As soon as I got off the Bryan Ferry tour I repaired to my basement to produce an album by the Smoke Fairies. It took all month and was a wonderful experience. They are a folk/dark bluegrass duo who sing and play 50s guitars. Recording it was sonic heaven, creating an intimate forest of plucked strings over which I played hurdy–gurdy, accordion, mandolin and harmonium. An intense period musically and psychologically, but I am really pleased with the results. Now they just have to find themselves a deal!

Then I had a bizarre couple of days doing sessions for an upcoming children’s cartoon series in which all the characters are in bands and fight each other with magical rays that emanate from their instruments (this is set in the future by the way). Each one had to have their own personality, which was great fun to design, and I got to dust off an utterly tasteless 80s monstrosity of an electric guitar which hadn’t seen the light of day for some time. The project is the brainchild of Magnus Fiennes, a genius programmer and film music guy who seems to somehow juggle hundreds of projects at once. I also did a little gig with Ed Harcourt at the legendary Ronnie Scott’s to mark the release of his Best–Of. As always it was like a warm, unrehearsed family reunion.

Finally there is a release date for my new record The Unrest Cure – January 21st. These things take time! So there is suddenly lots to do, from making a video of interviews with all the guest singers (and myself), to editing the Bingo Gazingo footage that I shot in New York and having meetings with another round of truly dynamic individuals in glass offices who have it with in their power to do wonderful things or, um, forget about me completely. A short update considering it’s been a while, but maybe that’s because I’m really satisfied with what’s been going on the last few weeks, and I don’t feel so compelled to try and make much sense of it.

This month I was lucky enough to be in the house band for Hal Willner’s Jarvis Cocker Meltdown festival. The 3–hour show consisted of Disney classics reinterpreted by a host of guest singers. As is often the case with Hal, it was a hugely ambitious undertaking and brilliantly chaotic. There were only two days to rehearse. I turned up on the first feeling slightly nervous and set about trying to tune my hurdy–gurdy quietly, which is impossible. Then it was straight in at the deep end, with sheets of music flying at me in quick succession from each of the three arrangers who were putting the whole thing together. Their diverse characters ranged from New York firebrand jazz legend to gentle Tokyo classicist. As the second day drew to a close I was happy because I was getting to play loads of accordion, hurdy and guitaret, and we had managed to get through most of the set. Only one problem – so far hardly any of the singers had bothered to show up. Then with half an hour to go Grace Jones, Shane MacGowan, Pete Doherty and Kate Moss all walked in. We cancelled our taxis. Pete Doherty ran through his song then came over and said he liked my guitar. I handed it to him and he started playing a beautiful, much more effective version of the song we’d been doing, which Hal heard and told him to do at the concert. The next day, at the RFH, charts were still being handed out and music being rehearsed an hour after doors were supposed to have opened. As time ticked on Grace announced that she wanted a special riser brought on. As she prevaricated and time ticked away, I looked over at Hal. He was rubbing his hands together and smiling. As for the concert itself, there are too many highlights to mention really. It was enough of a thrill to be playing with such great musicians and a proper orchestra. But piling through “An Actor’s Life For Me” with Nick Cave was pretty memorable. Now and then in the unwanted gaps between songs one of the arrangers would come over to me and whisper urgently, “play something!” so I had the brief honour of improvising hurdy–gurdy to a packed RFH. Another time I found myself duetting on accordion with David Coulter’s musical saw. I kept expecting someone else to come in but nobody did. It was an incredible evening and I learnt a lot from Hal’s method of creating magic, which seems to be assembling a load of talented people for an unlikely cause, lighting the blue touch paper and retreating.

