Video-tour-time-arama!

This is the video for 'The Doctor'! It's AMAZING! I'm genuinely spellbound at what Emma's been able to do. I know she worked incredibly hard for me and I felt quite guilty when I knew she was up all night creating this wonderful piece of visual delight. However, she did say that she just wanted to get it right, for it to be as good as it could be. This has certainly been achieved in my opinion. What a star that girl is! Maybe she can get some sleep now. Much deserved. So yeah, viddy well!

Tour diary mania now. The April journal which has been uploaded by Comfort Comes has parts one and two now online. From this experience though I did learn that it would be substantially more sensible to break it up into individual parts as I do have a quite dramatic tendency to rant. So, at present, you can read the entries from Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and Northamton from the WONDERFUL There Goes The Fear. I cannot thank either John at Comfort Comes or Phil at TGTF for all their help and support. Lovely lovely people. John and I are trying to work on some kind of live performance video thing too. Either way, thanks guys.

I had a wonderful time on tour, it was certainly the best one thus far. Early in the week I was finding it difficult but I pulled it around eventually. Special mentions must go out to the drunk race track girls in Bristol who asked me not "what are you writing?" but "what are you writing FOR?" There's a Bill Hicks sketch this reminded me of. Miriam in Birmingham who handed me two deodorants during that day, including one when I was on stage as I claimed I smelt so bad. I think I'm playing a gig for her in August. The two main things I remember from Manchester are the Roadhouse having it's own beer which we assumed must be Fosters with a water top. Hmmm...tasty. Also, my mate Steve calling Spotify 'Spoticus' all the time which makes me giggle. It's like a cross between Spotify and Spartacus. I love it. I don't remember pretty much anything about the last three days. I had a good time.

This week I did an interview with the lovely people at Art and Things magazine, which should be out quite soon and will be totally free. It's run by a small and incredibly hardworking bunch of people. I'm very honoured to be in their magazine. They did have to enforce a work limit on me though to make sure I didn't turn a two page spread interview into a twenty page short story.

Flu

It's not been much crack recently. This flu is limiting my productivity. Still, some things are coming on. By the end of today all the press for the single will be done. Which it already should have been frankly but hell, nevermind there is the first part of my April tour diary to keep you amused. Massive thanks to John at Comfort Comes for posting this up for me. We had to split it into separate bits as it's a pretty long read. The length of the entries is mainly due to the amazing boredom of life on tour. I mean, in general, you get up to absolutely nothing. Even in the evening, if you get drunk, wow, whoopie shit. Aren't I just Keith Moon and Keith Richards rolled into one? No, not exactly. That said, I think the diary is, dare I say it, pretty amusing in places and I've not not attempted to make it out to be anything it's not. The Leeds and Stoke entries next time are particuarly...erm...interesting.

Apparently, as of 10am tomorrow morning (how precise some people can be!) there will be a link to a download of the b-side to the single, 'Crystal Missile', from There Goes The Fear. The song will feature on the album but this is the original 4-track version. Hopefully, positive reviews and airplay are going to be on there way soon. Fingers crossed. But hell, even if everyone slates 'The Doctor' and claims me to be a man without any talent in life whatsoever I'm still very proud of this song and this recording. I think it's a step forward and I'm hoping that the album will push me on further creatively too.

On that side of things, the album is pencilled in for the 14th September (the week of my birthday) and it's working title is 'Stygn' which, for those unaware, is 'stitches' in Swedish. My girlfriend (who is half Swedish) and I are going to Sverige this summer to camp out with some elks in the sticks near Göteborg. For this I need to learn some Swedish as I currently know the names of cutlery and little else. The reason for naming it 'stitches' is the idea of trying to put situations, opinions and feelings behind you and stitch them up. Also, we're working with different formats for the record (4-track & 1680) so we're gonna have to stitch them together to make it sound cohesive. Plus, my girlfriend works in the fashion industry. Sewing. Stitches. Are you keeping up? Have I over exercised my point ever so slightly. HAVE I!? Yes, I have.

Very quickly too: I'm doing an interview piece for the Indietrack blog in the next few days, hopefully something quirky and interesting. The video is nearly at an end I believe so I'll post that up as soon as it's done. It's gonna be ace. And briefly, to clear something up from last time, I'm not going to 'retire' just yet. There's still some fight left in me yet. But there will be less touring and probably more emphasis on LT being mainly focused on recording and releasing albums, EP's, singles etc. But that doesn't mean I'm going to evaporate, I'm gonna be around for a fair while yet.

Small steps at a time...

...you can bare witness to my inclusion on the Indietracks CD for this years festival here, thanks Sounds XP for letting me know I am track five on there! I mean the fact that no-one seemingly buys music anymore, in any format, has marginally taken the shine off this but hey, it's gonna be in Japan and Sweden so, you know, FUCK YOU careers officer aged fourteen, eh!? No, not really.

I've been ill and my internet has been dead. Neither of these things have pleased me. It's meant working has been slow, painful and drawn out by having to cough out my lungs every two to three minutes. Not much fun to be honest. Still, I'm marginally better now so I'm back on it. And the guy from the Apple shop today helped me greatly and essentially told me to sack off this pretty plops Orange broadband package I have.

I've been thinking a lot about the future recently. I don't know how much longer I am going to be doing this. When I was younger I couldn't see myself doing anything but music, or at least working in the music industry. However, I grow tired of a lot of the nonsense attached to it all. I don't think long term I want to work in or be part of an industry that's as self-centered as this one. When I was younger all I did was think of myself and consider a life about a week ahead of me at most. People change.

I've been contemplating what the meaning of life is, I've come to the conclusion that the meaning of life is probably down to your own interpretation. For some the meaning of life might be to do the work of God. For some it might be to live out their dreams...I keep having this dream where I meet God after I die and I find out that the meaning of life was in fact not to do good deeds or treat people right but to acquire as many turnips as humanly possible. Yes, that's right: turnips. But I think as potentially absurd that suggestion might be, it's got as much conclusive evidence behind it's argument as a lot of other more popular theories have.

Anyway, enough of the turnips.

My point is that you find the meaning of life through your own opinions, beliefs and experiences. From my point of view, I ultimately want my existence to have been for something more than vanity, which is what a career in music is born of. I need to do what I'm doing at present for some reason, I'm not sure why it is. Perhaps it's a feeling that I must succeed to some degree before I hang up my creative spurs. Perhaps it's a compulsion to write and document life. I don't know. But there is going to come a time when I don't want to be a person whose actions in life are all for his own ends. I want the meaning of my life, ultimately, to be to aid, care and understand people on a grand scale. I'm 90% sure I know how I want to do this but I don't want to say anything until I've come to a concrete decision. And I would potentially continue to write, record and release stuff too. Maybe so, maybe not. Either way, I see this current path coming to an end, not immediately, but it's there in the distance somewhere. Best try and enjoy it as much whilst I'm still passing through.