Dublin Airport, St Patrick’s Day. Hordes of people are storming and fleeing the country in equal measure. My flight has a 4 hour delay. Paninis are expensive. Last night I played with Iarla O’Lionaird; we were invited by the headliner Martin Hayes who is probably the best fiddle player in the world. Mandolins, bagpipes, harmoniums, they were all there. My laptop stuck out like a porn stall at a church fete. Predictably, the scepticism of the audience was as tangible as the enthusiastic curiosity of the other musicians. Strangely enough though as I packed away my stuff loads of people came up to me to say well done and ask nerdy questions (I like that). A big promoter offered Iarla a gig, but ’without all the electrics’. Iarla’s reply: ’Have you ever heard of Bob Dylan’?

The past few weeks I’ve kept focusing on my own stuff. I did the music for an American documentary and the soundtrack should come out this year. I recorded the whole thing, 8 tracks, in 2 days. I find deadlines very inspiring. My record with guest singers is being mixed (not by me). There are a couple of tracks still lacking vocals but I intend to stir up some interest in the album in the meantime. Also ’Scene Memory’, out in July, is having some remixes done by friends and colleagues. It feels funny having all this work being done on my behalf – very flattering, but slightly disempowering too as I am at the mercy of other people’s schedules and I feel guilty about nagging everyone too much.

There’s not a great deal of paid work around at the moment, but that is pretty sure to change by May. I’m very lucky to have become involved with so many great artists, and slightly spoilt by never having had to do ’bread and butter’ gigs. When work is quiet it gives me time to do my own thing. But this is the longest dry spell I can remember. The music industry really is in crisis at the moment. The old cliché about under–investment in new artists is hitting professional musicians hard. Here’s how it works sometimes: my agent calls to say there’s a new signing to Universal who’s a ’priority’ act. This person is usually utterly anodyne and generic. There will be a tour of radio stations with a guitar player then they might put a band together. Half the time it doesn’t even get that far because someone changes their mind. When it does, that artist gets one chance. If their first single doesn’t make the top 40 the entire project is dropped and the album might never be released. I could name you 5 artists I have seen this happen to in the last 6 months, and I’m not even looking. Even with serious, proven artists like Ed Harcourt I have seen tour support dwindle. In the early days the label might send you to America for a few weeks at vast expense and, in the absence of a sustained campaign, completely pointlessly. They then point to all that wasted money as justification for not promoting the next album properly. Remember that all this comes out of the artist’s royalties in the end anyway. The consequence of this under-investment is a pervading blandness and general dumbing-down as terrified and unprofitable majors pour more and more energy into safe bets. Of course the upside is that so many groundbreaking artists are doing it on their own and it has never been easier or more rewarding to cultivate this DIY attitude. But it won’t be a bloodless revolution.