“Yarrrgggh” the grizzly bear roared.

“Yargh yourself” I replied, darting behind him in one smooth motion and leaping high on his back, pointing towards the sunrise. “Let’s explore the wilderness”.

Well anyway I think I’m coming to the end of all that nonsense now, so here’s an idea.

How about we go to a really small venue, maybe 30 of us or something. I’ll play mainly new songs and together we’ll get a feel for which ones are good, and which ones are, quite frankly, amazing.

What I’ve got in mind is a ‘Work In Progress’ theme. Be prepared for me to stop a song half way through because I’ve been hit by the crushing realisation that it’s rubbish. I’ll talk a bit about the songs, and you should feel free to voice your opinions if you want to.

We could do it sort-of-regularly as the songs develop into an … Read the rest

Some spambot or international hacking movement deemed it necessary to hack my site. No demands were made, so I presume I just have to write better songs.

Sorry to anyone who wasn’t interested in The Darwin Awards or rare Christian books, it’s all fixed now. Who does this and why?… Read the rest

This is what I’m expecting…. I hear it is -15C at the moment…

It’s very easy to forever be looking into the future and thinking “I’ll be happy if…” while all the cool stuff is happening RIGHT NOW. Look! A monkey went by on a jetski and you missed it.

I may be deep in plans for the rest of the year, but in just a couple of weeks I’ll play my first tour of Canada. This is just what I always dreamed of – making music, seeing the world, meeting people…. all a real privilege to soak up and wash down with maple syrup.

If you know anything or anyone in Vancouver, Victoria, Prince George or British Columbia more generally, I’d love to hear from you. A friendly face to meet, a musician to listen to, a place to eat, an indispensable factoid, a handy way to avoid mortal … Read the rest

Happy New Year! I’ve just spent a few quiet months songwriting, it’s been wonderful, and also quite difficult. I hadn’t sat still for 3 years and there were so many new things to uncover. What to do and say next?

I found myself spending at least as much time just thinking. Thinking about…. stuff… how can I be more happy? Will they still teach kids how to write with a pen in the future? Is it ok to eat meat?…..

If I had to point to a subject I’ve written about most it is mental health and my relationship with thinking, the treasures and traps to be discovered from being more aware of my own thought processes, and the moments of joy from switching it all off sometimes. Over the next few months I’ll be writing more songs, working out how best to record them and doing small solo gigs … Read the rest

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Something about the school system has forged a link in me between Autumn and starting again. September has a strange sort of Sunday afternoon into Monday morning quality about it after the Saturday night party of summer, like a limbo space not belonging to one week or the next.

Everyone around seems to be hitting the reset button at the moment. Me I’m definitely drinking my pint of hangover water. It’s been an epic party, two and half years long and spanning more towns and cities than I expected to visit in a lifetime. I’ve met an outrageous number of excellent people, many of whom I’d love to still be friends with in the morning. Others will be remembered only as temporary legends blowing my mind with their awesomeness then disappearing into the night, but that’s cool too.

Since our last gig I’ve spent two weeks cleaning up, which is … Read the rest