avoiding the drought season: an idiot's perspective

Please, someone, let this be a joke.

Please.

No?

Well at least it's a letter from Australia.

the shows must go on..

After knocking away the cobwebs over St Patrick's weekend with a show for the Reading University Songwriters Society (though, as Steve Lewis pointed out that night, a night surprisingly full of covers for a songwriters event), it's time to confirm some more shows.

A return to 2000 Trees
Sure as eggs are eggs, I can confirm today that I'm back at 2000Trees this July 14th. I'm pretty damn excited to be involved in this festival for the fourth year in a row, and happy to be heading back to the headline spot on the Greenhouse stage. Those of you who found it too quiet last year will be overjoyed (i'm sure) to note that the PA for this year will be even bigger.

Also confirmed for the festival are the likes of Dry The River, Future of the Left, Pulled Apart By Horses and much much more. As ever, there are no day tickets, but weekend tickets are still available here.

Trees on Fire

As if one 2000Trees-themed event wasn't enough, I'm also pleased to be playing the Trees on Fire alldayer at Cheltenham's Frog and Fiddle three months earlier on Saturday, April 14th. Tickets are available here.

Glastonbury (fringe) Festival

Yep, since there's no Glastonbury festival to be had this year, my good friend Steve Henderson has taken it upon himself to help liven up their fringe festival with a couple of great nights in June, firstly with Jim Lockey and Gaz Brookfield on Friday, June 22nd, and then me, Oxygen Thief and Nick Parker on Saturday 23rd.

Tickets are available at £5 for either night or £8 for both. You can get more information by emailing Steve.

And of course, the JimBob show..

.. with me and Damien A Passmore in support, in Reading, on May 18th. Tickets are still available at £9 here.

Hopefully i'll see you at one of those. More show news to follow!

Thanks again to anyone and everyone who came down to the show over the weekend. I can't remember the last time I played for fifty minutes and have it only feel like ten..

.. oh, and a note from some friends of mine

Broken Tail Records are firing up their engines for their tenth official release this April, the debut single from my good friends Quiet Quiet Band.

More information right here: clickyclicky

Catch them supporting Emmy the Great this Friday at Sub89 in Reading.

a steak through the heart

hey everyone

some exciting developments at bM hQ this week, and when i say 'some exciting developments' i mean 'some developments'.

first of all, i'm hard at work recently sorting out the first ever run of ben marwood t-shirts. it's something which i've been looking into for a long time but haven't had the inclination to follow through with for various reasons. I've finally been convinced that there are a bunch of people out there who I can trust the quality of, so the wheels are in motion. these will be available at select shows and from the ben marwood store on benmarwood.com, when it eventually opens. i guess that there's a store on the way is announcement #2.

the reason this is all future-speak is because i'm currently in the back yard of my girlfriend's shared house in Tampa, meaning my brain couldn't give even half a fuck about websites and stores and such, but i'm back in the country on Sunday and everything will go crazy from then on.

whilst i'm on the subject of Tampa, i was lucky enough this week to enjoy the company of Mr Frank Turner and his band of merry men currently out on tour with the dropkicks. to a man they look exhausted, but in fine form, and if the recent show at Ritz Ybor is anything to go by they've torn this tour a new turban. Ttttt. i had the pleasure of harmonic'ing the shit out of a mouthy mouth-harp for 'I Still Believe' and caught up with (your friends and mine) The Ruckus, and then I started drinking on my antibiotics and I cannot remember how the funk I got home. But apparently I navigated. My autopilot is a reliable beast.

to cap it all, and apologies to the vegetarians in the audience, but my girlfriend sprung upon me a surprise anniversary visit to Bern's Steak House, an independently-owned, upmarket, how-the-fuck-can-you-afford-this steak house right here in Tampa. for the sake of all of us, i'm going to keep my memories to myself, but good god if you're a steak fan and you ever get the chance to go, just go.

http://www.bernssteakhouse.com/

anyway, the crickets have risen and the wind is up. adios.

horatio dies all over again

dear boris,

a few years back i wrote a song called 'Horatio Dies'. though i never 'properly' released it, people still liked it and i play it a lot.

during the album recording sessions with Bobby Bloomfield of Does It Offend You, Yeah? back in August which spawned a couple of decent tracks, I had a stab at a new version of 'Horatio Dies', and then donated it to the good people at Engineer Records.

they have THIS to say..

