i can hover

We set up the Lightbody Foundation primarily to support charities and organisations in Northern Ireland and almost all donations so far have been to Northern Irish charities and we will of course continue, as long as I’m breathing, to donate to charities in my home country.

However I’ve been in Los Angeles for the last few months and have spent a lot of time here over the last 10 years. I have a place here, made a bunch of great friends and I have a lot affection for the place. So it’s well past time to make the first donations from our foundation outside of Norn Iron or ROI. 

Over the last while I’ve put a lot of thought into where this money would do the most good. Some charities and organisations that support the black community and fight for justice and equality, one within the lgbtq community, some responding to covid, hunger and homelessness and one providing medical care and support to asylum seekers from Central America now forced to live in dangerous camps that rival the worst refugee camps in the world.

To each of these charities a note: i donated on your websites so it’ll be under my name and not the lightbody foundation’s name. I figured donating that way was the quickest way to get the money to you. 

Each of these charities has received 10,000 dollars. I found learning more about these organization’s efforts a balm to these times.  I offer a snippet of their work in hopes it is for you too:

The ACLU and the NAACP surely need no introduction as they each have been fighting for equality and against racial and social injustice for a hundred years or more.

THE BAIL PROJECT - trying to combat mass incarceration by paying bail for low-income americans. This organization charts how even three nights in jail dramatically increases the chance of losing a job, losing child custody and of course being assaulted or harmed.  Of those they pay for bail, only 2% receive an actual jail sentence. 

BLACK EMOTIONAL AND MENTAL HEALTH COLLECTIVE (BEAM) - is dedicated to the healing, wellness and liberation of black and marginalized communities. 

EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE - challenging racial and economic injustice, fighting to end mass incarceration, and protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society. Led by Bryan Stevenson, their projects are absolutely inspiring and heroic.

GLOBAL RESPONSE NETWORK - Recently featured in a Pulitzer Prize winning podcast of This American Life, Global Response Network provides life saving emergency medical care to over 4,000 asylum seekers/refugees now forced by recent policies to remain on the Mexican side of the US border during the asylum process in highly unsafe camps of some 50,000 tents without bathrooms or services. (full disclosure GRN have only received $9500 so far but will receive the rest tomorrow).

HOUSING WORKS LA -  One of the staggering statistics on their website is that there are enough homeless people in LA to fill Dodger’s Stadium - 59,000 (for those of you from Norn Iron, that’s about the same number of people that live in my home town of Bangor and it isn’t exactly a small town). Also the homeless population in LA has increased 55% in the last 3 years. I’ve been coming to Santa Monica off and on for 10 years, homelessness was bad 10 years ago but now it’s an epidemic. Housing Works is trying to get people safely off the streets and into their own homes.

LA FOOD BANK - Covid has disproportionately impacted lower income communities and the LA Food Bank is trying to provide food in those hard hit areas.

THE TREVOR PROJECT - supporting black LGBTQ youth mental health. Eighty percent of black LGBTQ youth are depressed or panicked from routine bullying, discrimination and social isolation. (See https://www.hrc.org/blog/hrc-and-uconn-survey-reveals-black-lgbtq-youth-are-at-heightened-risk-for-d ) The Trevor Project offers life saving and life affirming services to black LGBTQ youth. 

Thanks to everyone at the Lightbody Foundation: Candice Cathers, my sister Sarah, Davy matchett and John D’Arcy. 

Peace and love.

Yesterday I was very privileged to play the On Home Ground festival in Magherafelt in honour of Noble Prize winning poet Seamus Heaney who some of you may already know was an inspiration to me and who sadly passed away last year. I may write some more on the festival soon but for now i'd like to post the lyrics i wrote for the 5 new songs i played at the event in honour of the great Northern Irish poet. The songs are not directly inspired by specific poems nor are they my attempts to meet his brilliance rather they are inspired by his main inspirations namely Ireland, nature and family. He once was asked how he started to write and he answered that inspiration usually came from a sliver of memory. So i did the same for these songs. Any tiny spark of memory of my childhood in Ireland I would let guide me. There are songs, like The Church, about my grandmother's (who is still the most extraordinary person I have ever known) death, and a song about the time my dad and I were shot by an idiot shooting at a low-flying duck (It's A Day Like That), i was six at the time, and there are songs about Ireland north south east and west (I Think Of Home  &  I Still Love You). They are of course not touched with the same divine genius of Seamus Heaney but I humbly over them to his memory, to his fans, to our fans and to his wonderful family and extended family many of whom i met last night. It was a pleasure. Last night meant the world to me to say thank you to Mr Heaney for everything he gave me in life for it wasn't until I read him that i started writing in the first place. Everything from me over the last twenty years starts with him. 

