A Summer Of Discontent

"What-ho Frosties, a few items of parish news, most of which is largely bad I'm afraid...

First off, Vice Admiral Jowitt is leaving our shores to pastures new. He's been super busy setting up his new business this year and having to play bass and tour manage Frost*, IQ and generally be a prog rock god in addition to his commitments to his new venture has taken it's toll on the poor thing so he needs to go and sit in a darkened room with a hot compress and a copy of Tatler until further notice. He's brought a country ton of goodness, enthusiasm and order to Frost* over the years and I, we, them and me want to say a big thank you to him and wish him extremely well for the future.

A Mr J Jowitt, 24, of Stourbridge writes ­

"Blimey, has it been over three years?! I'm as proud as Punch to have been involved in Frost*, but it's time to move on to other things. As well as my new business in real life, which is taking up a lot of my time at the moment, I've been talking about doing something myself for ages - it's high time I did it. Or else how am I ever going to get back to RoSFest next year..? Thanks to Jem, John, Dec Andy and everyone involved in the band for a great ride, and I look forward to see where the band goes next. Anywhere it blooming well wants to, I reckon.

Oh, and a big thank you and goodbye too from The Lovely Deb. There is no truth in the rumour that we're running off together, honest..."

Obviously this puts a dampener on the DVD I was planning so for the time being, that idea is has been put in a box marked "To Do", but it will happen at some point, it's too good an idea (in my humble opinion) for it not to see the light of day.

Replacing JJ for the 2 UK Dream Theater shows will be the lithe and finely detailed Mr Nathan King, son of the 80's pop band King who had a number 2 hit in 1985 with "Love and Pride".

Some of you will know Nathan from his role as stunt double for Lee Pomeroy in It Bites of late so I'm sure you'll join me in throwing welcoming biscuits at him at the earliest opportunity and also join me in welcoming back Andy Edwards into our moist live crevice. It'll be good to have him back.

The other bit of bad news is that we've had to cancel our planned appearances with Dream Theater in Lisbon and Munich. Partly down to tour manager issues (i.e. we haven't got one any more and I haven't got time to start being one) and also because Alex Thomas (our replacement TBE for these 2 shows) is very busy with Squarepusher commitments and preparations for Glastonbury throughout June. Add that to my already fairly intense work commitments also in June and it was becoming clear that meaningful rehearsals and effective gig co-ordination were not going to be possible. Andy can't do the shows, Nick D'Virigilo can, but he lives 6,000 miles away and flying him all that way to play for 40 minutes seemed a little impractical not to mention cost prohibitive. I couldn't face teaching a fourth drummer how to play the set and so it seemed the writing was on the wall.

I do sincerely and truly apologise to any Frosties that were planning on coming to see us and for the short notice of this cancellation. I'm gutted we won't be able to make it out to play for you and that I won't get to see Lisbon or Munich after all.

Obviously Dream Theater will still be appearing and the gigs will still be going ahead without us.

On a more positive note, the live album recorded at RoSFest is now finished and sounding jolly good so that should be out in the next couple of months, record companies permitting.

Well that's all for now, I'm very sorry I couldn't be the bearer of better news, but we seem due for our yearly dose of misfortune once again."