoping that a royal beard would not be grown in the aftermath of clicking that one word “Install”.

The upgrade was seamless beyond belief. Nothing had changed, nothing was lost, it was just, well, all shiny and stuff. In fact I really dislike the look of Leopard, and can’t wait until they give us the option to lose some of the Vista-like appearance. All this semi-transparent eye candy is just ugly, pointless, and makes the screen look cluttered and busy. I went so far as to replace the dock icons with a set I designed myself that more closely resemble the old Tiger set.

Having said that, it performs rather amazingly well. All my applications were faster, the new Finder is lovely, and I quite like the little “web clips” feature where you can save little bits of web pages (almost like screenshots) in your dashboard so you don’t always have to go to a website, and they are live… for example, I have the next 8 trains leaving from Sydenham to London Bridge… so don’t have to even bother opening Safari. Sweet. Anyway, I’m getting a bit geeky so I’d better get back to my tea.

A few years ago I was in a bookshop in Soho when I saw a stainless steel case with “Norwegian Wood” engraved into it - it was a collectors’ edition of the book, one of five hundred made. I opened it up and saw that the signed card had number 101/500 printed on it… when I lived in Japan, in the halls of residence of Okayama University, I lived in room 101, so I bought it for £50.

Now I find that some nutter is prepared to pay £195.00 as a starting bid for the limited edition on eBay (not my copy, which is not for sale), and there is a signed copy of “Pinball 1973″ for over £500!!! I do find that there is a certain joy in getting these things before they are sought-after, for the right reasons… because you like the creator, you like the quality of the item.

I just don’t really understand collectors… and I dread to think how many beautiful guitars are languishing in specially made display cases when they could be making music. I collect only dust.

I hope it doesn’t come to that. But there is a strong smell of gas at the back door, and I’d rather someone found out where it was coming from and made it go away.

I had an interesting foray into the world of allergies today. I was never allergic to anything growing up, but when I cam back from Japan, had developed severe allergies to (a) cats and (b) kiwi fruit. It must have stemmed from my diet during that year, but it was quite a shock when I ate a kiwi fruit (as you do when they are your favourite fruit) and felt my lips, throat and mouth starting to tingle and itch, followed by a tightening in the throat to the point where I could hardly breathe - almost like an anaphylactic shock. It was grim. So I started to avoid kiwi fruits, thinking nothing more of it.

Until today, when my friend Didier from Brussels gave me a spoonful of raw pollen just to see what it was like (strange fellow eats it every day!) and the same thing happened, though not quite as severe. So I looked it up, and saw the connection - the pollen is the key. In the table of possible triggers were a few other things that have made me feel a bit odd too - walnuts for example. Just the other night a friend gave me a slice of coffee and walnut cake, and when I announced I thought I was slightly allergic to it, Diane pooh-poohed this with the “that’s the first I’ve heard of it” speech… I feel vindicated now.

Where is this gas guy? What is the life of a 24-hour gas engineer like? I’ve no idea, I just wish he would hurry up so I can get some sleep before getting up at eyes-bleed-o’clock to take Luka swimming.

Anyway, I’ll get over it. But I was hoping they’d produce something really special. Sorry - the MacBook Air is cute, but I will never own one.

Get your ass over to iTunes to download Leo Abraham’s single with KT Tunstall - I can’t believe its on there!!! Brilliant, and the best of luck to that amazing person who makes me fluctuate between wanting to give up and never wanting to do anything other than music on an almost daily basis.

Also, I added a short and daft video of my friend Conor eating a burning Pringle on YouTube. It was recorded on an old mobile so quality isn’t exactly broadcast… Bye for now.

No wonder they sound funky.

Well, it doesn’t. And I was shocked to find that out. Check this out - from the site Valpak which controls the “Green Dot” symbol in the UK:

“The UK Green Dot® is not a recycling symbol it is a trademark agreement only; therefore, it is not mandatory to display it on packaging in the UK. For information about recycling symbols please visit our recycle-more website at www.recycle-more.co.uk.

The UK Green Dot® licence does not represent compliance with the UK Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2005.”

