toronto snow

Got back this morning from the fiercest winter onslaught. Last thursday I set off for Toronto to experience, input and perform at Canadian Music Week. The place looked already fairly snowed in as I landed into Toronto's Pearson Airport, but by midday friday the predicted blizzard began in earnest. It seems in Toronto they very wisely built a system of tunnels to navigate the city in times of extreme weather - something I only discovered on my exit! Typical. But despite the winter madness I managed to see a bunch of bands and meet some very fine people.

Went to an event featuring Tommy Ramone and Seymour Stein where they were discussing the path of the Ramones as a band and pretty much recognising that the same thing couldn't happen now. Really intelligent, sincere and altogether inspiring in the sense that Mr T Ramone was revealing the core concepts that drove the band and all the thought and energy that went into it. I love all that. Sends you away believing.

Played a show on Saturday night, almost fell over and broke my head on one of the most treacherous stages ever encountered. but let that not tarnish the hospitality everyone on the bill that night received from the staff at the Hideout. Maybe the hospitality had something to do with it. The crowd were animated to say the least, and their spirits high - and these are people who have braved a blizzard to attend a gig of current Irish music.

No cabs home for love nor money so had a challenging walk at 3am with guitar and huge pedalboard-in-suitcase through about 2 miles of dirty snow to get to the hotel. Toronto the price you made me pay. It was only after this I found out about the underground tunnels!

Sunday I used my spare time before my flight home by climbing to the top of the CN Tower - apparently the tallest building in the world. When I say climbing, I mean surrogately by use of a concerningly swift elevator. Once you're on the observation deck you get stunning views of the city and the lake, and you freak out when you realise you're standing on a glass floor and there's a 1,500 foot drop beneath your feet.

After the earpopping decent I boarded my flight home and slept soundly only for an hour spent watching the new Dylan film 'I'm Not There' in which Cate Blanchett (among others) plays a stunning dylan circa Blonde on Blonde. Took me a while to figure out if i'd dreamt that up between neck-mangling plane naps.

Anyway, I'm back and the plans are emerging swiftly on all facets of this new record. Watch here for details.

Over and out. Feel like applying for the job of the new Scott of The Antarctic - have done all the training.

i

6:28 PM - 7 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

Anaconda Squeeze

Hey! A little update on what's been going on this past while – I've been lost in music you might say (or at least Sister Sledge would). Played some wunderbar German shows with the mighty Athlete last dec – met some great people at the gigs and warmed up at Christmas markets and late bars in Berlin. Thanks to all of you german folk who left me a message or two - looking forward to putting my own tour together this year. I stayed out after the tour and went to the Schwarzwald where myself and Hayley Hutchinson finished off her wonderful record amidst treks to the top of snowy mountains and savouring the many varieties of home-made schnapps that the region has to offer!

Other than that, the main news is that I'm pleased to announce my next record is officially en route! A couple of tracks are finished and many are getting very close. Went into the studio in Jan with Phil Wilkinson on drums, Jon Kensington on double bass and Dave Lynch at the sonic helm – those generous Athlete fellas allowed me some creative freedom in their self-made studio (where they recorded their last record). Worked out marvellously!

Next week I go home to Belfast. I play and contribute at the Belfast/Nashville Songwriter's Festival (believe it or not but Belfast and Nashville are twinned cities – no great surprise eh?) Both are world famous, not necessarily for the same thing, but Belfast is the new music city – mark my words!

It also happens to be 40 years since Belfast's Van Morrison made his iconic album Astral Weeks and i'm joining others on the 21st Feb at Derryvolgie Hall in attempting an homage to the great man in the name of charity (Capetownship 2008).

