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Look, here I am not blending in. 

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I had a busy autumn of music gigs alongside the comedy bits and bobs that I was up to.

HCB were especially busy, with headline gigs at Scala (twice!), Queen of Hoxton and Dogstar alongside quite a few private and corporate gigs including a 2 different beer companies. They know us too well...

I was also quite busy with the Bollywood Brass Band, including a brief India tour, and a few extra bits and bobs like working with Darren Hayman and playing with the Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra at the Union Chapel in Islington. The autumn also saw the River City Stompers launched on an unsuspecting world, and I tootled for Dance Marathon at the Barbican.

Look, here I am dressed as a skellington playing with HCB at Scala for Halloween, amongst other things.

See the full gallery on Posterous

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This autumn I've been doing a lovely series of gigs with ace singer-songwriter and ex-Hefner frontman Darren Hayman to launch his album The Ship's Piano and the single I Taught You How to Dance both of which feature me on trumpet pretty extensively.

Look, here's a bittersweet video that goes with it.

We did a couple of great intimate piano-and-trumpet shows at The Albany in Great Portland Street in October; as it happened I also had another gig there that week, doing silly comedy and musical things for The Forgery Club, which was a nice way to say goodbye to a superb little venue that has now sadly been turned into a posh restaurant.

I also guested with Darren's full band the Secondary Modern at Fortuna Pop's knees-up at Scala, which was a considerably more raucous gig, and no less fun for it.

We then did a Brighton show in the Unitarian Church on 13th November which had a perfect acoustic to play that material in. I've said it before, but I really like working with Darren; I think we really hit it off both on and off stage, and he really trusts his collaborators. Plus he has a lego model of his dog in his house, which is possibly the greatest thing ever. Look, he's even got him and his wife in the head driving it. Wow.

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I had a ball (quite literally) doing this show at the Barbican in October 2011. It's a kind of update of the old dance marathons of the 1920s, only with some really fantastic contemporary dance choreography, fantastic video projections and some nice moments of theatricality thrown in. I was playing in the band but also found myself dancing more than I ever have before - normally for about 2.5 hrs per show. Think I was fitter than I've ever been after the run finished.

Bluemouth Inc were an absolute pleasure to work with, and was great to do a theatre show with so much improvisation; nice to be able to stretch musically as well as dancing like an idiot for a week.

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I was asked to write a piece about Gil Scott Heron's work and politics for ace lefty magazine Red Pepper, so that's what I did. It came out in the August magazine, and here's the piece online. If you're interested in seeing the unedited version where I discuss more about his musical legacy, I've posted it on my blog here.

I've not done much journalistic writing for a while, so I enjoyed it muchly.

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I did some session work for the ace Philip Jeays, presumably for his new album. I've been doing more and more home recording of late since I've now got some excellent mics and all the snazzy gear, and I recorded both myself and trombonist extraordinaire Magnus Dearness. I think it sounded pretty good; will post links when the tracks are released.

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Hackney Colliery Band released our debut album, creatively titled 'Hackney Colliery Band' on 4th July with a big sold-out launch gig at the New Empowering Church on our home turf of Hackney. We played a 2 hour set straight through, which made faces hurt and bodies sweaty, but was great fun.

The album is available in all good record shops, and in high-quality digital download format online through iTunes or lots of other online retailers.

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HCB have teamed up with our record label Wah Wah 45s to offer a free taster of our album, which is coming out on July 4th 2011. Hey, why don't you come along to the launch on 1st July to get your hands on a copy of the album? Or if you want it even sooner, sign up to our mailing list here.

Here it is:

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Had an ace time performing with the Bollywood Brass Band at the Rio Loco festival in Toulouse. They really know how to look after you at festivals on the continent; no having to have a 12-minute argument to get your 3 cans of tepid Carling here, wine, beer and great food flowed like, well, wine, beer and great food.

Oh yes, and the gigs were good too.We did a street set and a really fun stage set as the sun went down (in our eyes). Look, here are some photos and videos using my new improved Trumpet-o-Vision:

And a video made by a local TV station:

By a lovely coincidence, it was also the night of the lunar eclipse, so we sat by the river and watched it accompanied by the soothing sounds of a 20-minute version of La Bamba. 

And of course what better way to enjoy a lunar eclipse than by jamming along with Los Lobos?

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I played flugel horn and trumpet on Jim Bob's latest single Mr Blue Sky, which was also used as the theme music to Andrew Collins' Radio 4 comedy series of the same name, which was broadcast in Spring 2011.

I think the single sounds ace. If you do too, why don't you download it from here.

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Still somewhat bleary-eyed from getting back from Poland the night before, I played at the March for the Alternative with the Bollywood Brass Band. It's a cause very close to my heart so was nice to be able to fight The Man the only way that I know how: through the medium of brass-based Bollywood music. Take THAT, the man!

