Hey people, well, I’m back from France / Belgium, and I had an ace time. There’s going to be this full diary-style update as soon as I get the photos and get round to writing it up, but in the meantime, just a brief note to say thanks a million to Chamoule for everything. Thanks, “mec”. I also had a great time at Coleford Music Festival, thanks everyone there too.

A few days off for me now, catching up on sleep and food and all that kind of thing. Coming up soon we have more shows, and the split with Jonah, which is now scheduled for a late June release. I’m also hitting Ireland for the first time solo next week. Cahir from Fighting With Wire (who are doing some of the shows) called me at 5am the other day, from a trampoline in Manchester, to tell me he was going to fuck me up when I get over there. How I’m looking forward to it. There’s also more festivals getting confirmed here and there, and an big ol’ Eastern European trip between July 20th and August 5th, which currently looks set to take in Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Estonia and Finland, if not more.

Finally, some musings… The ‘folk’ genre is, much like punk rock, very diasporic these days. In the same way that the initial canon of Ramones, Pistols and Clash was superceded by a massive explosion of different punk rock scenes in the 80’s and beyond (making it hard for anyone to be on the money with every single ‘punk’ band), there’s a shitload of folk music out there, beyond the original greats, and it’s not easy to be completely familiar with it all (and have a life). This is made harder for me by the fact that, while I’m something of punk nerd, folk is still relatively new pastures for me. So what I’m really trying to say here is that it’s only recently, on the recommendation of a few talented friends, that I’ve discovered the pure, unadulterated joy of Townes Van Zandt. If you already knew all about him, bully for you. If you don’t, check him out.