Just Launching Beyond The Clouds - The Musical

Please check it out via:

http://www.beyondtheclouds.co.uk

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Beyond-The-Clouds-The-Musical/244807782253662

http://www.myspace.com/beyondtheclouds-musical

A Beyond The Clouds Blogger Page will follow very soon!

All the best,

Chris

Oh, for more time!!

Many New Songs On The Way

Just a very quick update on some forthcoming projects:

• Tristan Spencer - I'm busy co-writing Tristan's debut album. We're 7 songs in, so far, and have another 6 tracks we've penned for other artists to cover (4 female, 2 male). Check four of our songs here: http://www.myspace.com/tristspencer
• Rolf and Keeley - I've written 6 Country Rock songs with Rolf Schnyder in Switzerland http://www.myspace.com/swisssongwriterduo. Rolf won the John Lennon Songwriting Contest in the Country Section this year, so I'm hugely honoured to be working with him. We've got the very talented Keeley Camilleri recording these six tracks and we'll be promoting those as soon as they are produced up and mixed.
• Isham - in a funk/R&B/Urban direction, I'm writing more tracks for Isham. Watch this space: Isham

I've signed publishing on four more songs:
Attention (Dance/Pop) and Give My Heart A Chance (Pop) (Both co-written with Tristan), a Latino song (Let The Night Burn) and an R&B track called Do Love. Top-line melodies and lyrics for the last three of these were by yours truly.

I will get round to uploading snippets onto the LYRICO website at some point soon! When I get time!

All the best for now,

Chris

So Good They Named It Twice?

Wow, what a crazy five or six weeks I've had! I'm 'cream crackered'! Paris, Boston, New York, Berlin and Birmingham! (Yeah, maybe the last one isn't quite as exciting... no disrespect to Brum - my Dad's from there - but it really didn't hold the same magic as 9 days in the US!)

Boston & Blue Skies

Travel can be such a bl**dy fiasco, can't it? I set off from the hotel in Boston at 1:00 PM on Thursday 11th and got to the airport with around 3 hours to spare... just in case. Good thing, 'cause I found my flight to Newark, New Jersey, had been cancelled but luckily (or so I thought at the time) they checked me in on an earlier flight. Then notices started to appear on the displays that this one was now delayed. After finally boarding, the plane just sat on the tarmac for another 90 minutes waiting to get a take off slot. When we finally got airborne I realised it was going to be touch and go about making my connection to Birmingham (and no... that wasn't my visit to Birmingham, I was there again a week or so later!) In fact, as we landed in Newark and taxied in I could see a Continental 757 pulling away from a gate... I hoped it wasn't mine, but despite the mad dash (treating slow moving people in the way with the sort of respect a bowling ball shows 10 standing pins), I found the gate closed and the gentleman behind it informing me of what I was now painfully aware of... I'd missed my flight back! (And I've never done that before in all my years of travelling!)

The Continental 'help' desk (inverted commas for a good reason!) gave me a couple of choices: going to France a few hours later then flying out from Paris the following afternoon to Birmingham; or staying over locally and repeating the attempt to jet off to Birmingham direct, just 24 hours later from the flight I'd missed. I chose the latter and was given a voucher for a hotel at the airport. Great I said, but what about my bags? (For a change of clothes etc.) "Oh, if you want your luggage, I'll key into the computer to get them sent through. Just go down two floors to baggage reclaim and they'll guide you..." I duly did this and sat in front of Carousel 9 waiting for my case. Nothing for 45 minutes, so I went back to baggage reclaim where I was told it can take an hour. Half an hour later I went back to the desk, and was told it was going to be two... "Just wait another hour". Nothing. After three hours the local yanks got a taste of some pure Anglo Saxon vocabulary! I was then told by the new person on the desk that as I had requested the bag after 7PM it would NOT be dispatched and was now in a storage hold awaiting tomorrow's flight. More Anglo Saxon vocabulary. (Sorry, but I'd sat there like a lemon for three hours having been completely misinformed by the so called 'help team'. I was also very tired and hungry!) So, without luggage, I then took the shuttle bus to my hotel only to find that by now all the rooms were taken! ("we didn't think you were coming, Sir.") Argghhh! The receptionist made a call and I was told another bus would take me (and the collection of other unfortunates) to an alternative hotel that DID have rooms. After trying to board two busses that said Holiday Inn (ah, but not to MY Holiday Inn), eventually a minibus arrived and drove us all to some Newark suburb called Carteret... A Holiday Inn Motel right next to the 14 lane New Jersey Turnpike with hot and cold running trucks rumbling through the night completely free of charge!

