Re-emergence from hibernation

'Well, what on earth have you been up to?!' I hear you cry... I have, at long last, officially signed to Rann Records! Hurrah! On January 13th I penned my squiggly signature on the dotted line and walked away a very happy chappy indeed. I am currently taking a brief pause, having been in the throws of recording my mini-album for the past while. We will be getting back to recording soon, as we're still planning to launch in the first week of June. So far we have the basics of five of the six tracks complete and we just need to record the weird and joyful, sparkly bits really. I handed in a rough mix of the five tracks as a piece of coursework for my degree (oh yes, that's right, I'm not just a pretty face...) and it sounds flipping tremendous, even if I do say so myself. It's actually not possible to rave about my producer Martin enough. He's the best thing since sliced bread*. Fuzz, my wonderful designer, has been beavering away for weeks on end and has finished the art work - woot and yay! He's worked veryvery hard, bless 'im, as I had a fairly specific idea of what I wanted. He busted his butt to achieve it and the results are fab. As you may have noticed in the band section of my page, we have a new addition to the family; the venerable Scotty Jones. He played bass on the mini-album and decided he liked it so much he would stay. It's nice having him - feels comfortable somehow, like he was always meant to be there. Also, Gruff has decided that he would like a permanent position as one of the Hattie Snooks 'Lads'. Happy days! I'm feeling rather pleased with myself that I managed to steal the whole rhythm section of another band (The Beautiful Word - check them out in my top friends). We have played various gigs over the past few months (I even made it home to dear old Andover) and I'm hoping this whole actually performing thing will become a bit more regular now. A novel idea... I shall endeavour to update the Myspace of all new shows. Exremely excited about the July one - do come along if you can. If you're in the habit of looking at my Myspace page, you may have also noticed the big ol' Twitter box that has appeared in the About Me section. If you're on Twitter feel free to add me, my name is hattiesnooks. Maybe send me an @message to get me to follow you back so I know you're not some nasty hackery stalkery person? Ta. Ooh! Just remembered! We (me and James-Rann-of-Rann-Records) are going to order some excitingly wonderful merchandise for y'all. We shall have Hattie Snooks scented candles (available in coffee, cinnamon and vanilla), recycled pin badges and fairtrade chocolate. All with my name logo stamped on them. Slightly surreal, but very cool I'm sure you'll agree... I've been writing too. Five new songs: Skinny Latte; Slowly, Slowly; Demons; Sweet (which isn't finished, but is shaping up well) and The Fool (which I'm not sure about yet). Of course, many other things have happened in my blogging absence including Christmas, New Year, Easter and May Day, all of which were celebrated by me in various wonderful ways and I hope you did likewise. As of late I have been concentrating on finishing my degree. I've also been writing with some other fabulous music makers, who I'll tell you about at a later date. Such a lot of writing! I hope this offering satiates you, the gods of Myspace fortune, who may have felt a bit rejected by my lack of blogging.