I'll keep you posted on album progress. But safe to say – I am alive, and all kinds of good things are at work… and its nearly spring, big green trees, going out in a tshirt, seeing flowers – all that stuff – fantastic

i

6:02 PM - 10 Comments - 21 Kudos - Add Comment

possible Germany, likely Nashville

hello ha

this tuesday sees me taking a winged bird to the tennessee heights of nashville for 2 weeks. some may think that i'm going over purely for the Country Music Awards because of my great contribution to that genre. however, this is simply a wonderful co-incidence. but i can assure you a country song or two may get written while i'm there.

also, i'm able to announce four shows with the wonderful Athlete in germany in early december:-

9 Dec Hamburg
10 Dec Berlin
12 Dec Cologne
13 Dec Munich

full details will be up on meinspace soon.

following on from these dates, the intention is to play one or two of my own shows in South Germany - if anyone happens to read this and could help add another date to the mini tour i would love to hear from you.

bis spater, and stetsons

i

2:10 AM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Western Australia

Good gordon it is amazing out here! I am writing from my hotel room in Perth, stuffed on the best Thai food I've ever had. Spent the afternoon on the beach in blazing sun, ran into the sea and spent a couple of hours being battered by stupidly large waves, and keeping a keen eye for sharks.

On the way to the beach, John, our driver, told us how his good friend had been bitten in half close by. We asked someone on the beach are we safe from sharks and he said 'you should be ok', this did not fill us with confidence, but there were a few mad ozzies in the water, so we tore on in - I just kept reminding myself of that theory (which is almost certainly urban myth) that you should just punch the shark right on the nose. Kept the fists at the ready but they were thankfully not called upon! Made me wonder what could possibly be in a shark's nose that makes it such an achilles heel?? It's kidneys? It's reproductive equipment? Nitro-glycerine? Any thoughts? Maybe someone out there can shed some light...

Been listening to Loney, Dear non stop since a good friend passed the album on to me just before I came out here - its the perfect soundtrack - all ripe with melody. A must.

The shows have been going amazingly - and freakily devoid of hitches (for anyone familiar with my live shows to date!?!). Been joining Los Patrolos on a couple of tunes and Miriam's been up singin Set The Fire. They've been playing some stunning shows.

We've been sharing much laughter with the Silver Sun Pickups (who's music is very special!), who are also out here supporting the Patrol. In the airport yesterday before we boarded we were talking about old video games and came up with some classics like Moon Buggy, Double Dragon, the Star Wars video game (which blew all of our minds) and then decided we were now living in 'the future' because of video conferencing and cell phones and aeroplanes with individual tv screens on every seat. Then we boarded our plane to Sydney only to discover it was some relic from the '80s and figured we'd jinxed the future for everyone!?

In Brisbane we went to the Lone Pine Koala Reserve. We met some Kangaroos who ate from our hand, I saw a Wombat! Wanted to see a Wombat for a long time - pigdog is the only way I can describe it. Got to hug a Koala - one of the mellowest experiences I've ever had - his name was Sumo and he left me with a strange sense of peace, that is until the threat of shark attack today!

8:35 AM - 12 Comments - 18 Kudos - Add Comment

Oz again!

Driving south west from Sydney to Canberra (or 'Cranberry' – a name which began as Miriam's spoonerism but has now become our official name for the place) you pass places like Marulan, Bungonia, Goulburn, Yass, Gundagai, Tuggerung, Lake George – which is actually a flat plain of fields with sheep grazing – our driver says he doesn't know where the water is, boats used to sail here, now the water's gone.

The journey is four hours of tree-lined highway and if you like big trucks there are lots of the long-snouted kind. We are two gigs into the Australian tour having played Sydney Acer to a huge and happy audience and then Newcastle, where someone proposed to me at the merchandise stand. Spent the day on Bondi beach yesterday watching the kites – giant dragons, giant squids, little diamonds with streamers, all sorts - watching the surfers and walking around the cliffs. From the cliff top at the end of the bay, great pacific waves, coming from two different directions, clash and make an outrageous disturbance in the water – it starts out as a great black shadow in the water, like a terrible mouth getting wider or the rising of a giant wing, or maybe like a big scary wave just.

Phil gave me his ayepod to listen to, said I should hear this song by David Bazan of Pedro the Lion from his side project 'Headphones'. The songs called 'Shit Talker' and it is magic and I listened to it and then we had a conversation about shit talking and back biting and all the crap that comes out of everyone's mouth that gets swept under the carpet and some times you trip up on it later.

Dead kangaroo by the side of the road as we enter cranberry. Then we make a roadside stop by some young trees and beautiful purple wildflowers and see a couple of live kangaroos out in a field. They spot us and keep a close eye.

