Records in the works? I’m still working with Dave Miatt on our Oxjam charidee EP. The trouble about doing everything for free is that sometimes it’s hard to pull everything together. We’ve had about 8 different sessions with several people at the controls, as well as making a great live tape at Hamptons (thanks to everyone who showed up and sang!) … so by rights we should have pulled something together, a long time ago in fact. The reality is that we’re all busy with our own projects so it’s quite hard. Now we’ve got Tom, Rysia, Bea, Alfie and Audrey at Furnace Studios cracking the whip though, and I think we’ll get something tied up quite soon.. ‘down among the dead men’!! (for those in the know)

Erm what about my own stuff in all this? Well some of you will know that i’ve been slowly demoing up new tracks for about a year now, at home, with Neil Kennedy and Geoff at The Ranch in Nursling, and with Izaak Bullen in Winchester. It’s weird, I’ve never ever had any problems writing songs themselves but arranging – fuck – it’s not my strong point by a long shot…

Things have entered a new kind of phase lately, though. People are always coming up to me and saying ‘Hey Joe, if you ever want me to play with you, just give me a call’ and, for once, I’ve started listening. Without naming names we’re talking about some Really Talented People to a man and woman… . The guys at Furnace have also been really generous with their time and I’ve found we’re on totally the same wavelength when it comes to stuff like Pavement, Cat Power, Feist, PJH etc. SO we’re starting to gather a bit of recording momentum on the demos. Also gradually putting this band together – so at some point in the next several weeks we’ll hire a barn, truck all the hardware down and track it all.

The end result probably won’t be very Lonely-Joe-Parker-y, at least not in the ramshackle, unfinished way of old, but it still be seat of the pants stuff cos most of it’ll be pretty much live. Performances are gonna change, too – about 2/3 of the time it’ll just be me rocking up on the bike as usual, but for some shows we’ll do the slick luscious sounding full band thing. I won’t lie to you, that’s only gonna be shows where we get paid enough! You get what you pay for! I’ll still break strings and forget words though, just with a sick band there as well…