1. “Horn If You’re Honky” – The Reverend Spooner

2. “Tragic Happens” – William Shakespeare

3.  “My Other Car is Your Father’s Mouth” – The Marquis de Sade

4. “I Brake… Just Like a Little Girl” – Bob Dylan

5. “No One is My Co-pilot” – Amelia Earhart

6. “Ship Happens” – Noah

7. “If You Can Read This You’re Too Close… To The Edge” – Grandmaster Flash

8. “Save The Whales… For Later ” – Herman Melville

9.  “I Neither Drive, Nor Vote!” – Julius Caesar

10. “Maybe On Board” – Immanuel Kant

Hello. I am persevering with writing, recording and releasing original music in this day and age. This is downright foolish.

Here are three pathetic justifications I catch myself believing every so often. If you’re an original singer/songwriter like me, perhaps they’ll stop you sticking a gun in your mouth:

1. My complete lack of any kind of success is actually a deliberate decision not to sell out and make my stuff more universal and consequently less potent.

2. Nowadays with so much online media, it’s more of an achievement to remain obscure than it is to achieve success.

3. It is the quality of my audience not the quantity.  I don’t want a lot of people to like my stuff for five minutes. I want the people who like my stuff to like my stuff and stay with me.

I don’t know if I really believe these things but I guess it doesn’t much matter. I’ll continue to keep writing songs. I’ve been writing songs for so long now that I don’t know how not to write songs anymore.

And maybe that’s the greatest pathetic justification of them all.

Or not. Whatever. I don’t know. Please buy my songs.

You can buy them HERE.

Thanks.

My as-yet-untitled album will not be released until later in the year, but it has already received its first positive  review thanks to music engineer/mixer/masterer extraordinaire, Ross Cockle.

Ross is one of the most respected names in the Australian music scene and has worked with Simon & Garfunkel, Paul Kelly, Deborah Conway, The Blackeyed Susans, Split Enz, Cat Empire and Man Bites God to name a few.

He has also just mastered my new solo album. This is what he had to say during the process:

“This album is good, basic noise – so bittersweet it makes me feel uncomfortable. It’s a songwriter’s record – like Elvis Costello or Joe Jackson”

This is high praise indeed for two major reasons: I have great respect Ross’ opinion and Ross has actually worked with Joe Jackson.

The new album will come out in the second half of 2013 – stay tuned for more details.

Ridley Scott’s “Alien” was a great film with a great tagline: “In space, no one can hear you scream”. It was creepy and scientifically accurate. But like many things, this tagline was only arrived at after many, many drafts.

Here were the early attempts:

1. In space, no one can hear your band’s new free mp3 download.
2. In space, no one can see your point.
3. In space, no one can smell the cheese.
4. In space, no one can taste the rainbow.
5. In space, no one can comb your moustache.