Hi gang, 

I just got home from Damien Hirst's party at Sotheby's to celebrate his massive auction, it's the first time an artist has made new work and is selling it straight at auction… Phillipa Horan invited me as her guest, it was a lot of fun.

Not only did I meet Bono of U2 tonight, but also Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran… he was really down to earth and we had a long chart about art, music, me having listened to his music when I was a kid and Madonna! Of course! (Madonna came up as I saw her live in concert last night Wembley… and you all know how much I love her!!!)

It was a bit of a surreal night to be honest mainly because of the people there, a lot of bankers, investors etc... I was talking to Jay Jopling who runs White Cube and said that I felt like I was in a scene from the film American Psycho. It was like an 80s New York nightclub filled with Damien's art… very strange in fact. I really enjoyed watching the socialites dancing to commercial hip hop… and as I admired I noticed it was none other than Mark Ronson Djing which just made the whole thing even more bizarre. Then I noticed Lily Allen standing next to me hugging Damien whilst her brother Alfie and the striking Jaime Winstone rushed by me.

Earlier on in the evening, I went over to the Serpentine for my friend Simon Popper's (a photo of one of his paintings is with this blog) installation of videos for their Park Nights season… it was brilliant as I would expect of Simon… it consisted of large projected videos of various wildlife sleeping including lions, koalas, giraffes, elephants and more… set to sounds and music inspired by the composer and pianist Erik Satie's concept of 'furnishing music'. My old mate Princess Julia was there as the compere too which made the whole thing even more incredible as I love Julia so much. Plus I got to see my favourite person in the whole art world Maureen Paley which is ALWAYS a highlight!

So all in all it's been a cool night – one to remember that's for sure… and what's more I enjoyed the whole thing! I often find celebrity-style nights a bit silly. But tonight was just an experience… very funny…

So enough of that stuff, sorry to go on, but I just wanted to share it with you!

So.... back to what REALLY matters.... you will be happy to hear I've been VERY busy with Sean McGhee writing the second Temposhark album. We worked every day of the week for the past 3 weeks and WE HAVE LOADS OF NEW SONGS!!! LOADS!!!! And the album is scheduled to be finished by December, and to be released in 2009. We've pretty much got all the tracks ready to be recorded now, so the recording will begin on 25th September and finish before Christmas… well that's the plan... I am determined to get it done by then! 

More good news is that as of 25th September, Sean and I will be writing a daily blog with photos, words and video clips of us in the studio making the record… I think we're going to set up a new blog website that will be linked to here… so keep an eye out! I really want to share the ups and downs with you guys, as we're all in this together!! It's gonna be good to get your thoughts!! 

To give you a little idea of where I'm going with this album, my thoughts so far are that it's going to be an in-your-face, uplifting POP album, with the ups and downs you'd expect from Temposhark - but this time there are even a few RnB beats in it, which may surprise a few of you… but it's all sounding VERY Temposhark, but I think a little more confident than before and with some of the strongest songs I've written so far… which is the most important thing. 

I've played some of the song sketches to closest mates and they've all responded well… two of my mates Phillipa and Rachel have both been driven around London in my car listening to ALL the songs! It was perfect to get their instant reactions before Sean and I start recording… and made me really excited!

I'm off now for a little break until we start recording, so I might not be online as much as usual, but fear not as of the 25th I'll be blogging like never before! Ha ha…

Lots of love,

R.xxxx

Hi gang,

I've got so much to tell you all about… can't believe my last blog was in June! Oops!

First off, thanks to everyone who came to see us play live at the new music venue Vibe Live, above the Old Truman Brewey in Brick Lane. We had such a laugh… and it was great to chat to many of you afterwards. Thanks to Anna for the lovely gift too… and thanks to Second Person for inviting us to play.

A few hours after the gig, I flew up to Scotland! I had an amazing time that weekend in Edinburgh, Tracey Emin had invited us up to celebrate the opening of her 20 Years retrospective at the National Galleries Of Scotland. We had an incredible dinner and got to see the exhibition early which was the best show I've ever seen – which I know sounds a little ridiculous – but seriously, it was incredible. I loaned back to Tracey two small works for the show, so if you go see it, look out for my ones... Or if you can't make it, they're included in the exhibition book which is cool! 