And you're right, songs don't tend to make much sound without music. Until we decide which, if any, of these we are to record for the next Snow Patrol album they can just sit here quietly and behave. Or not behave. In honour of Heaney, a writer of such immense passion, i hope the latter.

-----------------------------------------------

I Think Of Home

-

I remember trips to belfast

On that train that hugs the coast

The fields turned quickly into golf course

The golf course just as fast to fields

It was a callow boast I’ll grant you

To know it all when we knew none

Those days we walked the streets of belfast 

Like our kingdom come had come

-

I think of home I often do

You gotta know I love you now

In this light how could I not

I think of us just silly kids

Bet we thought we’d never age

And if we did we’d never dare say

-

And I remember trips to derry

On the old car's freezing seats

And I know fountain street in winter

My grandma’s laugh the greatest noise

It’s sure been harder since she left us

And none of us have been the same

But the light she left is endless

And I still see her every day 

-

I think of home....

-

I remember trips through ireland

One caravan, two dogs, the sky

My father yelling points of interest

Us snotty kids just rolled our eyes

The punched out teeth of irish history

Mistakes were made let’s leave it there

There one’s thing we can all agree on

There’s beauty north, south, east and west

-

I think of home....

  ----------------------------------------

The Church

-

If silence is golden 

Those days were a golden age

Just you and your bible

Open at your last page

And those words trembled from me

As I read in the church that day

With so many family

All lost for the words to say

-

Why right then

When I was so far from home

No goodbyes

Just an earthquake of words through a phone

To this day

I hear your voice all the time in mind

I know you’re here

Somehow still guiding me

-

If you’re not the tiger

You’re likely the tiger’s prey

When too many thought that

You thought a different way

In an Ireland so broken

Of heart and of blood and bone

You were a light ray

So rare yet you weren’t alone

-

Why right then

When I was so far from home

No goodbyes

Just an earthquake of words through a phone

To this day

I hear your voice all the time in mind

I know you’re here

Somehow still guiding me

--------------------------------------

Like Golden Waves

-

It’s not the smell of the regal pine

It’s not the humming of the bees

It’s the depth of my father’s laugh

That takes me back

-

And through the eyes of some childhood daze

I see our garden as it was

There was more colour in those days I’m sure 

But I’m not sure why

-

And the swings are rusted out by now

But freshly painted they were then

And I remember trying to loop the loop

Of course I never did

-

Here I come like some guileless lamb

Chasing footballs in the grass

Likely dreaming playing windsor park

Although I still do

-

The sunsets fell then like golden waves

But maybe that was all a dream

Those weren’t the end of the days of god

Cause god is always in the trees

-

I’m just a boy maybe five or six

I wanted only what I knew

It was a simple little kingdom then

Or so I thought

-

Cause in the streets not so far from here

There are boys around my age

And they’re alive in a dangerous land

That I don’t know yet

-

The sunsets fell then like golden waves

But maybe that was all a dream

Those weren’t the end of the days of god

Cause god is always in the trees

---------------------------------------------

It's A Day Like That

-

The pheasants hung in silence 

And I remember feeling sad

Because the last time that I saw them they were flying

-

My father took me with him 

It was ours and ours alone

Standing waist to water before sunrise

-

The smell of wax-proof jacket

Turned acrid in the rain

And every time I smell it now I think of then

-

The stunning smack of buckshot

Then thump, then blood, then shock

My father calming me with gentle mighty hands

-

It’s days like that you don’t know what hit you

It’s days like that you’re not sure who you are

But it’s days like that you know you’re not alone

And it’s days like that you know how much you’re loved

-

Some thirty odd years later

In the Ulster hospital 

You put those gentle hands of yours in mine again

-

But this time not so mighty

Maybe this time cause you need to

And we connect the dots from child to man to child

-

It’s days like these you don’t know what hit you

It’s days like these you’re not sure who you are

But it’s days like these you know you’re not alone

And it’s days like these you know how much you’re loved

--------------------------------------------

I Still Love You

-

I stepped still shaking from the slowing train

Out onto streets that used to know my name

Felt you in every single breath that I took that day

-

Though it’s been years it feels no time at all

And etched and echoed in these city’s walls

Is each and every word of cruelty and joy we ever said

-

But I still love you

I still love you

