Jul 1 2013

The Duckworth Lewis Method Are Go!

We’re almost ready for take off folks…

Sticky Wickets Cover

The brand new album from The Duckworth Lewis Method is out today!! If you can find a record shop still standing (!) go out right now and grab yourself a copy. The band has a sparkly new website which looks fantastic and they put out a video for the first single It’s Just Not Cricket. It looks a bit like this…

Neil and Thomas has been busy doing a whole bunch of radio interviews. The best way to keep up with all their adventures is via Twitter I find, it gets updated regularly. Although wait until we’re on tour folks…

So our fist show is on Monday at Lord’s, then we’re at the Nottingham Playhouse on Tuesday. We’ll be playing at Electric Picnic in August and then the big tour starts at the end of September. here’s some dates for you…

  • Friday 20th September @ St. George’s Church, Brighton
  • Saturday 21st @ Shepherd’s Bush Empire
  • Tuesday 24th Oran Mor, Glasgow
  • Wednesday 25th The Sage, Gateshead
  • Thursday 26th Academy 2, Manchester
  • Friday 27th Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
  • Saturday 28th St Georges Hall, Bristol
  • Sunday 29th Glee Club, Birmingham

So there you go folks. We’re coming to a town near you in the very near future. Time to book some tickets I’d say. It’s going to be rather special. I’ve even bought a new hat for the occasion. See you there…

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Apr 29 2010

The ‘I Really Should Update This More Often’ Post…

I do check back to this site on occasion and it occurred to me on my last visit that I haven’t updated the blog for a couple of months. How very slack of me dear readers.. I do apologise..

And it’s not that there has been nothing to write about. In fact, the last few months have been pretty busy with various projects. I started serious work on the solo bass album. I now have six tracks finished and am going to change tack for a while to put together a few more edgier sounds. I posted a rough version of a track on my podcast a while ago to give you an idea, and I’ve just uploaded it to the wonderful Soundcloud so I can embed it right here for you all…
This week however, I find myself with a lot of new music to learn so I’m taking a little break from the solo bass project. I’m hoping to have the album finished by the time I’m out on tour with Clare and Maggie in the Autumn so it’s available at their shows. Watch this space…
Duke Special will be starting his UK tour this weekend. This tour will feature music from The Silent World of Hector Mann and the Mother Courage & Her Children albums. You can buy these albums in his wonderful The Stage, A Book & The Silver Screen boxset, available at the Duke Store. Unfortuantely due to prior commitments, I won’t be joining the Duke until the Irish leg of the tour (27th May-12th June). Until then the Duke bass will be in the more than capable hands of Mr Jon Kensington. The Hector Mann material is fantastic and I’m really looking forward to playing it live with the boys. I’m joining them for their last day of rehearsals tomorrow. Expect the usual extensive bloggery on my return and you can of course follow my deluge of updates on Twitter if you’re that way inclined (and let’s face it; who isn’t these days?!)
Next week I am schlepping up to Glasgow for a couple of days rehearsal with Maggie Reilly. We are off to Denmark on the 13th May for a festival. Don’t ask me where it is or what it’s called; frankly I don’t know! This show will see the return of the marvelous Steve Alexander on the drums and promises to be a very special show. Can’t wait for this one! And it looks like we’ll be on tour in Germany later on this year so once again, do keep your eyes peeled for upcoming dates on my MySpace page.
And it’s been a busy couple of months with Clare Teal too. Our Great British Songbook tour continues on apace. We’ve been up and down the country playing a wide variety of venues from the Stables in Wavendon right up to the Byre Theatre in St. Andrews. At the beginning of March we went into Air Studios to start work on the album with the fabulous Mr Jake Jackson at the helm. We spent two days laying down the band tracks and doing a few overdubs. It sounds absolutely beautiful so far and promises to be a great album when it’s finished. The album will feature the current touring lineup of Grant Windsor on piano, Ben Reynolds on drums, me on bass with the addition of guitar-monster Femi Temowo. Here’s a few shots taken by Jake during the session…


And the tour continues this weekend when we will be playing Bristol St Georges Hall on Saturday and the Redlett Centre on Sunday. Be there or be square, as they say..
As many of you will be aware, there has been exciting developments in the Divine Comedy camp. Our new album Bang Goes The Knighthood will be released on May 31st. Tim and I recorded our bits in Dublin with Neil in January last year (!) and the album is finally ready. I’ve had the promo for some time now and let me tell you; I reckon this is the best DC record to date. The songs are fantastic and it sounds great. And as many of you have seen, it has a great cover!
Just yesterday, Divine Comedy HQ posted the video for the new single At The Indie Disco, which will be released for download on 23rd May. So I thought I’d better post it right here for my loyal readers to have a sneaky peak. Enjoy…

Neil will be performing shows solo this year. I’m sure we will be joining him at some point in the near future and I will of course keep you posted as to when and where.
But in the meantime, I will be joining Mr Hannon and the lovely Mr Walsh AKA the recently Ivor Novello nominated Duckworth Lewis Method at a one-off performance headlining at the Meltdwon Festival at London’s Sounthbank Centre on June 17th. This promises to be a very special show and I’m expecting that tickets will sell out pretty quick so if I were you I’d get booked up right now to avoid crashing disappointment…
This post is becoming a bit of a monster. Serves me right for leaving it so long. So what else? The sitar is going very well indeed, thanks for asking. I really am intending on blogging more about this fun and exciting little journey into the weird and wonderful world of Hindustani classical music, but I fear this post is already far too long. Next time I reckon. Until then, thanks for reading and do leave your comments below and of course let me know when you’re coming to one of the shows so I can come and say hello.
Cheers! 🙂 x

