February   
Kev Hickman has now joined forces as the second half of the "Two-Man Blues Army".
The album will be out soon. Just doing final mixes and mastering. It's been a while but it's worth it. Trust me, I'm a musician!

We did a great show at the 12-Bar Club in London and then flew to Ireland and played in Cork and Dublin at a new club called The Scene.

So new in fact that at the end of the night the promoter said "I'm just going to talk to the owners. Back in 2 minutes". So 2 hours later we dragged our sorry butts back to the hotel, which he hadn't paid for in full as we found out the next morning, and then flew back to England. Yep, you guessed it. He'd done a runner with our cash! Where are ya, Pat? Not real pleased about this one.

March   
This month's Guitarist magazine has a nice album review and Guitar Buyer conducted an interview with Dave Mitson and myself for the recording techniques of Two-Man Blues Army. That will be out in a future issue.

April   
Kev and I jumped in the van and did a weekend trip up to Yorkshire to do a few gigs and get warmed up for touring this album that is now coming out on June 8. Nothing like some live touring to tighten it up. I decided, for better or for worse (we'll see), to form my own label and get a distributor and a PR company and do it all myself this time. Keeping control of your work is important and these days with this internet stuff we all have basically the same avenues of exposure, so I'm gonna do my best on it.

A week later we were off to France to do a show with Nine Below Zero at Ris Orangis, near Paris. Kev and I went a day early and decided to hit the guitar stores in Pigalle before heading off to the soundcheck at 4pm. I clean forgot they close for lunch from 1-2 and we FINALLY got a car park at 12.50. Made it to ONE shop then had to leave at 2 to get to the soundcheck! Bugger!!

Anyway, the show went great, we all jammed together at the end of the night and Brendan and Kev shared the drum kit at the same time. A splendid time was had by all.

May   
Deciding we needed a video to go with the album, Kev and I decided to film outdoors and booked our video guy friend (and one of my ex- drummers) Paul King, to come and get some stuff down on film. The day before the shoot bad weather was predicted and, rightly so, Paul didn't want to get his equipment drenched so he had to cancel. Kev had driven up to Lye from Milton Keynes (2 hours) anyway and brought a hand-held camcorder with him and our trusty engineer David Mitson came along just to hang out. It flooded down from the skies as we sat in the van wondering what the hell we were doing there in this classic car breakers yard in torrential rain!

We went down the pub for lunch and planned what we were trying to do. David had never even HELD a camcorder before but was willing to give it a go as video guy! After lunch we went back to location and it was still raining badly. Just as we were about to give up, a patch of blue sky just started and was getting bigger. We dragged out all the gear and set up and by this time it was so sunny that David couldn't see the screen properly on the camcorder but we perseviered anyway just to see what it would look like. After a couple of hours of filming we thought it was a good rehearsal for the proper shoot. We gave Paul the footage to get some ideas out of this so he could see what we were looking for. He then edited what David had shot and that's how the video came out. We think it looks great!

A home-made video to go with a home-made album. Just like they used to do it in the old days!

June   
We did an album launch at Charlotte Street Blues Bar in London and a bunch of gigs around the UK.

July   
I did a short solo tour of the Czech Republic. Picked up some cool DVDs of some TV stuff I'd been on a coupla years ago that I had no idea about and had a great time hanging out with my agent and driver Tomas Bobeck. Tomas played drums on a coupla gigs too.

We played with The Hub, which is Kev and myself with Robbie Blunt ex (Robert Plant guitarist), Mark Stanway (Magnum), Mo Birch (sung with everyone from Culture Club to Paul Rodgers) and Marc Michalksi (Mud). I conducted a school masterclass on blues guitar in the afternoon and then we did a concert at The Assemble Rooms in Leamington Spa that night for a bunch of schools. It was a really cool day.

Kev and I did a show in Swindon with Bernie Torme's new band GMT. Great night at The Furnace put on by Status Promotions. Thanks Statey!

August   
Highlight of August was at the Shetland Blues Festival. We played four shows and had a fab drive up to Aberdeen and a coupla heavy going 15 hour ferry trips. Great to catch up with old friends and make some new ones, too. All had a good time except for some grotesque what-some-would-call-a-woman with a bad attiude whinging like mad, sitting right down the front of the stage. Something about not knowing the songs and this was HER local and she wanted to hear what SHE wanted, or something like that!

September   
We played a pokey little joint called The Anchor, which is situated in Lewisham, in London. Dave Ling froom Classic Rock magazine happened to be there and it looked like he dug the show. A VERY enthusiastic crowd showered us with muchos pesos for CDs and shirts. Happiness!

We did a show with Nine Below Zero at Willbarston hall in Leicestershire. Got up to jam with them again at the end of the night. More fun.

Then it was off to France and we headline Les Grosses Guitares festival near Lyon. Fellow Aussie axe spanker Gerry Joe Weiss opened for us and we jammed at the end. Some of it's up on youtube. That was a good night.

October   
Blues Kitchen in Camden is a great new blues gig in London that we played at. Lotsa Euro people enjoying the blues. That's always good to see.