-

Hard to believe in something you can’t hold

No matter how it hurts or what your told

The rose is beautiful but it can also draw your blood

-

Two crows perch close like they are man and wife

So tendered feathered it looked the sweetest life

So now I know for sure that there is love on this side of town

-

And I still love you

I still love you

--------------------------------------

I wrote this a while ago for an online magazine that in the end didn't materialise. I figured i should post it up here instead. They had asked me to write a weekly piece about living in LA as I find myself living here a lot more over the course of the year. What's written below was to be the first of many. Does part of me worry that the poor writing style of what follows is one of the reasons the magazine never got off the ground? Yes.

To Live And Drive In LA

For a large part of the last two years I have lived in Los Angeles. Also I don’t know how to drive a car. To tell someone in LA that you don’t know how to drive is like telling them you don’t know how to boil an egg, or order a def-caf latte. When I tell people this it elicits some strong and even extreme reactions. From shock: “You don’t drive a car?! How do you get anywhere?”. To pity: “Aw, maybe one day though, maybe one day”. To outrage: Seriously someone at a party turned away from me in disgust and started talking to someone else. Last time I go to the Driver’s Ed christmas party. By the way I don’t lead with it: “I’m Gary, I don’t drive. How do you do?” I’ll only mention it if if comes up in conversation. And in LA it always does.

You see for those of you that haven’t been to LA it is not really a city. More a sprawling network of kinda towns connected by long surface streets and freeways that during rush hours are so filled with traffic they more resemble parking structures than motorways. For the uninitiated rush hours in LA are from the hours of 6am to 2pm and then 230pm to 10pm. If you want to get anywhere it’s best to leave in the middle of the night and sleep at your desired destination in your car. Of course not owning a car to sleep in myself how would i know, eh? Why, I say why, would you even want to drive in this city? Most times I find myself in a taxi or a friend’s car it takes 2 hours to go 20 miles. Even still, LA is a driving city. In most of the towns that make up LA you very rarely see anyone walking on the pavement (sidewalk? potato/potAAto). In some LA communities there simply are no pavements. The local council no doubt deeming it not worth their while even putting one in as no one would use it. So this is the environment which makes my ‘not driving’ an anomaly. Or at the very least peculiar to people. 

If I haven’t made the person turn away from me after I tell them I don’t drive and if I can get the smelling salts to their nose in time I’m able to tell them I live in Santa Monica which is certainly one of the most walking friendly towns in LA. We have the beach. You can walk on that. A natty promenade. You can’t even drive up that. A rickety pier. You’ll make the whole thing collapse if you drive up that. Seriously people can we fix it? I’ll help. And you can even walk the whole way down to Venice Beach. Another walking friendly beach front town full of, ok let’s call them, colourful characters. Saying I live in Santa Monica usually makes people soften a little: “Oh good” they’ll say, “But...”. Yes there’s always a but, “How do you get into Hollywood? Or Silverlake? Or Downtown?”. If I venture inland it is only if absolutely necessary, for example to see a band as there aren’t many gigs on the west side, or to visit friends, or to get my Thetans flushed at the Scientology centre - I’m kidding about the last one -  I’ll get a taxi. But day to day I’ll mostly walk. 

I love to walk. I’ll put my headphones on and stick the latest albums I’ve bought on my iPod and walk for miles listening. That’s one of the great joys of life in my opinion and something people that drive everywhere are missing out on it. Although recently my friend and producer Jacknife Lee told me that driving alone and listening to music is one of his great joys of life and I should learn if only for that. I have to say it’s been the most compelling argument for me learning to drive I’ve heard yet. That and if I ever get married and have kids I’m gonna need to drive my pregnant wife to the hospital. However as I don’t have a girlfriend and haven’t even had a date this year chances are that’s a few years away yet. But of course it’s bad form for a pregnant woman to drive herself to the hospital but if the time comes I’ll have to learn.

This was originally posted the thin air website http://thethinair.net/2013/11/gary-lightbody-releases-feature-length-statement-on-ni-music-prize/ but I thought i'd stick it up on here as well to give my tumblr a wee run out. It's been warming the bench too long.

Also it was just this minute announced that Foy Vance's Joy of Nothing won the award. I am delighted for him. Well deserved. These were my earlier thoughts on the prize itself and all the bands nominated.