We were leading the parade with the TUC lot which was pretty cool; certainly the only time that I've helped to lead 400,000 people on an angry guided tour of the West End whilst trumpeting Bollywood hits in their faces. Well, the only time so far, anyway.

Apparently we were on the BBC and ITV news quite a bit until the journalists got bored with it being all good natured and decided to go off and film some idiots chucking paint at a Past Times or something.

(thanks to Alice Bell's blog for the nice shot)

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Had a great few days working with Frances Ruffelle in Wrocław (confusingly pronounced Vrostlov) in Poland. 

We were performing at a festival in the town and played a storming gig. Was nice to be working with the band again, and looking forward to the other dates that we've got coming up this summer including festivals in Bath and Marlborough.

I was also there taking photos, which might be appearing in various publications over the next few months. Will stick 'em online if so.

Wrocław's a great town - full of life and culture. You should visit it one day, if you fancy. And if you do, drink the unfiltered beer in the microbrewery/bar Spiz. Oh, and try and find all 150 gnomes which are scattered throughout the town striking various poses like a tiny, bronze, spread-out flash mob.

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Had a couple of great gigs with the Bollywood Brass Band to promote the new album.

We sold out Komedia in Brighton and also Rich Mix in London, which got a great four star review from Jane Cornwell in the Evening Standard. 

This is the first time I've played with a singer in this band, and also the first full 'stage' gigs (with electronic percussion, video projection etc) that I've done with the band for a while as most of the recent gigs have been mobile street sets.

Really enjoy playing with this band, and got a lot more gigs coming up. Check their website for details.

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The London leg of my Origin of the Pieces World Tour* was great fun.

I did a couple of shows at the Etcetera Theatre in Camden, which both pretty much sold out, thanks in part to a recommendation from Lauren Laverne on BBC 6Music.

6music_recommendation.mp3 Listen on Posterous

Was really good to get the show up on its feet again, and more than anything very useful to remember which bits worked better than others in advance of my new solo show, which I'm working on at the moment.

So Origin has been put to bed for now, but there will be lots more musical comedy shenanigns with my Brand New Show this Spring and Summer. 

Details to be announced soon (including previews dates etc - though I have one confirmed in Eastbourne on 28th June as a double header with Dan Antopolski) , but know this: it will be fun.

* Tour included: Edinburgh, London. In fact the tour was just: Edinburgh, London. And the dates were 6 months apart.

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In January/February 2011 I was on tour with the Bollywood Brass Band in India (again!). As is now becoming the norm for these tours, we played some enormous weddings, including one in Udaipur which took place in both the City and Lake Palaces. 

I also took the opportunity to have a bit of a break before the Spring was properly sprung and work got too hectic, so I popped over to the Lakhshadweep islands to do some scuba diving. And by 'popped', I mean, of course, took a night bus, 24 hour train, 20 hour boat and then minibus. Such is the way in India. It's safe to say that the diving was totally unbelievable, and fulfilled my need to be 30m underwater face-to-face with massive sea turtles for at least a few weeks.

The trip was also an excellent chance to get some research done for this year's show, which meant that I was lugging around a small library with me for the whole time. Got lots of useful stuff done though, and the show is beginning to take shape. Watch this space... 

OK, that's enough watching, just come back when there's more news.

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In January I played at the unveiling of Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan's waxwork at Madame Tussauds. Was quite an odd morning, and certainly the only gig I've done that starts at 7.30am for a while.

Hrithik made an amazing speech in which he thanked 'all the fans, not just my fans, but all the fans in the world', which is a pretty extraordinary sentiment, since it presumably includes fans of unnecessary cruelty and fans of intolerance.

Still, was a fun gig.

Here's Hrithik looking awkward while we're playing:

And here's another video:

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On January 18th I collaborated with Darren Hayman as part of his 'January Songs' project. Darren is writing and recording a new song every day in January, an enterprise as impressive as it is insane.

18 The Return by Darren Hayman

It was great collaborating on a track with him; Darren had written a short story that we recorded at my place, along with some crunchy electric piano and muted, sometimes angular trumpet stuff.

Was a great day and a nice chance to play around with some stuff on Ableton, which (if you’re interested) I recently upgraded to the version with all the bells and whistles, hence the nice crunchy electric piano which we designed on the day. Darren, very wisely, wanted to keep it stripped-down though, so had to constantly fight the urge to play with the electronic gubbins that I’ve been experimenting with recently. Here's the result:

I really admire Darren’s willingness to explore different genres (had lots of chat about obscure ECM albums) and his desire to push himself outside his comfort zone. He’s produced lots of lovely stuff over the month, with a video diary and music videos to accompany most of the tracks. I strongly urge you to check it out.

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