The new Fosca album, The Painted Side Of The Rocket, now has a release date: March 5th.
Here’s all the concert dates in Sweden:
March 26th – Landet, Stockholm
March 27th – Arena, Karlstad
March 28th – Blekingska Nationen, Lund
March 29th – On Our Honeymoon, Stars’n’Bars, Gothenburg
Fosca on this tour will be myself, Rachel Stevenson and Charley Stone. It’s great to have Charley back in Fosca after nearly ten years. It’ll be a different sound to before, but I rather like shaking the arrangements up, finding which riffs and hooks need to be heard at which points, and who should play them. It keeps things fresh.
Niklas from the record label asked if we’re doing any ‘warm up’ or ‘follow-up’ gigs in London. The thing is, I’ve retired Fosca from the indie club & gig circuit. But I’m happy to play a more unusual venue, like a museum or library. Or a festival – we never get asked to play UK festivals. And it’d be nice to play one absolutely, definitely final Fosca show with Tom & Kate, and Charley too.
***
Mum says:
Your name and diary were bandied about on Radio Suffolk yesterday as when they googled me they got your diary extract when you wrote about me getting the MBE, so they quoted you on air….
Hullo there, Radio Suffolk. And thank you for having my mum on.
***
Diana Athill is currently doing the media rounds, aged 90, with her latest memoir. In which there’s rather a lot of sex: she lived in a menage a trois for years. I heard her on the radio the other day talking about the time she realised her sex life was at an end, in her 60s. The combination of wistful sadness and arch relief. And there I was thinking exactly along the same lines, at 36.
Despite my New Year’s determination, the first days of 2008 have fallen through me like so much fine sand. It’s the sheer lack of energy, and finding it so easy to lose the argument against getting out of bed at all.
Tried one of those self-hypnosis tapes, or rather self-hypnosis audio downloads. One such hypnotist, Glenn Harrold, has an unexpectedly thick East End accent. It is Self Help by Reggie Kray. Find Your Inner Calm Or Else. Unleash Your Potential, Or Am I Going To Have To Pay You A Visit? Depression Is A Slag.
Fun is work of a kind, yet I have no problem finding the energy for that. So there’s a kind of fraud to this tiredness. It’s partly fear of the work not being good enough, or the fun not being fun enough. I find this ridiculous line of thinking occurs to me more and more. I say no to going to a club or gig, because I’m not 100% convinced it will be 100% enjoyable for 100% of the time. And so I end up doing nothing at all.
Once I properly get into writing, I find it hard to stop. Hence entries becoming longer and longer. Once I put it off, I start to become addicted to putting it off. It’s just as well I’ve never gotten into hard drugs.
Much of it I’m convinced is from living alone. Never mind love and companionship: people do need someone, if only to kick them out of bed and monitor their dawdling. Check they’re not wasting their day. A good hug, or a good slap. Or indeed, a good slug. ‘How was your day?’ as much a threat as anything else. Do something productive with your day, if only so you can look your companion in the eye.
As ever, jokes present themselves without asking. Have bought the autobiography of an M.E. sufferer. But I haven’t found the energy to get around to it.
(see also: not finishing a book on speed-reading)
