December 19th, 2005

The CD is now in three shops in Cork: Plugd Records on Washington St, The Living Tradition on MacCurtain St, and Opus II Music Shop on Oliver Plunkett St! Hurry over before they're sold out!

December 17th, 2005

Had an amazing CD launch gig last week and next up is the first annual Great Egress Christmas gig. Billy Kennedy and friends will be the support and play with us throughout the night. After that I'm starting the year off with two gigs supporting Two Time Polka in Kerry, including the night of the 1st in Cahersiveen. I wrote an ode to this town on the 2002 Vetivers CD Lights!

You can now preview all the tracks on my new CD Paul and Me on CD Baby, and purchase the CD directly from them as well. Also, there's going to be a major redesign of my web site in the next couple of weeks (could it possibly get any better!?), just finalizing the new design...

December 4th, 2005

Played a gig last night in Myrtleville with Niall Connolly and Anto'. Wasn't my best performance (I'm saving that for the launch!) but I sold my first cd to someone I didn't know! Online sales are going well, but a warning to people who live in the US: shipping is very expensive so I'm going to start selling the album through CD Baby, and though I think I'll put the price down a little you'll have to pay for shipping, so the price will go up a little. That should start in the next week, so hurry up and buy your cd now! In the meantime, there are a lot more gigs in the works so keep checking back!

November 22nd, 2005

The CD is out! Click here to buy your copy!

November 17th, 2005

Last night I joined the ususal gang at Charlie's to record the sequal to last year's Under the Lamp CD! It was a good night last night for the second consecutive week of recording, I did ok and so did fellow Great Egress member Jon Clark, Billy Kennedy, Paul Fenton, and the rest. More on that later...

Oh yeah, and I'm off to Dublin this weekend to pick up the CDs! I'm trying to organize the launch, might be on the 26th or maybe the next weekend after that!

November 3rd, 2005

Finally! I just went to the post office and mailed the master cd and the artwork up to Dublin! It should take about 10 days to manufacture the CDs and then they'll be out! Click here for the album cover and some more information! Now to start planning the launch...

In the meantime I'll be doing another gig with the great Annette Buckley on Wednesday the 9th of November at Ruby Tuesdays, this time as part of the CorkSingerSongwriter.com series of gigs. See you there!

October 23rd, 2005

No news for a while because I've had a hard time trying to finish the CD! There were a few little problems that were really hard to fix, but luckily I went up to Killarney yesterday and met Ruairi O'Flaherty and he saved the CD! The artwork is all done too, just a matter of putting it in the right format and sending it off! Here's a sneak preview of what the cover looks like! The launch will happen in November, I promise!

In the meantime, The Great Egress has recorded our second demo, you can find it on the downloads page of our new expanded web site! Hopefully the next project will be a full album with the guys...

August 28th, 2005

I'm having the new solo CD mastered on September 13th at Mid-Atlantic Digital, so it will be out a few weeks after that. I'll have some sort of big launch party, probably doing half the set solo and half with The Great Egress. Hopefully the band will record a cd together soon! Meanwhile we're doing more and more gigs, and more are on the horizon. I've had the opportunity to play with a lot of great people, and everything keeps getting better and better...

July 19th, 2005

Great news! I've finished recording and mixing the CD! There will be 12 songs on the album, and I hope to have it out as soon as possible; it just needs to be mastered and manufactured. I can't thank Ray enough for all the hard work he put into this with me, it's sounding great and I know you'll like it when you hear it. More updates soon!

July 14th, 2005

I've been at Ray's mixing the CD, and it's sounding good. We should be done with that soon then I might record another two or three songs to finish it up and then I'll have the album ready for the next step, mastering. It's really complicated to get it all sounding just right, and I'm really glad I'm working with Ray...

In the meantime, summer has hit Ireland and I've been going to the beach and staying out all night going on adventures. There is music everywhere too... What a great life!

June 29th, 2005

The Great Egress has had two gigs since I updated the site, and the band is going great. Mick and Jon keep amazing me with their new songs, I've begun to write a lot of new ones too, and Kalle holds it all together and is somehow constantly getting better and better. We're taking most of July off because Kalle's going back to Finland and Jon's going on a road trip, but we should get a few nice gigs in before Mick takes his vacation in August, so I'll let you know.

And it looks like my solo CD will be out soon! It's almost done, and I've decided to release that one first instead of the Vetivers compilation now, so I'll let you know about it pretty soon...

Bye Lucie...

