Tull News August 1999

Well, the new album, j-tull.com, is now released (on the 24th August) and should be available at all fine record stores, as well as from Amazon.com and cdnow.com, amongst the internet retailers.

Since returning from the Italian concerts four weeks ago, the various band members have enjoyed a break at home with their families, or vacation in more reliably sunny climes.

A considerable amount of promotion has been undertaken for the new record as well as for upcoming concert tours, with my spending countless hours on the phone to several countries, including the USA where the shows begin next week, (25th August). See elsewhere on this site for a full list of concert dates through to Christmas. I also undertook a week of US radio and press promotion in New York and LA, where I had the opportunity to meet with the folks at Universal Records who are distributing the new Tull material.

The enthusiastic, smiling faces of the staff there will doubtless be matched by the reckless spending of you, the Tull fans, who anxiously await the opportunity to help Doane with the cost of his new extension. So far, the surgery has gone well but the hem on his boxer shorts has been let down a foot or so. (30 cms., or so, in Euro-speak.)

I spent a day earlier this week in the fair city of Manchester, England reaching out across the digital phone lines to regional radio throughout the UK, and yesterday, I braved the face to face journalists of Paris, France. I returned late last night to my delightful rural hideaway in Little Futtock on-the-Weald, Uzbekistan, to tumultuous applause and the remains of the previous night's take-away goat curry.

Martin Barre has spent the last week on the West Country sands with his son Cameron, who sleeps shivering in a meagre tent while dad, more used to the silky pleasures of the regal bridal suite at the Palace Hotel, Montreux, Switzerland, vacations nearby in a sumptuous rented caravan, champagne addled and lobster replete.

The new tour programmes arrived today and are winging their way to the US along with T-shirts galore, nicks, nacks, and the rest of the Tull backline equipment and instruments. Doane P. called me late last night (does he know how much it costs to dial Uzbekistan?) to advise me of his purchase of a stage prop which he will use nightly to make you all laugh. No, it's not a drum kit, but a fabulous and clever, extending…….but, that would give it all away.

I have no idea where Jon N. has been of late, but the only brief communication seemed to indicate that his Italian is improving at an almost daily rate. Ciao, Jonissimo.

Andy G. has torn out what remains of his hair (he'll be down to the pubic stuff soon) to salvage this website in the face of server problems. This is a kind of back-handed compliment to you out there, since the increase in traffic to our site has gummed up the works on many an occasion. Temporarily removing the audio files was a drastic and unwelcome decision, but we should be back on the cyber-waves, hopefully, by the time you read this. If not, then you must be standing behind me looking over my shoulder, having crept, unnoticed, into my parlour. Are you aware that an Uzbekistan immigration stamp in your passport means that you cannot gain re-entry to the United States? At least, not without a current New York taxi-driver's license.

Watch this space in a couple of weeks for news of upcoming J-Tull TV and Radio performances in the US and Europe.

EMI, who still handle our back catalogue are launching a new marketing campaign to promote the re-release of much of our past work, so those of you having difficulty in obtaining older Tull records should now have no problem in sourcing the product listed in the new tour programme. Well, that's what they promise me, anyway. EMI have been recently resourceful in setting up general tour promotion to back up the efforts of the two new record companies, so we are grateful for their renewed interest in the band.

I am taking a fancy new digital camera with me on tour, together with the necessary interface to our on-road laptops, so there should be a distinct possibility of your seeing regularly updated pictorial examples of shadowy backstage rhythm section figures in seriously advanced undress, as well as documentary evidence of brave but foolhardy Viagra-procuring expeditions in the seedier parts of town. And talking of seedier parts: Amun, the figure on the album cover artwork, has had genitalia duly restored on the front of the tour programme, and can't understand what all the willie-wobbler fuss was about.

See you down the road, somewhere.

IA