Firstly I’m delighted that Tired Pony have been nominated for the Northern Irish Music Prize. I am gutted that I’m not going to be there tonight to see who wins. Now let me make the case for everyone else but us on this fantastic and diverse list….

And So I Watch You From Afar – All Hail Bright Futures

Songs like Big Thinks Do Remarkable and The Stay Golden sees them harvesting the calypso-ish genius of Animal Collective, marrying it to their always visceral sound explosions and making something quite distinctive from anything else out there, they’re surely one of the most inventive rock bands in the world. It’s always surprising and you’re constantly wondering whether they don’t have the faintest smile on their faces as they confound you at every turn. A puppet master’s grin perhaps. Certainly the most self-assured rock band in the UK or Ireland right now.

Anthony Toner – Sing Under The Bridges

A change of pace from ASIWYFA that immediately shows the strength in depth of the Northern Irish music scene. Tell Me Something I Don’t Know begins with bluesy swing so irresistible you’d be forgiven for thinking it was emanating from a Bourbon Street bar rather than the streets of Belfast. A poise and elegance that is quite rare, and songs full of compassion and kindness to boot.

Axis Of - Finding St Kilda

As punk as it gets. Songs that are seconds away from offering you outside for a fight for spilling their pints. My favorite song, We Dine on Seeds, rolls at you like an angry sea, violent and vital, muscular and brutal. It’s also loads of fun. Makes me feel young again and that’s a feat in itself as my knees have gone and my hangovers last a week these days.

The Bonnevilles – Folk Art & The Death Of Electric Jesus

Like a stiff shot of blues. Another bunch of songs like a bunch of fives. It’s harder to create danger with only two members, it’s amazing then that they seem more dangerous than anyone on the list. 10,000 is one of those songs you can’t turn away from.

Fighting With Wire – Colonel Blood

Christ, we make good rock music in Norn Iron. Didn’t Wanna Come Back Home is one of the best rock singles of the last few years. And why wasn’t I Won’t Let You Down a single?! It’s genius! An album with more hooks than a mackerel fisherman’s tackle box. Then there’s Graduate, another slice of shimmering pop rock glory. They’d probably not thank me for saying ‘pop’ but when it’s this hooky, infectious and glorious there is pop in there and no mistake. Something to be proud of I’d say.

Foy Vance – Joy Of Nothing

For anyone paying attention to my twitter (and I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t), I have said much about this record already. Suffice to reiterate it is my favorite Northern Irish record of many years. Foy Vance is a goddarn legitimate genius and should be treasured as such. In him we have one of the greatest songwriters in the world.

Girls Names – The New Life

Firstly just a great name for a band. Musically it’s dark and seductive, it haunts you with spooky guitars and vocals that sound buried alive. There’s something deeply unsettling about it, and therefore great in my book. It’s gothic and ghostly and bass lines that hook you like a drug. Yes please.

Jetplane Landing – Don’t Try

Jetplane Landing name their album after advice they didn’t take themselves. Unholy riffs that seem carved from mountains and lyrics spat out like punishments for the meek. Not for the faint hearted “Hey maggots, get off my turf I wrote shit like this fucking years ago!”. As fighting talk goes it’s pretty declarative. Showing again that Northern Ireland produces rock music as good as anywhere in the world. We also, it seems, have a lot of musicians ready to beat the crap out you. Culturally I have no idea why that would be….

Le Carousel – Le Carousel

Just a brilliant record. Late night on the dancefloor, some remaining bones, a few teeth and the determination to dance until you fall apart. The French influence goes beyond the name as the music drips with the sex and cigarette smoke of fine French dance music. More Camille Dalmais than Daft Punk, but maybe with the swagger of the latter if not the sound. Good Times is as good a track as anything from the world of electronic music this year.

A Plastic Rose – Camera.Shutter.Life

I’d say a lot of people would know of my affection for, and friendship with, these lads so I don’t want this to smack of nepotism. Nor do I want to be unfair to the guys by consciously dimming my love for their record. It’s a great rock album that I listen to a hell of a lot. Also they’re one of the best live bands on the two islands. There, that was democratic enough, right?

Space Dimension Controller – Welcome To Mikrosector 50

This album is gloriously weird. I love it. At times it’s part Afrika Bambaataa, then Prince, then some ambient dub, then some other 80s oddness, it all sounds like early electro and hip-hop in a blender. A fascinating record that is strange and beguiling and full of exploration and intensity. Can’t quite get my head around it all but that’s part of the fun.

Tired Pony – The Ghost of the Mountain

Only two of them are Northern Irish. Seriously though, thanks for the nomination.