One of the performers that night, Baba Maal, invited me to play on his album the next day. When he had come in to rehearse, he initially found it hard to lock in with the quite rigid confines of the arrangement. I got to know exactly how he felt when I walked into his studio and found his band in the kitchen playing music that I loved but had no idea how to fit in with. In the end John Leckie the producer was looking for an entirely different flavour for the song, and the evening turned into quite a normal overdub session. I was also briefly in the studio with Ed Harcourt, working on some bonus tracks for his upcoming best–of. The tunes, as ever, were beautiful and we’ve known each other so long the parts were down in no time. A few great Ed moments too – when he walked in he hurriedly unpacked all his latest musical toys, and finished off by triumphantly producing a giant Indian headdress, saying earnestly “I thought we might need it”. He also insisted on speaking to me between takes through a vintage mic and amplifier with reverb, at huge volume, hiding underneath the mixing desk. The fabulous–sounding 60s American amp I brought along electrocuted me, the producer, his assistant and the technician. Lastly on the studio front there were an other few days in Belfast with David Holmes, doing the last few tracks for his long–awaited album. This time I brought Jon Hopkins with me, who brings an elegant magic to everything he touches.

A couple of festivals this month. Firstly the Isle of Wight, where I played alone on a little bandstand. I was glad to be there and had a great time camping, but the gig rather made me want to never do anything like it ever again. Then Glastonbury where I played with Ed and then The Waterboys. I’d never played with The Waterboys live, but Mike Scott invited me to join them for the songs I did on the album and it was really exciting to headline a stage, and come on with no rehearsal (except 10 minutes in a van with Mike). The mud was quite extraordinary, and only bearable when viewed through an alcoholic haze. I was pathetically underprepared too, arriving with binbags tied round my legs. By the time I’d found a place selling wellies I had sacrificed 2 pairs of shoes to the quagmire.

Two days later I found myself in New York taking out my mud–splattered pedals in the David Letterman studio. It was a strange juxtaposition. Letterman keeps his surprisingly small studio extremely cold – so much so that my fingers went numb (good thing I was playing slide). Once again the entire thing felt rather impromptu, being shoved on with minimal rehearsal, and all over in 5 minutes. It was only when I watched it back that it really clicked that I’d been on Letterman. One minute he was rabbiting away, then he said “Bryan Ferry”, and the next thing I saw was me! After that I stayed in New York for a couple of days to make a video for the first single off my next album with Bingo Gazingo. I took him to Central Park and round the East Village and filmed him accosting members of the public with his poetry. For an 82–year–old he has such incredible energy, and it can’t be because of his diet (ice cream and milkshakes, half of which end up down his shirt). One of the many highlights was when he stood in the middle of a playground and bellowed “I wanna put my iTube in your YouTube!” I also interviewed one of the other singers, Phoebe Legere, in her extraordinary apartment full of art, clothes, and fallen masonry. It is the only place I’ve ever been which one could describe as being ’littered with accordions’. She gave me raspberries and told me to sit out on her rusty fire escape (5 floors up) while she did the interview with the cameraman (she didn’t want me to hear).

Finally, yesterday I did the Diana tribute concert with Bryan. Surprisingly little to report, except that mercifully Wembley Stadium doesn’t seem quite as huge when you’re actually onstage. The only thing that threw me off were the troupe of models sachaying right over my pedalboard during the intro, which certainly didn’t happen at the runthrough. It was also eerily quiet onstage, adding to the unreality of it all. I just kept thinking “God knows when I’ll make it back here again, just enjoy it! Enjoy it!” and tried to balance the tragic desire to look vaguely ’stadium–y’ with trying not to play any wrong notes during the solos.

I’m on the plane back home from Belfast after a couple of days recording with David Holmes. Having spent most of yesterday listlessly prodding a synthesiser to no great effect it came as a relief today when I came up with a rather heart–wrenching progression on acoustic guitar. I always feel like an awful fraud if I don’t do a reasonable job, but that doesn’t mean I’m averse to the ridiculously out of proportion fringe benefits that occasionally befall the hapless minstrel. This month has been full of them, from a cowboy festival in the Alps with Ronan Keating which turned into a cycling holiday, to a brief performance at the Armani show with Bryan Ferry, after which I walked away with an extremely fine suit. But no good blag goes unpunished, the former entailing appalling sunburn and the latter a humiliating fall, right on my arse in front of Bryan, the band and about 30 models. Ironically I was demonstrating to the sax player of the Zutons how, when miming instead of actually playing, the only thing left to worry about is not falling over – which therefore becomes disproportionately tricky. This has always been a problem, at least for me, exacerbated by the presence of tv cameras.