------------------------

All of us at Engineer Records are very proud to be giving the world Lamp Light The Fire: A Compilation of Quiet(ER) songs

Lamp Light The Fire has a theme. No questions or hidden agendas. Simply put, Engineer Records wanted to gather a small array of artists that we´ve loved and worked with in the past, and/or thought would sound great in the environment of an acoustic guitar as the central instrument, and build from there. Don´t let the title fool you though, as there are as many acoustic rockers on here, as much as the intensely subtle, slow burners as you´d expect on such a compilation. Listening to it as a whole you'll hear that this real gem of a project sounds just as dynamic as any ´proper´ album. Although mellow in places, this is not a snoozer of an album only to fall asleep with. Hearing how each artist took the idea and built upon it is certainly the key to the album's inspiration. You´ll find some songs that sound like the artists´ best work yet, and plenty of exclusive material.

You´ll hear the acoustic guitar accompanied by piano, strings, vocal harmonies, and fitting percussion. You´ll hear some artists we´ve worked with in the past, showing off their new material, and some newer bands, or newer solo work, most of which is previously unreleased. Engineer Records and these artists, including Chuck Ragan (Hot Water Music), Ryan Mills, Jeff Rowe, The Satellite Year, Her Only Presence, Mikee J Reds (Call Off The Search), Elemae, The Waltz (Penfold/Moirai) and Dan Coutant (Joshua), have created the scenario of a sit down at a camp fire surrounded by good friends. This musical company bring together talent from across the world to warm your heart, sway your soul, and reflect upon the quieter side of life.

PURCHASE FROM THIS LINK (engineer bandcamp)

PHYSICAL CDs AVAILABLE FROM ENGINEER AND INTERPUNK

So there!

happy new ears

all,

a belated happy new year to you. i would've posted this message earlier, but i had to recover from my experiences this year at the stroke of midnight as me and my girlfriend saw in 2012.. kettled around the back of London Waterloo, able to hear fireworks, somewhere, but more able to hear the shouts of the general public, annoyed that we'd all left it too late to make it to the South Bank.

so, we went home to Reading, shared some champagne and watched Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls and made our plans for 2012.

i don't have any plans for 2012, dear reader. well, i do, but they're pretty vague. i have no resolutions, merely plans:

Plan #1: make album #2

this past weekend I visited the good kids at White House for album recording days 8 - 10. it was crunch weekend, because by the time day #11 rolls around it will be over a year since day #1, and i don't want to have a five year gap between first and second albums (though i'd definitely string you along for that amount of time if you let me).

the songs are sounding natural. i have a fear that some are a bit basic, but a second album of puns and smart-alec quips will only cause some of you to punch me in the ego eventually. still, all the music is written, and the next step is to flesh out the twenty-something songs into finished articles. all necessary musicians have been recruited, what we need now is Time.

Plan #2: finally, some t-shirts

i think i've finally tired of being the only musician to sell more than 50 records in a shop who doesn't have a t-shirt with his name on and/or a hilarious statement about how cool/uncool/subversive they are. expect this to be remedied by the time i get out on the road

Plan #3: do some gigs

i know that should be a given that any musician is going to do gigs, but i'm one of the few who could accidentally go a year without really doing very many (see: 2007, 2008, 2010). the reason i'm not doing any at the minute is very simple. number 1: i have nothing to sell, number 2: i have no new set, and i've been playing this current one for a couple of years now. it's time for a change. i have some one-off shows planned in the coming months, as well as a track on a new compilation, and i'll get to those this week.

so, there you go

consider yourself updated. i'm off to grovel to my e-mailing list that i haven't spoken to them for many, many months, and i just (FINALLY) found the mailing list from the Frank Turner/Franz Nicolay tour back in May in a box just now, so i will also have to grovel at them and see if they remember who i am.

YOU, take it easy..

x

lazy boxing day extravaganza of eating and TV

HEY KIDS

Look at that, two blog posts in two days, as my actual mailing list lies neglected. I'll sort that out sometime soon, it's just easier to post tiny status updates on Facebook and Twitter than sitting down and engaging my brain and telling you all about things in detail. Especially when there's nothing to tell in detail.

Yep, my plans for 2012 are hazy, but there are couple of nailed-on facts: there'll be a second album (my playlist currently consists of fourteen unmixed songs, and we're just getting started) and there'll be a few smaller releases (EP, singles, free downloads, splits and so on) before the year is out. There'll be a tour when I can, and if I can I'll hopefully be re-pressing some of the older stuff to coincide, given that This Is Not What You Had Planned is sold out, there are only two copies of the Exclamation At Asterisk Hash split left with the distributors as I type this, and until the album is re-pressed (if, indeed, it is) I have limited merch to sell. Plus, you know, people do seem to want it.

Of course, if that's to happen it'll mean a little work; the original label Broken Tail Records has only one release left before it shuts down, so it would involve setting up a new imprint, finding distribution and blahblahblah now I'm thinking out loud.

So there are the plans for 2012, laid out before your very eyes. There'll be a few shows announced before too long which will see the new material start being road-tested. There'll probably (finally) be t-shirts and all that nonsense.

But for now it's me, my parents, and Goodnight Mr Tom. So this is Christmas.