Trucker Diablo – Songs Of Iron

A mean and grimy good ol’ fashioned southern-fried rock record. Like someone driving a flaming motorcycle through your earholes. Big riffs, big noise and big bigness. In summation, it’s big. Like the Cloverfield monster started a band with the big fellas from Pacific Rim. Awesome.

Two Door Cinema Club – Beacon

I adore this band and I’m so happy to see them conquer the world. Bangor boys too, like me. We all know TDCC. No need for me to say much. One of the best bands in the world, and they’re from our place. Be proud.

So there you have it. Some thoughts on the great list of Northern Irish bands that we should be delighted about. There are tons of bands not on the list or those who will (Wonder Villains, SOAK, I’m looking at ye), I’m sure, be on the list next year. Whoever wins I wish them well, and any one of these albums is deserving for sure, but I hope (whatever you think of my comments) we take a moment to think about how far we’ve come as a young, relatively peaceful, free nation of music and art and we remember the dark days just enough to realise how good we have it now. Bands and artists thriving and creating in a small land ever-punching above its weight. Per capita we have more great bands than any country on the planet and we should be ever thankful for that.

  As usual in the classroom I wasn’t paying attention. Daydreaming I expect perhaps about playing for Northern Ireland in the world cup or playing guitar at Wembley stadium. Aged 14 I hadn’t quite switched on at school. I didn’t know it yet but I was about to. Up to that point I was a C (ok D) student happy enough to get by with minimum effort. School was that place I got the bus to every day and got to play sports some days in the afternoons and not much more. Then Mark McKee started working as an english teacher and brought with him three secret weapons. The works of Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and one Mr Seamus Heaney. Yes, the day he arrived at the school would change my life but as I say I didn’t know it yet. 

As Mr McKee (as I knew him then, Mark he is to me now. Strange calling your teacher by their first name at any time in your life) began to read from the little volume of poetry in his hand I found myself, for the first time that day, maybe that week (sorry mum, this will all be news to you), actually listening...

“Between my finger and my thumb...

The course boot nestled on the lug...

Loving their cool hardness in our hands...

Nicking and slicing neatly...

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap 

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head...”

Mr Mckee was reading Digging by Seamus Heaney and I was hooked. I devoured the volume Death of a Naturalist then North, then Station Island, the lot. Seamus Heaney made me want to be a writer. I wrote poetry every day and was published at 15, many times. All of it terrible and I have to read it now, if I ever do, from behind splayed fingers but it started me on the path that would take me to here, sitting in California writing Snow Patrol’s seventh album after a 20 year career that has taken me around the world many times and shown me things I never dreamed of. Seeing the whole stadium become a giant Polish flag while grown men wept tears of joy during a U2 show after we supported them. Seeing the great barrier reef. Jumping from the tallest building in the southern hemisphere (long story). And realizing my childhood daydream of playing in Wembley Stadium. All this and so much more simply from reading Seamus Heaney as a 14 year old boy.

There are people, as my friend Gabrielle is fond of saying that are part of an ‘invisible tribe’. Artists and writers that touch people on a level that beds deeper into our souls and hearts. People of profound light, love and kindness that simply and maybe even without their knowledge make us and the world around them better. Stephen Fry is one. Guy Garvey another. To see them on the stage, screen or on the page makes us feel safer, happier, stronger, more centred and less confused by life and what the hell we’re doing here. I would make Heaney chieftain of that ‘invisible tribe’. A leader we could (and through his words we still of course can; and we must) get behind. A man to whom I expect the thought of being a leader would be ridiculous but these men and women, these are the ones we must get behind. People that lead with their words and deeds and not with the empty promises of election campaigns or the grandstanding of the pulpit. If we are as good as our words then Seamus Heaney is as good as any soul who walked this earth. The earth, the dirt, the sky, the sun, the birds, the wind, the men, the women, these are Heaney’s great inspiration and love. He luxuriated in the language of the ground behind his feet and the sky above him. Words that will live forever. And thank god for that. And as he now, sadly, returns to the earth that inspired him we must return to his words for inspiration of our own. A call to arms for the invisible tribe, for the writers, artists, singers, players, thinkers...