But I have been doing some ’real’ work this month too. I’ve completed a whole album for Bingo Gazingo, the octogenarian outsider poet from New York, half of which I did with Ed Harcourt. I am so pleased with the results and everything came together miraculously quickly. Often we would not listen to his words whilst actually recording the music (I pre–recorded him earlier in the year), but when the two were put together the marriage was eerily perfect and required minimal editing. It feels like a blessed project, borne of generosity and goodwill. I’m sure that self–regard and insecurity are partly to blame for the often tortuous process of realising one’s own music.

There were also more private shows and overdub sessions for Bryan Ferry, with the album really proceeding apace. They contained a wonderful blend of freedom, when I was encouraged to bring broad strokes of colour to the tracks, and note–specific analyses of intricate parts, which I particularly enjoy as that level of detail is the way I approach my own music. It’s great working with someone like Bryan who enjoys that kind of nit–picking too. A couple of things he said that made me chuckle – on becoming weary of a repetitive guitar part (that he had suggested): “That’s rather vulgar. It wouldn’t get into Sandhurst”; and explaining his distrust of a daring edit: “I’m a bit conservative by nature. That’s why I’m wearing a tweed jacket”.

Finally I had time for a couple of gigs of my own, one at a Spirit of Gravity event (a couple of confused hippies turned up in the mistaken belief that Brian Eno would be joining me!) and the other as part of Steve Lawson’s marvellous Recycle Collective. Bingo made a disembodied appearance as I flew samples of his poetry into the improvisations. It’s amazing how strongly people react to his voice because of the sheer authority and originality – two qualities that should be present in every sound committed to tape. Sometimes it helps to remember that in the heat of the moment when the temptation can be to just play anything and fill the space. I really enjoyed actually not playing and just sitting on stage listening. Often it’s so much better to play nothing. Of course that doesn’t work so well in the studio, if you want to get paid. I remember playing in Eno’s band with the bass player Tim Harries. On one song his simple bass part was so stable, repetitive and solid that it hypnotised everybody; then 4 minutes in he changed a single note and it was like there had been an earthquake. All that power harnessed and released. I’m rambling now and the fasten seatbelts sign is illuminated.

This month started with a stint in Ireland. First a few more days in the studio with David Holmes; we really seem to have found a rhythm now, and are able to turn out a new tune on a fairly regular basis. He also took me to see the opening night of a play about ’the troubles’, in the heart of West Belfast. In attendance was Gerry Adams, who had a disturbingly pop–starish allure of some kind. I kept wanting to go up to him and discuss his 80s period and ask him why his lip–synching was always so unconvincing. Strangely enough the lead actor in the play, a friend of David’s, used to do Gerry’s voice for the BBC back then! After that, I went to Dublin for a gig with Iarla O’Lionaird. There was the usual slightly tense atmosphere as the traditionalists in the audience struggled to come to terms with the fact that I had a computer onstage, but that made it all the more exciting. Unfortunately the sound guy kept screwing up the monitors, which looked to the audience like it was my fault (”serves him right for having all those machines…”) and I kept wanting to stand up and scream “I’m innocent, I swear! This stuff all works fine!”

Next was a fantastic 4 day session with Bryan Ferry, recording tracks for an album that I’m not sure I’m allowed to describe in detail, so I won’t. Suffice to say it was done in a splendidly traditional way, with a roomful of musicians actually playing together, live, learning songs on the hop and nailing them within one or two takes. Bryan was demanding, restless, funny, inspiring, driven and altogether rather thrilling to work with. As usual in the studio I ended up drinking far too much coffee (which usually I don’t touch) and thus got virtually no sleep for the whole 4 days. Luckily something good seems to happen to my playing when I’m in such a hazy state and instead of getting uptight I can get to the heart of the music better. Unfortunately I look like hell and everyone is worried about me.

Straight after the luxury of basking in rock–legend–associate status I went on the road for an extensive 3–date solo tour of the UK. I was joined by my good friend Holger Theunert, a genius artist who did the cover of Scene Memory. Even thought the gigs were tiny I really enjoyed playing on my own after so long as a sideman and made a vow to do it more often. It takes a lot for a roomful of people to sit quietly through 45 minutes of instrumental music, and it was encouraging that everyone did (except in Newport).

