Strawberry Icecream Champagne

People always ask me what's the inspiration behind my music and I always answer - People and romance.

People and their stories; stories of love and old-fashioned romance. Sometimes being in love can be so painful but the pain can be good too and it's helped me write a lot of songs this way.

I like writing old-fashioned love songs, partly because that's what I hear inside, and partly to fill a big hole in my current music collection. I love old romantic jazz music and sitting down by the fire watching a musical with Fred Astaire or an old black and white with Marlene Dietrich.

A song that I wrote recently called Strawberry Icecream Champagne is an old-fashioned love song inspired by Cole Porter and Natalie Wood. It's a song about all the delicious feelings you get when you're with that special person, you go to a theatre show and then you might go for a boat ride down the moonlit river. For me music is all about that magic, in taking you away to a special place where you can do anything.

Tuan x

Elliott Smith

Sometimes I think Elliott Smith had it easy,
looking down that dark abyss
what did you see
Elliot Smith

nothing but a big gaping hole
where
your
life
could have
(should have)
been.

Stupid and brave
you were
were you

WERE YOU

(yes)

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who came last night to The Regal Rooms in Hammersmith. It was a fantastic night and I enjoyed every minute of it and I hope you did too.

The Band lineup:

Noel Langley - Flugelhorn
Gavin Scott - Double Bass
Moi - Piano and Classical Guitar.

The six song set ran as the following:

1. Strawberry Icecream Champagne
2. Just Five Days
3. My Secret Love
4. This Love-sick Heart
5. London Town
6. Midnight Carnival Show

The Regal Rooms is a beautiful venue in West London and is run by the most excellent Tony Moore who was a brilliant host and a magician too....

Love on this cold winter's day,

tuan x

'My Secret Love' debut album available to order here

Ah, there you are! You’re just in time.

I’ve been away for a while dusting cobwebs and making curtains for my new house here at http://www.tuanmac.com/, the welcome mat is in place and there’s a fresh pot of tea on the table with some lovely cherry jam tarts I baked earlier, please won’t you draw up a seat?...

The album is finished and polished why you can almost see your face reflected in it. Your face, my face, your feelings, my feelings. We are in this together after all, did you really think that we are only strangers? Tsk tsk, no no, we are friends who are simply waiting to meet, waiting for the planets to align until our paths cross...

There are ten songs on the CD. Think of them as ten chapters, ten stories, ten characters of which none could exist without the other. Jekyll and Hyde, light and shadow, sad and merry, flip sides of the same coin – just make sure you choose the right coin in the first place - Ah but you have!

To paraphrase an old dear friend of mine ‘You have already won the Golden Ticket my dear child I congratulate you!’

Now be sure to follow the yellow brick road, follow follow follow.....all the way to here

If you happen to be in doubt just follow your heart for as you know, love never lies.

The autumnal rains are falling and the clouds sweep fast across the sky.

Hurry and I will see you there.

tuan x

‘My Secret Love’ now available here, released by House on the Hill Records.

Autumn England

If I could translate my name for you into English it would mean Autumn England. I was born on an autumn day in this country they call England.

The autumn rain is here - I can hear it pattering against my windowpane. It reminds me of a song I used to sing when I was ten years old:

'Autumn days when the grass is jewelled
and the silk inside a chestnut shell
Jetplanes meeting in the air to be refuelled
All these things I love so well

Perhaps you know it?

My birthday falls on the day of the full moon this coming week and I can feel an electricity in the air.

I don't think I'll be changing into a wolf at any point but if I do I'll let you know. Do I believe in that stuff? A lot of people don't. But I can tell you what I do believe in.

I believe in you
I believe in me
I believe in people
I believe in stories
I believe in music
I believe in magic
I believe in the stars
I believe that I am the universe
and I believe that you are the universe.

Halloween

Tonight the entire village's electricity cut out and we were plunged into darkness for a couple of hours.

But really, what did I expect?..

Debut album mastered

I am delighted to say that the album has been finished and mastered and I'm really happy with the tracks. The album was mastered by Tim Debney and he did a great job. Me and my producer Glenn Keiles went over together and spend the day with him whilst he worked his magic and he also showed me his lacquer vinyl cutter, that was super cool, it looks a bit like a record player only it cuts the master record before you ship it off to get pressed.

There will be 10 tracks on the album - some of them are piano-based, some have a big orchestral backing, some are guitar led. I have my favourites on there, but in a way they've all been my favourites one time or another depending on what mood I'm in.

A lot of the album has been inspired by films and lifestories; films that I have seen, films that I have imagined, stories of people I have met and have yet to meet.


I co-produced my album with two great producers - Benjamin Thomas and Glenn Keiles who are each brilliant in their own right.

In this picture we are in Glenn's studio, you can see Glenn on the left and Gavin Scott (double bass player - right) laying down a bass track for one of my songs, only here he's playing electric bass.

You can't see the main studio in here its just the control room, on the right there's a glass panel and then you can see the main recording room where I did all my vocals and the rhythm section, brass and the strings recorded their bits.

But you will see and hear all of this soon enough

tuan x

It's only the beginning..

Hi there

I would have written sooner but the ink ran out from my ink pot and then my quill decided to disintegrate along the way. Bah!