June 11, 2005

The Great Egress now has a web site! There's not much there right now, but we'll expand it soon. Click the link at the top of the page under the popular eyebrow picture to see it. We suddenly had our first gig last week, and we're starting on recording our demo tonight. They'll be some songs up as soon as possible.

And after a year and a half of not being able to access the old Vetivers site to update it and it eventually disappearing without reason, I've managed to reincarnate it! It took forever, and it's still not perfect, but most of what used to be there is back again. I owe it all to the Internet Archive, one of the most useful sites around.

May 31, 2005

I found out a few days ago that Numbskull, my cat and inspiration for the first song on my upcoming solo CD, died on Friday the 13th of May. He had a good life, though. He took a lot of vacations and went on adventures most of the time, and the rest of the time he just slept. Although he never came to visit me in Ireland, I still love him. Too bad he never got to hear his song...

In other news, The Great Egress is going strong and we'll probably have our own web site pretty soon. We'll get some gigs in the next few weeks too and I'll keep you updated. As for the new Vetivers compilation, just be patient. It's expensive to put out a CD and I've almost got enough saved up for it.

May 12, 2005

We thought of a name, and on Saturday night THE GREAT EGRESS will have yet another practice!

May 10, 2005

I had yet another great practice with the new band, pictured here. Kalle, top left, is the drummer and fashion coordinator. Next to him is Mick on guitar/bass/keyboards. Jon Clark of Vetivers reunion fame plays bass and guitar, and then there's me! All four of us sing and the songs are really coming together. We have three different songwriters and we're getting good! Pretty soon we'll be ready to have a gig and I'll make a little section of this web site for us as soon as we think of a name!

I'm proud to announce that once again artwork by Kiel Johnson will be on the cover of the A Young Girl's Guide To The Vetivers CD! He also did the cover for Twelve O'Clock In All The World and countless other masterpieces. Check out his web site here! The album will finally be out around the end of May or beginning of June. As for the solo album, I'm hoping to have that out in July or August...

I got to see my favorite band Teenage Fanclub in Dublin on Saturday night, too. Great as usual! Then yesterday I went boogieboarding... Next time I'll go when there are waves.

April 30, 2005

I saw a good gig last night here in Cork. Niall Connolly and Rachel Loshak were great, so check out their web sites and buy everything they have for sale, and then make offers for some stuff that they're not selling! Niall is giving me a 10% commission for every one of his organs he sells through this link, so please mention me when you make your bid!

Before the gig I had another band practice with my new band, and we're officially getting good. We're still thinking of a name, so if you have any suggestions please put them up on the message board.

April 28, 2005

Taky got fired from the Haggis factory! Just kidding, he's back from Glasgow for a few days. Even when people leave, they don't really leave.

I even ran into Kate from the apartments on Barrack St. from two years ago! Not sure if I'll put the picture of us up though if I ever get it, but it's much more entertaining than the one of me and Taky!

April 26, 2005

As for the albums, the Vetivers CD is being mastered now and I'm working on the booklet and things like that. I'll have the cover ready to show you soon! And I'm going to do the last few recordings for the solo album in two or three weeks with Ray Barron. I've been making tons of demos and actually getting kind of good at the piano...

Oh yeah, and I've decided to become a surfer! Step one will be the boogieboard.

April 7, 2005

It's getting lonely here in Cork, all my friends are leaving. Sinead left a couple of weeks ago, and within one week Taky, Ankica, and French Denis are now gone. Sinead became a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Taky got a job at a haggis factory in Glasgow, Denis is going to Iran to restore democracy and teach them about bicycle safety, and Ankica is starting the Paul Solecki Fan Club in France. I'll miss her most of all.

So the big project I'm working on now before I finish the solo album is called "Greatest Misses: A Young Girl's Guide To The Vetivers." It's a combination of the two Vetivers CDs, which have been irritatingly sold out and out of print for a long time now. We're even having the Twelve O'Clock In All The World songs mastered so they'll sound as slightly professional as the Lights songs! I hope to have that out before the end of April, I just have a couple more things to do and I'll be done.

Oh yeah, and I've got some new songs for you to download, a studio version of the classic Pirates of Liectenstein and a cover of Teenage Fanclub's Guiding Star. Head for the music page!

March 4, 2005

Finished a week of recording at Ray's house this afternoon, and my fingers are killing me! I've got 16 songs good enough to go on my CD, but I don't think all of them will make the cut. I'll save at least one of them for the web site of course. Soon I'll do the last three or four songs I want to do and then arrange the CD and get all the artwork done. Also, Ben and I decided to do that Vetivers collection, so that will be out soon as well...

