Hi All

Been working away all week in Glasgow rehearsing a new live set up. Cant believe it , feels better than ever! Really been great week. All the songs on the new album are now ready to go live and have a power about them. Somehow the essence of each of the songs is coming through. I think i’ve always struggled  a bit with the live thing , and to re-create what i’ve achieved in the recording studio. Problem is i want to play all the instruments that i’ve played in the studio at once on stage. But it’s there now – even the material from my 3 albums previous has come to life for me in a new way. I was playing Watching Xanadu in rehearsals the other day and i was singing (as i’ve done a million times before) the lyrics, but somehow i was really tuned into the idea that a girl can ‘do anything’ , ‘be anything’, and to what the song is really about. Wish i’d known when i wrote it!

I’ve almost lost the shitty cough that’s been circling in my rib cage and upwards for what seems like 187 years – pretty much since i came back from America. Or maybe the plague has returned to London. Good timing that it’s on the way out as this week i have 3 gigs. Hope to see some of you out there. Tomorrow night i’m playing at the XFM Winter Wonderlanfd gig in Glasgow Carling Academy. It’s being broadcast UK-wide live on XFM i believe. Should be fun, i’m looking forwards to playing there, never have before. Seen some great gigs there – The Killers (where they walked off to blowdry their keyboard after a pint of lager was thrown on it)/ White Stripes, and it seems like always a great atmousphere. Then Thurs (14th) i’m playing the BBC 6 Music night at The Borderline in London. First outing for my new set up – the technology has gone digital! And back up to Glasgow for a semi-acoustic set at Classic Grand for the Shelter Charity. That should be different too, i like stripping the songs back. And it’s a new venue for me also. 

I’ve got a new black and ballsy guitar which i’ve fallen in love with. Really carries the new songs in the way they’ve been recorded. The album is out in promotion land now, but i’m so excited with it and i just have to let it go now. Now i’m a few months away from it , it seems like a positive message. These are the songs i’m happiest with yet for sure. Really cant wait to gig it all over and then to one day give up Benylin cough mixture. It tastes good you have to admit.

First track off the album is ‘Stalker’. More news to come on that and how to get it. It’s going to be on a 4 track E.P. Some of you will have heard it live by now. It is quite relentless. A bit like ‘Famous For Being Famous’ and ‘Future Gods & Past Kings’. I need to give my lungs a work out. It seems urban and urgent and linear. Which feels like where i want to be now (you could swap linear for uncluttered if you wanted 3 words beginning with ‘u’, but i’m in danger of breaching the whole ethos now).

It’s been a creative year of stretching the possibilities. Time now to get out there and play. And this week in rehearsals i started recording new song ideas onto my mobile phone. I wont listen to them for a while, i’ll just store them up and try not to lose my phone like i did at this year’s T in the Park (and half the ideas for my acoustic album back home on Mull with it). But somehow they return, even if my phone never did. F*ck – that’s album 5 started. I’ve written a bit about each of the new songs on the album, but i’ll wait till it’s out there before uploading. But you can hear some clips now. More to come…

That’s it for now….the ball in this mouse has just popped out and rolled onto the floor, and i’m a bit factual and frazzled today….and there’s a good programme on about the Moon landings.

I liked Ricky Hatten’s quote that ‘it was never meant to be a tickling contest’.

Cheers Colin