So, if you’ll excuse my French, seeing this symbol on a package means precisely fuck all. Well, it does mean that the company have forked out some money to get the symbol… I did visit the “recycle-more” website to see what they had to say about ye olde green dot… and got much the same, ie. all this symbol means on packaging in the UK is that the company that made it paid us £235 per year to use the symbol, but doesn’t mean that the package can be recycled in any shape or form… see it for yourself.

In my opinion that’s verging on misleading, as this symbol is the “leading brand” of recognisable “recycling” symbols.

When I did discover this (thanks to my mum), I started looking more closely at packaging to see how easily one can tell if a thing is recyclable or not - and its a complete minefield. Of course we are never really told what symbols mean, but I actually think it should be made EXPLICITLY clear that packaging can or cannot be recycled using, perhaps (BRAIN WAVE) a short sentence like “THIS PACKAGE CANNOT BE RECYCLED” like you tend to see on most plastic from Sainsbury’s (yet another reason not to go near the place).

…but I have been seduced by Last.fm. Its beautifully put together and actually delivers something that improves my life. I tried the radio thing and it played track after track that I enjoyed, showing me a few new artists and bands I’d never heard of. In keeping with my determination to make this a creative year, I uploaded the whole Angels In Drag album for listening and free download, so if you use Last.fm, and happen to like the album, get on there and do whatever you do to say its cool.

I’m just opening up Logic to get stuck into some more music - lots going on right now, and its sounding good and very exciting…

Local history… I was in the local cafe this morning, Sugahill on Kirkdale, Sydenham, which for my money does the best double espresso around (after a year with Air, its unrealistic to drink anything else). Two old guys were sitting there chatting away - I remembered one of them from the old incarnation of the cafe before it closed and reopened - anyway… he asked me where I got my shoes (a pair of Crocs) which proved to be the opening to one of the most fascinating conversations I’ve had for a long time. Both of them were experts on local history, going right back to Victorian times, and in exquisite detail, such as informing me about the atmospheric railway that once ran through here. I’d never even heard of one. Its becoming a lost treasure, the art of spontaneous conversation with strangers in public places, but I would like to see it revived. I sat there utterly fascinated for an hour as I was given a full and colourful account of this area where I live.

Lastly chickens. If you eat chicken, and didn’t see Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s show on Channel 4 about chicken farming last night (its on Tuesday nights), then check out his site Chicken Out. Its basically a campaign for free-range chicken to become the norm, and for things like misleading labelling to be removed from supermarket chickens - a point with which I thoroughly agree.

We made a decision years ago not to buy supermarket meat and poultry, to take advantage of the fact that we live in London and can therefore source good meat from organic and traceable suppliers. Our current butcher is William Rose on Lordship Lane, which is fantastic… sure, it means spending a little bit more, but not that much, and the difference in quality is astounding. Not to mention the fact that its nicer to buy from someone who knows your face and gives you a smile when you come through the door, rather than a contemptive glare as they ask you if you have a Nectar card. Most of us buy food according to price, and in such a furious economic climate, I can understand that, although I don’t subscribe to that myself - I do think its a matter of priorities sometimes… two less vodka and cokes a week would buy a free-range chicken. Two packs of cigarettes is a mixed organic box of veg from Abel and Cole. Anyway, I’m not much of a preaching sort, so I’ll pack it in right now. Nonetheless, hats off to Hugh for creating an interesting programme for me that sums up what’s good about television - its informative, well put-together, political, provocative and actually means something.

I don’t have one - a couple of good friends back in Ireland have them (my envious streak was growling like a hungover puma) and I enjoyed having a brief twiddle over coffees and wine (as it were). What struck me is just how much thought has gone into what people actually need when using a phone - for example, you do a search for a restaurant, and it comes back with a map and all the contact details, where one tap on the screen will add this whole thing into your contacts, another will call them, another can email them… etc. etc. Its just an awesome interface.

If only Orange would start offering them… It won’t surprise me if the next generation of iPhones get announced at MacWorld 2008 and I’ll be tempted to jump ship to O2 yet again.

I just had a flash of Kenya in my mind, and re-read the post above wondering just what kind of a world do we live in? iPhone? No, but some bread would be nice.

Its insane, and I have no answers.

