I am sitting in Bangor with a beautiful view of the sea. Last night was the concert in Belfast, in which the equipment behaved faultlessly (credit to Apple, Sooperlooper and Jack Router) and the humans behaved rather eratically. Still, a great time was had and all the preparation, which has taken up much of the last 3 weeks, was well worth it. We’re looking forward to the next one on 26th July.

In amongst frantic rehearsals, other recent activities: I produced an album for an American bluegrass guitarist called Breadfoot, featuring the prodigious Anna Phoebe on violin. It was interesting finding different sonic characteristics for each song by running mics through different pedals while the instrumentation stayed pretty static. Then there was a fantastic gig with Ed Harcourt opening Meltdown at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. We had no drummer and no rehearsal but that didn’t stop the great swashbuckler teaching us 2 new songs in the soundcheck and playing material that the band hadn’t touched for years. The bigger the gig, the bigger the risks he likes to take, which I think is highly commendable!

I had a little gig of my own at the Big Chill Bar which felt suspiciously like one of those engagements where you stand awkwardly in the corner of a bar providing background music to indifferent yakkers. However it turned out that some were actually listening and the response through this site has been really encouraging, so thanks people.

Also had my first ever interview – for Guitarist magazine (out July 13th)! Refreshingly not much in the way of “well, I like .58mm picks with nobbles on…”. And finally – please, please check out Foy Vance who did one of the most amazing gigs I’ve ever seen the other night. As if the spirit ofThe Blue Nile had entered the body of Tom Waits. He is going to be very big very soon.