13 January 2015
And so my last night in Durlach closes in after a highly productive week here in my “other office”.
2015 has swiveled and repositioned itself as far as cunning plans go and that is having a knock on effect on the overall outro I was looking at.
The 4 weeks of rescheduled dates in January and February have torn a chunk out of my intended schedule and after discussions and offers in the last few days I have to reconsider how the year unfolds with projects.
I can’t name specific events yet as promoters want to announce their festivals in the coming weeks. What I can say is that rehearsals should be happening in late May early June for our first trip at the end of that month.
July and August will be full on as a mixture of open airs in Europe will be threaded together with a string of club shows which will hopefully have us on a bus for nearly 5 weeks leading up to the Cropredy festival on the 14th August with weekends pretty much full with shows all the way up to the second week of September.
With so much time being taken up with touring the “Return to Childhood” shows this year it would be unwise to attempt to try to write, record and release the “Weltschmerz” album in 2015 without putting unnecessary pressure on myself and running the risks of not only missing deadlines but also being forced into compromises I don’t want to entertain on this project as it has to be special on every level.
I have decided to concentrate in the early months of this year on the first of the re releases namely “Sunsets on Empire”, “Raingods with Zippos”, “Fellini Days” and “Field of Crows” together with the first writing sessions that I hope to be working together with Steve, Robin and John.
The re releases will all have 3 CD’s of mixed material including remastered original albums ( and in the case of “Field of Crows” a complete Chris Kimsey remix). These will be packaged in a hardback case with around 40 pages of artwork, photos and history written up by myself. Due to the significant costs involved these will be made available as a pre order and we are currently working on offers for those of you who support the project . As I get into the construction of the re packaging and assembly of the material I’ll be asking you the fans what you think you would find attractive as an incentive to buy and ideas such as re printed album T shirts and artwork are in the mix. Regarding pricing I am looking at £19.99 plus VAT for the titles which will be the definitive releases of the back catalogue. The first batch I would like to have available at the beginning of June. The content and further details will be announced as it all comes together.
“Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors”, “Internal Exile”, “Suits” and “Songs from the Mirror” will be put together at the end of the year so that by December my entire catalogue will once again be fully available.
Other intended releases this year are the live albums from the “Moveable Feast” tour as well as downloads and the elusive Polish documentary which Dave Barras has edited into a more manageable shape which we could be entering for the Edinburgh Film Festival. This will be released as a major package with cd’s of live recordings from the Fishheads Club tour in 2010-2011 as well as bonus material shot on that Polish tour.
I’ll be focusing a lot more on fishheadsclub.eu as we have now managed to iron out a lot of glitches with the postal charges that were putting a lot of potential customers off. I really want this to take on a more important role in the overall scheme of things and I will be concentrating a lot more on the promotion of this outlet in the coming months.
The income from the live albums, the back catalogue re releases and the shows this year will directly fund the “Weltschmerz” album which will be written throughout 2015 in order to go into the studio in early 2016 to record for a release in April/ May to coincide with a small UK tour.
This will be the first part of what will be a farewell tour that will extend into open airs and club shows in the Summer of 2016 before further touring in the Autumn working the new album.
2017 will hopefully include South America in the Spring and perhaps other territories depending on demand and support before more open airs and finally the definitive farewell in the Autumn of 2017.
That is a long way off but as you can see the original schedule has moved mainly because of demand this year after my reputation has considerably grown on the strength of “A Feast of Consequences” and the touring in the last year or so. I feel comfortable with the scheduling and I think it gives me the time to prepare for the next important steps in my life. It means I will be retiring from the music business just before my 60th birthday which I think is a pretty good time to ring the changes I want to make.
I know there will be some of you who perhaps disagree with this ambition and many who will be disappointed at this decision but a man has to have a plan and this is mine in January of 2015 as I stare into the future which I know holds a lot of promise and new adventures.