August 15th 2008: Fish wrote: "Dear all,
I'm sad to say that I have to announce that I have decided to call it a day on Fish TV. It was a great idea but costs of creating the programmes were greater than the income from subscriptions and with so much stuff available on YouTube and the like, difficult to attract people to sign up.
I still have a lot of material which I hope to incorporate into the remasters as a bonus DVD with accompanying interviews etc. That's something I am looking into at the end of the year.
Just to say thanks to Andy and Jeff and all the guys at AVP for putting all the work in over the last year. We gave it a good try but in the end we all had to agree that financially it wasn't making sense.
Thanks to all of you who subscribed and hope you had some fun watching the clips and interviews!
As you have probably read they are no longer taking subscriptions and anyone who has already subscribed will be refunded in full (payments made during August) by the suppliers.
Again thanks for watching.
All the best
Onkel Fish xx"
August 11th 2008: During the weekend of the 9th and 10th of August, the web site and Shop were unavailable due to server downtime. The web site was restored on Sunday 10th but the Shop continued to have issues and was taken offline for essential maintenance. This morning, when Elspeth arrived in the office, the Shop was restored to full working order. We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.
August 2008: The new bass player is Gavin Dickie, who appeared with Fish in Poland in 1995 and plays regularly with Frank in the Border Boogie Band.
July 2008: All '13th Star' vinyl pre-orders have now been shipped.
This Double Vinyl Gatefold includes reworked artwork (both Dark Star and Angel/Boat designs in different versions) and specially redesigned labels. The discs are high quality 180gm vinyl, the track listing is the same as the CD on sides 1-3 with side 4 made up of live material from the tour - "Circle Line" from the Rome show last year with "Dark Star" and "13th Star" from The Amsterdam Paradiso in March. Mastered by Calum Malcolm, limited edition of 2000.
June 2008: From
Planet Rock:
"It's been another good week here at Planet Rock as two of our shows picked up awards at the
New York Festivals Radio Broadcasting Awards. Fish added a Gold Award to his Silver at the Sonys for his outstanding 'Fish On Friday' series. And Gary Moore also picked up a Gold Award for his much loved 'Bluespower' shows. Fish, who is touring in the US at the moment, was on hand to pick up both of the awards for us at the lavish ceremony on the Tribeca Rooftop in New York City. A huge congratulations to both Gary and Fish for their very well deserved awards."
June 2008: On Saturday June 21st at 7pm (Pacific time),
Prog'opolis celebrate their 100th episode with an exclusive interview wish Fish, recorded June 7th in San Francisco. If you can't listen live,
the podcast will also be available for download the following day.
June 2008: The June
Fish TV features:
Banger racing events 1989 (3min 07sec)
Fish USA tour 1997 (5min 20sec)
Brunei Solo gig 2002 (21min 10sec)
Paradiso, Amsterdam 22.3.08:
'Slainthe Mhath'/'Circle Line' (12min 10sec)
'Square Go' (5min 11sec)
'Open Water'/'So Fellini' (9min 58sec)
'The Last Straw' (9min 15sec)
4th June 2008: From
Planet Rock: "Planet Rock's future is now secure. We have been purchased by life long rock and radio fan Malcolm Bluemel and his consortium supported by our very own Tony Iommi, Ian Anderson, Gary Moore, and Fish, saving Planet Rock from certain closure. In a deal finalised earlier today Malcolm takes control of the station with immediate effect, there will be no break in transmission or changes in programming."
There's also an article on
the BBC web site.
June 2008: Gagliarchives featured an exclusive interview with Fish on May 31st, repeated on June 3rd (88.9FM/95.1FM/100.7 Philadelphia, PA; Delaware Valley Region). Fish discussed 13th Star, the upcoming tour and his special performance at the upcoming North East Art Rock Festival. This is now
available as a Podcast.
KCLA Hollywood's weekly Rock Radio Show
Dave's Den featured a phone interview with Fish on 7th June at 5pm.
June 2008: Baard Trones is one of Fish's oldest mates in Norway; he has been managing and coaching kickboxer Danny Nordays for the last 10 years. Baard is an ex world champion himself. Fish met them at Baard's gym in Bergen when he went up to sing with Chris Thomson last month, Danny was training for the biggest fight of his life in Stockholm the outcome of which would determine if he would fight in the K1 world tournament in Tokyo in September. There was a full page article in the sports section of the Bergen newspaper about Fish's visit. Baard wanted some intro music for Danny's entrance to the ring in front of a capacity crowd of over 8000 people. Steve Vantsis duly obliged with a short edit of "Square Go" which both Baard and Danny loved. His entrance was - to say the least - dynamic!
After years of training together Danny finally made the big time and KO'd the guy in two rounds and is now ecstatic at getting the chance to take the World Stage in Japan.
Congratulations to them both and fingers crossed for the World Championship in Tokyo in front of 18,000 fight fans!
29th May 2008: Fish wrote:
"I received the test pressings yesterday from the vinyl plant and after listening to them with Calum Malcolm I decided to order a remaster as I felt they could be slightly improved. It was a strange sensation listening to white labels again after so long and a great feeling laying them on a turntable and hearing the stylus make contact. The sound is glorious! I think the vinyl editions of the album will be well received! ;-)
I do however have a slight problem as with the remaster it means I won't get the albums here until mid June.