Anyway, all's well that ends well, because after some business on Friday morning, I found myself with four or five hours to kill before my flight check-in. Looking at a map, I realised that the turnpike headed all the way into New York, so a few minutes later I got a bus and an hour later was in Manhattan charging up 8th Avenue towards Central Park, then heading down 5th counting the 'Wests' down from 57 to 34 for a quick jaunt up to the top of the Empire State Building! Wow! Absolutely fantastic it was too! (Though somewhat of a 'brown trouser job' for people like me who suffer from vertigo!!)

Manhattan from the Empire State Building as the clouds roll in

I no doubt ended up shedding pounds (of sweat, I hasten to add!!) in my three hour mad-dash, just getting back in time on the bus to flag the courtesy airport shuttle down... I know I can cut things fine, but it was leaving 10 minutes early, damn it! So, I've 'accidentally' got to see a little of New York as well as loads of Boston! Boston, by the way, was superb... a fantastic place! I had two free days at the start (as I was working Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday) so I walked the red-brick 2.5 mile Freedom Trail, went on the USS Constitution "Old Ironsides" (the oldest still commissioned warship in the world, launched in the 1797), drank beers in Cheers (yes, it's a real pub!), and The Bell In Hand (the oldest pub in America) and on Saturday took a bus out to Cape Cod...

I'll write about Berlin when I've got my Breath back...

All the best,

Chris

Busy, busy, busy…

Just a quick update… There are at least three new Publishing Deals being signed: Summer Love is being sent on a two year vacation (and hopefully longer) with our faithful friends Leopard Music since the track has became available to us again (mercifully!). I’m also signing two new co-writes with Andy McNeil to the same publisher, namely the R&B/Urban Do Love and the up-beat Latino track Let The Night Burn.

When I get time to work out what week, month and year it is, I’ll post MP3 clips on the Lyrico website so you can get a teaser of these two new tracks.

Offers on three more tracks (co-written with Tristan Spencer) have come in from the US, but we’re still under negotiation there…

All the best,

Chris

7 New Songs on MySpace

Just a quick note because I realise I haven't posted anything this month so far... and I'm running out of time to do it. So in typical 'lastminute.com' fashion (yes, I have been nicknamed that at times!) here is a quick update...

I've been hugely busy with the following writing projects... please check them out:

I'm co-writing an album for Tristan Spencer and the first four songs are now on his MySpace site: http://www.myspace.com/tristspencer Please check them out. We've recently just received a publishing offer from a major Nashville Publisher for Too Late. Fantastic news!

Niamh's CD demo co-written with Torgeir Bjordal of Fuelled Productions and recorded at YFM Bergen is now launched and there is already interest from a major label. Again, great news!
http://www.myspace.com/niamhegan

I've been working on a new R&B track and a Latino song with Andy McNeil. Both are being produced up now. Watch this space for further news on those.

Tristan and I are working on dance/pop songs for a girl band (name to be disclosed if we get the contract!).

Promise I'll write more soon... And make it funny next time! Do check out my main two sites and link in if you can.

http://www.lyrico.co.uk/ & http://www.myspace.com/chrisbreenlyricist

All the best,

Chris

A SoundClick Urban Chart Number 1!

Three months ago I wrote a top-line (melody-line and lyrics) to an urban/R&B backing track that Isham Bachir, a new artist in Switzerland, sent me. The track, Body Beautiful, has now been recorded by Isham and is being produced up at studios internationally. (At least two different versions are expected... possibly three. Can't wait!)

The first of these finished masters Isham has placed on SoundClick (which is like MySpace but JUST for music... no hairbrush divas and other nonsense). It's global and has charts in various genres.

Isham emailed me at the end of last week to say that Body Beautiful had been submitted to the Urban Charts and out of 57,065 songs had reached number 1! Please click on the link to hear Body Beautiful... Feel free to vote/post a comment. We'd love to hear from you.


On a totally different note, just to prove that ol' Chris Breen here, can write lyrics and top-lines in very (even extremely!) diverse genres of music (no pigeon holes here!!), Hey Old Friend, a traditional country song has been featured on pod radio broadcasts 'State Side'. This track started out as a backing track that came across to me from Actor, Singer and Musician Paul Gelsomine in Norway. I wrote a top-line and then Paul adapted that to suit his voice and style. Please check out the links below to hear that song... What d'you mean you can't dance to it?

Hey Old Friend

Please check out my Lyrico website and if you're a composer/songwriter needing a co-writer, you'll find a very wide spread of styles I work in there from pensive, introspective ballads, sexy Urban/R&B, chart-style/commercial songs, power-pop, indie, rock, dance, country & country rock, jazz, musicals...

Speak soon.

All the best,

Chris

Cyprus Writing Session...

