VARIOUS BITS AND PIECES:





















a-ha have announced only three concert dates (Update: extra gigs in L.A. and New York have been added, up to five now) for North America in May as part of their 'Ending On A High Note' tour, and they are in New York and Los Angeles. To say this is a big disappointment is a major understatement, still hoping they manage to add some Canadian gigs to the list. I bought a ticket to one of the New York shows and will plan a road trip to see them if that is the only option.

Speaking of a-ha, band member Magne Furuholmen has teamed up to form a group called Apparatjik with Coldplay's bassist Guy Berryman and singer/guitarist Jonas Bjerre from the band Mew. They have just released their debut cd called "We Are Here", I look forward to hearing what it is like.

Lo-Fi-Fnk have leaked a song of their forthcoming album, the song is called "Marchin' In" and it is available to download from their blog. The song is good, a bit mellow, but it is great knowing that we are getting closer to the album finally being released, 4 years after the amazing 'Boylife' cd.

Nik Kershaw just released a cool solo acoustic album called "No Frills" on Monday. You can order it here from his new nicely redesigned website (and they accept PayPal which is great).

Loving the new Two Door Cinema Club album 'Tourist History'. Favourite tracks are the previously leaked demo track "Something Good Can Work', 'Come Back Home', 'Do You Want It All' and 'This Is The Life'. Check them out if you are a fan of a band like 'Upper Room'.

U.K. band Captain are on a bit of a hiatus (after their second album 'Distraction' ended up not getting officially released by EMI) but a couple of months ago started a new mailing list (sign up here) to try and gauge fan support. When you sign up you also get a free download of an unreleased Captain song called "Back In The Knife Drawer". This track was part of sessions they did in Oxford prior to the recording of 'Distraction'.

Teitur has finished writing his next album and plans to record it in March, hopefully it will get released over the summer.

The Human League have signed with Wall Of Sound Records, hopefully their new cd will be out this year.

I just found the Facebook page of Viv who ran the Thompson Twins Fan Club 'Teefax' back in the day, may try and get in touch to see what she has been up to, hope she is doing well.
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THOMPSON TWINS UPDATE:

















Alannah Currie & Tom Bailey in 2006
Photo courtesy Peter Finnegan

Tom Bailey from the Thompson Twins was recently in New Zealand performing some shows as International Observer, his dub outfit. You can listen to his new album "Felt' here, be sure to listen to the track "Popcorn Slavery", probably the closest things to a new Thompson Twins track we'll hear even though it is an instrumental. Listening to the whole album it reminds me of his output as "Babble".

While in New Zealand Tom was interviewed by Radio New Zealand, and you can listen to the interview here. Some interesting information culled from the interview is that A: Tom and Alannah's son Jackson Bailey who is now 21 DJ's under the moniker "Tapes" and was on this recent tour with his father. He has released music on the Jahtari label and seems to be gaining some notoriety (you can listen to his music at his MySpace page - also his Debut EP out now on Jahtari, digitial or C60 features a cover designed by James Cauty (KLF) who is Alannah's boyfriend). B: Tom has remarried to artist Lauren Drescher who is also qualified midwife. C: Tom recently performed with the project Holiwater in New Zealand.


















Jackson Bailey as "Tapes"


Alannah Currie now creates furniture as Miss Pokeno, check some of it out here.

I believe Joe Leeway is still working in California, click here to go to my "Where Are They Now" post from 2006 for more info.
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IMOGEN HEAP WORKS ON DUNCAN SHEIK ANIMATED FILM PROJECT:

















Imogen Heap has a new vBlog (#30) which is chalk full of information. Big news is that she has written a song with Mika (who has also recently got into the video blogging act) that may appear on his next album. She also flew to LA to sing at 'The O.C.' creator Josh Schwartz's wedding to Jill Stonerock in Santa Barbara, CA. She has written a song for an upcoming animated movie that is scheduled to air on NBC this holiday season (she plays a clip, the song could be called "It's Alright"). The animated movie "Macy's Presents Little Spirit: Christmas in New York," starring the voices of Danny DeVito, Lucy Liu, and Freddy Rodriguez centers on a boy who loses his dog right before Christmas, and features original songs and music by Duncan Sheik. It sounds like Duncan approached her to work on the project, will be interesting to see if a soundtrack to the TV movie gets released.