As I promised to sign them and with my obvious geographical disposition next month this means that they won't be available as signed copies until July.
Anyone wanting an unsigned album early can notify Elspeth at the office or on any order placed from today. Otherwise I will hold off sending until I sign them on my return.
Apologies for the delay but as this is a special release I want it to be perfect.
Other news is that I am re-releasing the "Return to Childhood" DVD on Chocolate Frog Records. The film was originally shot on High Definition and we have recovered that format from the director Mike Cockayne. Mike is planning to put together the HD version in the coming weeks for a release late Summer.
I will be multi-camera filming at Nearfest in the US and at Loreley for a future release from the 13th Star tour which together with footage already shot and other items to be filmed should provide me with enough material for projects for the end of the year.
After discussion with my promotions team the Zoe 25 single is being put back to link in with touring activities in the Autumn.
Sorry I've been quiet of late but it has been a particularly busy and stressful time recently which I will explain in a coming blog.
The US tour has taken up most of our time and to put it in focus I finally got my Visa only yesterday after a visit to the US embassy in London! Now I am watching for the postman as I leave for Mexico on Tuesday for a record company conference before flying to San Francisco on Friday.
Thanks for supporting this tour and especially for getting behind the advance merchandise that is the backbone of the entire US adventure.
It's all good! ;-)
love Onkel Fish"
May 2008: The
Planet Rock show 'Fish on Fridays' won the Silver award in the 'Music Broadcaster of the Year' category of the
Sony Radio Academy Awards 2008. The description is: "Fish has effortlessly metamorphosed from a great musician into a very natural presenter with an immensely personal style of broadcasting which magnetically draws the listener in."
Planet Rock also won the Gold award for
Digital Station of the Year and is descibed as "A station with extraordinary passion, knowledge, surprise and depth."
May 2008: The May
Fish TV features:
National Theatre, Bern - 22.3.93
'Fearless'/'Big Wedge'/'Boston Tea Party' (13min 26sec)
'Credo'/'Family Business' (13min 16sec)
'View From The Hill'/'He Knows You Know'/'She Chameleon'/'Kayleigh' (14min 10sec)
'White Russian'/'The Company' (11min 38sec)
'Just Good Friends'/'Jeepster'/'Hold Your Head Up'/'Lucky' (18min 00sec)
'Sugar Mice (acoustic)'/'Internal Exile' (12min 48sec)
'Solo'/'Cliche'/'The Last Straw' (18min 07sec)
May 2008: The band performed an acoustic session for
Bob Harris on May 13th
April 2008: The April
Fish TV features:
Interviews: Fish interview - March 2008 (10min 57sec)
Steve Interview - March 2008 (4min 21sec)
Frank interview - March 2008 (4min 26sec)
The making of 'A Gentleman's Excuse Me' video (10min 56sec)
Leeds Cockpit, 10.3.08 - 'Zoe 25' (9min 32sec), 'Arc of the Curve' (5min 04sec)
April 2008: Fish appeared on Ken Bruce's BBC Radio 2 show every day between April 28th to May 2nd playing the 'Tracks of my Years'. The tracks he chose were:
Monday: I Can See For Miles - The Who, Chuck E's In Love - Rickie Lee Jones
Tuesday: Wonderous Stories - Yes, Stand By Me - John Lennon
Wednesday: Lady Eleanor - Lindisfarne, Reelin' In The Years - Steely Dan
Thursday: My Brother Jake - Free, Stay With Me - The Faces
Friday: Life's Been Good - Joe Walsh, Street Fighting Man - The Rolling Stones
April 2008: The collection for Fish's birthday present raised the amazing sum of £720! £700 of that was converted into Dobbies Garden Centre vouchers, and the remaining £20 bought a growing double orchid. He was delighted with both!
Photos are now on this site.
Fish said: "I just want to say a huge thankyou for all your best wishes and thoughts over the weekend.
"I had a fantastic birthday with some special friends and family.
"I was really touched by your gift and want to let you know that it will be going towards an irrigation system for the garden.
"So every time I am away on tour you will all be watering my plants :-D
"Thanks for being out there and contributing so much to making my life special, you are a great bunch of people and I am glad to be part of all this."
Forum message
April 2008: '13th Star' was voted
10th best album of 2007 by DPRP. Mark Wilkinson was voted 3rd in the 'Best Artwork of 2007' section for his stunning art for the same album.
April 2008: On April 1st (no joke!), Fish wrote to
the Forum:
"Just got an email from the German agents who were dealing with me for the Classics in Rock gig at the Ahoy in Rotterdam on the 12th April to tell me the gig has been cancelled due to poor ticket sales.
"It was a very expensive venture and perhaps a bit too ambitious but I am disappointed not to sing 'Kayleigh' and 'Gentleman's' with the full orchestra and 'Incommunicado' with the SAS band and horn section etc."
April 2008: Fish was featured in
issue 12 of the Italian music magazine Wonderous Stories. Fish was on the cover of the magazine and it contained a 9 page interview.
