October 2001
"The fruits of my labour on the new Czars album will soon be available to all, as the album 'The Ugly People vs The Beautiful People' will be released on October 8th. Produced by me and my long-time partner Giles Hall, the record is probably the record I am most proud of, in terms of production values. Recorded out in Denver in March and mixed back home at Guthrie's 'Violet' studio in St. Margarets, it was a tough record to finish as we had some immeasurable problems with computers crashing and erasing files willy-nilly, but we got there. Some incredible musicians conbtributed to this record, notably the phenomenal Ron Miles on trumpet, and Glenn Taylor on pedal steel. A real privilege to watch these people at work.

Rather incredibly, I was contacted last month by the organisers of a Tim Buckey tribute evening, who wanted to tempt me out of my exile to perform at the Royal Fsetival Hall. Foolishly I agreed, and then had huge pangs of fear that prompted me to renege on the idea. Well anyway, I stuck with it, and together with my pal Paul from Tram (jetset), we hastily rehearsed the song 'Once I Was', and one of Tram's songs,' Now We Can Get On With Our Own Lives', and together with some other cool artists, like Embrace, Badly Drawn Boy, Eddi Reader, Shusheela Raman, Jane Siberry etc, took the stage on Sept 25th. Armed with a piano, an acoustic guitar and 2 mics, the stage seemed awful big, and the audience awful quiet-(those seated posh venues quite a contrast to what we are normally used to in London), but we acquitted ourselves fairly admirably, in other words, we didn't fuck it up too badly, and enjoyed the evening enormously. It could have been a bit self-indlugent and self-congratulatory( is that a word?), but it was a lovely atmosphere, and not all over-irreverent.(is that a word?) It was filmed by the BBC and will be shown at some future date."

July 2001
"April, may, june and july...where has the time gone? It seems I was sitting at my desk and Lift To Experience was about to come out, and now it's almost August. So what have I been doing? Well, the abforementioned Texans have taken up a considerable amount of my time this past few months, and all of hugely enjoyable. I have driven them from Paris to Barcelona and back to London in 48 hours non-stop, I have been back to Paris for their triumphant Black Sessions where they stunned the invited throng, and in-between days I have been negotiating deals with labels and distribution companies all over the place, to improve the standing and profile of our little label Bella Union. It's a train that don't stop, and you can't jump the tracks.

Somewhere along the line, I have with my trusty cohort Giles Hall been mixing and fiddling around with another extraordinary album by Denver's finest The Czars. Called 'The Ugly People vs The Beautiful People' it will be out October 1, where else? Bella Union of course.

I was very privileged to have remixed a track for a super band from San Diego called TRISTEZA (Tiger Style Records) which should be out soon.... and what else........? Oh yes, I (con)tributed to a tribute album for Michael Nesmith with my cover of his 'Here I Am'...first time I've sung in about 4 years which was fun/scary/awful/ in equal doses...it's out now on a record called Papa Nez on Dren Records....and if nothing else has my little trademark slide guitar...I have put in on everything I've worked on (oh yeah apart from Lift To Experience) in the past three years....Czars, Departure Lounge, Lisa Dewey, Tristeza, etc...must be cos it's the only thing I like doing any more.

The long-awaited record with Anneli Drecker will drag on I am afraid as Anneli is acting, and recording and is super super busy. We hope to involve Gary Lucas in the project (he was in Captain Beefheart you know!)...but it will happen. I have some stuff I am fiddling with, but no great time to finish it, means I cannot....finish it! There you have it!

May 2001
I am working on a remix for the wonderful Tristeza (Tiger Style), and I have been driving our crazy texans Lift To Experience around Europe, and attending on all their promo trips and radio sessions, John Peel session broadcast on June 5th.

I am working with my bestest pal and associate Giles Hall on production for the new Czars album.

I have signed a new US band from Silverlake, CA called The Devics.

Not much time for my own muse, but I will get there!

April 2001
THE CZARS returned to the studios in February to record the follow-up to the highly-acclaimed "Before..but longer". With producer Simon Raymonde once again at the helm, the album will be due late summer 2001. Entitled "The Ugly People Versus The Beautiful People."

LIFT TO EXPERIENCE have now set a date for the release of "The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads" (May 14th) One of the most eagerly-anticipated records to come out of our small label, this trio from Texas have had an unprecedented 11,400 downloads of the mp3 from the site. A date with Sparklehorse on April 11th will be the band's only London show.

VIOLET INDIANA will release their debut album " Roulette " in April. They have played a number of European dates to coincide with the tour.

ROTHKO/BONNEVILL released their contributions to the SERIES 7 in March also. Excellent reviews in recent national press.

DIRTY THREE members Jim White and Warren Ellis are currently on tour with Nick Cave as a couple of bad seeds.
New signings from LA, THE DEVICS have 5 songs in Bertolucci's new film 'Probably Love' and the band were also featured on last week's Buffy The Vampire Slayer in the USA playing one song in a club scene.

March 2001
Simon has a new interview in Side Line Magazine

The new Rothko album produced by Simon is receiving wicked reviews!

Time Out, The Times all this week gave this Series 7 CD the thumbs-up.

Lift To Experience will release The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads on Bella Union on May 7, mixed by Simon with additional mixing by Robin Guthrie.

February 2001
An online interview with Simon can be found at Barcode

Simon begun recordings at Blah Street in UK last month, and will be working with a number of vocalists for this next batch of recordings. Gwei-lo drummer Jezz has been playing on all the recordiings so far, and the instrumentation is piano, guitar, drums, double bass, pedal steel, vibes, flutes. Vocalists Anneli Drecker (Bel Canto) from Norway and Sarah Assbring(Sadovaja) from Sweden will contribute their gorgeous utterings.

Simon will be producing some new recordings from Lisa Dewey this spring in San Jose.

An article in this months CMJ magazine has an interview with Simon on 'gigs that changed your life.'

January 2001
Bella Union will hopefully release a b-sides album in the summer, or autumn. All our b-sides from the Mercury singles and EPS were sadly deleted very quickly and a large number of people find these very difficult to pick up, so we are in negotiation with Mercury to allow us to release these songs on BU.

For those interested the Violet Indiana album, featuring your fave axe dude Guthrie will be out in April, called Roulette. The band will be playing a number of shows in Europe, esp. Italy.

Liz news... she has been working on the new Massive Attack record, but there is no date for her own solo stuff as yet.

Anneli Drecker and I have begun work on an album together, and this will be released sometime this year, don't know when. Best wishes to you all

Simon will be participating in a series of 3" CD EPs that Absalom Recordings is putting out in March. The Autumns, Unwed Sailor, Soul Junk, Paul Mumaw and the Roman Candles are all participating as well. More info can be obtained here!

The winner of the contest is Gary Thrasher! CONGRATS to you Gary!