Some reissue cds coming out in the U.K. in the coming weeks that I'm looking forward to picking up at some point are:

Red Box - The Circle And The Square (order here) (And Red Box (Simon Toulson-Clarke) have a new record ready to release)











Thompson Twins - A Product of.../Set (order here)

VARIOUS BITS AND PIECES:













The Thompson Twins album 'Here's To Future Days' is getting the expanded 2 cd release treatment from Demon Music Group's Edsel label , due out in the U.K. on August 4th, 2008. From their website:

"Following the massive success of Edsel’s Deluxe 2CD Editions of “Quick Step & Side Kick” and “Into The Gap”, we now present the Deluxe 2CD Edition of the Thompson Twins’ 1985 chart-topping album “Here’s To Future Days”. This 2 CD release presents all the remixes from the bonus EP / cassette edition as well as the extended 12” mixes and the non-album b-sides, the majority of which appear on CD for the first time, and all mastered from the original mastertapes. All this adds up to 154 minutes of “Here’s To Future Days”! The attractive poster booklet features comprehensive annotation and all the 7” and 12” sleeves."

CD 1 Track Listing:

1                 Don't Mess With Doctor Dream
2                 Lay Your Hands On Me
3                 Future Days
4                 Roll Over
5                 Revolution
6                 King For A Day
7                 Love Is The Law
8                 Emperor's Clothes
9                 Tokyo
10               You Killed The Clown
11               Breakaway
12               Roll Over (Bonus Track)
The Cassette/EP Mixes

13               Shoot Out (Don't Mess With Doctor Dream)
14               Alice (Lay Your Hands On Me)
15               Heavens Above! (Future Days)
16               The Kiss (Tokyo)
17               Desert Dancers (Breakaway)

CD 2 Track Listing

1                 Lay You Hands On Me (Original Remix)
2                 The Lewis Carol (Adventures In Wonderland)
3                 Lay Your Hands On Me (US Remix)
4                 Lay Your Hands On Me (Extended Version)
5                 Roll Over Again
6                 Fools In Paradise
7                 Don't Mess With Doctor Dream (Smackattack!)
8                 Very Big Business (12")
9                 King For A Day (Extended Mix)
10               Rollunder
11               King For A Day (US Remix)
12               The Fourth Sunday
13               Revolution (12" Remix)


Came across a couple of Howard Jones related songs, first up from a recent 80's covers cd release is the band Saint Bernadette doing a song called "Owner Things" which melds "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" by Yes with Howard's "Things Can Only Get Better", MP3 available here.

Also a mashup of Howard's "Things Can Only Get Better" and Lily Allen's "Smile" available at this website for download.
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WILL THE THOMPSON TWINS TOUR AGAIN?



Some interesting news on the Thompson Twins front. There is a comment from a promoter on the Regeneration Tour voting for bands to tour next year section that he has been talking to Alannah Currie and Tom Bailey of the band recently and that Alannah might be game for a reunion tour if the money was right. He mentions that Tom Bailey may be a much 'harder sell'.



There is also an article in today's U.K. Guardian (and one in the Independent) about Alannah and her new life as a chair artist-upholsterer (she goes under the moniker Miss Pokeno - named after a small New Zealand town that was bypassed by the Auckland motorway). It is interesting to hear what she is up to and what people are paying for her work. You can see samples of her work (like the chair she's sitting in above) that sometimes include roadkill animals stuffed by a taxidermist at this website for her upcoming solo exhibit in London. Her comment about a possible Thompson Twins tour -- "I'd rather vomit on my boots." So we're getting mixed messages from Alannah if we are to believe Rick from Red Entertainment, but let's hope someone with deep pockets offers them enough money to reform and tour (ideally with Joe Leeway as well).
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VARIOUS BITS AND PIECES:





You can vote for what bands you would like to see on the 2009 Regeneration Tour here (lower right side of screen), currently The Thompson Twins are leading with 13% of the vote.