Just got back from Cyprus and experienced rather freak weather conditions... well for me, anyway, 'cause the weather was great! I expected stair rods (well, that was what I got on the last writing trip/holiday to Kefalonia in September!), but, despite being fooled into thinking my usual luck was in (it was raining when I arrived and water was dripping in through the ceiling of my hotel room... Oh yes!), it stopped after an hour and then hardly a cloud all week. In fact Cyprus was rumoured to have had the warmest weather in January since 1976! I've come back doing my best impersonation of a Chippendale mahogany sideboard. Dark brown all over... with bowed legs!?

Talking of bow legs, I ended up staying in a hotel that was like Club 80 -130! There were only 3 of us under 50 there! One old boy had a 'blowout' on his walking stick at the breakfast buffet and ending up falling into the tray of scrambled egg! Well, he ended up submerging his elbow into it anyway. What made it even funnier (see, unfortunately I've got a cruel streak!) was he was wearing a mustard coloured cardigan and was oblivious to the fact that he was covered in the stuff! I think he wore the scrambled egg all day... not advisable in a freak heat wave. (Unless it was a clever tactic to get a table to himself in the evening, of course!)

I actually wrote LOADS of lyrics whilst away and am now busily starting to edit them and type everything up. I've pretty much finished tracks for the musical... I also paved the way for loads more dance stuff, working on around 20-30 lyrics for various projects. I did hire a jeep and spent three days touring the island... catching up on the writing in the evenings.

When I've downloaded the photos I might post a couple here.


Please keep checking out tracks on the sites:

www.lyrico.co.uk

www.myspace.com/chrisbreenlyricist

www.songwriter-lyricist.com

All the best,


Chris

A New Year - A New Website...

With typical 'New Year Resolve', I've bundled together all my sketched-out ideas and pages for a new site (it's just one of many, so think of it as the entrance hall to a cyber-space mansion of the future... well, you've got to think big, haven't you? An entrance hall to a clapped-out caravan doesn't have the same ring, does it?). Anyway, the hosting was bought at around Noon on New Year's Day from good old 'a small orange' in Atlanta, Georgia and the site went live at about 9.00 PM UK time on the 2nd January.

So why have I waited until now to announce it to the world? Well, that's a long story... Are you sitting comfortably? (Visions of Ronnie Corbett and a somewhat rambling tale... "Anyway, as I was saying"... Actually, I won't bore you with the details. Suffice to say..." Stop it, Chris!)

Anyway, I decided to buy another 7 domains before launching this site (see, it's an eight roomed caravan already!) and that's when the problems started. Honestly, it was easier buying my house... though, mercifully, the domains were somewhat cheaper! Anyway, it's all sorted, so wipe your feet on the welcome mat and take a look round my new cyberspace caravan...

All the best,

Chris

www.songwriter-lyricist.com
www.lyrico.co.uk
www.myspace.com/chrisbreenlyricist
www.sundancesongs.com

All the Best for 2007 to all the Songwriters & Friends out there!

Keep in touch and let's hope it's a good 'un!

Chris

Merry Christmas!... And a bit of fooling about on Photoshop!


Click on the banner above to visit the Lyrico Website - and to hear sample songs click here

All the very best,

Chris

Calling all Songwriters & Composers

Chris is now on MySpace and welcomes any songwriters, composers, musicians (of all music styles/genres) to check out the songs on his MySpace web page.

Please just click on the banner to visit Chris on MySpace... Cheers!

Two of my Co-Writes now available on Album!

Lost In Love Town Album released by Paul Jeffery - available to buy here:

For those of you that follow my Lyrico Website and Blog updates, you'll know that I regularly co-write with Paul Jeffery. Most of these projects have been writing material for other artists or submitting songs to publishers and (just the once) to a record company for a licensing deal. Paul is, however, a singer/songwriter in his own right... (And a damn good one too!) Well, it gives me great pleasure to announce that Paul's debut Album "Lost In Love Town" (and yes, that's one of the tracks I worked on!) is available here via the CD Baby website... and is a mere snip at $12.97.

The full track list complete with the relevant links to listen to and/or download tracks can be found HERE:

Please check the tracks/album out! It's a good 'un!

Best,

Chris

Don't worry... If we miss this one, there'll be another F**ker soon!

It takes a lot to shock me, but even my jaw got temporarily heavy when this coach arrived to take me and a couple of colleagues off to a dinner function last Tuesday night!

It was a pretty crowded coach, but you can imagine the clamour to get to seats at the very front or back... I mean, who wants to be chauffeured around Dusseldorf with this logo emblazoned just below your grinning bonce? Good Lord! ...The embarrassment!

