THE LAST WEREWOLF

I have been working on the next The Real Tuesday Weld album.  It is a soundtrack to Glen Duncan's new novel 'The Last Werewolf'.  The book will be published in April by Canongate in the UK, in July by Knopf in the US and around the world during the rest of the year.

Glen and I are old friends - the album 'I Lucifer' was a soundtrack to his book of the same name.  They sort of grew up together in my place in Clerkenwell, as did we I suppose.

I read the manuscript to the new book at the beginning of last year.  He didn't have a publisher then but I knew right away it was going to be a success.  You see I think it may be his best yet. He has published seven previous novels and I recommend them all but this one combines his remarkable literary flair with a genuinely moving and page turning tale in a way people rarely manage these days.

The album is timed to come out in July with the US version but we will be making a musical suite drawn from it available to mark the UK publication in April.  We are intending various live events and all sorts of funny business too.  And as ever, there are some very special guests including Glen himself, Marcella Puppini, Pinkie Maclure, Piney Gir and Joe Guillotine from the very lupine Lazarus and the Plane Crash.

So, more soon -  only two more full moons to go..
In the meantime find out more about the book here

A DREAM OF THE CITY

The ongoing upheaval in the middle East reminds me that London was once considered to be 'The New Jerusalem"

According to legend, the ancient founders of the city came from Palestine about 2500 years ago, a lost tribe fleeing a cataclysm. 

This was a convenient belief in mediaeval times - it made the city older and more significant than Rome upon whom Henry VIII had viciously turned.

And it explains the meaning of the lines in William Blake's poem Milton:

"I will not cease from Mental Fight,

Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,

In Englands green & pleasant Land"

After the great fire in 1667,  Christopher Wren with Nicholas Hawksmoor and James Gibb planned to  rebuild the city actually as the New Jerusalem with St Pauls at the cosmic centre. They didn't manage to realise their dreams - their cosmically inspired geometric plan got lost in the labyrinthine archaic alleys and twisting patchwork of ancient ownership but they did manage to embed some of their occult ideas in the city fabric and, in Hawksmoor's case, in the buildings themselves.  Hawksmoor was a freemason, a sinister, secretive and strange man.  His churches are my favourites in the city.  Some, like St Mary Woolnoth, are deeply weird and Iain Sinclair believes Christchurch in Spitalfields actually exerts a malevolent force on the neighbourhood.  

But, when it comes to imaginary versions of the city, my favourite of course is the one depicted in Mary Poppins.  Walking up Ludgate Hill, I am always half expecting to see her bustling along with her umberella.

If you are a fan of St Pauls by the way, you may be delighted to know that there is a tiny version of it held in the hand of one of the strange statues on Vauxhall bridge. 

It is pretty difficult to see without falling into the river so mind how you go.

LOVE IS IN THE AIR

I was in Moscow the other week for the Cardboardia festival which is organised by friends and which we are hoping to bring to London.  It is quite bonkers in a very creative utopian way.  A kind of cross between origami and Woodstock.

I really like going to Russia because of the wonderful people although this time, given the ensuing terrible events at Moscow airport, I was rather relieved to get out alive.

Ironically, I was there to DJ at a "Love Party" - a task I will be happily repeating this weekend for three Valentine's events in a row in the romantic grandeur of the ruins of Battersea Power Station.  I will be accompanied by those glamorous honey-traps The Bees Knees. 
It is called The Lost Lovers' Ball

Antique Beat will be sending out  a little Valentines present to friends on the list this week.  You can join here if you haven't already.
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Then it's back to work on the next The Real Tuesday Weld album - a soundtrack to my good friend Glen Duncan's next novel "The Last Werewolf" which will be published in a few months by Canongate / Knopf and subsequently by various houses around the world.  Books haven't gone the way of albums - yet - but we will be defying convention as ever and making something you can actually hold in your hands and give to people you like.

I've always felt a little like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz with his paper heart although of course mine is now made from Cardboard.

Happy Valentines to us all!