The EP Dave Barbarossa and I wrote is out tomorrow, on iTunes. It consists of only 3 tracks.

I would also like to write more but time is not on my side. It’s mainly spent working in my day job and I need to finish off the project I started with Mark all that time ago. I have also been writing with a great writer called Dylan Freed and Geppi in Italy. Everything I do has a completely different feel.

It would be wonderful to perform again as we had a great time supporting the fantastic Lene Lovich ….I just don’t know at the moment.

Supporting Lene Lovich Lettie w: Dave Barbarossa August Friday 18 August photogaph by Pamina Brassey

I sort of have a deadline to aim for which is interlinked with my living situation and many other things besides. I’m not interested in money but the investment that is needed to actually do music is something akin to the hunger or thirst of a gambler that can’t be quenched. I keep thinking ‘yes I will do just one more track and record it to the highest level I can’  but each time it wipes my finances out.  There’s a whole in my bucket dear Liza.

By the way what happened to these? What a great way to collect for charity why were they phased out?  Or are they a bit creepy?  I’m not sure now.

Please put a penny in from article in Nova Magazine 1975

Please Put a Penny In from Nova Magazine IPC Magazines Ltd 1975

Please put a penny in from Nova March 1975

I was incredibly lucky in the past to have recorded 3 albums for free with David Baron.  This is unheard of by most people and I am incredibly thankful and grateful to have had this opportunity and in many ways feel like I have let him down were it not for the fact he is doing incredibly well!  One track he co-wrote and produced has topped the iTunes Charts and the album with Simi Stone, amongst others he has done recently, is excellent.

Unknown photograph

Anyway, back to August and holidays.

Photoplay cover Maggie Pierce ( see her in M-G-M’s The Subterraneans) August 1961 Vol 12 No 8

Ah Summer Sun! From Photoplay Magazine August 1937

Holidays with the Holiday Fellowship Alnmouth

Brean Camp August 1946

There’s a lot of tragedy in the news of late and at times it gets too much.

By Batsford and Dryad Press books for Schools 4 Fitzardinge Street London W1H 0AH published 1989

Dear Maer Very sorry dear I did root for you yesterday will call round about 8 Freya date unknown early

Athena Internatioal Good Morning Vietnam copyright the Walt Disney Company printed in England

Humphrey Bogard and Laruen Bacall in Dark Passage (1947) Private lives leaking out onto the big screen, a Big Combo behind the secens as well as on celluloid from Screen Lovers by Anne Bilson 1988 photographs from the Kobal Collection

Dear Popsy we arrved 6.30 we spent the day touring it was lovely the weather is grand. S is much about the same she sends her love Amy Les and Bernard 1956 Bournmouth copyright Sunray Continental Color Series published by Thunder & Clayden

I spent most of this weekend in bed reading for once ( I forgot I was supposed to be going to a gig to see the very talented Kirsten Morrison who played keys with Lene Lovich but also had been special guest with Peter Murphy back in 2009).  Her music is extraordinary and I was gutted.   I was tired and I decided to stop for once; Stop recording, stop writing, stop doing my accounts and stop looking at my diary (hum). Stop. I pretended I was on the beach. I finished a book a biography about an addict and Sean Hughes book of poems ‘My Struggle to be decent and Poems of Sadness and Light’, which was, along with his show last night, excellent. I particularly like his stories about his pets.

From back cover of Full Color Dog Books at $1 each How to Raise and Train published by T F H Publications 245 Corenlison Avenue Jersey City 2 N J 1964

I often take my boss’s dog out for a walk called Whiskers. He is a Border Collie. He is so intelligent that not only does he open doors but he actually (I have seen this) closes them too behind him. I am very fond of Whiskers and I wonder if deep down he realises, despite all the love he gets, that something is missing. Ultimately that something is sheep.

Unknown Photograph from photo album Bridlington 1938

I also love watching late night television, which is a really bad habit.

Bad Habits S Deepah 13703 Printed in the EU Bizarre http://www.bizarrverlag.com

I only start watching TV very late.  I switch from the news to BBC4 programmes.  On mind recently was one about the Buddhist Sherpas in Nepal near to Mount Everest who act as guides for climbers up Everest no matter the cost (16 were killed in June of this year) and last night the incredible tribes in Borneo trying to get honey from 40m in the trees.  Elephants are used to cart logs across dense jungle as no mechanical vehicle would get through and just how delicately they manage with almost ballet feet is remarkable.

Storyville 42 August-September 1972 printed and published bi-monthly by Storyville Publications and Co., 63, Orford Road London E17 9NJ

When I think of the world and see such programmes as this, it does remind me how immensely large and untouched it is and god knows what the future holds but it is beautiful.  Mankind will always create civil wars and fight each other I believe destruction is part of the human condition no matter the intricacies.  I lit a candle on 4th August  for ‘Lights Out’ lest we should ever forget….

Beneath This Stone Rests The Body

As I wandered about town last week I thought how lucky I am even when a guy literally spluttered a mouthful of beer in my face at a pub near the Oval (first day of the Test), saw an Indie band called Pink Cigars hanging out at the Portobello Gold and longed for the old days, met Barry Lategan world famous photographer at the Chelsea Arts Club and imagined days before I was born.  I saw my friend Petra for a mesmerising film called ‘Boyhood’. She set up something called Kerb which is delicious food markets at various sites around London. If I keep my head down I will be fine by my rescheduled holiday in late September and might even be able to visit her in New Orleans when she goes.

You can buy the EP ‘Crossroads’ by clicking on the home page for a hard copy. It includes various bits of ephemera and if you want ‘Good Fortune, Bad Weather’ included let me know. All of these images were found in the attic where I live.

You will also find it on iTunes by clicking here from Monday 18th August.

xXx