March 2, 2005

I got back from my short vacation, which was great, and went immediately back to work in the studio with Ray Barron and his students. I'm hard at work recording and by the end of the week I should have about sixteen songs ready for the upcoming CD. I plan on recording a few more soon and then I'll make the final cut and I'll have my first solo album out in eleven years!

The album is going to be a mostly simple and silly collection of both new songs and some really old ones of mine that I never released anywhere through the years. In fact, the oldest song of the collection was written in 1993, and the newest was written this morning! I'm starting to think of the artwork and title and things like that... I've got a few good ideas but nothing is definate so far. I'm also thinking of putting out a Vetivers compilation from our first two CDs since they're both all sold out now and we got such a good response at our concert last month. I might release them both at the same time, maybe in a month or two...

I'm not sure if I'm more excited for my album or for the upcoming Teenage Fanclub album! May 2!

February 19, 2005

I tried to put up a movie that Ben and I made for all the fans of The Vetivers from atop a windy mountain on the Sheep's Head Penninsula, but I accidentally put up the wrong one! If you want to view the wrong boring movie, click here! I won't be able to put up the right one for a week because I'll be driving around the north of Ireland with my dad and grandma, but if you're interested in a dull windswept video of Ben Champion walking down the side of a mountain, this might keep you occupied!

February 12, 2005

Today Ben and I visited Cahersiveen, the town that inspired the song by the same name on the Twelve O'Clock In All The World album! Here we are ouside the grey-brown windows of the pub where Bess and I first heard good ol' Roseville Fair, and my first pub ever in Ireland!

Who would have thought that I would spend a few years listening to music in pubs in Ireland. I think my whole life is a vacation sometimes.

February 10, 2005

Today was the day everyone has been waiting for: The Vetivers reunion concert! Ben arrived at the airport at 5 and I picked him up in Alan's car. Jon came over for a quick practice and a great Mexican feast before we headed down to Charlie's for the show. We set up and did the sound check with the help of the great Billy Kennedy, then the place started becoming crowded. By the time Tony started with two songs it was completely full, and when Billy and Paul Fenton started their set, I could barely move in there! Jessie Kennedy joined them for a few songs and they all sounded great, so good in fact that I was worried they'd be better than us!

When we started playing I was pretty scared, but it turned out to be the best concert we've ever played! Ben even wore a toy constable hat that really got the crowd going for the first few songs. I thought it was an amazing concert, and I never think we play well. Afterwards, we spent about five or six hours signing autographs, kissing girls, and (in the spirit of Teenage Fanclub) being paraded around the streets on the shoulders of the admiring mob!

February 2, 2005

Ok, the big Vetivers reunion show is now officially scheduled for Thursday, February 10, 2005, at good ol' Charlie's. I spent days entertaining numerous bids from practically every pub in Cork, and even some offers to fly the band to the pyramids in Egypt, but in the end I decided it would be best to give the hometown crowd the big event. So far, no one is camped out in front of the pub in the hopes of being the first to get in and see us, but it is over a week away so I don't mind. I bet that heron is out there in the river though... The famous New Zealand rock star Jon Clark will be playing bass and guitar for us, and we'll probably have an opening act or two.

January 30, 2005

So we were supposed to have the big Vetivers reunion concert yesterday, but one of Ben's friends backed out on the trip at the last moment and it was too expensive for him and the other friend to drive over from Oxford, England. So now Ben's flying out (no, on a plane) in two weeks and we're going to have the concert on February 10 in Cork, with Jon from New Zealand our special guest on bass. I can't wait for the Vetivers reunion, I just feel sorry for all of Jon's friends from New Zealand who had to reschedule their flights to Cork! Ha ha ha.

January 25, 2005

I just made this Message Board! Now I'm a cool popular musician! Check it out! And just for you I've put up some songs on the music page.

January 24, 2005

I've now added some lyrics to the music page! Now you can sing along to all your favorite songs! (This, of course, has nothing to do with my lyrics!)

January 20, 2005

I've been pretty lazy lately in terms of updating my web sites, but I'm going to do better starting now! Now that Paul Solecki.com is up and running and a new solo CD is in the works, check back here as often as possible, perhaps every five or ten minutes if you want to really be up to date. You'll be the first to know about gigs and other special events. You might even know before me!

Anyway, I'm learning how to make web sites so this is my big experiment. If there's anything wrong or if your computer blows up, it's because I have no idea what I'm doing.