It started a long time ago when I was fifteen, still at school. I got stuck on a train just outside Holywood (Northern Ireland) for an hour - there had been no warning, or information given during the delay. Just a silent train sitting there for one hour. Eventually the excuse was given that it was “emergency repairs” - a ridiculous statement, as we were literally seconds outside a station, and should have been given the chance to get off and find alternative means, and I suspect it was not such an emergency that the crew had 20 seconds to get there as the train left Holywood station… anyway, I digress. I wrote a strongly-worded letter to the PR guy at NI Railways, and got a £10 travel voucher. Brilliantly though, the next train I took (using that voucher, ironically) was also delayed by some equally nonsensical fiasco, so I wrote another letter to the same guy saying how this was absolutely outrageous, and got a voucher for £20 that time. A real teenage Victor Meldrew in the making, eh?

Cut to 2007, coming back from Hong Kong in November on a British Airways flight - my entertainment system didn’t work, and I had a one hour baggage delay. The letter, not entirely devoid of outrage and vehement accusation, was duly dispatched.

Just this week, I discovered that Skype had disconnected my SkypeIn number with no warning, so another furious torrent of “justified verbal abuse” landed on them via their email contact form.

This morning, I got a £75 voucher from BA, and 100 Euros of credit plus a new number for a year from Skype. Better than a punch in the teeth, I suppose. My friend Leo Abrahams and I were planning to create a Flash-based “complaint letter generator” using the most elaborate English we could muster… never quite got round to it, but may do this year, as I’ve vowed to have a creative year. Even if what I end up creating is utter nonsense.

Starting with the stop-motion video of the Air tour 2007.

*** Please don’t read the next bit if you don’t want to be disturbed in the way I was - skip to the next asterisks ***

I am responding in particular to a piece on the BBC where a female reporter was walking around the site of the church in Eldoret, Kenya that was burnt down in the violence - bad enough - but then finished with a description of how a woman managed to escape through a back window with her three children, but as she got out, some of the perpetrators grabbed her three-year-old and threw them back into the inferno, where they perished in the flames. To be left with such horror is disturbing beyond belief. It left me devastated - I’ve been trying really hard to believe in the good bits of humanity, then you hear something like this and are left reeling… in my case in tears. Its so visceral when you have a child of your own - you would do anything to protect them, and to imagine this kind of violent attack on a helpless little person who you love desperately is unimaginable.

Did she need to say this just to hammer home the point? Was she just too freaked out and had to get it off her chest? I was horrified enough just looking at the scene and imagining how grim it must have been.

*** OK after here ***

I just think that reporting is beginning to resort to the same fate as British television in general - just push the shock factor because people love it; they just can’t get enough. Violence included, it seems - am I alone in feeling like my head is being hijacked?

I grew up in Northern Ireland, where news was never exactly a bundle of laughs, to say the least. Every day was death and destruction - we became immune to it even without the explicit descriptions of what exactly was going on - and I’m pretty sure there could have been quite a bit of graphic detail had reporting standards been what they are now. What I wonder is if the children of today will become immune to ever-increasingly shocking news, making almost nothing seem inhumane.

I do suffer from being unable to rid myself of nightmarish visions like this - they pop back into my head during banal moments, like travelling on the tube or buying an espresso somewhere - so I wish they’d stop, and it makes me all the more determined to avoid watching TV. You could argue that I’m burying my head in the sand, trying to avoid the realities of a cruel world, and maybe you’d be hitting on some truth there, but I can’t superimpose these horrors on the smile of my little boy as he plays without a care in the world, feeling safe as can be.

On another note, I threw up a quick stop-motion video collage of the Air tour from this year on YouTube. Not exactly Oscars material but its a bit of fun.

Luka is glued to his new “In the Night Garden” (ITNG) DVD. We don’t let him watch much TV in the day - usually a session in the morning to help with the blur that happens in a parent’s head trying to cope with the early start. ITNG is bonkers, so I think we’ll keep it that way. I didn’t know that Derek Jacobi was the narrator of ITNG - dear me… I once saw him in a play in the West End, “Becket”, where he was magnificent playing the lead as Thomas Becket, so it seems a little odd to hear him talking about how everyone loves to ride in the Pinky-ponk and counting Pontypines. It makes me wonder (on a serious note) whether he just looked at the paycheque and thought - “Yes, I’ll have a bit of that”, in which case, are we crazy to try and consider any kind of artistic integrity? Or did he REALLY want to do it?

