Five's Alive

Finally, it is done. Album #5 is officially finished. Making a record is a bit like baking a cake (no, it isn't in any way remotely like baking a cake, unless your cake cost you thousands of pounds to make, isn't appreciated by anyone - even close relatives - and is eventually given away slightly stale at jumble sales) but bear with me, I've started this analogy so I'm going to finish it.

Once you have spent time gathering the ingredients; a pound of finely sifted experience; a few drops of bitter disappointment; the zest of renewed self-belief; and some sultanas... the album baking process unfolds slowly over time, changing slightly with each added ingredient, until finally, with your album starting to resemble the finished product, it is sent for the final mastering process.

At any stage something could go wrong, you could balls up the recording, the mixing, the track order (who apart from me actually listens to albums in order these days?) and finally the mastering. Assuming that you've actually started with half decent songs in the first place.

It is a stressful time. Will the cake rise? Are the ingredients better than the whole, will it come back from the bakery with "happy birthday, Tim" written in pink icing? Will the analogy you've embarked upon ever make sense?

But after many months (years when you include the writing period) your album/cake is finally finished, you can sit and stare at it while it cools on the shelf, hoping that maybe this is the cake the public have been waiting for. The one that will change the course of history, the one that will have cookery writers and celebrity chefs knocking down your door for an interview, or at least enable you to take the cake on the road, slicing it up night after night for the delectation of cake lovers everywhere.

It is also a time when your sanity is stretched thin, and those close to you worry that you are beginning to confuse making records with baking cakes. Apparently it can happen.

Fortunately for me then, that there is no time to dwell on this, as album part 2 requires attention, and the songs that were left off part one find a home on the sequel, and the process begins all over again. It's already been a good summer (bearing in mind I hate summer and all that goes with it, give me a good winter any time), I have a tour to look forward to, the occasional fishing trip, and some gigs to see.

It is vital at this point to start listening to music again, without it being a technical exercise. To enjoy the cake as it were, without tasting the baking powder and suet. ( I don't really make cakes, but those sound plausible ingredients). So if anyone has any recommendations new or old, I would appreciate it. I watched Glastonbury and thought it was the best line up ever. Of course, I would like to have played, I have fond memories of my time on the other stage, back in 1948, shortly after the war, when times were hard but we were happy. Much like today. Except for the happy bit.

So, I hope you're having a good summer, at some point I'll start divulging things about the new record (and let's face it, 45 seconds after we've sent it to the first journalist it'll be online somewhere) and then we can once more debate the quality of the cake, how it compares to other cakes I've made, and does the world really need any more of my cakes. That sort of thing.

My current musical recommendations are: Kevin Devine, Brother's Blood. Not just 'cos he's a mate but it's really great songwriting. And anything by Leadbelly, especially Laura. My favourite track of the last year.

I'm reading lots of political memoirs, readying myself for the inevitable Tory victory that will send me deeper into middle-aged depression, and I particularly recommend Chris Mullin "A View From The Foothills".

I'm still continually watching the "West Wing" on loop, as nothing has ever bettered this show - despite what journalists tell us. Yes "The Wire" is good, but you know, not that good.

Oh, and I'm working on a song that may require your help at the shows. I'll keep you posted. Right, I'm off to watch Federer dispatch Roddick in 3 sets. Tennis is almost like sport. Enjoy your Sunday.

P.S Speaking of Wimbledon, I've just remembered that my actual 5th birthday cake was in the shape of Great Uncle Bulgaria from the Wombles. Daddy had just come back from the Crimea and what with the South Sea Bubble bursting, we had to make do with...... ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Brian Wright

As I sit in the west wing of McRae Towers, the gentle lilt of birdsong disturbed only by the occasional gunfire of a paedophile-chasing mob, and the ear-splitting squeals of a pitbull tearing the face off a toddler, I’m driven to wonder how we let the poverty gap get so wide under a supposedly Labour government, and how it is I’m supposed to make it to the off-licence for my breakfast binge drinking session without being mugged by a knife-wielding eight-year-old. Girl.

But then I put down the newspaper and realise that as we age, the gap that widens with even greater speed than the poverty gap, is the perception gap between the world we live in and the world the media tell us we live in.

