Out of Hiding

Out Of Hiding

Apologies to all for my absence over the last month it has been pretty crazy. Planes, trains and studios and a flu I’ve just not been able to shake off.

So what’s been going on in my world?

I think from where we last left off the first main thing that happened is that I spent time in Brighton recording drums with Mike Pelanconi of Drum Drops’ fame (the motherfucking beatman) and two drummers who will feature on most of the tracks on the new album: Graham Fox the Joe Strummer of hitters from his look, voice and his attitude and Joshua Block of White Denim fame. I spent a total of nine days, between myself Pablo and James locked in a bunker experiencing moments of ‘Das Boat’ towards the end, recording all the new drums for the record, a truly amazing experience even if slightly brain damaging after hearing the beats for 12 hrs a day! Luckily there were a few breaks for me including Ibiza with Carl Cox in which I played at the opening of his night on the terrace at Space, which as always was great. That said you could definitely feel that the island nightlife is hurting this season. I thought Tiesto’s unannounced free gig on the same night was a pretty low blow but a sign of the times. A lot of what that island is becoming club wise is not what I remember about the good times.

After that I was in London for a bit whilst Lorna worked with Nike on an INSA show at the 1948 space. It was good to catch up with a lot of old friends on the opening night, a lot of old school Mo Wax heads who I’ve not seen for a long time and it was good fun watching my daughter helping spray paint logos pre the show. Next up saw Lisa’s band “Dark Horses” support Kasabian at Brixton Academy – she is truly talented and I was really impressed as it was one of her first shows, the music sounded amazing especially her voice. It was a great visual show as well.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time during this period working on new artwork ideas with Ben, Warren and Nick. I met up with Paul Williams the director of London to Brighton about working on his new film and I recorded Phillip Sheppard for the new Vertu ringtones, which we have created the music for. It is currently being mixed.

I went to see Oasis at Wembley the other week, which is always a good laugh, Noel was as hospitable as ever. Then after that I played Ministry of Sound for the GU CD launch with Agoria. This was the first time I have ever played the main room there and I have to admit I have been slightly dubious about playing there in the past but I had an amazing night. The crowd were great and I was surprised by how open minded they were – there was a really fun energy in the room, great hospitality and great to see Sebastian – it has been too long since we have played together and it always works really well.

We are putting out “Heavy Drug” as a single in August; the version, which is on GU’s Bangkok CD out soon. I have been doing promo and getting remixes together and also doing press for global underground including radio interview and magazine shit!

Most recently over the weekend I spent Saturday at my best girl friend’s wedding so congratulations and ever lasting love to Kate and Ed a truly amazing day. Also having the honour to watch my daughter being a bridesmaid. I couldn’t keep the tears back! This was followed obviously by a long day of drinking in the sun with friends and family. Then Sunday straight to Murcia in Spain for an MTV event with myself, Placebo and James Murphy. It was a strange night, long journey from Wales to find myself in front of 15000 people as Placebo had pulled out half way through their gig. My set got really messed around so it was hard to keep a focus but I think I pulled through. It was nice to see James Murphy. It has been a while – I haven’t seen him since Australia last January. Then it was straight through to get a flight at 7.30am to go back to London to work with Warren and Nick on the beginning of the album artwork which we shot at Nig Sky studios for two days. All I can say is that involved two beautiful semi naked girls, a host of serial and psychedelic sets, great costumes by Boudica, music and hair from the French maestro Raffe and crazy make up via Alex and of course a lot of weed to help one through the days all in all a pretty good Monday and Tuesday!

Also Monday Chris Goss arrived. The guitar Buddha is in town to help start us on our journey as we are trying to craft our madness. I spent yesterday working with Gavin, today getting into guitars and working with Joe Cadbury and tomorrow we are going to work on some of my songs, Saturday in with Lisd and Monday we are into Edwyn Collin’s studio. The adventure begins…


So I promise I’ll be back next week. Gonna hit you with a load of studio photos from both recording and from photo shoot sessions and things along the way but I will leave you with this rather entertaining photo montage courtesy of Pablo and Maff.

As you can see this is the type of thing I have to deal with on a daily basis. Enjoy!

PS - Get well soon Adam Yauch.