I want to do more music next year. Its been so inspiring working with Air this year. I’m hatching plans to work with loads of people… but the main problem is that its now so difficult to make a proper living out of music, especially if you don’t want to tour. I don’t want to go away in 2008, apart from the swan-song (where does that phrase come from?) tour to Australia with Air, so I guess I’ll stick with my usual mix-and-match of graphic design and music that has made the last 7-odd years so fascinating - if for no other reason than it means I can work on music projects for free. I do want to do some good things this year and generally be more creative - though on the 31st December, that sounds strangely like a New Year’s Resolution so I’ll stop right there.

I am considering selling a guitar for the first time since I sold my first ever guitar - only because I want to buy a vintage Guild guitar I saw up in John Dickinson’s workshop the last time I was there getting my Telecaster set up. (So, does anyone want to buy a Lowden LSE-II (LSE 2 for sale)? Spruce top, rosewood back and sides, some magnificent inlay work and generally a cracking sparkly instrument. Amazing for pop rhythm tracks. I’m using it on the Air tour at the moment, but only for one or two tracks per show, and I think I’ll sell it once the tour is over.)

Even now I’m not sure I should part with it, but I have already have another old Lowden that used to sit in the common room of the factory in the late eighties (hence the 3-digit serial number 206), which by insane chance came to me, and is without any shadow of a doubt the most magical acoustic guitar I’ve ever played or heard. I would gladly give every other instrument I possess away if it meant I could keep that beat-up old guitar. Guitars sometimes find their owners… and this Lowden wants to find someone else for some reason. In days gone by, I would just have kept it and just bought the Guild as well, but as I’ve found over the past few years, families are expensive things to keep and my one-time £5000 per year instrument budget doesn’t exist anymore, finding its way into sofas, cars, Lego and other sundry items. Including Pontypines.

Hope your 2008 is absolutely amazing. A friend of mine was telling me that she managed four achievements this year, and listed them - sure enough, for her life they were great milestones which made me very happy for her. Maybe that’s a better thing to do… just resolve to say how many achievements you want on your list next December. I’m going for three.

If you could run Mac OS on a powerful PC machine, I would do that. But you can’t yet, so I’m stuck with this good-looking but ultimately overpriced and underconstructed machine.

Whine over.

We bought a Christmas tree today, mostly for Luka’s benefit. I have, like most parents, been looking forward to the time when your kids get all excited and it makes Christmas magical again (presuming you felt like that about it when you were young). I didn’t imagine for a second that Luka would start this by the time he was 2 years old, but when I put up the tree, switched on the lights and suggested we decorate it, he was nearly hitting the ceiling with glee. What a sweetheart. We spent about 2 hours putting up baubles and stars… and he had a big ear-to-ear grin the whole time. Lovely, and so cute.

I drove down to the tour bus yard today in grim weather to pick up all the wine I acquired on tour… what a nice couple of boxes. On seeing them, Diane just rolled her eyes… she knows I’m incorrigible, and getting worse with age. But when I see labels like “Corton Pougets”, “Chateau Kirwan”, “Vina Tondonia”, “Poliziano”, “Vasse Felix” - they just fill me with an irresistable delight. Having said that, however, I must now stress that I am on a post-tour detox for a while. No alcohol for as long as I can manage… not easy as we have a wedding to go to on Friday… but ignoring that minor blip, I should manage to make it until the next wedding the following week - in France - when the mighty Jules Maxwell ties the knot!

No more Air in 2007! Looking forward to the Australian tour in 2008, though. Time to get my act together and finish my album that I started with Jules Maxwell…

Some days you can be in the best cities in the world and just want to have a bath and read for a while. Like today - I’m in Madrid, and after a rough old night on the bus where the bunks were creaking like hammocks on a listing galleon, I just can’t be arsed going exploring, preferring to relax and enjoy some pure peace and quiet. Its against my normal tour ethos of making sure I always take the opportunities to see places, do things, but then again, a man whose methods are inflexible is a man in trouble.