Anyway, the word almost certainly doesn't mean the same in German, and I'm sure the postman delivering letters to the lovely family that own this fleet of coaches isn't reduced to the same fit of hysterical giggles that befell me on the way to dinner that night, but I have got to say (quite sadly, perhaps) that this coach was the highlight of the evening! Being vegetarian, it's tough at the best of times in Germany, but the food at the event left a lot to be desired... protein, for a start! It couldn't have been all bad because I was sporting a bit of a hangover the next day, so I presume the beer and wine were good, as, no doubt, was the ride back to the Hilton after... Like I said, if you miss one coach, there's always another F**ker soon!...

...And, hopefully, plenty more new songs on the Lyrico website too! If you haven't heard I Don't Know, please check it out. Runaway and Flames (Both new Torgeir Co-Writes) should be added soon: Sample Songs

All the best,

Chris

Can't Get A Handle on Denmark

It's been a while since I've updated the Blog... Apologies for that but I've been HUGELY busy lately with a week in September chasing business abroad and then a two week 'holiday'. I've put holiday in apostrophes because the plan was for a fortnight of doing a Michael Jackson in reverse... namely changing my skin colour from fairly pale to mahogany but, instead, by the end of it, I was close to building an ark on the beach to escape the rising waters! I've never seen so much rain in Greece! At least it gave me a real chance to catch up on the writing... I'd always planned to do a fair bit, but even I surprised myself with working on 31 songs (!!).

In case you're not familiar with my main lyrico website, please check out some of my co-writes via this link sample co-writes

Anyway, enough waffle... so why the title of this posting? Well, when I was travelling on business in Copenhagen, I was faced with one of the most absurd bits of design and style over practicality I've ever witnessed. Now, admittedly, I've been lucky enough to stay at some pretty nice hotels in my time, and, some of these are 'arty' (and even a bit pretentious), but I've never encountered design that makes it impossible for an Englishman to have a cup of tea at breakfast without inflicting third degree burns to his fingers! Can you imagine having a self-service system (you know, the great big urn of boiling water, a pile of tea bags, milk from another urn and sachets of sugar) without having cups and saucers, just great big china mugs... with no handles! No trays either, so the restaurant area of the hotel was reduced to a blur or rapidly running grimacing diners... even the contingency of Far Eastern tourists were reduced to exclamations of Arrggghhhhhh-So! I'm still waiting for my fingerprints to grow back! (Do fingerprints grow back? Hmmm. According to an Internet search - if you trust what you read! - they do.)

Having slagged off the practicality of their design, Copenhagen is actually a wonderful city (as the song says!). Here's a mug shot to get a handle on!... (Groan!)

And then on to Holland...

Perhaps the nice, helpful (isn't sarcasm wonderful?) people at the car hire place in Schiphol Airport set the tone for the Holland visit, 'cause I'd like to be positive about Amsterdam but, I have to sadly admit, it was far, far too sleazy a dump for me! It wasn't so much the jaw-dropping sights of the red light area, but rather the constant barrage of extremely unsavoury looking guys peddling hard drugs that ruined it for me. It all looks better by daylight though...

Anyway, many new songs (and Blog updates) to follow...

All the best for now, Chris

All’s Changed! “Nothing’s Changed” has Changed Hands!

Chris Breen signs a Publishing Deal with Leopard Music

On August 23 I signed a single song assignment with Leopard Music for Nothing's Changed and then posted the five copies of the contract off to my Norwegian co-writers, Torgeir Bjordal and Sturle Strauss Lisaeth, for their signatures. Leopard Music Publishing really like the tracks I’ve done with Torgeir and it is great news indeed that we’ve signed the first of our co-writes over to them for global marketing and publishing rights… Hopefully the first of many!

One other track, All Because Of You is earmarked for the opener and single on a forthcoming album… But if that doesn’t happen (Hey! You know what this business is like!), we are happy knowing that Leopard want to sign that song too.

STOP PRESS! NEW SONG "I DON'T KNOW" AVAILABLE FOR RECORDING
Just arrived in from Torgeir's studios in Bergen, Norway is our latest co-write, I Don't Know, again featuring the fantastic vocals of young Irish singer Niahm. Be one of the very first to hear this song by clicking HERE.

Regular visitors to this Blog and to my Lyrico Website will know that Torgeir is one of the main composers and producers I work with and if you listen to the co-writes on the site and All I Want From Love (co-written with Paul Jeffery and produced by Torgeir), you’ll get an idea of the pop-rock sound that I absolutely love working on. My favourite is the powerful and so, so catchy Independence Day. If you’re a professional songwriter and you also write in this style and need a lyricist on a project, or a co-writing team, you know where Torgeir and I can be found! Please just email me on chrisbreen@lyrico.co.uk

In addition to hopefully doing many more co-writes with both Torgeir and Paul over the next year, I’m working on a new pop-rock project with Mark Francis, along with two ongoing dance music ones (Paul again with producer Sharon Sullivan) and the second with writer/producer Richard Cory. Please watch this space to hear a range of new commercial/pop songs (hopefully coming soon!) or get in touch with me if you need material writing in that style for your project!

