Hello and welcome to the new website. This is the place you can find out everything you wish to know about the forthcoming single and album, the book of graphic novellas, the first live shows, as well as reading the diary page on which Shirley will try to convey what 2009 is really like for a Shirley Lee in London…

The first single from the album is released on 26 January. It’s called “The Smack Of Pavement In Your Face”, and we’ll post the links for pre-ordering it as soon as we have them.

That’s followed by the eponymous debut album on 16 February. The songs featured on the album are mainly personal love songs, hence the decision for this to be solo, rather than Spearmint. The tracklisting:

1 Upside Down On Brighton Beach
2 Dissolving Time
3 Spiralina Girl
4 The Lights Change
5 Come On Feel The Lemonheads
6 The Smack Of Pavement In Your Face
7 London Ghost Stories
8 Walked Away
9 Smitten
10 The First Time You Saw Snow
11 The Traffic In The Street
12 The Reservoir
13 The Last Song

All of Spearmint play on the album, and the artwork and photos in the 16-page lyrics booklet are by Jim as usual. And in honor of this being a debut album, it will be released on a new label called “Missing Page”, distributed via Weatherbox and Pinnacle.

Also on 16 February, the University Of California publishes a book celebrating the lyrics of Shirley Lee. 24 songs, including tracks from the new album as well as Spearmint classics have been interpreted by different artists as graphic novellas, and are presented in a 12″ by 12″ book. More news about this soon…

Gigs

Shirley and the band will be playing live shows from February onwards – details will be published here as they are confirmed. The first will be with The Bittersprings at The Rhythm Factory in London on Saturday 14 February,

One last thing: we’re looking for someone to help us… Somebody who would like to gain experience of this sort of thing, is prepared to help for little or no cash, and can have a go at badgering the music business on behalf of Shirley and Spearmint to confirm gigs – perhaps create opportunities for the songs to be featured in films etc. If this sounds appealing then please send an email to us.

Oh, and Spearmint? They’ll be back with new material in September to celebrate 10 years since the release of debut album “A Week Away”.

I would say that we are now halfway through making the new album, probably over halfway in fact… More rehearsals this month, and then another batch of recording with Brian at Bark in March… I am also finishing a few of the sparser tunes at home, so we should then have a decent batch to choose from for the album. So far we have steered clear of the temptation of over-arching concepts , although a couple of “recurring threads” are certainly becoming apparent…

It is satisfying to be recording as a band in a studio again, as the last couple of albums have been made in different ways in different places. I like both manners of working, but it is nice to be playing together in a traditional studio environment again – I especially enjoy doing the guitars this way, as you can crank up the amps and make a racket… Brian is really fast to work with so it all seems quite immediate… So far so good!

So I shall tempt fate and say that the album will definitely be out this year. It still seems likely that it will be a Shirley Lee album, but it is actually a real band project – all of Spearmint play on it, and there are no guests so far.

I write this on a cold clear night in London – a bright crescent moon in the sky and it is definitely time to dig out the scarf and winter coat. I like it. I am about to have a quiet evening in catching up on a few chores: doing the washing, arranging rehearsals, updating the accounts… or more likely putting off tackling the accounts…

Am intending to watching Evil Dead 2 later… I have no idea what this will be like as I have never seen any of them. I have been catching up on some classic horror recently under the close supervision of my girl Bridie – Wolf Creek (fantastic), Dead End (very good), Jeepers Creepers (great start, rotten end), Halloween (dated but still great), Cabin Fever (rubbish) and The Descent (unwatchably bad).

I can heartily recommend some films from this year, as it is turning out to be a golden year at the movies, yes? It seems to me that these are all classics: Science Of Sleep, After The Wedding, Simpsons, Kenny, Conversations With Other Women, Hairspray, Michael Clayton, Two Days In Paris, Bourne Ultimatum, Half Nelson, The Bothersome Man, Zodiac, Dark Horse, Orchestra Seats and Last King Of Scotland…

Spearmint-wise, we went into Bark Studios in Walthamstow earlier this month and recorded a couple of songs with Brian O’Shaughnessy, really just to see how we liked it. It turned out to be thoroughly enjoyable; both tunes came out well, though one needs a new mix… Hence we are going to return there to do the bulk of the album. People are busy the next few weeks, so we are rehearsing in December, then recording in January. As ever, that seems like ages away, but I know it will fly
round…

The way the writing is going, it looks like being quite a personal album, so we have had conversations about it being a Shirley Lee album, rather than Spearmint. Not sure whether it will end up like that or not – either way, all the guys will be involved in making it as usual. I am looking forward to us doing some more songs with Brian!

Jim has started work on the artwork for the Best Of – he showed me some good sketches the other night… Not sure whether it will come out before or after the new album.