A late start with the blog today as I spent hours signing all the MOAT – Poison Stream CDs which are now scattered all over the (clean) kitchen floor – so better be careful with the mango tomorrow. But what a relief to have them, to have them signed and now we get them sent back to the label to be sent out. Olivia has also finished illustrating the illustrated lyrics and all that’s left is for me to send you your postcard from sunny Porto and we’re done for the campaign. Thank you so much for your support. I’m so sorry it’s taken so long, no one could have predicted the delays at the pressing plant, the post, the customs and the covid. As far as the T-shirts that will be coming from Schoolkids Records too and as soon as they have them they will send them out. The autographed vinyl has been arriving all over the world, I got a message today from my mate Spant in Liverpool and he just got his. Also if you were sent an unsigned CD with your signed vinyl package, a signed CD is on the way so you can spread the word generously with the extra unsigned CD. So what’s the next project?

Well, there’s a bit of a queue but the Arktik Lake EP should be coming next as a limited edition 12 inch vinyl with four tracks on coloured vinyl, private pressing out of Australia. Then Schoolkids will be releasing the Space Summit album at some point later in the year. The third finished sessioneer project is with Ahad Afridi and as it’s just done we are still unsure of its fate. Haha. We have to make them and then we have to play them to the label and hope that they like them so they can release them. A project started with Craig Douglas Miller, sessioneer, just one song at the moment but a finished recording. Other sessioneers are plotting.

As far as non-sessioneer projects, Jerome Froese sent me two more songs today and that project is nearing completion. I spoke to Brix Smith today, more on that in the coming weeks. I need to find some time to get the home studio happening so I can share with fellow collaborators and work on projects remotely. In a perfect world with the lottery won, we’d have the archive and studio here in Portugal and have constant musicians in there making records. A new Noctorum album, Olivia and I and whatever else we think of. The status of Atlantaeum Flood 2 is uncertain at the moment as is The Wild Swans and the Salim Nourallah album all at different stages, nearly done, half-done, started, or just planned, and then there’s Anekdoten. We’ll see what the future brings.

Away from music (ha, as if) I took a lovely walk again today to Psychedelic Mangoland (Lidl) and came out with 12 bottles of water and some veggie ham. I went (with Olivia) to the Animated Penguin (Pingo Doce) for one bottle of almond milk and left with two huge bags of something. I had a sesh with Matt in Brooklyn and new person Chile in Pennsylvania, and all that led up to dinner, Deep Space 9, French, which is getting harder (of course it is), and the realisation that the language app Babbel sucks and I’m going to cancel it, Duolingo is just so much better but come on people, if you can offer Klingon you can offer European Portuguese (not Brazilian Portuguese).

Tomorrow is more rehearsal and soundcheck day with Fred for a Skype concert on Saturday. Fred has his own studio so we’re going to see what we can do to get the best possible sound out of the gear I have here. We have another three Skype concerts coming up, one in April, one in May, and one on an unspecified date. It’s great being able to perform a set of songs for an audience despite the difficulties of playing to a screen – if it sounds good on the other side, that’s even better.

Music today seems to have been all over the place, I started off with Julien Baker’s new album Little Oblivions (2021) and left the computer running and it went through all her records when I was out. I came back to the great Boygenius EP (2018) with Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. After that, I somehow fell into Tim Buckley‘s Happy Sad (1969) and Greetings From L.A. (1972), which led of course to ZZ Top‘s Deguello (1979) and Tres Hombres (1973), which led to The Tubes‘ debut album (1975) and their third album, Now (1977). Now and Young and Rich (1976) don’t seem to be on Spotify. I played Steely Dan’s Aja (1977) and ended with The Tubes’ What Do You Want From Live (1978). I had tickets to see them on tour in Liverpool in the seventies but before they got there Fee Waybill drove his motorbike off the stage at a previous gig and broke his leg – cancelled. I met Fee Waybill once at my publishing company offices in Los Angeles, he had a huge head.

Music Of The Daze