Had the most amazing seafood last night – John Dory and mussels. Got up this morning and took the subway (which is double-decker) down to Circular Quay to see the Sydney Opera House and the harbour bridge. Would never have told the Opera House was actually covered in little tiles. One hell of a job. The sun was shining and there was nothing disappointing about seeing it for real at all, in that way that famous landmarks can sometimes disappoint cos you thought they were 4 times larger or 6 and a half times brighter.

Driving into Canberra and its wet. Cherry blossom in the trees. Some weird trees that look a bit like small weeping willows with all the bark hanging off.

Yesterday we drove past a church called the Uniting Church of Gordon and a conversation ensued - god was actually called Gordon and so many phrases such as 'luck of the gordons', 'act of gordon', 'the gordons are smiling on us', 'lovegordon', 'gordonspeed' and on, and on, and on – it remained funny for quite some time. Feel free to add any new Gordon phrases below – they will continue to keep us amused for days, even weeks, years, such is the crazy life we lead on the road!?

The devil has now been named stanley but also neville. There is mileage in all this.

4:32 AM - 19 Comments - 20 Kudos - Add Comment

Berlin/London

Got back from Berlin on Monday morning on a stupidly early flight, lamenting the fact that this was my second visit and plenty little exploration had been done so far. The Magnet Club was in the east of the city. Can't help looking around and wanting to dig behind the radiant and perfectly painted walls, the pristine window frames, the atm's, they all deceive you into thinking things were always this way. There's a forgotten history that outstayed its welcome.

Our driver was 'Busty' (that was his name, not a comment on his physical form!). He told me about the punk gigs before the wall came down. Non-government-sanctioned performances were illegal. The only place you could legally perform unregulated music was in churches so the punks took to playing shows in the sanctuary of churches, an odd place from which to give the finger to the law. Perfect somehow. His parents are still ardent socialists, and they had a pretty tough time with the changes, their whole way of life and belief system was dismantled. Busty still believes in Socialism, but not in the control.

More than other big cities, Berlin feels like a twenty sided dice, maybe forty sided. you glimpse a side and then you go.

Leave on an early flight back to London on the 'easy' jet that feels about as easy as chewing spokes, with two guitar cases taped together, a backpack and a suitcase containing a pedal board heavier than dark matter itself. But something very stupid in me likes carting my own gear around, not that there's much choice!

Got to the Proud Gallery that night (tues) to support the mighty Crimea. People crowded in for the gig - I was quite touched by the latent violence eminating from the individuals who took it upon themselves to regulate the chatter of those more interested in conversation than the performance. Nothing like a bit of inter-audience intimidation to help the show along!!? Thanks to the Crimea for having me along. Also thanks to Derek Fudge for snare removal, stage clearing assistance, and licking my face (well, thanks for the first two!).

The Crimea played an amazing set. What seemed like a catastrophe - in the 3rd song all the power went down - turned into a piece of magic. The crowd were treated to the band playing songs acoustically in the almost-dark, all of us singin every word, but just loud enough so we could still hear the men themselves, it was just magic!

Once more thanks to the aforementioned Mr Fudge, who made remark that blame for the lack of power should be laid at my door! And just loudly enough for those die-hard Crimea fans around us to be in ear-shot! Thought I was in for it.

Was good to catch up with some good pals and then go home famished and eat the remnants of the understocked fridge!

5:41 PM - 5 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

Live Webchat

To celebrate my forthcoming tour of Ireland RTE.IE are inviting you to join me for a live webchat this Monday 12th March from 12:30 to 1:30 pm on www.rte.ie

5:12 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Burning Codes

I've been mixing some tracks for a project called Burning Codes of late. It is new music that sounds like nothing else around at the moment - beautiful, soulful, momentary paeans of glory, I kid you not. If you like Spacemen 3, Lanois, Velvets then go have a listen. Recently heard on Zane Lowe's show on Radio 1 (played by guest Mr G Lightbody), Burning Codes is my no.1 friend or go to www.myspace.com/burningcodes and hear it for yourself. Come back and let me know what you think.

2:15 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Highland Tour - the whole story

This time last weekend I was playing a gig in a town called Ullapool which is on the far north west coast of Scotland. It is a stunning place surrounded by immense mountains on the shores of an inlet that makes it the perfect harbour for the ferry to Lewis. On saturday afternoon we returned from Stornoway on that ferry. The crossing was like something you would read about in Nicholas Monserrat's 'The Cruel Sea'...