“Between my finger and my thumb the squat pen rests. I’ll dig with it”. 

so i've been away too long. sleeping around with that slut twitter. i just like her cause she's new. i'll always come back to you my comely tumblr. 

in Phoenix today for a day off. went for a walk earlier and i swear i thought i was gonna combust. it was just over 100 degrees and i don't function too well in that type of solar misery. how do you do it phoenixers (phoenixians? phoenitians?)? you live three doors down from the sun it seems. it's punishing. a mile round trip today felt like training for some epic task i have to complete before i get let into heaven. or at least am allowed to go back to Earth. had some great gigs here don't get me wrong and the people are real nice but i can't get over how overwhelming it is to actually achieve anything. you must have developed an indoor life similar to ireland and the UK but for the opposite reason (i.e. there we hide from the rain, here you hide from the other guy). it's a bore i guess to go on about it but i dare anybody from our green isle to come here and not be consumed by it for some time. i guess if i stayed for a week or too i'd find something else to fixate on but tour life being what it is we are transient. 

and another thing about the crazy sunshine... ha.

the tour is creaking towards the end and it has been a mighty thing. lots of great shows, amazing fans, perfect moments and funny little happenings. touring life is fun and all, but 9 weeks straight cracks the battle hardened shell of the best of them. so we're weary yes but buoyed and joyed by the love we've been shown everywhere and so happy to still be packing em in after all these years (17, yes, 17 years old we are this year if you take from when we were formed, which i do and 14 years old if you only count from the first single, starfighter pilot in 1997 if you want to get technical. which i don't). and there is talk now of another us tour in oct. shorter perhaps, so less cities. places, for the most part, we didn't cover this time i think. it's very exciting as it will be a tour with one of my rock and roll heroes so we'll get it finalised soon, as i'm itching to tell you all who, what, where, when.

after Phoenix we bid Ed Sheeran a fond but sad farewell. he has had to head home and he and his two Marks will be deeply missed. he has lit up the tour and our lives and is a brother of ours forever. he already rules the uk charts. he will rule the world by the end of the year. i guarantee it. a phenom he may be but not without good reason. he gets pop star level adulation and hero worship but what stands him apart from other 'pop stars'  is that there is no one pulling his strings in the shadows. no svengali writing his songs and telling him what to wear. everything he has done he has done on his own terms and all his songs are his own. he's the complete pop star. he will make smart, touching, soulful, powerful music for years to come and grow with every step and his fans will grow with him. it's a beautiful thing to behold. and to Ed's fans that have come to the shows and watched us too, many i'm guessing for the first time, bless your hearts. it has been a joy to play to you guys and i hope you'll come back and see us next time too. we'll have a great show tomorrow and send Ed off in fitting fashion.

and not forgetting our fans. we love you loads too. always will.

special guest for the Texas shows and Biloxi will be Gary Go. an incredible song writer and performer who will be an extraordinary addition to the tour. we welcome him in Dallas.

this is reading like a dear john i guess, it's not. am just reflective today. a Vegas hangover'll do that to you. 

peace, love and understanding to all. and penguins. have some penguins too. on me.

chicago! what a town! that's what you might expect someone to say in a broadway musical just before they burst into a song and dance routine. it is though. we shot the video for Lifening here tonight during the gig. i.e. we just filmed it during the set. not 100% it'll be a full release to radio and all those bells and whistles but it has become a real live moment over the course of this year and we wanted to capture it. 5000 people sung it with gusto tonight and they will all feature in the video when it arrives. whether or not it'll be the next single or whether something else might come first and then, as i say, lifening will get a 'soft' release, who knows. we don't want loads of singles off this album as that gets messy. would prefer just four but it may have to be 5 (plus the soft lifening). not sure what the next one would be. maybe a shorter edit of The Symphony. although that would mean having to learn to play that beast live and jesus it's a beast. Chris Martin texted me to say Garden Rules was his favourite track on the record and he knows a thing or two so maybe that's an option too. name-dropping aside i love that song and would love more people to hear it. it may suffer though because it is too gentle.... radio support for New York hasn't been as good as the first 3 singles (there has been some and bless all those that are playing it - Absolute Radio you're certainly on our xmas card list!). most radio programmers are blaming its slow pace and balladic nature for their reticence to play it. i kind of understand their point in that it doesn't naturally fit on the radio beside Calvin Harris and Rhianna (my favourite song this year by the way) but also i think, pah, it's a monster song full of heart, honesty, tenderness and longing, so it should work anywhere next to anything. 

