Today I’m back in studio, gazing longingly at brownies (courtesy of our caterers over at graciesbakes.com) working on one final track for the album.

We’re not allowed a brownie until we’ve got all the vocals recorded.  Though the chances of us sticking to that are probably fairly slim…

The new record will be out in October in Ireland.  It’s going to be called ‘You Can’t Buy Back Your Life’.  Johnny D, who did the last record, is currently working up a storm on the artwork front.

It is fair to say that being back recording again, the last few days that we’ll be working on the new record, has me fairly humming with excitement and full of the joys of an Irish summer, which is to say that I’m enjoying what sunshine there is while mentally preparing myself for the next downpour of rain.

The less said about the weather the better.

Stuff happening!  If you’re in Ireland, please come and catch a gig!

JUNE:
Dundalk – Thurs 17th – Supporting Heathers – The Spirit Store
Dublin – Sun 20th – Co-Headliner w/ Resurrection Fern & Justin Grounds

JULY:
Dublin – Tues 6th – Ruby Sessions – Doyles, Fleet Street
Portlaoise – Sat 10th – Bar Habana
Dundalk – Mon 12th – Tall Poppy Club @ The Spirit Store

And for those of you new to the mailing list – welcome!  And if you haven’t already, do the ‘likey like’ thing on Facebook.

I’m off to deny myself more brownies now.  Laters folks…

Here’s another tune for you all from the Brownbread mixtape gig…

Get that into ye!

If you’d like to catch a live gig, here’s what I’m up to over the next little while – more to come:

• Dublin – Wednesday June 16th – Zodiac Sessions in Bruxelles – FREE
• Limerick – Friday June 11th – Bakers Bar – Supporting David Hope and the Henchmen – 6 euro
• Dundalk – Thursday June 17th – Spirit Store – Supporting Heathers – 8 euro
• Dublin – Sunday June 20th – Odessa Club – Co-Headliner with Resurrection Fern and Justin Grounds – 5 euro
• Dublin – Tuesday July 6th – Ruby Sessions in Doyles Pub – 6 euro
• Portlaoise – Saturday July 10th – Bar Habana – FREE
• Dundalk – Monday July 12th – Tall Poppy Club @ The Spirit Store – FREE

Kalle and Enda put together a mix of musicians, poets, comedians and comedy sketches (from their very own Brownbread Players). It happens once a month upstairs in the Stags Head, Dublin.
.

As you can hear, they’ve a fine choir in there as well

Today, for the first time, many things became clear to me. It’s like I’ve developed a super power or something…

I can now intuit the easiest load in route at a venue, simply by smelling the air right outside. Flight cases weigh half what they did yesterday. Guitars are easier to tune. Sound engineers are suddenly prepared to accept the possibility of their own fallibility.

What’s that I hear you ask? How did all these seemingly miraculous changes come about?

Simple, my friends.

I got a hand cart.

If you happen to be around Cork in the next two weeks or so, check out the issue of Hot Press that’s out Thursday 20th. It’s got a free CD featuring a rake of acts from down southaways (including yours truly). My track on there is ‘False North’, and if you can’t pick up a copy, you can stream it from here.

Not a whole lot else happening at the moment, apart from the dog making a holy nuisance of himself.

I’ve been working on my live setup (more changes coming there) and lining things up for later on in the year. There’ll be a few live dates coming up, which you can keep up to date on from the here.

Hope you’re all keeping well and having fun…

Big up to Cubby Dimling, who directed, and all the guys who got stuck in helping out in the making, Patrick Murray, Dan D’Amico, Corinne Rapone, Amy Wolf, Joe Greco, Corinne Rapone, Catherine Polin, Amy Wolf & especially Aisling Garland out in Jamestown Studios, Severine Teruel & Pat Mannion for the bikes and everyone involved in NYU Tisch Dublin and Hot Press.

Wednesday brought me to the Brownbread Mixtape, held in the Parlour Bar (upstairs in The Stags Head) in Dublin, which happens to be where I launched my first ep waaaay back when…

This was a lot of fun. The guys who run it, Kalle and Enda, co-ordinate some musicians, some poets, some stand-ups and some comedy sketches and tie it all up with a lovely bow on top. They run it once a month, go check it out if you get a chance. You won’t be disappointed.

To cap it all off, you may or may not be aware that the Irish Times recently ran a competition for to find a new Irish national anthem.

Turns out Kalle and Enda won it.  Anoint your ears with ‘My Blood is Boiling for Ireland’.  Now.  It’s got some Irish language call and response going on, sheep noises, involuntary snorting laughter and a fine, lusty “Come On Ireland!!” at the end.  I’ll say no more, just go listen to it!

I took myself off to Shadwell, which is between Canary Wharf and Tower Bridge on the route, which doubles back through this area, the plan being to catch herself at 13 miles and at 22. The more encouragement the better.

In all I was standing by the route for something in the region of three hours and the sea of people running past me was remarkable. Neither words nor pictures do it justice.

All shapes, all sizes, fast to slow, big to small, stressed to euphoric. Pretty much most of the runners had their names on their jerseys so spectators could personalise their encouragement.

There were also some pretty epic fancy dress costumes; one Elvis, I think I saw four Supermen, at least three Batmen, one of whom also had a Robin in tow, to say nothing of the camel, the lad running with a ladder, the Big Bird costume with the extra extendable neck, at least two conga lines, the lads from the Lifeboats who were running carrying a dingy, many hundreds of people in tutus (male and female), several soldiers with backpacks, one fireman, one policeman and god knows how many others I missed.   I think you’re all crazy. But fair play to you all it’s an incredible achievement.

Herself was delighted to shave 7 minutes off the time she did Dublin in. Recovery might take a little bit longer though!

Friday was Georges day over here in Ingerland.  They don’t seem to take it as seriously as we take Paddys Day, but there were some flags and bunting out and whatnot.  No sign of the Thames being dyed red, white and blue though.

My main mission was to see what could be done with the aforementioned Macbook.  Good news and bad news on that front.  The bad news being that the logic board is faulty.  They cost about €700 to buy from what I can make out.  You’ll understand that I’m pretty happy that this is covered by Apple, so I just have to fork out for someone to take the faulty one out and put the new one in.  Bit of a relief!  I had visions of me throwing it in the bin!

That done, part ordered and so forth I headed town-wards for the evening.

Managed to bag an iTunes sale from the pub.  God bless our hyperconnected world, that someone can browse the web from the comfort of their bar stool and make me 50p richer in the process.

I’m in good company!  Good man Johnny!

Herself arrived over on Saturday and we spent the day chuntering around London, getting her registered for the marathon and catching up with friends.  Herself headed off to leaba-land early enough while I ended up back at base in Clapham singing songs until 2 in the morning.

Good job I’m not running the marathon…

“Aaaaaaannnnnd the ‘aul triiiiiiiiiannnngllleeeeeeee….”

And so on and so forth…