Another new song - and maybe a book!

So, being freelance in the film business gives me quite a bit of free time to work on other things - XUK music being my main creative outlet. At the moment things are pretty quiet on the work front, so I'm spending my time trying to do as much on the album as I can to get it out before the end of the year.

I wrote and recorded a new song the other day, it's currently titled "Weird People". Again, it needs a little polishing and mixing, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out because it has a great message.

So far I've shared five of the songs from the new album (on XUK's Facebook page), but at this point I have eight tracks in reasonably good shape.

I'm still pondering the album artwork and the title of the album is still an open question since it involves "your anus" - and my sense of humor may not be the same as other people's!

The Love Hits artwork (with the black background) looks rather dull to me now. Obviously I was thinking of carrying over the cricket theme forward with the new album. The depiction of the planet Uranus that I've been using is actually a cricket ball.

You may have seen that I posted this green design on the web site recently. Design-wise, it's a nod to XTC's album "English Settlement". It seemed like a good solution for the extremely long album title.

The current track listing, subject to re-ordering and perhaps different titles is as follows:

1. Self-Help Book - almost ready to share.

2. Weird People - will share once the one above is done.

3. No More Mister Night Sky - new mix will be on the album.

4. Perfect Like You - new lyrics and mix will be on the album.

5. Café Lyon - some re-recording of lead guitar and some vocals.

6. The Show - possible minor re-mixing.

7. Forest of Dreams - possible minor re-mixing.

8. All These Circles - done, but you'll have to wait on this track.

Now to the other project - my (hopefully amusing) little book "World's Silliest Books". I just took the artwork to the printer to get some samples printed up. The idea is based on some silly book titles that were doing the rounds in my school when I was a kid. One of them was - "Rusty Bedsprings" by I.P. Nightly. Another, "Falling Over a Cliff" by Eileen Dover. I've expanded the idea and have over 300 silly titles and their suspiciously named authors. Here are a few of my new ones, "The Sailor's Teeth" by Captain Golde, "Funerals on a Budget" by Doug Myoangrave and "Dark Tales" by Horace Torres.

I'm thinking would be a fun "stocking stuffer" for Christmas - although it's highly unlikely that it would be in stores in time for this year - even if I get a publisher interested quickly.

My brother Phil owns a high street book shop called "Mister Books" (www.mrbooks.co.uk) in Tonbridge in the UK. He told me he's getting into the publishing side of the business, so I'll send him a copy to see if he's interested in getting involved or at least give me some ideas for getting it out there.

I'll keep you up to date on any progress - if and when it happens.