we've had it our way for such a long time now though: getting played loads on the radio with every song since Run, maybe this is just the universe's way of saying we need a challenge and we need to think more laterally of how to release a song's full potential. that coupled with meeting ed sheeran and touring with him has opened my eyes to a world within music i barely new existed. the inner space of twitter for one yes but beyond that the essence of what it really is about: interacting more readily and freely with fans. to be honest i still feel a bit lost/exposed on there but gradually (and it may take a while yet) i am starting to feel it for what it is: a conveyer belt of ideas, jokes, insecurities, hopes, fears, opinions and short prayers that maybe in past times would have been spoken into the void but now are whispered into a vast network of people from everywhere, always. and they may even, unlike the void, whisper back. and (hope of all hopes) may be going through the exact same thing and you and your burden may feel lighter. me i mainly just try and get a laugh but then that has always been both my default setting and my problem.

singing New York with Ed every night recently is a joy. we intend to continue this duet beyond this US tour (no indications of where and when so it's a surprise when it happens but trust me when it does it's gonna bring the house down) and i intend on covering at least one of his. am thinking The A Team or Lego House at present but i have a great love of the whole record so it could be any of them. although it's unlikely to be one with a lot of rapping in as even a Vanilla Ice rap would tie my tongue never mind one of Ed's epic word-safaris. 

your heart is your only weapon against the darkness.... that and candles.

so the lads are all out djing at The Wrong Bar in toronto. we have another show here tomorrow (i don't do drinking night before shows anymore) or i'd be out there with them. two more djs in the band now with the two jo(h)nnys starting a wee while ago. they have both thrown themselves into it with aplomb and the dressing room and tour bus is alight these days with high quality ass shaking music of all genres, shapes and sounds. so tom, rico, jonny and JMD are out rocking the dance floor right now and i'm in my hotel room twittering (yes i'm already hooked and not sure whether it'll be the end of me) and looking up bill maher and rachel maddow clips about romney (that is one dull man!) and the religious right and whatnot. come november there will be only one winner of course but i'd say this race is gonna get even uglier as mitt will have to stoop to nuclear attacks to even dent the obama machine. i thought mccain/obama 08 was bad enough but, shit, this one might come down to a street fight. fuck the debates let's wrestle!

god forbid if romney pulled off a miracle and won. the US (and by proxy the rest of the world as that's the way the cookie crumbles) steered by the new regime would undo any and all of the incremental work the obama administration has done to illicit the slight but holding recovery from the final bush years and the banking crisis he inherited and health care. surely though it's too much to ask of romney who can't even count on support from his own party. 

anyway...

toronto tonight. good gig. same place tomorrow night. looking forward to it. we have an afternoon radio acoustic session too. i believe the lovely joan ghomeshi, who has interviewed us a few times and always been an engaged and engaging interviewer, is speaking to us once more. anyone that's on twitter i'll twit tomorrow the time we'll be at the station and if anyone wants things signed or whatnot that missed us last night or can't stay after tomorrow night's show then feel free to meet us outside the station tomorrow. 

i also realise that this (tumblr) is really just for pictures so am thinking of setting up an actual blog site so i can run rampant (like tonight) with my wordstuffs when i feel like it. although given my new twitterishness i just might not have time to set that up and run it too. so i may just flaunt the laws on here a while longer.

so i'm on there. it's fun but it sure as hell eats away at your day. jesus is it twenty to eight already. am gonna have to ration it better. and i haven't even been looking at people's responses. to be honest i think it won't be possible and if i only answer a few then folk'll wonder why i didn't get to theirs. so in the spirit of fair play i'll just not answer any unless i happen to be following them and they tickle me. sorry if this is irksome but i have to think about my own free time and head space. i'll tweet (still not comfortable using that word) when i can and inform of things going on in snow patrol land and sometimes when i have a tidbit or a pic. 

in new york still. it opened a huge can of whupass on me last night and i feel like i've been hit by bear/lion thing wearing armour and carrying a fridge full of gold bricks. not a happy camper today. watching 30 rock and arrested development (both for the millionth time, so good) to help me recover and moaning pathetically to myself a la billy crystal in when harry met sally. NOT, i hasten to add, like meg ryan in when harry met sally.

canada tomorrow. it'll be a brand new day and looking forward to giving montreal our love.

ok i've finally joined the modern world and am on twitter. i'm only gonna use it to post about things happening in the band's life as will probably not be able to be responsive. it will be much like this tumblr i.e. i'll post and then like dick turpin ride off into the sunset. i will give details of impromptu acoustic gigs we'll do in some towns and cities along the tour and put up pictures and vids of us doing covers, acoustic SP songs and larking about.