What a gig last night in Barcelona! It was a beautiful audience to play to - ultra-warm and appreciative of every nuance in the music. We played well together - its finally, after all the shows this year, sounding intuitive, full of energy and above all groovy. I think to the people watching we make it look easy, and I know that the lights (done by the MASTER Franck Mahaut) are a great part of the show too, so I would imagine its quite a good gig to catch at the minute. However, in a couple of days, I’ll be in Gatwick airport wending my way back to SE26… all too soon yet not soon enough.

The days in Barcelona were almost hallucinatory - sunshine, rioja, tapas, the whirl through Thursday night with JB and our tour manager, meeting everyone else for dinner and a mad club full of transvestites (not us, I might add). Predictably I took off on a wine-buying expedition - ending up with a nice collection of 9 bottles: mostly Viña Tondonia Gran Reserva, my favourite Rioja, but taking in a few lesser known Catalan reds on the recommendation of the owner of the nicest deli I think I’ve ever been in - my friend Janice took me there, well off the beaten track. I love wine shop owners who, when asked for a recommendation, despite having bottles at 40 euros plus on the shelves, will point you towards one at 9 euros if they think that’s “the one”. The guy in Handford wines (in Holland Park, London) is like that - I always finish any session up there by asking for a recommendation of any single bottle in the shop (though if he suggested the 1982 Petrus I may have been forced to kill him) and he always picks out something unexpected yet not pricey.

Anyway - back to matters in hand… soundcheck looms, so I must sign off.

I managed to break two of my touring records yesterday and today:

1. The shortest stay in a hotel room, namely 7 minutes
2. The longest continuous drive - 18 hours on the tour bus, from Clermont-Ferrand in France to Bratislava in Slovakia.

By the end it seemed I had been born on that damn bus, as I was watching “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” for the second time and dreaming of a hot shower. And here we are, after a 5-star feed courtesy of the promoter, and a stranger-than-strange club that was once a nuclear bunker. I suppose it was a sign of how much I didn’t fit in there that I couldn’t even tell you what genre the music was, never mind the names of any of the bands playing it. In situations like that you are faced with the choice - drink, or leave.

This has been a great tour. Really, just great fun, very relaxed and full of musicality and laughs. The support band, Au Revoir Simone, are amazing fun to have around… three New York girls making electronic keyboard music that gets under your skin. Its really the first time that we’ve all had any kind of vibe with the support act, and its a tribute to them that Air are going to have them on stage on the last show to do something together.

Each gig really is a chance to go into a kind of trance and get lost in the dreams that are Air’s songs, and the time away from the stage has also been peppered with our usual array of fine food and wine, good chat and sharing music. The only downer is the now permanent issue of missing my family - who are in Hong Kong enjoying the tail end of a month-long holiday. Luka is speaking Chinese almost all the time now - its been great for him. I just hope he remembers some English! Children have the most phenomenal capabilities for language - its just spellbinding to watch and listen as they memorise words and, in the case of Chinese, the exact tone of every word, without even trying.

We spent a few days in a very chaotic Paris. I had been planning a visit to “Le Savour Club”, my favourite wine shop - not for the faint hearted as its more of a warehouse where you do need to know what you want. I was on the hunt for a 2005 Chateau Palmer for Luka, the first wine that I’m buying him for his “life collection” - one exquisite bottle of Bordeaux or Burgundy for every year of his life. The 2005 Palmer is, by all reports, absolutely stunning, and I wanted to get a Margaux from that year. I would have like to buy him a Chateau Margaux, but just Google that and weep at the price. Anyway, I decided to go there, 14km from the hotel, on foot, as the metro was just at a standstill with the strikes. I enjoyed the walk immensely, depsite the Parisian rain drenching me to the point where I was more water than man, but wandered into the thick of a huge demonstration against the strikes. Unbelievable… only in France. So after a most enjoyable session in Le Savour Club, I came out with twelve bottles of wine in a box, only to find that the demonstration had now occupied the entire of Boulevard de Montparnasse, rendering my hopes of jumping in a taxi utterly futile. I had no choice but to get on the metro… all I can say is that I felt so sorry for myself by the time I arrived back at the hotel, that I took myself off to “Au Boeuf Coronné” for one of the finest meals I’ve had for years prior to the overnight bus to Grenoble. Purely for the benefit of Foy Vance, I had French onion soup gratinée, followed by an amazing fresh seared tuna steak served on a crisp bed of Chinese leaf, leeks and green pesto… yum… helped immensely by a most enjoyable Sancerre, and followed by the crème brulée to end all crème brulées - sheer perfection. I love Paris for food.