Speaking of The Thompson Twins there is now an on-line petition set up to try and convince the band's record labels to release some rarities collections, go here to sign your name. It appears that Tom Bailey is on board and willing to help search the archives for cool rarities, let's hope this becomes a reality. I believe the recent reissues of 'Quick Step & Side Kick' and 'Into The Gap' have sold fairly well, maybe that will help BMG and Warners to work together on this project.

Love the song 'Breathe' by Schiller featuring September (Petra Marklund), getting a lot of plays on my iTunes.

Imogen Heap has video blog #22 up on YouTube.

You can download the fun track 'Version' by Plimsouls over at Ohh! Crapp.

Enjoying the Ferras album "Aliens & Rainbows" that I had to download as for some reason the release in Canada won't happen until the end of May. He appears to have a new website now and hopefully he will do a proper tour soon.

I may be going to see Duran Duran at the end of the month. I saw one of their smaller club shows a few years back which was great. The new album is just okay, I hope they don't focus too much on that material and focus on the back catalogue.

ABC's new album 'Traffic' is now set for release on April 28th in the U.K. The first single 'The Very First Time is currently Number 2 on the 7Digital singles chart, right behind Madonna's 4 Minutes.

Enjoying the new sound Jesse McCartney has on the single Leavin' and leaked tracks from his forthcoming album "Departure" due out in May, hopefully he will enjoy some more success after the last album's less than stellar performance.

Still no sign of The Feeling having their second album "Join With Us" released in North America, a real shame that their label seemed to have little success breaking them here. Now to track down the 'Without You' cd single b-sides!

Ashton Kutcher hosts and musical guest Gnarls Barkley on tonight's new Saturday Night Live on NBC.

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FIVE TIMES AUGUST & VARIOUS BITS AND PIECES:


I just discovered the band Five Times August who have just released a new cd titled 'Brighter Side' The band is really singer-songwriter Brad Skistimas from Dallas Texas. He just finished touring with Matt White and will be touring opening for Dashboard Confessional and Augustana in the coming months. Acoustic pop rock tracks make up the album, kind of Jason Mraz meets Matt Nathanson, the first single is 'The Good Life' - MP3 is up for one week. You can watch the music video for the single on YouTube. You can also listen to some more songs on Brad's MySpace site.

The auditions for 'So You Think You Can Dance Canada' start this coming week in Vancouver. Good news is that Mary Murphy from the U.S. version will be doing some guest judging, pity they couldn't have got her for the whole series. The worst news is that Much Music V.J. Leah Miller is hosting the series. I don't think she is very good the times I've seen her on the music video station, and a recent Spring Break special shot in Cancun really made me dislike her skanky personality. They have been running television ads for the series and auditions using the Tiga song 'You Gonna Want Me' that are cool (video on YouTube).

The cheapest place I've found to order the new ABC cd 'Traffic' is CD WOW for 8.99 pounds. I've never ordered from them before but may for this cd, free worldwide shipping also.

I've tried to upload the Alex Sadkin produced 12" version of The Thompson Twins single 'Lay Your Hands On Me' to YouSendIt but my MAC is always giving me a Safari error. Maybe they have something installed to make sure any iTunes M4A's can't be uploaded to file sharing sites, sorry XOLondon, I'll see if I can make it available somehow.

** UPDATE **

I tried again and was successful in getting the Alex Sadkin produced 12" version of The Thompson Twins single 'Lay Your Hands On Me' up for downloading, the MP3 should be there for a week, enjoy.

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