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Sep 20 2009

The Duke, The Duckworths and Mother Courage…

Oh deary me I really have been entirely slack in posting on the blog of late. I do apologize dear readers…

I must say though that this is not due to laziness (this time), as recently I really have not had a spare minute to sit down and write to you all. As those of you who follow my deluge of updates on Twitter will know I have spent the last month firmly ensconced in the depths of the National Theatre rehearsing and previewing their production of Mother Courage & Her Children with the marvelous Duke Special and his band. Peter has written some beautiful music to accompany the songs in Tony Kushner translation. In fact, we will be recording these songs fairly soon. The Duke newsletter is estimating a release date of around November 20th so keep your eyes peeled.

I have managed to shoehorn in a few other little excursions into the real world during this period. The Duckworth Lewis Method played it’s last show at Electric Picnic on 4th September. I am (not so) secretly hoping that the band will at some point in the future be resurrected for a little tour, but at the moment the official line is that it won’t. I will of course let you know the instant that this changes.. Electric Picnic is a fantastic boutique festival about two hours out from Dublin and they had such a great lineup including The Flaming Lips, Bat For Lashes, Brian Wilson, Zero 7 and Madness. As is often the case with these festival scenarios, I didn’t get to catch any of them (apart from a bit of Zero 7 and Villagers). We played the Crawdaddy stage and the tent was rammed by the time we went on. We had a great show and it was great to see Neil, Thomas and Tosh again. Hopefully we’ll do something together again soon.
In the meantime, you’ll be pleased to know that Neil has gone back to work on the new Divine Comedy album and Thomas’ band Pugwash are releasing a UK compilation of their first three album (previously only available in Ireland I believe) TOMORROW!! It’s called Giddy- A Ride Inside The Wonderful World of Pugwash and is out on Ape Records. I really can’t recommend Pugwash highly enough folks. I have all their albums and Jollity and Eleven Modern Antiquities are always on heavy rotation here at Little Towers. Go forth people.
On another note, I noticed that Nick Cave and Warren Ellis are also releasing an album tomorrow. It’s called White Lunar and is a compilation of their collaborative music written for films and documentaries. I mention this because it looks like it features some of the music I played on for the documentary film The English Surgeon a few years ago. I really hope so anyway, that would be incredibly cool and certainly wouldn’t look bad on the discography. My fingers are, as you can imagine, very much crossed right now. Also, I’m reading Nick Cave’s new book The Death of Bunny Monroe at the moment (as is Mr Special it seems!) and keep looking longingly at the audiobook version read by the Cave himself (with music by Cave & Ellis). Might have to splash out a second time…
Aside from the rigors of rehearsing Mother Courage, the Duke Special band had a mad weekend of four shows at the end of August. We played the Liverpool Academy on the 28th, then it was Dukebox in Belfast on the Saturday. We then came back over the water to play the marvelous Greenbelt festival followed by a show at London’s ULU on the 31st. A hectic weekend indeed, and a real feat for Peter to put on four shows and curate Dukebox at Belsonic amidst all the work involved in the Mother Courage production.
We reunited the seven piece band for the four dates. The highlight for me was definitely Dukebox (There’s a nice write-up on the BBC’s ATL blog here). The show was brilliant and it’s always such a joy to play with Peter in front of his home crowd. It was also a rare opportunity to watch some of the other artists performing during the day. I loved seeing The Magic Numbers and Dan Michaelson & The Coastguards again. Also really enjoyed seeing David Kitt for the first time.
We had a really good experience at Greenbelt too. It turned out to be quite a welcome rest (!) as we were there all day and staying overnight so no rushing off to contend with. We all had a few friends to catch up with at the festival too so it turned out to be a really lovely day. I’ve never played Greenbelt before but I know Peter has been playing there for years. It’s on the same site on the Cheltenham racecourse as the Wychwood festival. We were headlining the Sunday night and got a great response. I’m really hoping to play there again next year.

Regular readers will remember my mentioning the gig with the lovely Kate Eden in my last post. I did mean to post again to remind you all, but have obviously failed to do so as the gig was on Friday. Big thanks to all of you who made it down the the Bull’s Head in Barnes. We had a really packed crowd and a great time was had by all. We’re already looking at putting on another show there sometime in the next couple of months so do watch this space for news. Also, Kate’s MySpace page is finally up and running so you can all scoot over there and befriend her. You can hear some tracks from the EP we recorded earlier this year and see some great photos from the Jersey shows we played in June.

Anyway. I’m acutely aware that this post is starting to drag on a little and I’m probably losing your attention by now. And I’ve barely scraped the surface with Mother Courage, which let’s face it, is gonna be my life for the next few months. If you aren’t following me on Twitter, then frankly you are missing out. I’m using Twitter to keep the bloggery ball rolling in some fashion. Expect another post in the near future concerning all things theatrical…

Until then x

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