So now we have a sold out show here, and another overnight drive to Zurich. I heard that in a recent gig by a big artist in Zurich, someone in the front row actually started reading the paper. Guess it won’t be too rock and roll that night then. Beware audiences - we’ve been rehearsing some new tracks…

The articles are everywhere - any Google search for “radiohead” will now not only produce results about the band, but headline news: “The death of the music industry”, “Is this the end for major labels?” etc. etc. This proves the point that if nothing else, Radiohead have generated ten times more publicity - at a higher level - than they would have by the standard “album promo” tactics that companies have been mindlessly churning out for as long as I can remember. Of course, this will soon become the norm. Prince’s release via the Daily Mail was a similar talking point - and I thought he was well ahead of the game - so I guess we can all expect to see new and interesting ways of artists releasing records that don’t involve buying a CD from a shop…

I’ve been shouting from the rooftops (well, its really difficult to get on my roof, so I’ve really only been talking in a subdued voice at gatherings) for so long now about how bands and record companies need to revisit their ideas on giving stuff away. Artists feel they have a God-given right to get paid for their music, and labels feel they have a God-given right to get paid more than the artist. This is how it was for a long time. I remember the skull and crossbones symbols on my dad’s old LPs - “HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC” - if only they could have seen what was coming!

Then came the possibility of getting a lot of stuff for nothing, which, as rational economists with flexible morality, people with the wherewithal to do so started to avail of in their droves. And the companies yelled “ITS THEFT!” Oh, wake up. It doesn’t feel like theft. Its not like I have your motorbike in my back yard, I just listen to your song once in a while. So exists the justification in the minds of the download generation, the citizens of Bit Torrent, Planet Earth.

My argument was that by giving music away, money would come eventually. You can’t download the experience of being at a show - but if 1,000,000 have downloaded your record, you can be sure you’ll have a much bigger chance to fill venues, and sell T-shirts. Big film companies who want to use the year’s most popular track aren’t going to worry about forking out for it - even if it became the most popular track because the band that created it generated a unique licence for personal users to have unlimited access, but not for commercial use. Software has been like this for ages, and I’m sure music will follow suit. You can buy Microsoft Office for Educational purposes for a fraction of the cost of the full retail edition - ie. if you’re not using it to make money, it costs less. Music will end up this way.

Creative Commons has been of interest to me for a long time as an alternative to copyright. With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit — and only on the conditions you specify. It just seems to make sense in the current climate to be thinking more along these lines, though it is getting increasingly hard for young bands and artists to make money while they are trying to scale the wall.

I released Angels In Drag for free last year and that has been cool. I look at the stats and just enjoy the fact that somewhere out there, people are downloading it, listening to it, hopefully enjoying it. But then again, I am not depending on income from this record to keep a roof over my head. I am certain there is a way to “make it work”, but for now, I can’t think of it… the glory days of putting out an album and waiting for the royalties to flood in are long gone, and for those that yearn for the return of this era, I advise a change of career. Maybe shepherding, or park-keeping?

The logic board went on my MacBook Pro - that was a nightmare (keep those backups ticking, folks) - but the way it has been handled by Apple was excellent. The computer went into the Apple Store on Saturday afternoon, and I got a call last night to say it was ready to be picked up. I mentioned, while I was in there, that the power button was beginning to feel a little one sided, and one of the keys had a slightly sticky feel… no messing, they replaced the case too. I bought a new MacBook as a backup machine - it was a breeze to set up, and works great, so hopefully that will be the end of computer woes for a while.

