Rob and I: Cue Fanfare photo by Toby Farrow

A lot has happened in the few weeks since I last posted. Turns out that the Santa Dog gig I posted about below was probably the band's last... at least for the forseeable future. We've been through so much together as a four-piece and I feel a bit woozy about it all. However, since Red Ruby Rose has taken over my life the last year or so I've taken my foot off the band pedal and you can't sustain a band without a pulse.

The last month or so I've started songwriting again which has been a real joy but these new tunes have a different feel to them and so I felt it was time to try something different - more gentle and acoustic and a duo, with just me and my partner Rob (guitarist in Santa Dog). Lady fate turned her tricks and within two weeks of making this decision we'd been offered a two week tour of Northern Germany. I think this was the straw that broke the band's back... there are only so many plates you can spin at once without breakages.

So, in three weeks time Rob and I are packing our guitars, hopping on a flight to Germany and playing 13 shows on successive nights in and around Bremen and Hamburg. We are equally delighted and terrified by the thought of this... having never played so many shows without a break it may well be exhausting. Also it's a big chunk out of our usual routines so it's a leap into the unknown. However, we have always dreamed of touring more and playing music around the world so this feels like a really great step in the right direction. Our new little duo is called Cue Fanfare and there are some tunes on the myspace player.

In the 18 months I've been running my Etsy shop the longest I've been away is four days so I feel a little nervous about leaving it for two weeks but I'll have a laptop so I'm sure it will be fine.

Might mean I get to blog a bit more while I'm away from my sewing machine too :)

My band Santa Dog has been a bit quiet the last few months. We had a flurry of activity in 2006-8 that took us to some really fun places; playing in Europe and Canada and releasing our album on Japanese label Quince, but it's a difficult thing to sustain and all four of us in the band have needed to balance the gigging and recording side of things with our everyday lives. However, the need to make music is an itch that must to be scratched and it can't lay dormant for too long. I have felt a little guilty the last few months that my previous drive and musical passion has wained but I'm really happy that I've finally got some fire in my belly for it again. We've started rehearsing new material and are taking a slightly darker, melancholy approach to our pop sensibility. We've got a gig coming up this Saturday at Bristol's Cube cinema as part of indie-pop fest the Big Pink Cake and I can't wait!