We will be doing a Q&A for all contributors in an effort to reach 75% of our goal on the Indiegogo campaign for MOAT’s Poison Stream. The idea is that as the campaign winds down we rush for the prize and in the scramble we knock over the trophy, spill the wine and laugh and laugh as we celebrate anyway. So Olivia will ask me the questions sent in and we will film it and release it as a secret link (ooooh) to YouTube. At this point, we are at 57% with 9 days to go and we have 6 days left in Penzance. The third song, The Roadmap To My Soul, follows Gone By Noon and Acid Rain and will be available to everybody from December 1st. All contributors will have a digital copy of the whole album on December 6th. Physical copies of the album, vinyl and CD, will be sent out to supporters in January. Street date for the album is February 12th. So if you want your copy, preorder now or get yourself a mysterious Mystery Box, a T-shirt or even a Skype Concert or even a live House Concert where we will come to you and play, wherever you are, eventually! Thanks in advance, I really can’t wait for you to hear this album from beginning to end.

The MOAT – Poison Stream Campaign

For those that don’t actually know what MOAT is, it’s a collaboration with Swedish/German multi-instrumentalist Niko Röhlcke with me singing and writing the words and both of us playing guitar and bass and with Niko on anything with keys. It’s recorded and co-produced with Dare who is the other half of Noctorum, so it’s guaranteed to sound good. It’s the follow up to our first MOAT album that has very limited copies left, so if you want one, order now before we go to Portugal next week (especially if you want it autographed). The Mystery Boxes and other items also really need to be sent from here in Penzance before we go to Portugal because we can’t really carry T-shirts, albums and CDs there on the plane along with the kitchen sink.

We were in the studio today reworking one of the Arctic Lake songs, trying a different vocal approach which we think works well. They say it’s not over till it’s over but sometimes it’s not even over when it’s over – if you follow. We did that first and then moved onto sessioneer Craig’s track where we broke out lots of guitars to try and capture the guitar sound we needed. We will be continuing to work on that track tomorrow and Dare will mix it when I am gone. Our plan is to rent an apartment in Portugal for a year and initially be there for four months before coming back to Penzance in April to work on looming projects, to be announced.

Bad news for football fans today as Argentinian legend Maradona passed away after a heart attack. He was so famous and so highly regarded that his shirt number (No. 10) was retired when he left the club. He was 60 years old. But also this week we lost club legend and Liverpool and England goalkeeper Ray Clemence, who died of cancer aged 72. Liverpool also had a terrible night tonight with a lacklustre Champions League performance in the wake of lots of injuries, losing at home 0-2 to Atalanta after beating them away 0-5. It’s hard to keep up the standard especially when your key players are injured or worn out from the number of matches they have to play at such a high level.

The next Liverpool game is away to Brighton and I was just thinking about the game I went to see in Liverpool last year against Brighton at home. I was in town working on the new Wild Swans album and the studio owner lent me his season ticket as he was away in France. Liverpool won 2-1 but when I came out there were so many people queuing for buses in the longest lines I’ve ever seen, so I decided to walk back into the city where the studio was. I walked there with a Brighton fan and his family, civilised. But this reminded me of the fact that I never learnt to drive (officially) and luckily Olivia does because when we come back to England we mean to drive back. My father was Merseyside’s Road Safety Officer and he would come home with promo for seatbelt campaigns with pictures of attractive young girls with stitches in their faces that were supposed to scare you into wearing your seat belt. I guess it worked – mostly. It wasn’t until January 31st 1983 that seatbelt wearing became mandatory in the UK. I had motorbikes as a teenager and that is another reason that I never found myself taking a driving test and then living in a city plus being in a band that never stopped gigging, plus we eventually had tour managers and transportation to the shows where they would drive or there was a tour bus. BUT, I did drive around as a learner last time I lived in England so if you are having a baby, I could actually drive you to the hospital, although it’s been many years since I sat behind the wheel, you might be better having the baby where you’re safe.

Music today is the classic Groundhogs album Split (1971) which was a Record Store Day double album release with outtakes that record nerds love. The band is Tony McPhee, guitar and vocals, Pete Cruikshank, bass and Ken Pustlenick on drums. They are a blues-inspired power trio but with lots of mad energy and great guitar playing. Mick Jagger asked for them to support the Stones on the 1971 tour and between 1968 and 1976 they made 9 worthy albums. If you haven’t heard Cherry Red from Split, then lucky you to hear it for the first time.

Song Of The Daze