Just a few things to update you with. Number one is that next week sees me playing at the Hard Rock Cafe of all places. Get down to Exchange Square in Manchester on Wednesday 9th July for Fog Lights, me and The 66. I’m on around 10pm. You can always get a meal and soak up the retro-rock’n'roll… ambience… while you’re waiting!

In the meantime, have a read of this review of the Kingdom Hearts EP from Myspace-based blog Crash Bang Pow! Once you’ve done that, why not listen to The Madcast, which features my song ‘Ringo Starr Love Thing’.

Hopefully see you in Manchester on the 9th!

I was lucky enough to be selected to take part in The Tony Wilson Experience, a ‘24-hour conversation’ taking place in Manchester between Saturday and Sunday.  You can read my write-up of the event over at my blog, 14sandwiches.com.

While I was there I was interviewed for BBC One’s The Politics Show.  They used a whole of 3 seconds(!) of the interview.  I’m on between 3:05 and 3:08 (yes, literally three seconds) on the video you can see here.

Don’t forget I’ll be DJing at Mushaboom at Abode in Chorlton, south Manchester next Tuesday, 1st July.  After that my next live set is at The Hard Rock Cafe, of all places, on the 9th of July.  I’ll be scaring the diners with twisted electropop while they eat their meals, which should be fun!  Details of both events are on the Live page.

This weekend sees The Castle Rocks Cancer taking place in Manchester for the second time. Held at The Castle Hotel on Oldham Street, it’s a two-day festival of music, with entry being free but with donations being taken for Cancer charities.

I spent most of August last year in a Marie Curie Hospice as my mother passed away from a disease that had repeatedly invaded her body and life over the previous 13 years. So, it’s great to play an event like this and raise money for the charities that helped her live longer and eased her pain at the end.

I’m on at 3.30pm on Saturday, playing a full 30 minute set. Come down if you can - the Castle has some great beers on tap and has a really good atmosphere.

Hot off the press, the video for ‘My Little Test Case’ has arrived. Head to the Video page to take a look.

You can download the song, along with the rest of the ‘Kingdom Hearts’ EP, from Filthy Little Angels here. Many thanks to Jay McCreary for his assistance in making the video.

Filthy Little Angels have put my new EP, ‘Kingdom Hearts’ up for free download. The EP contains four new tracks. Manchestermusic.co.uk called it “A pinnacle, you could argue in The Star Fighter Pilot’s catalogue so far”. So, head over to Filthy Little Angels and grab it now!

By the way, I had a great time at The Castle in Manchester when I played there on Saturday as part of the MAPS Festival. The Affection, the band on before me, had brought a large contingent of Scousers with them. During my set they adopted ‘Drunk With You’ as their anthem. There’s a Youtube video coming soon!

I’ve signed up to take part in yet another gig at The Castle, ‘The Castle Rocks Cancer’. In its second year, this two-day festival features loads of acts from around Manchester and further afield. I’m on at 3.30pm on the Saturday (14th June). Entry is free but donations to cancer charities will be accepted.

Hope you can make it!

This weekend the MAPS Festival hits Manchester’s Northern Quarter. I’m playing as part of Filthy Little Angels’ all-dayer at The Castle on Oldham Street on Saturday (24th May). You can find me doing my thing at 4.20pm. Hope you can make it - entry is free so you’ve got no excuse!

I’ll be playing tracks from the new Kingdom Hearts EP (available to download next Thursday!) as well as a few favourites and I’ll be trying something a little geeky but also very cool onstage. To find out what it is you’ll just have to be there!

By the way, I’ll be returning to The Castle for another all-dayer on the 14th of June for The Castle Rocks Cancer. More on that nearer the time…

The video for ‘My Little Test Case’ is nearly complete.  It should be online at the weekend, the gods of online video willing.

Okay, it’s still a couple of weeks before Filthy Little Angels will be making my new ‘Kingdom Hearts’ EP available to download, but for now why not listen to it all online?  Last.fm has it up to stream all the way through right here.  Let me know what you think!

Meanwhile, Manchester Music have published the first review of the EP.  It scored a 4/5 (which put a smile on my face).  Have a read of it here.

If you missed my set at Evil Genius: Prince at The Ruby Lounge in Manchester last night I can tell you that the Prince song I covered was… ‘When Doves Cry’.  I reckon I’ll do a recorded version of it soon.

A new gig has been added to the calendar  I’ll be playing at Filthy Little Angels’ event for the MAPS Festival (Music, Art, Poetry and Stuff, if you were wondering).  That’s at The Castle Hotel on Oldham Street on Saturday 24th May.  I’ll let you know the time I’m playing as soon as possible!

This Sunday at The Ruby Lounge in Manchester you can catch me playing as part of the lineup for Evil Genius: Prince.

As you would imagine, I’ll be covering a Prince song (but you’ll have to be there to find out which one it is!) as well as performing songs from the new EP. Other acts include Sloganeer, Aristocrash and Shirokuma.

Doors open at 5pm. More details at the promoter’s Myspace page. See you there!

Tomorrow night (Tuesday 6th May) I’ll be DJing in between the bands at Mushaboom - a new regular night at The Carlton Club on Carlton Road in Whalley Range, south Manchester.  Hopefully you’ll be able to make it down to say hi.

Tom Hickox, Sparky Deathcap and Klaus Says Buy The Record are all playing.  It’s £3 on the door.  I’m not sure of the start time ut 8pm is a safe bet.  See you there!

If you weren’t there last night why not? You missed an ace night. I was playing at the monthly Filthy Little Clubnight at The Castle in Manchester.

With two bands over from Liverpool, Awesome Wells and Town Bike, it was good to see a good contingent of fans had followed them over. Both bands dealt in carefree punk-influenced pop in the Kenickie mould (no bad thing in my book!) and both had songs about celebrities (Dannii Minogue and Dougie from McFly, if you’re wondering). Oh, and Town Bike had uniforms - proper bespoke ones unlike the shop-bought jacket I wear on stage. I was impressed!

How I’ve managed to miss Billy Ruffian so far, I don’t know. I’d go as far as to say that they’re the most fun live band from Manchester at the moment. Seriously - you should go see them ASAP. They win extra points from me for the blog post they published yesterday which described me as “Trent Reznor singing the songs of Grandmaster Flash shimmying with Shergar on on speed!”. I fully intend to include that quote next time I re-write my biog.

As for me, I had a great time during my set. At a couple of points I suffered what’s known as ‘James Dean Bradfield-itis’ where I forgot a couple of lyrics. This was made worse by the fact that a some people were singing along! The songs from the new EP went down well and all in all I’m itching to book loads more gigs. I chickened out of wearing a clown mask on stage though, although that does feature in the upcoming video for ‘My Little Test Case’. More news on that soon!

Finally, I felt I had to share this with you. It’s Awesome Wells’ unhappy cat mascot, or ‘mascat’ if you will.