Met some amazing people at the dinner - the person I was most surprised to see was Orlando Bloom, who was really cool! I made friends with the actor Russell Tovey who is wicked and I sat next to Lorcan O'Neill who runs my favourite gallery in Rome, and the amazing art duo Tim Noble and Sue Webster. You may know their work already? If not, check it out as they rule. Plus they did the new album sleeve for Nick Cave, so they are gods in my eyes!

Edinburgh is the most beautiful city, it's got a unique spirit, and I loved the architecture. We saw some funny fringe plays including a comedy evening with Pam Ann, who I'd never had the chance to see before. She is very, very funny.

We've had lots of good news recently. Our video for 'Blame' directed by Motomichi Nakamura was firstly screened in Edinburgh International Film Festival and then went on to win the Sound Checks award in the USA too from SXSW Click festival for best music video of 2008. Wow! We got nominated for a number of Hollywood Music Awards and found out the Blame video is off to Portugal to be screened at the ViMus international music video festival. So all is looking good! By the way, the video is for sale now at iTunes worldwide so if you want you can grab it for you iPhone or iPod!

Plus I'm in the planning stage of filming a video for the song 'Joy'… I'll keep you posted!

Over the past month I've started going to the gym, getting myself fit for the coming months… as **DRUM ROLL** I am happy to announce that I've been getting loads of ideas together for Temposhark album number 2. I've already written quite a few strong songs with Sean McGhee and now have loads of other new ones too from my piano. 

So this is the plan – we're going to spend the last week of August and first week of September doing the final writing sessions. Then from late September until the end of this year we will record the album! Most of it will be done in London, there may be trips abroad too, but we shall see. All depends who ends up working on the record with Sean and I. I even have a working album title, and am meeting a great artist tomorrow who is going to design the sleeve artwork.

I don't want to give too much away at this point, but know that I'm very excited about getting back in the studio! And I know this album is going to very in-your-face and confident. I'm feeling really positive at the moment and I want this to be reflected in the music.

Oh, I've seen two films I'd really recommend. One is called 'Waitress' by Adrienne Shelley, amazing film, so sad Adrienne is no longer with us, but this film is a great tribute to her talents. The other one is called 'Man On Wire' about a tight rope walker who dreamt of walking between the Twin Towers! It's on in UK cinemas now, it's a documentary and took my breath away. Go see it if you can, I promise you'll love it.

In July, I caught up with my old friend and 2004-5 Temposhark bass player Jasmin O'Meara who is now in Zoot Woman – Stuart Price's band who also hail from Reading like me! I saw their gig in Kings Cross which was brilliant and Jasmin came over for dinner at my flat the following week. It was wonderful to catch up with her. I'm very proud how well she's doing, the girl is a style icon!

What else? Oh yeah! I went to Global Gathering Music Festival a few weekends ago. Hung out backstage with Robyn, Roisin Murphy and Sam Sparro. They all put on great live shows and Roisin in particular took my breath away with her flawless style and entertaining personality, she's great fun to be around. Her live set was incredible, every song had a different outfit. It brought back memories of Temposhark supporting Grace Jones! Anyway, if you haven't already, get a copy of Roisin's album 'Overpowered'. It's brilliant and check out her music videos too – pure class. I've also been listening to Robyn a lot since that weekend, I forgot how great her music makes me feel. Pop music as it should be – catchy and uplifting.

I also had the great pleasure of meeting Stella Vine for the first time. We had lunch last week with another friend of mine Annie Kevans. They're both such an inspiration. Check out the picture with this blog, it's a new painting Stella just gave me… seriously she is an amazing artist! She has a show coming up at the Eden Project from June 2009. I'll remind you nearer the time!

I'll write soon, I'm off to write a new song - it's been on my mind all yesterday, so now is the time to put it down on paper...

Lots of love,