I have been superbusy since we last corresponded my dears (yes i realise this is a bit of a one way correspondence but please humour me) the album artwork is being finalised (why do these things take so long, WHYYYYYY because i am a fussy so-and-so - that is why! ah you know how we women are, we can barely decide which colour shoes to wear let alone which album pics to use! - This is a more common dilemma than you think)

I have got a new classical guitar and have been playing that, its a strange beast indeed it is so much more sensitive than my steel string i'm not sure if we're going to be good friends yet, only time will tell. I study it warily, it is like a hollow beast mocking me I WILL OVERCOME YOU o nylon-stringed creature even if it takes me the rest of my life....

On the music front am listening to Judy Garland and of course Al Bowlly.

Al is never far from my record player he's my one true dependant that I can rely on when times are low especially now that winter's coming in...Judy Garland's sweet, I was watching The Wizard of Oz yesterday and I had forgotten just what an amazing film that was, the colours are out of this world, they just pop off the screen and the orchestration makes my knees go wobbly. God Bless ya all, the scarecrow's my favourite, although there's something about the lion that makes me want to pick him up and shake him!!!(Please no calling the RSPCA he's not real)

On the book front well, Im reading 3 books by Colin Wilson, who is giving me more of an education than I ever got at school....oh and my Showcase Presents - the House of Secrets.


The book is a compilation of old American horror comics from the 1970s, the illustrations are brilliant and the storytelling is even tighter! If you ever want some tips on writing a short story or a song or something that requires a tight concise narrative with interesting visuals I highly recommend you pick up an old comic book

ENOUGH I have said too much, now you know all my secrets...


tuan x

High on a hill lived a lonely....

No no no its not the song you're thinking of! I am not a goatherd and neither is Igor my assistant...

Just to let you know I will be moving all my premises over to my new house and record label House on the Hill Records Ltd.

Igor the Gatekeeper will welcome you there if you ever pop on over. The address is http://www.houseonthehillrecords.com/ You can write to Igor at Igor@houseonthehillrecords.com, I always find it best to make an appointment first he can be a bit off with strangers and might set the hounds of hell onto you. That's assuming you get past the Black Knight first...

I accept all types of correspondence, bat and pigeon post and have even started to accept electro-magnetic thought waves although as this is a relatively new form of communication for me, the message may get muddled up so I cannot guarantee a reply....

A housewarming party will be held on the stroke of Midnight, Ive hired in a Midnight Carnival Ghost Band, Ive heard they are very good indeed...Midnight revelries will continue in the cornfields, burning torches will be provided.

I look forward to your RSVP

Your most reverent host

Madame Tuan Mac

Sunlight is my friend

Not far from me, a few miles down the road there's a couple of old wrecks of houses, the fronts are falling off, theyre all boarded up and completely overgrown. Its pretty obvious you don't need a sign saying DO NOT TRESPASS and not many people would have except for me of course cos a) I didnt have much to do that day and b) Im a nosy sonofabit..AHEM!

What I meant was ..erm..yeah im really drawn to old houses, the more of a wreck the better. And Ive passed this old house a bunch of times and I always wanted to go and take a look but common sense got the better of me and anyway it looked really scary, really sad and dead (if a house can look dead).

So anyway this time I decided to do something about it and have a sneaky peek and who knows what was inside, you know people leave the strangest things behind when they move and there could have been like an old diary or doll or even an old chest full of memorabilia so I figured the idea of treasure was enough of a bait.

So I went and climbed over the fence, it wasnt too difficult although these cars kept driving by so I had to do it as quickly as possible and look innocent at the same time.

I should have brought my camera but i didnt, anyway it would have just slowed me down cos i needed my hands free. I managed to find one house where the window had all smashed in so I climbed in that way only to find that the floor had almost completely caved in and the house was standing above a hollow pit!

So the whole place is a dirty dusty disused mess and i start walking over the broken glass and creaky floorboards and make my way into the hall. Now I have to say at this point I was getting really creepd out cos there was this really funny feeling I was getting and everything was starting to look really ominous.

Im now in the hallway looking up the stairs and theres cobwebs everywhere and broken pottery and glass and suddenly i head this big sound behind me like someone or something had just fallen onto the floor but I turned around and there was nothing there! So i think, ok maybe a cat's gotten in or something so I got back to check but there's still nothing and the whole time the hairs on the back of my neck are rising and Im starting to feel panicky.

And Im not the type of person to get the jitters, I watch enough horror movies to think they're a joke but I just got this horrid horrid feeling and even now everytime I think of that house and the spooky staircase I start to get really jittery and panicky inside.

And I was feeling so spooked that I just legged it out of there as quick as possible and ran home and had a cup of tea and listened to Womans hour on Radio 4 and I managed to calm down but I can't help thinking WHAT WAS UPSTAIRS and it's been on my mind ever since.

Do I believe in ghosts, yes definitely but the funny thing is I never got the feeling that the house was haunted, rather it felt like the HOUSE ITSELF was some kind of entity does that make sense? Maybe it was warning me to get out, I know I have a big imagination but I really felt something. You can scoff, but if you had been in there you would have got the heebiejeebies too!
I might go back there and take some pictures so you can see what I mean. I'll have to psych myself up for it. It will be a mission. I'll try and go on a bright sunny day, sunlight is my friend. I will chant this to myself. Sunlight is my friend, sunlight is my friend...

EXTRA EXTRA: Creepy House in the Daylight

Here is a picture of the house, I went back a few weeks later and took a picture of it in the day. It looks so harmless, almost sad and lonely, do you not think Reader?..Hmmm or maybe not. You can never tell with these sort of houses. They say one thing and mean another...


May ye who read these journals bear witness and take note.