As a trainee journalist (a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away) I remember snidely laughing (I majored in it) at a BBC newsreader who had dared to suggest that there should be more positive stories in the news, maybe about cats and that sort of thing. Well, now I see his point.

In a world apparently gone to shit, with all evidence of justice about as rare as reasoned argument from a Christian, it’s time we had some good news. In a world without hope it is truly the visionary who stands up and says “Enough is Enough”. For goodness sake people, I’ve had songs on Holby City and Hollyoaks all in the same week. Do you not now see that literally anything…ANYTHING is possible?

It is in that gospel spirit of good news (is that tautology?) that I would like to take this opportunity to formally announce that the support for this tour will be provided by the amazing Brian Wright. After much negotiation, a substantial transfer fee rising into the low one figures, I have finally found my Mr Wright.

Thank you to all of you who offered your services - and keep on asking because in this day and age we all have to shout a bit to be heard – but for now the slot is filled.

Many of you will remember Brian from the Hotel Café shows, or know him in his own right as a song-writer extraordinaire, or perhaps just as the guy with the beard. Whether you know him or are yet to get acquainted, be assured his presence on the tour will make this extra special.

He has also graciously agreed to play in my band, which will be the biggest band I have toured with to date. It is going to be a great tour.

Tickets are selling fast for the London Scala show by the way, so to avoid disappointment and subsequent unseemly rioting (just look what happened in Iran when they found out I’d come second in the finale of Tehran’s Got Talent) be sure to get yours soon.

Find out more about Brian Wright here:
http://www.myspace.com/thewacotragedies

The fishing season starts at midnight on Monday. I’m just saying. You know, if you cared. Those of you looking for style tips, my clothing range and perfume is coming soon.
Let the current crop of singer-songwriters worry about being cool and rock and roll. I can’t stand up without grunting these days.

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!

Ahem.

Hello.

Anybody there?

I went away for a while.

But now I'm back.

Like the eponymous hero of Superman 2 I traded my powers to be able to love like a human, and for a while I forgot about the affairs of the world and crime fighting.... and stuff. Although I kept wearing my pants on the outside... (that's underpants for you Americans).

But I see that without me the world has taken a turn to negative town, with democracy itself in peril. Honestly, you take your eyes off the baby for a second and it's got the cat by the tail and it's dangling it out the broken window over a flaming tar pit crawling with rabid crocodile and flying pirhanas - or other toddler/democracy/hydrophobic/winged fish/ reptile-related metaphors you may have of your own that make more sense.

I apologise. I'm tired. I've been writing and recording this album for three years, it is intended as an album in two parts. A volume One and a Volume Two. Not a double album you understand. That's something altogether different. And expensive.

It has taken quite a while to finish part one. I wanted to take some time away from the road to concentrate on writing and recording - to prove some things to myself, and to prove that I could sit still for more than a week.

But I am bored of sitting still. It will soon be time to go back to the Fortress of Solitude and get some advice from a fat, dead, Marlon Brando (there's an 0845 number for those of you who can't make the trip) and to once more take to the skies in my dashing cape. And pants.

I seriously have no idea what I'm saying now. But you get the gist.

Album. Part one. Finished. Release date to be confirmed, but I'm expecting September, just before the tour, so you have a long hot summer to enjoy yourselves before I drag you kicking and screaming into my tempestuous universe.

We'll be getting the website into shape soon, along with all the other preparations for the release of the record - if I say it out loud enough times it must surely come to pass.

The musical landscape has altered dramatically over the last few years, but change is good. It must be embraced, wined and dined and danced with gently to flickering candle light, for longing for the old days and the old ways is the path of the dead man. Although to be fair we did dress better in earlier times. Skinny jeans? People, people.... what are we thinking?

In short, who the hell knows how any of this goes any more?

These are dark, dangerous, times, with doubtless many more storms ahead. But we will face them together, although I may be slightly behind you and to one side... I'm at an age where the wind fair whips through me.

Not that sort of wind.

Finally then, let us resort to art - the one true religion - for our philosophical, moral and spiritual guidance when all else fails. You may even like to take a moment and go outside and shout the following at the night sky, or traffic wardens. If you listen carefully you might just hear others doing the same, raising our voices in united defiance.


"Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world!"

Yep, do that and more.

There's no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes... but I've got a big umbrella and I'm more than happy to share.