March 2008: There was an article in OK magazine about the
ChildLine fundraising gig.
March 2008: The March
Fish TV features:
Interviews: End of tour Party (7min 38sec)
13th Star and The New Single (12min 17sec)
The Future (16min 35sec)
Italian Promotional Day - FNAC Milan (6min 50sec)
Tivoli, Utrecht, Holland - Fan Convention 28.01.2001 - 'Long Cold Day' (5min 28sec), 'Our Smile' (5min 40sec)
Volkhaus, Zurich 23.3.1993 - 'Family Business' (5min 32sec), 'Credo' (6min 59sec)
March 2008: There were two special
Planet Rock 'Fish on Friday' shows on March 21st and 24th
March 2008: On Wednesday 26th March from 10-12pm the GTFM Rockshow hosted by Andy Fox broadcast an interview with Fish. The big man talked about 13th Star, the tour, the Marillion reunion rumour mill and his plans for the future.
March 2008: An article featuring Fish and
Zoe 25 appeared in
The Sun newspaper (UK) on March 18th. Please note that this web page should only be viewed by adults and may not be suitable for viewing via a workplace computer.
February 2008: Fish appeared on the Stuart Maconie show on BBC Radio 2 on Saturday 23rd February at 2.30pm. Fish was the 'Personal Shopper' and his choices were: Book - Michael Herr - Dispatches, CD - Joni Mitchell - Travelogue, DVD - Apocalypse Now (Redux)
February 2008: Fish appeared on GMTV (ITV) on Thursday February 21st (with Bob Harris)
February 2008: The February
Fish TV features:
Hello from Fish (44sec)
13th Star and Tour Interview (17min 07sec)
Fish On Vietnam (11min 19sec)
Fish On Touring (5min 14sec)
Royal Albert Hall 9.7.90 - 'Big Wedge' / 'Assassing' (11min 11sec), 'Heart Of Lothian' (3min 16sec)
Le Spectrum, Montreal, Canada 3.8.97 - 'The Company' (3min 47sec), 'Lavender' (9min 17sec)
St Marys Church, Haddington 28.8.99 - 'Tumbledown' (5min 34sec), 'Somebody Special' (4min 28sec)
February 2008: If you have any queries about
Fish Downloads, please send them to
Mark Debenham as we're unable to help directly.
February 2008: "13th Star" is the new Fish studio album featuring ten original tracks - "Circle Line", "Square Go", "Miles de Besos", "Zöe 25", "Arc of the Curve", "Manchmal", "Openwater", "Dark Star", "Where in the World?" and "13th Star".
Produced by Calum Malcolm (Blue Nile/Prefab Sprout/Simple Minds/Nazareth) the album is released as a 10,000 limited edition CD in a 3 panel digipak together with a bonus DVD of "The Making of 13th Star" (64 mins). The digipak is provided in a slipcase packaging with a spot varnished Fish logo and a 20 page full colour booklet all featuring original artwork by Mark Wilkinson. 3D graphics of the packaging can be seen on
the artwork page.
"13th Star" is available now. The album costs £14.99 plus VAT and postage.
This limited edition album is only available through our mail order service and at the merchandising stall on
tour. It was released to retail on February 11th (not the limited edition packaging) and
is also available for download.
"Arc of the Curve" will be released to retail as a single on March 3rd 2008, and there will also be a download version available which will include three live tracks recorded in Rome in 2007.
January 2008: The January
Fish TV features:
European Tour 2007 - Tour Blog (14min 47sec)
Pratteln Switzerland November 2007 - 'Slainthe Mhath' (5min 16sec)
Latvia 1995 - Tour Diary (09min 40sec)
Poland October 2007 - 'Hotel Hobbies', 'Warm Wet Circles', 'That Time of the Night' (08min 54sec)
The Junction Cambridge October 2007 - 'White Russian' (07min 03sec)
January 2008: Frank wrote: "May l, thru your web pages, pass on my thanks to all those who took the time and trouble to send me their love and thoughts while I was being looked after and fixed in the Borders General Hospital and Edinburgh Royal. Reading thru those messages was quite moving and inspiring and really gives me the desire to get out and keep on Fishin'!
Also, Sue and I would like to announce that, after 16 yrs together, we'll be getting married on 11th Jan in a quiet registry office ceremony (about time eh?) and we'll be having a British Heart Foundation fund raising event that evening with my band the Border Boogie Band and guests inc. John Renbourn etc. Tickets only £5 and reservable from
frankusherguitars.co.uk ('Contact Frank' page) or 01896 870440 (answerfone) but be prepared to be separated from the rest of the contents of your wallets thru raffles, collections etc....! Sadly, tickets will be strictly limited as the hall is only licenced for 120 people!"
You can also make a donation via
Frank and Sue's page on BHF.
January 2008: Planet Rock broadcast the 'Best of Fish on Friday' on the 25th of January at 6pm. They also had a '
Best of Live Set Lists' show on the 19th at 6pm which - amongst others - have featured Fish, The Answer, Thunder, Gary Moore and Jethro Tull.