19 June 2006
My recent tour culminated in such an excess of rock that it has taken me nine days to recover sufficiently to compose this news update. See the Rock-o-Meter for details! The highlights of the tour were having a real-life Rock-o-Meter made for me, and wearing sunglasses on stage, and doing such good band bonding type stuff with all the ace people from Lardpony and The Scarlet Tuesday that it ceased to be band bonding type stuff and turned into making friends. Aw. I've got a little warm glow now! It was great to see The Gresham Flyers twice as well; they sounded smashing throughout. I'd also like to thank my mum and dad, and God, and great big, soggy, tear-stained hugs to all the bands and promoters who let me play and everyone who came to listen. It's made me dead happy!

As suggested by dear Markie Hibbett, I might see about getting a strap so I can stand up while I play and thus hector natterers and rock the moreso!

30 May 2006
Flipping heck! Being a touring rock star rocks!

I nearly didn't even make it to Nottingham on Saturday night because I had an allergic reaction to the below-mentioned cat-scratched eye and my whole body was going weird. So I took a load of drugs and escaped the overtures of death to crawl on stage and deliver a set from the very bowels of my being. And when I say a load of drugs, right, I mean a couple of paracetamol. Rock on! Lardpony and the Tuesdays were brilliant again and it was good to see the Gresham Flyers too and they didn't beat me up or anything!

So I got home at half past one and had to get up again at six to get to Cardiff. I could hardly see for about an hour. I had a little sleep in the back of the car and went to the loo at the services on the A42. Felt a bit better after that. The football was shit, but we had found an ace pub and an awesome greasy spoon that did incredible veggie breakfasts, so it wasn't all bad. My eye flared up again after the match, but I might have just been crying.

Got the train to Derby on Monday, where I was met by Nathan Lardpony and walked to the Glasshouse with him and Mandy. It was dead bright so I had to keep my sunglasses on. As its name cunningly suggests, the venue is all windows, so I had to keep them on in there for a bit as well. Then we went over to the Dolphin across the road, where the Scarlet Tuesday people were eating and burping and things, and we all had some beer and some highly enjoyable bands-on-tour-together-type badinage. Splendid!

The gig was dead good, anyways – partly in that way that you sometimes get in tiny ickle venues that have really loud PAs. And partly in a strange but good way whereby everyone was really amused by everything I said on stage, even when I wasn't really trying to be funny and was just babbling away like I do. And partly in a way where I had to vary the set a bit but suddenly remembered I hadn't practised 'Everything I Do is Gonna be Sparkly' or my Ramones cover but played them anyway and they went really well. I wanna play to the same people again! They were lovely!

James out of Little Courage went on and ribbed me about Town's highlights video taking 40 minutes before the first goal. Pah!

It is sad to be leaving Lardpony and The Scarlet Tuesday for the rest of their rock and roll tour of much more rock than I can manage, but at least we have the fun Lardpony tour diary to keep us going. And I'm off to see them in Birmingham tomorrow night cos I'm having letting-go issues. But... London is gonna be ace!

27 May 2006
Last night was brilliant!

I played another new song called 'Bread and Jam' and I had a beautiful real-life Rock-o-Meter and my voice sounded nice and everyone liked the stuff and some of my favourite people were there and Lardpony and The Scarlet Tuesday were both fantastic. I love playing at the Grapes!

I have to stop typing now because I was playing with my cat earlier on and he accidentally scratched my eye and it hurts when I look at the screen for too long.

See ya!

23 May 2006
It is the morning after the first evening of my rock and roll tour of rock, and last night's gig in Birmingham was a lot of fun.

The first thing I like to do when I get to Birmingham is have some beer in the Anchor, and they had Pale Rider, which is an ace Sheffield beer, so I felt right at home straight off. I love the Anchor. And Digbeth, bless it. It's weird that I worked there for about three years and never really appreciated the quality of some of the old buildings around there. Probably because I was too pissed up from having some beer in the Anchor.

Anyway. I started off a bit ropey like but I was determined to bring back 'Tell Me' into the set. It picked up with the third song, 'Share Your Kit'. 'Share Your Kit' always goes ace live and the set always goes well from that point on. I should just open every gig with it really. 'The Title Race is Over' received its debut and went better than I expected too. I kept missing the chord by one fret on 'Deceptacon' but it just about pulled through.

The fella who was on after me was brilliant. Paul Murphy. He came over to England from Belfast in 1966! He plays these witty, sharp-edged, observational songs and, I dunno, I was just watching him and I thought, this is exactly what folk music should be. Nice man to talk to as well. He's got a website here but I think he said it was the wrong one or something. I was a bit drunk by then. Sorry!

Then we had chips and a cup of tea, supplied by the redoubtable Mr Egg, which filled me with awe and wonder for the small random beauties of life, and sped away back up to Sheffo. I went to bed at half past two. It was a good way to begin the rock and roll tour of rock, and more rock is to follow.