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