In a completely different vein, I’ve just completed the third co-write with a new writing partner, Glenn Tollett. All three songs are in a Classical/Popular-Opera vein and two are currently being recorded-up by a new talent in the Opera field, the award-winning live performer, Carl Taylor. We’re hoping these recordings will be available on the Lyrico website soon, but, in the meantime listen to the Scott Davies versions of the first song, Love To Love Again (in English) or Italian (Fammi Innamorar'!!).

Well, apologies for the lack of ‘funnies’ on this posting, but I thought I best at least do one that’s about the music and some real news (for a change!). I promise I'll get utterly daft again for the next posting!

Look after yourselves.

Chris

A Stupor in Stoupa?

Or… Pubs, Problems & Police in the Peloponnese

I got back last weekend from a week in the Peloponnese, an area of Greece I’ve not stayed in before, having merely passed through on its northern shores on the way to Athens a few years ago. It was another 'lyric writing holiday', so some of the results of the work should be on my music website over the forthcoming months... In the meantime, please check out the Lyrico Website Here. (And here to hear sample songs.)

Once again, Greece amazes me with its stunningly beautiful scenery, roads twisting like spilt spaghetti down mountainsides, and, of course, plumbing that hasn’t improved in around 3000 years! And Mr. Lucky here (what else?!) got an apartment where if there was the slightest flow of water (perhaps even a dripping tap!) anywhere else in the building, then all my supplies of water (even taps in the kitchenette, but more importantly the shower!) just 'barfed air'! Brilliant! So I come in from a day on the ‘beach oven’ (it got to 44 Degrees C one day!) or, alternatively, after zapping around (up to 250 km a day) half-naked on a moped, and I can't even get a wash! What made it worse was when I’d been on the moped all day there wasn’t only an inch deep of sun lotion to contend with, but about the same depth of dead flies! Strewth! No wonder they were swarming round me in the restaurants in the evening!!… And there was me thinking the flies had just come to pay their last respects to their friends. Apologies to anyone who had an evening meal within three tables of me, but, honestly, it wasn’t my fault! (Hey, it's a good job I wasn't 'on the pull'!) Anyway, the tour operator will be hearing from me… again!...

Look, proof, completely deserted tables!

Actually, to be fair, the rep did get the apartment owners to replace the pump, so after three days I could finally return to my usual state of something akin to fastidiousness and not clear a restaurant from thirty paces! Also, it was a great holiday and I’ll upload some more of the fantastic photos of the castles and hill towns on one of my other sites soon.

Hello to everyone I met in Stoupa, and also to those two utterly bemused gentleman of the Greek Police who pulled me over on the road between Gytheion and Skala on my mega jaunt to the fantastic Monemvasia (just licence spot checks). I don’t think they could quite believe that this English nutter was making the journey all the way from Stoupa in the mid-west to the Aegean cost on a 50cc moped! Well, that’s all they had to rent in Stoupa and I get bored just lying on a beach! Alright, so the fact that I was walking like John Wayne for the next two days… and needed to get in a drunken stupor (there we are, got the pun in!) to numb the pain has got nothing to do with it! Monemvasia, as a World Heritage site, was well worth the visit!

Just look at this...

And a final note to finish on... Why do people always, ALWAYS have to behave like a particularly moronic flock of sheep around baggage carousels? I mean, think about it... There's this bl**dy great yellow line painted there and signs saying "Please stand behind the line" (which would allow everyone to see when their case approaches, step forward and retrieve it), but no, a good 75% of people have to stand there bleating to each other with their knees dusting the belt and obscuring everything for the chilled minority. Great strategy (think about it again)... NO ONE can see more than a few feet of belt, no one has room to swing their fake leopard skin suitcase or their bright puce trolley bag (let alone a cat), and myself and the others who decide not to join the herd can't see 'diddly'! Well, just to say to the fat geezer that ended up groaning like he'd passed a log and who came within two inches of his eyes watering like he'd peeled a dozen onions... "If you'd been standing in the right place...! And yes, my hard shell Pierre Cardin suitcase is pretty heavy, isn't it?!"

Ah Vienna... Conferences & Heat

Well, July has been a bit of a blur... in fact, more of a heat haze than a blur. Boy, it's been a hot one (and this is from a man that loves the Mediterranean climate!). In fact, I finally got round to mowing my lawn on Friday (I had a day off and thought I'd tend to the jungle). The last time I tackled the clover and thistle undergrowth - AKA my back garden - I managed to leave the Flymo as a smoking orange hulk on the lawn... but on Friday that pretty much described me! Now where did I put that factor 600?

I've just got back from a six days in Vienna, mostly work-related (running a stand at an international conference) though last Saturday involved a 7 hour hike round the city punctuated with stops for the odd Shandy... er, Austrian Beer (with a thirst reminiscent of Ice Cold In Alex, if you remember the film!). Now, at this point I have to take issue with Midge and the Ultravox boys and that line "It means nothing to me... Ah, Vienna", 'cause the place is absolutely awesome! And what nice people too. I really can't remember going to such a friendly place (apart from the obligatory Greek Islands which are always populated by some of the most hospitable and easy-going people in the world... that's the locals, not the Brits abroad, by the way!). So yes, Vienna is a must for another visit.

OK... finally on to music. I'm really busy writing on a few projects... as usual. I'm working on more songs for Paul Jeffery (who's already working on his follow-up album to Lost In Love Town) and I'm starting a new dance co-write (or three) with Richard Cory. These tracks may well become part of the Sundance Songs stable when finished. Paul and I are also working on a couple of new songs and some co-writes for Georgie (Georgina Carter). I'm also anticipating working on a couple of new tracks for Glenn Tollett, as the previous co-write seems to have gone down really well. (Please check out the links: Love To Love Again / Fammi Innamorar'!!)

Anyway, hopefully more news soon!

Look after yourselves and enjoy the summer whilst in lasts!

Italian Opera, Thai Curry & A Cr*p Football Team

Well, what a few days it's been! As a man who firmly believes that footballers are a bunch of ridiculously overpaid, completely talentless and inarticulate to**ers, very little has dissuaded me otherwise lately. Having watched the St. Trinian's girl's second eleven... sorry 'ten'... kick penalties like they were playing in the back yard with their neighbour's six year-old daughter, all I can say is that I'm glad there's much more to life than that pitiful waste of time! What makes me really angry is I'm sure I could have kicked the penalties better myself... and I'd have done it for a fraction of the price! Football! Thank God it's over for another four years!

Anyway, just got back from the fantastic Thai at The Travellers in Holmesfield near Sheffield... a guaranteed top meal for anyone who likes really authentic Thai food. Yep, I love Thai food... and hate football. That's me... a man with taste!

Maybe all this eating out and downing lots of cold lager (yep, that Singa's nice!) is getting me in the right (physical) shape to really appreciate opera too! Perhaps I should accelerate things and strap a pillow to my belly, don my old tuxedo (from pharmaceutical sales days!), a bow tie, wear a cummerbund and start trying to warble like a poor man's Pavarotti. Nope, I really haven't the voice for it! Unlike the wonderful Scott Davies who has recorded the vocals on the latest track to be featured on the Lyrico website.

Scott who sang in Phantom Of The Opera for 3 years, has recorded both an English and Italian version of an Opera-Ballad crossover song that I co-wrote with Glenn Tollett, founder member of The Enid. Yes, this is a slightly new direction (a bit like some of those penalties!) for me, but it has been a wonderful experience.

This evocative ballad (described by Glenn as a vocal tour de force) has been translated into Italian (under the title Fammi Innamorar'!!) and is being marketed to some of the top international classical/opera/ballad singers... you no doubt know the names! The English version is Love To Love Again. Please just click on the track titles to hear them!

More soon... when I've recovered from the embarrassment of being English! Only joking... The music's great, just shame about the football!

Lyrico website - www.lyrico.co.uk - is 1 year old today!

Yes, believe it or not, the parent website of this Blog is actually celebrating its 1st birthday today! It was on June 16, 2005 that the "Live Build" took place on my Web Design course in Nottingham, and the first draft went across the Atlantic to a server in Atlanta to start demoing some of my co-writes to the world! Is it really a year?!

Since then, the site has been steadily upgraded: it's had at least three face lifts - pretty extreme, even by Hollywood standards! (And even more so for a 1-year-old!) New songs are being added to the site regularly, links updated, and then finally, four or five weeks ago, this Blog was added.

In fact, I'm really proud of the diversity of material that's demoed on the site now: there's some great potential singles there and a range of quality album tracks for the Industry to hear - basically, if you're in the music industry and looking for songs for either yourself, your band, or your artists to record, there's some crackers on the Lyrico site... And that's down to a really big thank you to all the co-writers I've been lucky enough to work with. (You all know who you are!)

Feel free to have a slice of the birthday cake with me... Hear Sample Co-Writes Here!

Alimentary, my dear Watson: Remixes that turn your stomach... Oh, and a Curry

Conversations, over a dupiaza and a couple of beers tonight with my work colleague and friend Peter Scholes, revolved initially around work and then, as the evening progressed, our talk, like the pickle trays, spun off in the direction of music. No strains of sitars and Bollywood here, but rather me having a rant about some complete pillock that the record company had hired to remix Summer Love. The curry will be gone in the morning, but the remix will be crap for all time!

There's an old saying that real producers use (as opposed to some of these talentless tw*ts that seem to infest the music industry nowadays!)... and it's this... "If the song is cr*p then all production does is gild a t*rd!" Well, there are morons out there nowadays that seem to be able to take a genuine gold bar and tear it to pieces (a bit like my Peshwari Naan earlier) and produce something that you really don't want hanging around in the house... certainly nowhere near the stereo! I am (still on this alimentary theme, here) utterly gutted! They've not remixed the track, but re-written it and removed every melodic hook and build-up, so the result is now musically flatter than a witch's proverbial! For all those people I was promising to let know about the imminent release of the single, I shall save my typing fingers... and your money!

Ending on a positive, this whole episode has (apart from making me quite angry) given me the resolve I need to seriously consider setting up my own label, publishing company and even, perhaps, production company. Basically, I just want to work with talented writer/producers like Paul Jeffery, Torgeir Bjordal and Sharon Sullivan and cut out the idiots from the mix!

Recently another shining star has emerged over the horizon. For the last couple of months, on and off, I have been working with Glenn Tollett, founder member of the Enid, co-writing a ballad/opera crossover song. Glenn has produced this with Nick Magnus (a real producer!) and it has been sung by Scott Davies who starred as The Phantom Of The Opera in the West End for three years. Two versions are now about to be unleashed as demos. The English version to my lyric "Love To Love Again" and the Italian version, "Fammi Innamorar'!" Now I have the highest hopes for both versions/mixes of this song... No one who has been out of their head on something (probably Ecstasy!) has been anywhere near it!

As always, feel free to check out the co-writes/songs at www.lyrico.co.uk and email me via the website!

Bank Holiday Update: Florence, Domes, Dogs & Deals

Well, two holiday weekends in a row for me... for a man that tends to be working either on music projects or the day job pretty much 14 to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, it's been quite a lazy old time! Actually, I've just updated the Lyrico website (again!) in the last two days: I've added a sitemap (more of a page list with sub-headings) and also, courtesy of a web-developers' notice board, I got hold of a nifty little program to generate a sitemap in xml code for Google's robots and spiders to crawl all over. (If that sounds Double-Dutch, just think yourself lucky! You really don't want to get involved with web design unless you're an insomniac or hell-bent on a mission to get your songs out there across the world, like me!)...

...Talking of which, I was in Florence with Jayne and her family for three days last week and what a fantastic city it is! I've been before (when I was knee-high to an elephant... about 12 or 13), but it all seemed strangely bigger - and much, much higher! - this time. Apologies to the hundreds of tourists going up the cupola (dome) of the Duomo (cathedral) when after paying my €6 to get absolutely sh*t scared I got my money's worth early! Faced with the prospect of walking out on a 14 inch-wide ledge 250 foot above the marble floor below with nothing but a bit of Perspex and a lot of air between me and the said floor, I got a major attack of the collywobbles! As the down stairs were only accessible by reaching the other side of the dome (which would have meant going out on the ledge), I decided to play my trump card of a broad smile and hugely apologetic voice as I squeezed past the 100 or so camera-laden Japanese tourists and McDonald's-encumbered Americans climbing up! Sorry, but it was much better than the alternative! And speaking of which, I was unfortunate to witness that on the bus on the way in...

Why does it always happen to me? There's me giving my seat up to a frail old Italian lady, and finding the only place I could squeeze my mercifully fairly lanky frame into was now at the very back of the bus. Italy's hot... and so are bus engines. Anyway, two stops later, despite it being like sardines, two of the 'great unwashed' get on with a dog on a rope (yep, you can guess what's coming!). After about ten minutes of avoiding the scruffy dog's tail and snout, the said snout erupts in a plume of vomit. The dog does what 'domestic' animals tend to do and tries to clean it up before its owners have noticed... no, it hasn't got a mop and bucket, just a tongue! Then the little sod starts licking the legs of everyone around! I'm seldom in shorts, but because it was 27 degrees C outside, I was that day. I was still feeling queasy after a pit stop for a good wash and a few beers, and maybe that's why I couldn't cope with the dome! (Well, that's my excuse, anyway!)

Now on to music and deals... I got back to hear some more good news from Paul Jeffery about one of our co-writes, Summer Love. John Keenan of Motiv8 Records (that we assigned the track to) has negotiated a short-term deal (3 months) with a digital (Internet) label to help promote the song. The label/link is http://www.daddyfreshmusic.com/ and they're based in Brighton. It's run by a contact of John's from the days of Fragma (remember Fragma?). The track will be available for sale as a download too. They are also heavily linked with Musicweek and its new download chart, so we're hopeful of some action there... hint, hint!

