Two Thousand & Nein

And so another year begins after another ends and what can we say? Same old same old I guess? As I sit here late into 1st Jan listening to the endlessly brilliant Wilco at Tanglewood I guess I'm a sucker for the old 'new year, new opportunites' lark. What can I say I'll be doing this year? I usually make all sorts of predictions about what I'll be doing in a new year with my various artistic avenues but I've decided to not do that this year as in recent years I've ended up doing nearly bugger all!

No, this year I'm just gonna tell you what might happen and hope that you're still along in the interested seats. I've had a few words of encouragement from familiar and unfamiliar sources of late so I shall hopefully this year be cranking up The Cheesemakers for maybe a final blow out, persuing my live acoustic shows with (or without) Dunf and will DEFINATELY be completing the solo album, in fact that is my primary project for January. I have decided to take each month on its own merit and do something each calender month! so that's the agenda for January. By the end of January I intend to have all the tracks completed and made ready.

For the solo album I will be breaking with tradition and will only be pressing up 'physical' copies for those that want one and shall be employing one of those Savefile type sites to 'host' the album along with lyrics and artwork where people can download for free. I mean, come on, let's face it, no-one's gonna pay for it are they? If people are paying 1p for a Radiohead album, I've got no bloody chance have I? Bloody Radiohead, you gotta love em.

So come early February, I shall be using the darling You Tubes to promote the solo album, some sketches already up there, in the form of short, self-made videos, hopefully building up into a full length version of the album on You Tubes a la Midlake. BTW, keep your eyes open for a new Midlake album this year, brilliant band

The Cheesemakers? Well, we were encouraged by our one and only live set this year (see previous post) and we will be wheeling out the machine for (maybe) some final shows this year. We're looking for helpful people to help us out with dates, venues, gear shifting etc because unlike most 12 year ols behemoths, we're still ridiculously crap are arranging and executing the simplest of gig type tasks. The 100 Club gig in London has been shelved until 2010, hope we're still around then. There are also building up a big batch of new songs as well so hopefully a return visit to Royston Vasey to record the follow up to Panic Now will be in the offing, but if it happens it will certainly be quicker and much more 'live' sounding as I plan to record all of the basic tracks in a live room and add very little after the stew and it will be shorter as well, maybe 11 tracks.

As for other things, I'm feeling particularly arty and enjoy maiking short films that will accompany the music. If anyones out there who makes short movies that can be matched to Cheesemakers or solo tunes please feel free to send em over, as long as you don't expect any money, cos I can't remember the last time I made any money from playing music! Internet is great isn't it? We used to make £200 a night playing at a shit-hole in South Shields and for years now we can't even get a free pint for playing. Ho hum.

This will sound vain, but I really want people to be interested in what i'm doing and follow this blog and listen to what I'm doing, it's natural for any artist to want that, and I'm not asking much really. To quote Uncle Jeff, 'it's just a dream he keeps having'. So if you're into this please tell someone else who might be also, cos thats' what social networking is all about, is it not?

And rather like the idiot of the class who will throw pens at the teacher the more he gets encouraged, I will post more often if people express an interest.

So, I will NOT be telling you what I'm doing this year, just in case I actually end up doing nothing as usual and people go, 'ha ha, what a surprise'.........or maybe I will tell you some day ;o)

So until next time hardy followers, 'our love is all of God's money, every one is a burning sun'

Talk to you soon,

Andy

'No matter how late the time, I shall keep on trying'