I was making the crossing with Willie Campbell and Miriam. Willie used to be in the band Astrid and also in The Reindeer Section. He supported me on the gigs, playing some very beautiful self penned songs and throwing in a Gram Parson's cover for good measure.

As soon as we got out of port the swell started to throw the boat around - it was a pretty big boat - a car ferry. Miriam and Willy found places to go and put their heads down and ignore the pitch and roll. I just found myself magnetised by the observation deck where you could watch the massive waves and the mountains and the islands and feel totally small and insignificant and vulnerable. Sometimes the hull of the ship would seem like it had come entirely out of the water for a moment before it would smash back into the waves like they were concrete. A huge thud would sound and the whole boat would shudder. The mountains on the mainland slowly growing.

After the Ullapool show we decided to go for a drink at the local pub which turned out to be the town club - the entrance went straight onto the dance floor and we walked through a crowd of locals tearing it up to 'Cotton Eye Joe' at ear-shredding volume. Conversation proved impossible but simply being a spectator on the events unfolding around us was enough.

That night the wind threatened to rip the roof off our room. I'd forgotten quite how vicious the elements could be up north. London softens you up.

On Sunday the drive to Fortwilliam took in the shores of Lough Ness. As we rounded one of the bends a huge scaly beast erupted out of the water - it looked like a dinosaur only bigger. It ate our car and we were delayed for a while in the void of its belly. It must have found us difficult to digest because we were soon propelled back on our way to Fortwilliam.

The road to Fortwilliam travelled round the foot of Ben Nevis which is an absolute brute of a mountain. It's top could not be seen above the clouds, which kinda made it more impressive as I imagined it stretching beyond the atmosphere with satelites and comets perishing on its icy spike.

I played that night in a venue called 'Fired Art'. The people were wonderful - a real mixture of folk - even someone from Kilrea in N Ireland called Katherine who I spoke to (and probably embarrassed) from the stage and met properly later in the evening.

We stayed in a hotel-stroke-gallery overlooking the lough. The following morning we walked the shore, crossed an oily stream on stepping stones and ended up in a boat yard.

On the way back two little boys were making what must have been their first attempts at skimming stones. It was hilarious, they were pretty much holding out their hands and dropping the stones on the water, then complaining that they wouldn't skim. We cruelly observed and chuckled - I wanted to return and pick up a stone and skim it so it bounced 20 times and show off my finely honed skimming skills but we were tempting the possibility of missing our flight home.

Which obviously we almost did, partly as a result of hunting the deli's of Fortwilliam for the perfect sarnie - which you can never find and is always futile.

This meant hurtling back by the shores of Lough Ness, driving over the tale of the big beast and making it groan louder that the sound of the moon being rammed into a steel drum, which we ignored. We pissed off all the drivers in Inverness by driving like completely self obsessed londoners - cutting them up, pulling u-turns - basically panic driving. A criminally wide smile and imploring eyes meant that despite check-in having closed, we somehow boarded the plane anyway.

The sun was shining on Inverness. Luton, on the other hand, looked about as welcoming as that planet in 'Alien'.

5:51 PM - 4 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

highlands

Manically stuffing invaluabe things in too many bags is just a regular part of my life these days and tonight is no different. We (miriam and I) set off tomorrow for a 3 date mini mini tour of the north of scotland. Tomorrow we depart London Luton and finish up in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides. The ferry takes nearly 3 hours to get there from the mainland. Apparently the Stornoway Gazette had a big two pager in there promoting the gig. It'll be my first time that far north and the album title just gets more and more appropriate, in fact I reckon this tour should be entitled the 'Even More Magnetic Further North Tour of Highways and Byways Barely Known to Man Outside of Those Rugged Scots... er, tour'.

I'm a bit late on the uptake with this, but my good friend Jacob Golden has a blog up on his myspace all about the synchronous events that led to our meeting and further hanging, talking and music making. So if you want a little more of that story go to his myspace in my top friends and check it out.

Ok I'm tempted to ramble now in an inane way, partly about how lovely Willy Mason's new record is and partly about daft stuff, so I'm gonna stop... for now. More daft stuff to follow I'm sure.

p.s there's a new Mag North demo track up for download in The Basement at www.iainarcher.com, never before heard by man nor beast.

1:26 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment