It's war-hol, as in hole...
on 20th August 2008
Hi All,
Hope you enjoy some of the below – it's amazing what you can find in the loft.
I wrote 'It Seems' with the same group of songs that became 'Loss', my first album. I think i had a sore throat
that day but in my excitement at being in a studio recording an album I just kept going, singing 7 or 8 songs some days. The instrumentation is very much of that time for me – it starts with a sound called 'Transign' which was stored on one of my keyboards then (and still is now) and i remember my first big London show at The Barfly
(then The Monarch) in Camden and feeling like tonight is the night, lots of record companies, friends etc – one of these night when you know you need to bottle all the emotions, unfortunately i did the beer instead. Anyway, I left with a record deal and compliment from Jarvis cocker about my Shipping Forecast intro. it was an NME night with Ed Harcourt also on the bill (who is saw recently again..) and i remember the NME review picked out 'It Seems': i've never forgotten that, but somehow have the song! So here it is, finally unearthed, wrapped in glitter.
"Last Nite' is a great song which i saw close up on my tour with The Strokes – i've documented that all before on here (i remember i was the tour blogger when blogging was all new) i just thought i was the tour gossipmeter. Great times and then Rough Trade were looking for some cover versions and i went into the studio to do this. I remember it was an exciting night in Gravity studios in Glasgow – where i've recorded so much of my material with Brian McNeill engineering brilliantly – and it was an unusual session for me in that i had the live band in the studio with me, usually i'd beon my own. Brass, the lot. So i re-arranged the track – Mull-Mowtown i think is the official genre! – and we hit record. And this is the first time i've had it available. I do remember a drunken night at Brixton Academy giving The Strokes' guys the cdr of it – no idea what they thought of it.
The bonus tracks for 'Famous For Being Famous' (aye, the non-free ones!) are ''You & Me Ground Zero' and 'When Losers Become Friends'. Both were recorded around the time of the 'Us' album. The later i first wrote when i was about eighteen but i think it stands up okay. Quite a Bowie feel unsurprisingly.
See some of you during September's new live dates. Have a look on the site for Glasgow and Liverpool. More to be announced. The Edinburgh Edge Festival Corn Exchange gig was a good one. Thanks for the messages!
I've been back home on Mull recording new material to follow The Water (more on that elsewhere on this blog), and been writing loads, and trying to carry my GIANT sized Andy Warhol book around London (you'll see why soon…i have an interesting Saturday night coming up in London). His prediction that Celebrity would become the new commodity was the inspiration for my new single 'Famous For Being Famous'.The last thing that I recorded for the album, literally as the final taxi from the studio was waiting, was: "Andy Warhol said!!!"
It kind of worked, even in deepest, darkest Sussex…..
Colin
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