listen again // tomorrow morning

Hi all - just a quick update.

For anyone who missed it and wants to hear it, the BBC Berkshire/Introducing session and interview is available on listen again until this Sunday (8th):

Listen again here

Or maybe here

Also, in relation to the Rising Sun Arts Centre show coming up this Saturday (7th), I'll be on BBC Berkshire's breakfast show tomorrow morning just before 8am to let you all know why a) i love it and b) why your attendance this Saturday is essential if they're going to stay open.

Back to the gig. I'll be gracing (headlining, no less) the Garden Stage around 7 - 7.30ish, it's £5 door charge and events are running all day, including poetry and dance and the like. Kids go in free, and in the evening we'll all be treated to the likes of Damien A Passmore and the Loveable Fraudsters, Sixty Watt Bayonets, Dolly and the Clothespegs and the inimitable Heartwear Process. Come on down, your time is now.

All my love.

b. x

tonight on BBC Berks

hi all

you join me watching the Hungarian GP, every year without fail a turgid procession on a par only with Bahrain, but this year a twisting and turning tale of excellence due largely to Hamilton's ability to break his own car, Vettel's natural talent at occasionally throwing away any victory no matter how solid it looks, and Jensen Button's amnesia (you're the world champion, have you forgotten the pedal goes all the way to the floor to make car go vroom?).

anyway, forgive me, i'm delirious with Sunday time off, on the verge of confirming shows for Derby and Kendal later in the year and preparing the tracklist for next Tuesday's [edit] podcast. i write today to remind you that i'm in session tonight on BBC Radio Berkshire's The Session with Jenny Minard for an interview in which i sound largely boring (most of the interesting anecdotes i have to tell fall most definitely outside what can be broadcast on BBC Berks, which is a lot less than you'd think) and a live track. i also think it's the exclusive play of a song called 'They Will Float Your Body Out To Sea' from the forthcoming album.

Tune in this evening 7pm - 8pm or catch it on listen again..

x

the sunday review

INCEPTION

it's alright.

words: ben marwood

in session: [edit] radio

post-Trees comedown complete, life is looking up.

i now have everything i need to get the artwork done for the album, i've confirmed a gig in Devizes and there's another one on the way in Derby if luck will have it, and i have a couple of radio sessions lined up in the coming weeks to keep my chin up.

the first indeed, is alone now, in session for Tom Crook's [edit] radio podcast. is it cheating to do a session for a station that i also DJ for? probably, but who cares!

click here for the podcast in mp3 form, it's about halfway in. there's a neat little interview conducted in the confines of my own front room, and then down to business with a version of 'Five Little Secrets' and forthcoming album track 'Tell Avril Lavigne I Never Wanted To Be Her Stupid Boyfriend Anyway'

oh, that Devizes gig by the way, is for Oxjam and is at The Lamb on August 21st. see you there.

x

.. and oh, i almost forgot

A radio edit of 'Singalong' from the forthcoming album due November has been posted to the Myspace

x

2000 Trees and a Bath

today, i'm taking it easy.

seriously. barely a finger lifted all day. today, you see, is comedown day from 2000 Trees, which i was honoured to play yesterday. one of the only festivals worth its salt on this isle, entirely devoid of irritating chavs and one of the few run from a love of music instead of a love of money.

sure, my hearing's irritatingly shot, and i have no voice left to speak of, but what a day and what a turnout. a touching combination of friends, people still following me from this time last year and a whole bunch of new fans that i didn't even know i had. i hear even Mr Frank Turner himself jumped from a moving van and vaulted the fence to take in some of the set, and when i say 'i hear' i mean 'he told me so'.

i guess the day belonged to that man though. his first major UK festival headline set was incredible, and even managed to beat the Bath Komedia show from a few days before. the Komedia is a beautiful venue, a former playhouse of some description and the kind of old building that is slowly being shut down, demolished, abandoned. but Komedia have given it a home, and it was good to catch up with everyone on Wednesday. my set was okay, plenty of people into 'Oh My Days' and i even managed to scrabble through a new song barely getting any of it right. at 2000 Trees a few days later i get it 5% more right.

but what a day Trees was. for a start, it was the first time i'd ever played on a stage powered by a solar-powered ex-book bus, and it just got better from then on. the 4th annual occurrence of the Cheltenham festival had its wet moments - it has, after all, rained each of the three previous years - but the site held up well. barely a mudslide greeted the likes of Pulled Apart By Horses (rowdy), Future of the Left (sarcastic, sour-faced but brilliant), Chris T-T (overwhelming), Jim Lockey & the Solemn Sun (masterful) and anyone else i saw on the day. i pose for photos, sell a few records and wonder not for the first time this year how the fuck i'm going to sit at my desk on Monday morning.

tonight though, is all about the comedown. i've just got in from a 'run' (i only managed 20 minutes, having decided to run immediately after a cup of tea, and that's a Hazard), i have three films to watch this evening (Walk The Line, the absurdly disappointing Funny Games and Memento) and a pizza to negate the goodness of the exercise (or because of. i'm not sure). to top it off, i even found my copy of The Hold Steady's Stay Positive, which is superb. also on the list of new CDs, alongside the 2000 Trees' compilation Cider Smiles, is Thrill Collins' demo, Death Cab's Something About Airplanes (finally. i'm prepared to be disappointed) and the first Tokyo Police Club EP. considering i went out to buy the Sam Amidon album and a sieve, i'm not entirely sure where it all went wrong. well, not wrong. different.

thanks to Jacqui, who drove me to Bath on Wednesday, and to Richard Sanderson, who obliged for Trees. thanks also to everyone i met in both places, especially the girl who gave me the comic/fanzine/art that is in my bag, just out of reach, the lovely folk i met last year who came with me to Chris T-T this year, and also the crew from Norwich who let me drink their San Miguel and play 'I Know What I Did Last Summer' at them until i ran off into the evening, an evening which ended at the hand of the aforementioned and excellent Thrill Collins, Jim Lockey and Joe Summers near the I Started The Fire stall.

enough reflection on the week though. it's Sunday afternoon now and i forgot to post the above yesterday. i was distracted by Walk The Line, which was great. and the pizza, which was less great. Funny Games, on reflection, is less gutting on the second watch, and is almost an entirely different movie, where allegiances lie elsewhere from the first time. Memento was okay. perhaps an odd way to end, finishing as it did at 3.30am-ish. it made IMDB's Top 250 list if i'm not mistaken, so perhaps i'm just missing something.

x

i guess now england are out..

.. it's safe to remind everyone who my World Cup favourites are.

clicky clicky