Happy Christmas, is it over yet?...

I like Christmas very much.  I am an uncle 8 times over so there's always some little people to keep the excitement going for.  There's new Doctor Who and catching up with people I like but don't often see (there's loads of these now, being a full time musician means never being available to go to things when people ask you to but always, repeatedly asking those people to come to *your* things, yes that's fair and sustainable, hmmmm).

So here is this years Christmas song, rasing a glass to absent friends....

'Golden Hallelujah'


Chritsmas is good. But a new year, I properly like a new year. Not New Year, the 'party night' where you have to have a plan or you are deemed a lonely eyesore, not fussed on that. I tend to stay local and try to be home by 2 or 3 so I can get up early-ish and enjoy the really good bit of the new year. The new-ness.

Of course it's all arbitary but so is everything, so crack on I say.

I am especially looking forward to this year as I am releasing my sixth album but my first on a new label, with a new (ish) sound.  I am massively proud of this record, it is beautiful. You might have alreayd heard this, but if not here is a taster anyway, this is the title track....


A Chattering Of Birds - pre mastering

I've done loads this year, audio books, puppet theatre soundtracks, a gig on a boat that ended in a fight, producing other people, water-logged but fun festivals, videos (the xmas still above is a hint), flirting with brass bands, making backwards coconut noises for pantomimes and just, just, just failing to be on adverts and I've been too busy doing it all to really shout about it so thank you to everyone who has made it a massively enjoyable year.

Amongst the new things in the new year will be a new website where I'll be doing more reglaur free music and filling up that scrapbook with the songs and stories of some of those adventures befroe I forget them completely.

More samples of the new record to come in new year too, then the real thing, I cannot wait for you to hear it.

Hope you are marvelous, enjoy the holidays and see you in the new year with some tall tales and bird themed beauty....

How many Moses make a band?

It is 2012, 10 years since MOSES, the band I started with my brother David released our debut album ‘The Swimming Zoo’ .

Sometimes 10 years is a long time and sometimes it’s not. People got married and bred, music became essentially free, festivals became huge, gigs in London became pointless other than for fun (the good bit), our website disappeared and nobody at our old record label could tell me why or when even though I paid for it (that one still vexes me, can you tell?) but mostly the thing that a 10 year anniversary means for Moses is that we become a ‘heritage act’. This is great  for several reasons:

1: I don’t have to argue with all the other bands called Moses. We were called Moses, the albums are out there in the world under that name, the reviews in Q, NME etc said our name, the little CD rack divider in HMV said our name, it was our name, it’s past, it’s fact, I cannot change the past sorry other Moses bands.

2: We can do a 10^th Anniversary tour.

3: I get to sing those songs again (and realise how bloody hard they were to sing and feel quite clever that I wrote half of them) and not concern myself about where anything is going, what it could become, who might be impressed or if somebody who knows somebody ‘in the industry’ thinks it’s good.  Never my cup of tea, possibly why we were so bad at it.

So there are some brilliant live dates. Moses being Moses of course not all of them involve every one of us. Me and Dave will be at all of them but the rest will be coming when they can, partners, babies, jobs and exotic other comitments permitting, we were always very good at making it work with however many Moseses we had.  I hope to see you there...

FRIDAY 10^th February

The INSTITUTE in Kelvedon with special guest JAMIE LAWSON

http://www.wegottickets.com/event/147753 : almost sold out

SATURDAY 16^th June

The Arran folk festival Isle of Arran

Tickets available nearer the time https://www.facebook.com/#!/ArranEvents

SATURDAY 23^rd June

Club Cotherstone, Co Durham

Tickets available nearer the time www.facebook.com/mosespage

SATURDAY 14^th July

The Moorings, Hartlepool

Tickets available nearer the time https://www.facebook.com/events/336113923094922/  

FRIDAY 14^th September

High Barn, Great Bardfield, Essex

http://www.high-barn.com/musicsite/products-page/september-2012/moses-friday-14th-september/  

more to come...

Ireland!

Just back from tour of Ireland, crikey it was good.


I was supporting the excellent and generous  Jamie Lawson as well as playing piano and melodica in his band.  Here we are; Henrik (bass), Jamie, me and Dana (drums)

Tell you what:

A: Jamie is amazing and his support of me on this tour was beyond the call of duty, plugging me every chance he got, what a gent.

B: Ireland is brilliant for music, they properly listen. I loved it.

We had a ball with The Camper van festival and its lack of cigarettes, the incense lady and her tour of duty, the duck/swan/goose debate, a fight on a bridge, a sportgame, the worst kebab in County Clare, the shopping trolley incident, the locked room mystery, my gradual metamorphosis into Victoria Wood, 'Firebelly Vampire' for Christmas Number One and 'When is a Ferry Port not a Ferry Port'? But more of that later, for now just to say: THANK YOU IRELAND you are brilliant


Paul

webby wonder!

My new website is up and running, it is excellent.

Its very clean and looks simpe but deceptively the scrapbook page is chock full of free music, videos, interviews, artwork and the stories begind the songs. Well worth a look, please and thank you.

And you can pre order 'The Romantic' and get the Deluxe edition which comes with a pre release download, an exclusive extra track, art cards, badges and a story book.

Click away: http://www.paulmosley.com/

Christmas with the snowbirds

For Christmas 2008 Johnny The Engineer and I remixed up 'Snowbirds';a 'Then I woke up and it was all a dream' favourite, to have a festive flavour. I still rather like it....

Christmas with the snowbirds by paulmosleyuk

timing is... everythi...ng

At the time of writing my friend Jamie Lawson (far left) is number 8 in the Irish album charts with 'Wasn't expecting that'. The story of how this came to be is quite remarkable and, in a world of showbiz pretend word of mouth, startlingly true. Jamie tells it best at www.jamielawsonmusic.co.uk

The lady in the middle is the splendid Vashti Anna, www.vashtimusic.com  a remarkable singer, songwriter, musician and human being who will probably end up being the most famous person I know.

The 3 of us gigged together through 2010, it was great we had a good balance of clowning and creative integrity, swapping headline status and joining in on each others songs.  We had plans to head out on the road in earnest as a 3 headed singer songwriter machine in 2011.

Then Jamie became the new U2 and we realised it probably wasn't the best move for his career right now. Vashti and I are stoic in our support of course. In fact I am being his support act on his first fully fledged Irish tour throughout May 2011. Wish me luck.

Here's the song that started it all for him... with an unofficial video somebody on YouTube has cheekily bootlegged from Pixar. It works brilliantly. Go on my son!

No-one's Home

David Solomon directed a video for the Moses nearly hit single 'No-one's home'. It was going to be on MTV but they played 'Yellow' by Coldplay instead, whatever happened to them?

Ah, the you tube clip has fallen over, getting it fixed. Come back soon for the old Moses video!

As an arty type who doesn't mind a bit of showing off I am glad that I know this one thing: I cannot act.

Got to love that Abba-esque 'in mirror reveal' though.