15 March 2012
With the Polish documentary running well behind schedule and the Fishheads material taking a lot longer to sort through than I anticipated my time and energies are being well worn. The weekends recording was highly successful but the stress accumulation really took it out of me.It’s now becoming obvious that the live material won’t be ready until the end of April and I have at least another Polish studio session to deal with in the next couple of weeks.Calum Malcolm is really pleased with the studio sessions as are the guys at AVP but again this will all have to be sifted through to see what I have to go into production.In short I am slightly overwhelmed just now and not helped by other business concerns that are mainly retrospective and historical but which all have to be dealt with before I move into the “Feast of Consequences” writing sessions.
It’s all whittling away at my time and the spaces I hoped to have before the May shows have disappeared.
That space was intended for preparatory work on the writing and clearing the decks but it’s now filled with technical and production commitments to the Fishheads project.
The knock on effect was creating a potential disaster looming further down the road and after consultation with Yatta and other advisors I have decided to knock the touring in November and December back to February 2013.
In the intended state run of play the writing was supposed to be moving into finishing stages in June and July with recording August ,September for a release late October.
This is now changed to an extended writing period through to October and recording October, November for a December release.
This means I should be able to play the entire album at Leamington and “Feast of Consequences” will be out for Christmas with a 2 month gap for promotion before the World tour beginning at the end of February.
Yatta was struggling to get the tour routing together for the end of this year and admits himself to being relieved at the postponement as it gives him more time to schedule a tour in the venues we want to play in that support the full electric band budgets we need.
Most importantly the new album has to be as near perfect as possible and the chances of rushing ill prepared into a studio with material half cooked would have been damaging on all levels after all the goodwill created in the last 2 years.
The new schedule allows me to properly promote the album and tour and set the ground for a far better prepared launch onto the road.
We will try and add more festivals this Summer but this means that the Leamington Spa weekend will be the last chance to see the full band before the “Feast of Consequences” tour in 2013.
I know this news will disappoint quite a few people who have been waiting on the full touring band but in all honesty I was starting to get stressed by the thought of the commitments this year and together with others in my unit now feel a sense of relief that there is some space again and that we can breath a bit more easily.
There will be more than enough to deal with as is with the release of the entire back catalogue as previously mentioned here including a brilliant remix of “Field of Crows” by Chris Kimsey, the 2 DVD’s, the Studio sessions (combined with other film material) and the Polish Documentary both of which will be well over 2 hours long and the Fishheads audio material on CD’s and downloads.
As mentioned before the demos of “Feast of Consequences” and other material will be previewed through the Fisheads site as it moves more into line and takes on the “front cover” of my career moves.
It’s got to be a great album and this new curve will hopefully deliver the material we have all been waiting for for a long time.
love
Onkel Fish