Well, the big news is that I have been offered a deal in the US for my second record “Scene Memory”. Hurrah. It is pretty different to “Honeytrap” consisting only of laptop-mangled guitars but I’m very pleased with it and am glad that something so abstract has found a home. It is in the process of being mastered.

When I got back from the tour with Petra I was shattered and, shock-horror, had a week off. I did start working on a project with a very interesting Athenian bassist and soundscaper called Costas Andreou, but quickly realised I was a bit burnt out and stopped. But last week was back to business as something-approaching-usual with 3 gigs at the Shepherds Bush Empire supporting KT Tunstall (2 with Ed Harcourt and 1 with Petra). It was so great to be playing with Ed again, and in his own inimitable style he confronted me in the dressing room with a setlist including 3 songs I had never played before. The second of the two nights was by far the best, with the old band back together and on fine form. I hope we tour again soon. Ed is on his own for the rest of KT’s tour and it took a lot of guts for him to go out on a support like that considering he’s made 5 records. You’re really out on a limb, at the mercy of sometimes indifferent beer-swillers and inconsiderate yammerers. But anything that spreads the word has to be worth it.

I’ve also been working on my 3rd record. One of the guest vocalists will be an 80 year old New York poet called Bingo Gazingo. I had a hilarious trans-Atlantic phone call with him when he recited his latest opus “J-Lo” which was thoroughly filthy. He reckons it will outsell Eminem. Check out his work with the wonderful My Robot Friend

I am in a Munich hotel, nearing the end of a German tour with Petra-Jean Phillipson. We’re supporting Richard Hawley (ex-Pulp and Longpigs). He is five parts charming, witty melancholy to one part reluctantly miserable sod. The music is exquisite rockabilly 60s pop, and ‘Oh My Love’ features an outro so unexpectedly passionate that when it comes you don’t know whether to burst into tears or shout Hallelujah. Petra’s brew of Billie Holiday and Nick Cave is going down well. I’m playing guitar through an amp (grit) and a laptop (sparkle), and setting off samples with my feet. Thus I am addressed as Macintosh Man by the retro-Mafia guitarist in the other band

Touring as a support act can be fun – with Ed we opened up for Neil Finn, REM and more and were made to feel welcome. On this occasion it feels pretty far from ‘living the dream’. Once we’ve driven ourselves hours across country we only play for 25 minutes which is an obscene work-to-hanging-around ratio and if I don’t manage to do a bit of extra-curricular music on my laptop each day then a feeling of deep pointlessness sets in. As I threw myself prostrate across a Holiday Inn single bed at three in the afternoon my room-mate asked, ‘Is it all too much?’ to which I could only reply ‘No, it’s all not enough’. As the late great Frank Zappa once said, ‘Touring can make you crazy’.

Being a musician isn’t usually too physically demanding (except on the liver), but today I am racked with pain in the back and hand after several days of writing orchestral arrangements and copying parts for Ed Harcourt’s next album. Aside from that, I just love arranging. There’s unprecedented freedom and opportunity to shape every aspect of a song. On this occasion there are so many hidden musical gems in the bass, piano and trumpet parts that a lot of my job has been picking out all my favourite bits and orchestrating them into the forefront. It feels like grown-up colouring-in. We also did more recording at the wilfully retro Toerag Studios; one of the tracks I played on, “Visit From A Dead Dog” also featured amazing guitar from Graham Coxon.

The last two weeks have seen a couple of projects get tied up after long waits – James Wolfe and Cinema Strange/Sexgang (see below). Also I played a couple of gigs at the Edinburgh Festival with Petra-Jean Phillipson. It’s a great setup in that band; the other guitar player is Simon Tong (ex-The Verve). He takes care of all the chords & parts, leaving me free to add laptop textures, pump organ, percussion and backing vocals to my heart’s content. The atmosphere in the band onstage is the calmest I’ve ever encountered; much of that emanates from Petra and it makes for an even more intense musical experience, much more pure than those gigs where you’re worrying about screwing up/those people in the front row/whether it’s coming across…

Appeared on Resonance FM this morning, having just returned from a gig in Monaco knackered after no sleep. Nerves combined with hangover meant my hands were shaking like Elvis’s pelvis during the live track. The interview was fun though, and a listener phoned in to get details, which is rare apparently – so this promotion lark works then. On the subject of publicity, the first few album reviews have come in, all positive so far. It feels really awkward to read them, and especially strange when I end up agreeing with the critical bits!

Last week I produced some tracks at Toerag for my friend James Wolfe (who I routinely describe as ‘the genius in my life’). It was so refreshing to record straight to tape and have the option-woven safety net of the computer taken away. Having said that, when I transferred one of the recordings to my laptop I neglected to check it so I’ll be spending many shitty hours repairing loads of distorted bits. Nearly cried when I realized. Still, all the tracks are amazing and I hope James makes his mark soon.

Apart from that I’ve mainly been working on new music and preparing for future concerts – my own, and some with Petra-Jean Phillipson and Peter Schwalm. I played with Ed Harcourt too at the Hackney Empire in circumstances so chaotic (no equipment, crew who hated each other, etc) that the music took on a wonderfully surreal floating quality. I knocked Ed’s acoustic over in the first song and he gave me an ‘I will kill you’ look, before spending the rest of the show behind his fringe. But he played incredibly and was very satisfied afterwards. Hurrah.

By complete contrast I have also been doing a few festivals with Herr Keating. Everyone in the band is so nice, the big R is utterly charming and genuine, and as an East Dubliner disconcertingly says fuck every third word, but with such little emphasis that you hardly notice. Of course it isn’t great art or anything, but the interesting thing is how satisfying it feels to play to absolutely ecstatic audiences. They’re only interested in Ro and I could be anybody, but they’re really having a good time – much more so than a lot of the ‘respectful’ audiences I’m privileged enough to play to under normal circumstances – and it’s rather nice. Not that one is ‘better’ than the other, but I’m enjoying being part of something different. Temporarily.

Petra-Jean Philipson came over to add some guitars to her record. It all sounded pretty complete already so I just made some subtle sounds to shift the mood here and there. Petra is incredibly intuitive, unconventional and particular, but today everything just clicked into place first time. She has been working in St Paul’s Cathedral, cleaning and restoring every surface. She took me up on the scaffolding to see all the mosaics and stained glass up close, which was extraordinary, and she obviously loves the job; her work there will last for centuries. Unfortunately she wouldn’t take me to the hidden corridor that is, in her own words, ‘haunted to buggery’…