Then began the settling into life without the computer, and a few days later, I’ve become quite accustomed to the bliss that goes with it. I’ve rediscovered the tactile loveliness of pen and paper (although Luka, armed with stickers of cats and dogs, can make quite a mess of an information architecture diagram), and played a lot of acoustic guitar. I have managed to avoid that syndrome of flipping the machine open in quiet moments that would otherwise just be quiet moments. How many times have you just checked your email for the sake of doing so and ended up doing something as a result? You know - a client needs something done, you think “It’ll just take a sec” but for some reason that brings up something else… before you know where you are you’re deep in a spiral of adminstrative misery. We must take steps to avoid this situation wherever possible… the data Sabbath must be revived - a device-free day once a week. I used to do it… can’t remember why I stopped.

To be fair to Apple, there was very little messing about. One phone call, one appointment at the Apple Store. A five minute consultation at the Genius Bar… immediate diagnosis of a logic board failure. The machine will be fixed and back with me in a couple of days. I’ve ordered a MacBook anyway, just to have some backup in future.

But half of me wants things to stay this way - I must try and remember that it feels cool to work with pen and paper, that analogue design is a nice way to work. I’ll see how I feel when the UPS van pulls up tomorrow with the MacBook and I start the manic day of installing all my software into it.

Maybe this is a sign that I should ditch these digital torturers from my life altogether.

Administrative activities are depressing. What kills me is the fact that by the end of running around trying to accomplish, say, reporting a lost bank card and filling in the form for a new one, you will have not only have been exposed to a vast array of annoyances that are nothing to do with the task in hand, but actually achieved nothing that improves your life in any way. Trying to park your car in Beckenham alone is enough to make you weep, never mind waiting for prolonged periods for the other people undergoing similar administrative grinds in the bank itself. We are subjected to dreadful automated phone systems, disinterested call-centre employees, the fury and mayhem of everyone else trying to get ahead. Sometimes it just seems too much, and for very little.

No more needs to be said about that right now - we could be making records, or babies, reading a good book or drinking fine wine (I suspect I have become something of a borderline alcoholic - not that I drink much - but I look forward to opening bottles with an irrational glee these days). Speaking of which, I have an excellent Louis Jadot 2000 Corton-Pouget that I have been saving, and it may be opened tonight. The next trip to Paris is on the horizon, when I shall purchase the mighty 2005 Chateau Palmer for Luka (and a sneaky second bottle for myself). I love going to the secret hideout of Nico’s to stock up on wine - though leaving it in the tour bus is always a bit dangerous. If the crew managed to get wind of it, they may well employ their indiscrimate vulture-like skills to my son’s future collection. Wine, after all, is wine; if its 1am, post load-out in Grenoble, I suspect their selection procedure will not be as refined as it could be.

But now I’m home. Within five seconds of getting through the door, Diane had the kettle on and it felt so good to be back with my wee team. Touring with Air has been such a good experience from many angles, and one of those is making you realise what you already have.

We did the song “Electronic Performers” as the opener for the US tour, and it was awesome to be a part of. I love their album “10000Hz Legend” - it takes some getting used to, but it is visionary, despite its slating by the press at the time - I think everyone just wanted another “Moon Safari”. It was cool to be in LA with them, hearing some of the stories of the recording of it, the last days of rock and roll excess - one month in a suite at Chateau Marmont. Unreal.

OK. Off to try and beat the jet-lag, though I am WIDE awake as we approach midnight.

I am also a big Beck fan. We played in the Greek Theatre last night - a beautiful venue in Los Angeles. Beck was backstage before and after the show, as he’s good mates with JB and Nico. I enjoyed a good chat with him about fatherhood. Another trip. Nice hat, Beck. The gig went well, and many of the ghosts of the nightmare gig in Coachella were put to rest.

Then today, I was in Los Angeles with the mighty James Trussart, seeing his home, his guitar studio and generally enjoying a brilliant day. The view over downtown LA as the sun set was spectacular - a blinding strip of white light below the storm clouds, neon piercing the strange gloom. A bottle of Nuits-Saint Georges over French dinner was marvellous. But during the afternoon, I told James I was doing some guitar shows for Apple later in the year, to which he replied - “HEY, I have a guitar that looks like a Mac Pro - you should use it.”

