Have been more or less constantly working on the 'overflow' album, titled'The Last Lamplighter,' which will contain tracks that did not find a place on the 'Stand By: Light Coming' album. Some tracks were left off that album because there wasn't room for them, others were left off because they didn't really feel right to me, (although several fans have expressed an interest in hearing them.) So, I've been experimenting with different track lists for 'The Last Lamplighter' in an attempt to make an interesting album from the left over material.
After some soul searching, I think I've come up with a good solution. A few of the left over tracks have now definitely been consigned to the waste bin. These are not songs that I consider worth hearing and I certainly won't miss them. Others, however, sound ok and I have included them in the album.
But to make sense of it all I've had to record some new tracks to not only bring the track count up to scratch but to add mood and variety. I now feel the album has a real purpose, both as a companion piece to 'Stand By: Light Coming' and as an album in its own right. Here is what will be the final track list:
1: 'THE LAMPLIGHTER'S LAMENT.'
2: 'TICK TOCK TICKING.'
3: 'WIDE AWAKE IN THE HEART OF YOU.'
4: 'THE WINTER MERMAID.'
5: 'STRICTLY FOR THE BIRDS.'
6: 'PLASTIC MAC.'
7: 'HOUSE OF MYSTERY.'
8: 'GHOSTS OF UTOPIAN CITIES.'
9: 'THE WOMAN OF TOMORROW.'
10: 'VULCAN STREET.'
11: 'SERENE IN SILVER.'
12: 'WHAT'S A BOY SUPPOSED TO DO?'
13: 'MY LIFE IN NEON, MY LIFE IN SOUND.'
14: 'LOST LIGHT.'
15: 'THE LAST LAMPLIGHTER.'
Mastering of both albums is now set for this coming Friday, (10th May,) at Fairview Studio with my engineer friend John Spence. Hopefully I'll have everything ready by then and we'll get all the tracks for both albums transferred to Fairview's computer ready for John to master.
'Stand By, Light Coming' will be the first new CD album I'll be placing with Burning Shed to sell. It will be interesting to see how it goes. 'The Last Lamplighter', however, wont be a physical CD but a digital download only via my Bandcamp page. But now 'The Last Lamplighter' sounds fit to sit alonside 'Stand By: Light Coming' and can hold its head up proudly. I think this may be the first time I'll be releasing two brand new albums simultaneously.
Meanwhile, today sees the reissue of 'Fancy Planets' in digital download form. The album was originally issued as a limited edition CD in 2009 and has been out of print for several years but is now available again. It contains one of my favourite tracks, 'The Golden Days Of Radio' which has a video I made for it on my Dreamsville website. The album is very much in the rock/pop arena and might appeal to Be Bop Deluxe fans who haven't kept up with my output over the years.
I have lots more to tell in this journal entry, (too much to be honest,) and don't have time to write everything up here at the moment, it's been a busy couple of weeks, but I'll try to catch up in the next entry or two.
Now though, back to work...