The track is going to fronted by the glamorous Cheryl Barnes of Angelstar Productions in Scotland... in fact, Cheryl was the session singer we used on the recording anyway and the Motiv8 re-mix should be ready this week. John wants to call the project 'Cinnamon' and Cheryl will, in effect, be Cinnamon.

There'll also be a Biog Page on the Daddy Fresh site about Sundance Songs (which, for the so far uninitiated, is Paul, Decibelle/Sharon Sullivan - our stormin' in-house dance producer, and yours truly). In the meantime we're still very much contactable via SundanceSongs.com of course! (And via www.lyrico.co.uk or mail@lyrico.co.uk)

If you fancy listening to the demo of the track please do here:

Summer Love.

If you like it, please feel free to buy the single as a download from http://www.daddyfreshmusic.com/ when the track is available... I'll keep you posted!

Speak soon! All the very best,

Chris

Lyricist Chris Breen's May 2006 News Blog

Well, this is a first for me! I've put up a few websites and even set up a blog for a songwriter friend I work with (Paul Jeffery), but I never got into the Blog Culture myself... until now!

Apologies for this, but I'm gonna cheat for my first one and copy the news section (updated this week on 15 May 2006) from my Lyrico website (http://www.lyrico.co.uk) and paste it in... after that, I promise, I'll add to the blog live! Anyway, here goes...

STOP PRESS!
Great new pop-rock/Power Pop song "All I Want From Love" by Paul Jeffery and Chris Breen is produced by Norwegian producer Torgeir Bjordal of FUELLED Productions. Track available for male artists to cover* or for licensing. Hear the track now by clicking HERE!
*N.B. Female lyrics are available for All I Want From Love.

Chris has formed a Dance Music top-line and songwriting company with songwriter Paul Jeffery and dance record producer Decibelle/Sharon Sullivan. The company is called Sundance Songs and we specialise in extremely radio-friendly, accessible dance music, writing songs for artists to re-record as covers or, alternatively, using session vocalists and offering tracks as masters for licensing.

The first track to come out of Sundance Songs, Summer Love, gained a huge amount of interest, with discussions relating to licensing and recording happening with 6 or 7 companies in as many weeks. Click here to hear the track! In March negotiations continued and the team are in the process of signing a Licensing and Publishing deal. All being well, the track should be released and be commercially available across Europe this summer!

STOP PRESS AGAIN!

Full licensing deal signed to Motiv8 records on May 8 2006 for Summer Love. Watch this space!

Fresh from Sharon's studio is the another version of Could The Earth Turn? Check out the remix/ re-recording (with Sally Rivers on vocals) HERE!

If you are a Dance Producer, Record label or Recording Artist/Singer working in the field of dance and need top-quality songs and/or top-line melodies & lyrics writing for you, then Paul, Chris and Sharon would like to hear from you now via Sundance Contacts. Also, we are keen to find ambitious - and reliable! - backing track writers/producers in the dance field to work with. Please check out the Sundance Songs Website. Speak to you soon!

Chris is working on a variety of top-line writing projects with songwriter Paul Jeffery. This versatile writing partnership has recently penned a variety of tracks including...

• A mid-tempo Jazz track Little Lost with Saint Etienne bassist, Ian Catt
• A couple of really commercial RnB tracks with writer/producer Andy McNeil (Click on track title to hear Ain't No Doubt)
• Pop and Pop-Rock co-writes with various other writers... tracks are currently in production

Paul and Chris are also building a catalogue of commercial pop, dance, soul and rock songs and are happy to hear from Artists, Songwriters, Producers, Management Companies and Record Labels looking for material and wanting tracks or top-lines commissioned.

Chris has also been working extensively with Norwegian songwriter and producer Torgeir Bjordal.

The latest co-write is an absolute belter! Listen to Independence Day here!

Chris, Sturle Strauss Lisaeth and Torgeir have had an offer of publishing on Nothing's Changed from Leopard Music and are presently in negotiations over that. Also, Welsh Country-Rock singer, Beth Williams, has recorded the feel-good pop-rock track All Because Of You penned by Torgeir and Chris, and this tracks is planned to be included on her forthcoming album Enigma.

Chris is working extensively with Peter Baker and their track Sex & Revolution has been recorded by the top-selling male recording artist in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Fuad Backovic or Deen, who represented Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest.

Speaking of Eurovision, Paul and Chris have penned an absolute must as a Eurovision Song Contest entry! (When you hear it you'll know why!) Please email us if you are looking for an entry next year... English lyrics only, but we're open to offers from any country looking for what we really believe could be a potential winner. Please Email mail@lyrico.co.uk for details!