He gave me an amazing guitar to use in the shows… now nicknamed the MacGuitar Pro - check it out here.

Silly, really, but life is drifting sweetly right now. I am enjoying it while it lasts.

Yes it has been a long time. I meant to post the night Rolf Harris danced and sang for Luka in our local Italian restaurant but entirely forgot to do that.

I’m in San Francisco with Air. Its been a cool couple of days - we’ve been in LA recording in the Village Recorder, where all the old Steely Dan records were tracked, as well as countless other classics. LA is a weird old place… the night before we travelled over there, I went with Leo Abrahams to see Brian Wilson (of the Beach Boys). He performed an evocative piece all about the beaches and “heartbeat of L.A.” which set the mood perfectly for the next day’s travel. Unfortunately that was shattered horribly by the reality of a grey London gridlock morning. I seriously thought I was going to miss the flight despite leaving more than two and a half hours to get to Heathrow. Amazing what one crash in Wandsworth can do to the whole city.

I’m such a sucker for the street names in LA. Sunset Boulevard, Santa Monica Boulevard, Beverly Hills… they just sound so beautiful and exotic, the glamour of the movies drifting around your head. The truth, of course, is that they are just big ugly roads with dodgy shops, for the most part. Even so, there’s some kind of sorcery afoot - when you’re walking down those streets looking up to the Hollywood hills, it still feels a bit trippy, a bit surreal and two dimensional, and strangely enjoyable. Quoth Sheryl Crow - “All I wanna do is have some fun until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard.” Hear, hear, Miss Crow.

We were in the Village Recorder all day yesterday - great fun, and quite a trip to record in the studio that was the home to some of my favourite records of all time. I mean, it was the home of THE DAN!!! Steely Dan recorded most of their stuff there. Amazing. While we were there, Robbie Robertson popped in to say hello, which was rather surreal. Then that guy who produces the Rolling Stones whose name I can’t remember. Robbie was very friendly.

And so to the amazing little club, Bimbo’s 365, in San Francisco - another amazing city, which really is straight from the movies. I love it here. This club is fantastic - its been here since prohibition times in the 1930s and has hidden rooms and a great ambience. I think it might be the nicest club I’ve ever played in, except for the horrific electrical buzz that is driving me completely nuts.

Its quite a short tour - I’ll be home this time next week with more funky Adidas trainers for Luka.

Its just too depressing, and it really does have an effect on me. I’m looking at my little boy, playing on the floor and watching “Maisy”. laughing and giggling and just trying, in my darkest thoughts, to imagine what it would be like if someone took his life. I would never recover. How could you?

Seriously thinking of leaving London.

Its 22:15 in Trencin, Slovakia. I’m sitting outside a very strange hotel that has just opened for us - not really ready for guests. By that I mean such delights as no phones, and a large plank of wood where the door to the swimming pool should be.

Our truck has broken down outside Budapest, after having got stuck on a melted motorway en route from Athens to Zagreb, leading to a cancelled show. There is supposedly a second truck going to catch up with the first truck, meaning they need to change the load over into the new truck before trying to get here. The festival is an all-nighter, so in my mind there is an opportunity to stamp a statement of intent on this situation. Everyone is up for doing it, but it all depends on the trucks - the possibility of doing it with local backline is out of the question - imagine “Run” with a Pearl drumkit, a guitar, Marshall amp, a bass and a Roland D-50. No.

So what does that mean? Well, I don’t know. Its kind of cool - we don’t know what will happen here.

LATER

Its now 00:45, and the show is cancelled. Its a real shame, as the vibe out here at the festival is fantastic. We decided to come out anyway, to make the best of a bad situation… we’re hanging backstage having a real laugh with Basement Jaxx. Just going to check out DJ Shadow at 1am and head back to the hotel with our tails between our legs - what a pity, really.

There’s really nothing we could have done about it. If the truck had arrived at 2am, then we could have played, but it broke down yet again. Unbelievable. I had a premonition of a dream while I was dozing this-afternoon that the gig would fall to bits in a Father Ted style. And unfortunately it has happened. However, I just hope that my brother is not asleep under JB’s piano, like he was in the dream.

DJ Shadow time.