Hello everybody,

As i sit here I realise the many blessings that are in my life or coming my way. I have 2 cats that love me (one of which insists on sitting between me and the keyboard), a beautiful wife who puts up with all my lesser qualities, a gorgeous son who is a free spirit and a wonderful companion already at just 2 years of age. I have some wonderful friends, some of whom are musicians, that I have been working with and will be again soon, specifically:

Mark King – having invited me to come onstage at the Forum last year february, then a second invitation came to participate on the recording of Retroglide last year summer, then he asked if I would like to do the tour coming up this autumn, and finally some festivals this summer, which have been a great way for me to get “back in the saddle again”.

The first one in Esbjerg, Denmark was special, as it was the first one, plus Sam and Angelo came and joined my brother in law and his wife, and I had the experience of playing onstage with Mark, Gary, Nathan and Sean, whilst waving to Sam and Angelo during The Sun Goes Down, with a beautiful audience, then hanging out backstage with Tony Hadley, Kim Wilde and their bands-ok, it was an eighties day at the festival, but it was wonderful chatting with and catching up on what we’d all been doing since then.

We have 2 more dates before the autumn (Kazakhstan on the 9th Sept, Sofia, Bulgaria on the 18th Sept), and then it’s rehearsals last week of sept for the tour which kicks off in Dublin on the 4th October, goes all over the UK and then Germany Holland Belgium Austria Switzerland Luxembourg. I will put the dates up on the site in the next week, and will also be updating the photo gallery and make it possible for me to upload pictures audio and video, plus change the text from grey to black for those (like me) who may have some difficulty discerning certain words.

Phil Gould – i went down Dorset way to see Phil a couple of days ago to carry on the work on his album (as yet untitiled) which he hopes to have finished recording by September, he’s got some great music on the go.

Dominic Miller-have done a couple of shows with Dom, the last one was a midnight after Sting show at a open-air Danube-side club in Budapest.

Lovely audience, some of whom had seen the Sting show in it’s new stripped back to basics form, and were obviously Dom fans, plus there were a few L42 fans as well. The next shows are a festival in Pantelleria (an Italian island off the Tunisian coast) on the 20th August, then 3 german shows on 20,21st & 23rd September in Berlin, Dusseldorf and Hamburg, all in support of his latest solo album out in Sept entitled “Fourth Wall”, which I feature on as guest Prophet 5 player and wordless vocalist.

Da Lata – have played at a festival in Slovakia, plus Jazz Cafe and Womad. The next show is at a new-ish Brazilian Club in London called Favela Chic on 14th Sept (a sister to the one in Paris we played at about 4 years ago). They are in the process of writing their next album, and I hope to be contributing to that in the next couple of months, which leaves..

Mike Lindup’s next album. This has taken a back seat while I have been doing all the other stuff (including writing and singing a vocal on the next Billy Cobham album), but I intend to demo up 3 to 4 songs before the tour, and I may post excerpts up on the site, which will no longer say last updated 8th Feb, I promise!

Best Wishes,

Mike