Happy New Year!

Darn… another unoriginal yet topical greeting. I prefer to call it a classic greeting. Sounds great every year…

I spent the festive season in sunny Spain. Mat spent his in Finland. I ate paella. Mat saw a hockey game. I got a tan. Mat partied with old friends.

We reunited at the ‘Farm during the first week of Jan to work on new tracks by Ejectorseat. Got some killagorillas in the works. Rosalita swung by to put the finishing touches to their new tracks. I believe sensational is not too strong a word to use to describe their new material. 

I have the pleasure to announce that we have agreed publishing and management deals with Rosalita www.myspace.com/rosalitaband . Rosalita will release a single in March and we’ve got a pretty cool tour lined up for them right around then.

12 Mar King Tuts Wah Wah Hut (18+) Glasgow
13 Mar The Ark (18+) Edinburgh
14 Mar Academy 2 (18+) Newcastle
15 Mar Dry Bar (18+) Manchester
16 Mar Bar Academy (14+) Birmingham
17 Mar Freebutt (16+) Brighton
18 Mar Joiners (14+) Southampton
19 Mar Arts Centre (14+) Norwich
20 Mar Bar Academy (14+) London
21 Mar Barfly (15+) Cambridge
22 Mar Trashy @ Carling Academy (18+) Oxford

If they hit a town near you, there is no excuse to miss them. This will be the tour that you will want to claim to have first seen them on.

If that is not enough (it never is once you get going…) we can announce the signing of two artists to our new record label venture: Smudge and Esteban. Smudge www.myspace.com/smudge are a young pop/rock quintet from Wigan whose tracks we’ve been loving for quite some time. The guys recently played on the Taste of Chaos tour where they made a lot of friends.

Esteban www.myspace.com/estebanuk are desert funk groovsters from Derby, that place where desert is… er… endless. Their song Santiago is my favourite song and their guitar player’s finger style leaves me green with envy.We will be releasing material by these bands in the months to come. Check them out now.

We spent a few days in the studio with the band Two Choices www.myspace.com/twochoices who brought in some heavy duty moral support: Roger Daltrey. Uh-huh. That Roger from The Who. I have never shook hands with anyone as legendary as that. Mat once stood right next to Robert De Niro at a function. But they didn’t exchange howdedoos. The Who are pretty influential and legendary allright. Even the usually un star struck atmosphere in the cafe at our complex was decidedly more electrified, close to euphoric, after he’d ordered his cuppa. I wonder if anything will ever top when Sir Paul of The Beatles was in the parking lot and gave me the Sir Paul thumbs up and a wink. 

Eddie Van Halen might drop in.

Moving on from guitar heroes to guitars: I bought a PRS guitar. PRS Custom 22. I didn’t like PRS guitars before. They’re very intricate guitars to play. You can’t really wrestle with them, like you can with a Strat. I’m a wrestler, I like to dig in when I play. Getting used to the way this PRS handles was a challenge, but I’m getting to grips with it now. In fact, I’m completely sold on it.

I’ve been playing a lot of guitar recently. I haven’t played this much since I stopped touring. The great thing is that as a result of all this noodling I’ve actually got better. It’s funny what a little bit of practise does to you. If I could only get my finger picking to resemble finger picking.

At this juncture I have to pay tribute to young Boyce, the drummer from Two Choices. It’s very excellent to see a guy come in the studio with a practise pad, some sheet music and practise rudiments in between takes, which in a studio environment is “most of the time”. Most others would be checking out porn. Young Boyce does that too, but in the main his wrist is tired from doing his paradiddles.

Been a hectic start to the year. At this rate I’ll need a summer vacation around easter time….

Onwards and upwards!

 Ville

This entry was posted on 15/01/2008 at 02:08 am and is filed under News At Zen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.