Dear all,
Just to follow on from my previous blog (you know the one eight months ago…), I have news. I have a new album on the way! I have tours of Australia, New Zealand and the UK on the way! Oh and I have two children…I should really update this more often.
Let’s start with the most important thing. Isaac was born in April at a healthy (!) eight pound six and has delighted us and amazed us at how different two children can be. I love my daughter dearly, but nobody could ever call her a good sleeper or an easy child to feed (unless chocolate or chippy tea). But one can call her a fantastic traveller who will sit for hours in the car with no complaint and has done since she was born.
Then there’s Zac…he started sleeping through the night about three weeks in. During the rather more turbulent months of Heidi’s non-sleeping in which I genuinely feared for my life as lack of sleep and being awoken tend to transform my beloved lady into a cross between a hurricane and a frenzied assailant, we had a policy of me staying downstairs with Heidi until either she or I fell asleep and then we would swap. We started doing this for Zac before quickly realising how wholly unnecessary it was! Likewise we discovered he was ready for solid food when we went out for breakfast and Nicol looked down to find her toast gone because Zac had pinched it and begun to consume it…so far so good.
But then there’s the car…oh the car. Zac doesn’t like the car. When I say he doesn’t like the car, I guarantee you won’t know just how much I mean it when I say he doesn’t like the car. This affable, jolly, smiling little boy is reduced to a screaming, whaling, gibbering wreck when placed in a car seat and it only gets worse as we move. Journey after journey has involved seven stops per hour (just what you need when you’ve got off a ferry and have a three hour drive at the other end) as the noise and distress becomes unbearable. My son has very few flaws…but that is one of them.
So what have we decided to do? Why, go back to Australia of course!!! What do you mean we’re crackers? In fairness it’s a slightly different kind of trip this time as I won’t be bringing the whole troop with me everywhere like I did last time. Thanks to the generosity of Nicol’s family in New South Wales, they shall be stationed there while I go off and do the long journeys that Australia has plenty of! I’m not neglecting my beloved New Zealand either. Last time I had to make the difficult decision not to do the south island for time and logistics reasons. This time, it’s the north island that is sadly jettisoned as I will be correcting missing out on the stunning south island. I’ll be a headline guest at Illawarra Folk Festival in Oz as well as a whole clutch of lovely gigs including a first visit to Canberra since 2018 and a first visit ever to Brisbane. Can’t wait!
All this and the UK tour in May and September next year is to promote…MY NEW ALBUM! Yes, for the first time in six years a whole new album of brand new original music is on the horizon. As mentioned in my previous blog I went on a creative spree in the early months of the year and the fruits of that are reflected here. It’s a different kind of album in that it owes most of its influence to the country currently run by a tangerine twerp with much less nod to my usual source of Ireland. I don’t particularly know why this is. I just found that my new songs all seemed to be heading towards the bluegrass and Americana end of things so I kind of ran with it. Plus I’d always imagined I’d make this kind of album one day. Don’t get me wrong it’s me so of course it’s not that simple to categorise! There’s a bit of funk in there and what I’ve been told is a slightly Eastern European sounding waltz…but yes overall this album nods more to my love of Alison Krauss & Union Station and Nickel Creek rather than to Horslips and Sharon Shannon!
I am extremely excited about the album. I’m particularly pleased with the new songs which touch on themes of the challenges of the high street, the value of art, dementia, the meaning of life…you know the usual stuff. Things are most certainly helped by a stellar cast of supporting musicians too. My old chum Nic Zuppardi once again lends his exquisite mandolin and producer Mark his usual vocal harmonies and of course superb production. But there are also first collaborations with double bassist Lucy Williams and fiddler Niles Kriger, two musicians I have long admired but never played with in a non-jamming way. My banjo protege Kate Griffin also adds some lovely vocal harmonies. I can’t wait for you all to hear it!
More news to come soon 🙂