i'm on @garysnowpatrol (it seems there is already a @garylightbody)

i do not want to get lost in there so forgive me if i don't respond to questions. this is all new to me so baby steps and no doubt i'll take a while to get the hang of it.

we're gonna be running around the city today playing the song new york all over new york and it would have been an ideal day to be up and running on twitter but i've only just got the iPhone and signed up so i may not be able to get my shizzle together in time. it's a test of my electro mettle so we'll see if we can meet up at some point. i will tell you that we will be setting off around 530/6 this evening and starting at washington square playing on the street pianos (it's an art installation) and then moving to time square to play it there. it'll be too loud there no doubt but visually it couldn't be any more new york so we figured we'd give it a go.

we may stop randomly along the way to play it places that look fun. maybe see some of you guys out in new york. see you at the show tonight if not.

fire!

so the roof of the hotel caught fire tonight. the alarm went off as it is wont to do and we all trundled outside to be greeted by ten fire trucks and about 60 firemen. an impressive sight. no one was injured so we had a stoop party for an hour and a bit and we got back in without too much fuss. rico's baby son roddy was quite a hit with all the lady folk. his big blue scottish/costa rican eyes like tiny tractor beams of benevolence. he didn't make a beep bless him. cutie pie.

nyc fire service: heroes the lot of them!

anyway back indoors now after the excitement. off to bed. sleep tight tigers.gL

ps, i know i look like i've got a really dirty hand there. swear to god it's a trick of the light. x

new york you are amazing. what a crowd. i wasn't lying when i said it was the best new york show we ever did. round two tomorrow and still a few tickets left for that one if anyone is interested.

oh yeah i'm just a head now. my body fell off. it falls off when i have too much fun. had too much fun tonight on stage, so...

what a great crowd tonight. thanks everyone who came and sang so loud my ears are sore now. good to have sore ears. feels like you earned something. and to those that worried about my eating habits i do generally eat like a horse (apples, ha). seriously though i have a big appetite so worry not. a salted apple is a rare affair before a show. 

a horse eating an apple is one of the funniest things on earth by the way. if you need a laugh am sure there's footage on the net. am sure there's a way to make that dirty but it wasn't meant that way. just to be clear.

anyway, to boston, thank you. P,L&U.

about to go to the venue in boston to play. forgot to eat though and i only have an apple and a tiny salt shaker in my room. i'll probably just have the salt.

i may heart attack during the show. this will be the reason why.

reading this at the moment. incredible novel. a dark, blood drenched western about the titular brothers fortunes, or rather misfortunes. the phrase 'from bad to worse' is quite apt. jesus, it's a twisted thing alright. such desolation and despair handled with almost tenderness by the author whose beautiful phrases turn like ballerinas while all around is laid to waste. i have literally punched the air after some of the sentences they are so triumphantly rendered. an extraordinary writer. when they make the movie, as they no doubt will, it will be hard to watch as it will be removed from the sugar tipped words on the page and all that will be left will be the naked brutality. although the dialogue is so sharp and funny that the screenplay almost writes itself. not to mention Eli Sisters being one of the most complex, intelligent and fascinating characters in modern literature.

what with me watching the entire third season of Justified in the last two days into the bargain i seem to be surrounded by southern drawls, cowboy hats and the whip smart wise cracks of genial yet psychopathic gunslingers. 

not sure what's going on with my hair today. left unchecked it may well take over the world. our hotel is just round the corner from the boston state house so if you hear of giant hair attacking a building it'll probably be my hair and it.

love boston. walked on the common today and listened to the buskers and the people extolling the virtues, brazenly, of both weed and god. two different people mind. although i think weed'll get you there faster than church but that's just me. good that there is still a forum for the free exchange of ideas albeit one in which more people run from you than stand and watch. 

i watched. but not for long.

we're getting a tour of the state house tomorrow by representative kevin honan. he came to the show the last time we played boston and some of the guys went then too. i couldn't as i had an acoustic session but am going tomorrow. this sort of thing is right up my street. i'll try and keep my hair under control during the tour. i promise nothing though. 

boy was i drunk last night. as the picture of me and ed may have already established. me, ed, richard and JMD went to a bar called macfaddens (i think) last night. they were playing the dropkick murphys when we arrived then alcohol happened.

one of the lovely third bar(ers) gave me some of ireland's finest Barry's tea after the show last night. i've never needed it more. thank you. you may well have saved my life. face sore from laughing. everything else sore from drinking.