Just finished that ‘Phrased & Confused’ tour a few weeks ago. Was sorry to leave everyone by the end of it in Kendal actually. It was definitely one of the most unique events I’ve ever been involved with and certainly left me with a much more open mind regards working with new people than I had going into it.

I’ve always had a problem with the whole collaborative thing to be honest. Music for music sake is not my thing. It’s like that whole modern jazz thing where someone who’s a fan will tell you that some piece of music is the most amazing thing because of the sheer ability of the players or the fact that it’s being played in some style that’s never been tried before so it’s really cutting edge. Fact is though, you shouldn’t need to have studied music to be able to enjoy it. In fact, the most honest reaction to music is usually that of the person who really doesn’t care much about it at all. It’s the gut reaction that counts. I listen to 6 Music every morning as I wake up and I always really love hearing new songs that I find I really love / hate but never know who they’re by. If I particularly love something I’ll jump out of bed and run over to the radio to see what’s playing. Sometimes it’s a band I’ve never heard of, sometimes it’s an artist I remember I like, but sometimes it’s someone I always thought I hated. I actually really like it when that happens as it reinforces the fact that you should never assume that you know everything about what one band are capable of. Even if you hated the first album of some band, there’s always the chance they’ll surprise you in the second.

Back to the Phrased and Confused tour… it wasn’t the busiest event, which was admittedly a shame, but each gig did have a really attentive crowd and it felt that people were listening. It was a funny format, with two hour halves separated by an interval, but felt quite different and refreshing. Mixing the music and spoken word thing did throw people I think. I imagine a lot of music fans would feel a little intimidated by going along to something partly billed as poetry so the audiences were probably made up of more spoken word fans.

The album is almost there… once again. Some remixes to be done but I am confident we’ll be there by mid December. Would be a great Xmas present to get it finished.