Laugharne, Dylan Thomas, Euros Childs, Teenage Fanclub, John Updike.

I (Norman) played a show in South Wales on Saturday with Euros Childs. We were one of the musical acts at a literary festival that is held in the town of Laugharne every year. Nice wee place. Dylan Thomas wrote the bulk of Under Milk Wood there.

We played some of the songs that we’ve been working on for our “Jonny” album, along with some Euros originals and a few of my own. I even had the opportunity to try out one of the songs from the new Teenage Fanclub LP. A song called “Dark clouds”.

I suppose it’s worth mentioning at this point that we finished that record last week (March 2009).

The bulk of the album was recorded at Leeder’s Farm Studio in Norfolk with Fanclub stalwart Nick Brine, and then finished off at Rockfield in Monmouth (great to see our dear old friends Kingsley Ward and other Ward family members, Otto the engineer/electrical wizard and Monk the dog, who’s still padding around the courtyard). The cherries and icing were added at Raymond’s place. Needs to be mastered and we have to finish the artwork. But that shouldn’t take us too long. Twelve songs, no title yet, but should be available mid summer.

We have some shows lined up too and I’ll post more information about those when I get a chance to look at our calendar (see subsequent posts).

On the drive home from Laugharne I happened upon a couple of great radio documentary’s. One was about the reclusive poet Rosemary Tonks and I urge you to check out her work. The other was a retrospective look at the life and work of John Updike and can be found at the BBC iplayer site. Only available in the UK, although I’m led to believe that there are ways to subvert the restrictions that are in place there. Perhaps an internet guru could post some instructions on the Teenage Fanclub message board?

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