When I got home from that I realised that I hadn’t had a single day off in 3 months! So since then I’ve been taking it easy, getting ready for another burst of activity this week. But there was time for a few gigs – Ed Harcourt in Belfast, in the rain, with no crew, a band that had never played together before and a clutch of the finest songs available to humanity; and Ronan, one in the middle of a lake which meant he couldn’t do his usual ’go out and shake the hands of the front row during the guitar solo’ move, so he went round and shook the band’s hands instead which I thought was quite witty. When he came to me I pretended to faint with excitement. I also tinkered in the studio, most successfully with a really brilliant artist called Tina Grace who has collaborated a lot with Nitin Sawhney and is now doing her own stuff. And lastly had a very exciting/scary meeting with a major label about my next album which features guest singers. The plot thickens.

The Roxy tour was a splendid experience. Musically it was so rewarding to play those songs, and that’s as much as I ever hope for. There were times too when Bryan would do something on stage which made it absolutely clear how he came to be a huge star. It’s quite moving to be part of the show at times like that. In addition, he remained completely fastidious about detail. As I’ve written previously, he is shy neither about telling you what he likes nor what he doesn’t. Moments after complimenting me at a soundcheck about one of the previous night’s solos, he came over looking extremely concerned and said, “Last night… Jealous Guy… something wrong. Too sweet… I tried to look at you with a disgusted expression”, to which I could only say that I was sorry I’d missed it. I discovered that his admirable perfectionism extended to footwear when he gently told me my Campers weren’t quite right, and told me to buy a pair of cowboy boots in Rome – on him.

But it wasn’t all sonic nirvana and free footwear. In Athens my laptop went haywire during soundcheck, and without it I can’t do the show. There were several hours of sweaty panic and horribly expensive phone calls all in vain before, with ten minutes to go, I thought of a way to ’hotwire’ it, bypassing the problem area. My repair cds were FedExed over, but ended up chasing me round Europe for the rest of the tour as my laptop clung on for dear life. Then in Thessaloniki the gig was cancelled due to a freak rainstorm, which at one point nearly ruined Phil Manzanera’s guitar collection. The Greek curse was lifted and we went on to triumphant shows in Eastern Europe (where people seem touchingly grateful that you bothered to stop by) and Italy. One other moment I should mention – at a Holland festival we were on at the same time as the Waterboys. Mike Scott made a solo record that changed my life, and I wrestled with my conscience for about 2 hours before plucking up the stupidity to knock on his dressing room door and doing the whole fan thing with what little dignity I could muster. The next day I had a myspace message from him saying he’d found my website (I hadn’t even told him my surname or anything about myself), downloaded Honeytrap, and would like me to play on his next record! All the more wonderful because the thought that I might end up working with him hadn’t even crossed my mind. I’d just wanted to say thanks.

As soon as the tour ended I went to Belfast to continue work on David Holmes’s new album. This time he had hired a baby grand piano and it became the basis of some new tracks. I really enjoy working with him, circling around ideas and feelings, gradually whittling it down into something very concise. We also put finishing touches to some of the earlier pieces. Then I had a session with Ed Harcourt, re–recording one of his old songs for a film soundtrack. It was strange revisiting a song like that, and poring over old artwork and performances, but in true Ed style we didn’t have long to think about it and ended up using the first take.

Also had a couple of gigs with Ronan. Walking around the site before the concert I was continually mistaken, at a distance, for the great man himself. Sometimes I’d get a cheery “alright, Ronan!” but at others I would see the mad glare of fandom swiftly followed by a rather delicious disappointment (sorry). It’s a look I always relish, especially when people who’ve been waiting outside after a show rush up to your departing vehicle, press their eager faces up to the blacked–out windows and look suddenly almost resentful, at frighteningly close range, when they see not the object of their devotion but a humble minstrel. Not that I experience any schadenfreude, it just gives an insight into how scary it must feel somtimes to be famous and makes me glad I’m not.