Jim and I indulged in a blur of Internet activity for a few very intense and stimulating weeks. From the electronic seeds that we sowed in Veritas, we grew them naturally to become the complete unit called popartglory. Joe Foster and Alan McGee are a couple of true and honest geniuses. They will forever be my friends for the belief they showed in us. I drive them mad but I love them both.

It's a great thing that they have done, believing in the music and not the hype. They should be given awards for being truly on the side of music.A band is really only a band when it functions as a unit or as a gang. It's an old adage but the sum of the parts on this album really makes the whole sound. Jasmine Minks are and always will be a band.

We've been together since we were kids and the bonds will be there till we die, no matter what. Kenny and Tom played a very major part on this album; it wouldn't be the same without their input. Martin Keena and all the other musicians helped shape it, however Big Jim deserves masses of credit. He took the project by the shoulders, he took the parts, he took the pieces, he took the pictures, the moods, the snippets, the ideas and the aspirations and shaped them into a work of popart that was a glory to have been involved on. He put a lot of himself into this album.

What the songs mean to me

1. Popartglory - music is for living, life is for loving. Long live life, love and true friends. I will never lose my faith in the ability of a good tune with polemic lyrics to make a difference.

2. 3b48 - wigan casino and the twisted wheel, childhood memories, people we once new.

3. Soul children - rocking rhythms and a gang of minks, I recorded the guitar in Jim's front room in Dunoon, dancing in a bay window recording the guitar whilst bemused passers by smiled in at me. The looks were in sympathy as if I just been let out from the loony bin - happy days are hear again.

4. Freefall - blurred vision, confusion, and too much sun. Sandra Shepherd has a beautiful voice. This is great fun live. We played it at Radio 4 and it rocked.  On the record I detuned the electric guitar down to a D chord and played some picking and wild strumming at the end.  At first we dropped itout of the mix cause it didn't sound right.  However it sounded weaker without it, so it's in their for ambience.

5. Daddy Dog - hear no, speak no, take no shit - just gimme the truth NOW! This was inspired by the genius that is Bobby Gillespie. I don't know what Bobby makes of it, but when in Glasgow, Alan McGee introduced me to his father Robert who has a track record as a great left-winger. A proud moment made even better when he told me he liked what I try to say in this track. In struggle, solidarity and socialism, I believe in good people and that the truth will always find a way out. It's people like Tommy Sheridan that matter, to fuck with the Daily Record and hyped up tabloids who distort the truth. Fuck em all. People and communities matter. We have to help those that need, stand up and be counted.

6. Midnight and I - I wrote this alone with my thoughts and after a bevy of beers. I can be a time bomb waiting to explode! tick...tock...tick...tock...boom...boom...boom

7. Bloored CCR - Inspired by Toronto, the maple leafs and the bluejays but recorded in Newtonhill and Dunoon, Scotland, I hate honest Ed Mirvish's shop but in an obscure way love the tack that goes with it. It's a great tune and one of my favourites on the album.

8. Running ahead - a hoodlum with a bug and a choice few words - jim's a genius.

9. On a Saturday - a mite of a lad fighting in a bag, Aberdeen nil, the other lot 1.

10. Ken's Korubo - the Sweeney rules. Kenny has played in many bands before but I don't think he quite knew what he was getting into with the minks but he's never looked back.

11. Keeping hold of you - a great tune, that gets the toes tapping. I wrote the words many years ago and still stand by the them today.

12. Angel - a song to my mother, backed up by a brilliant tune, but it's a song for all women who have given birth really.

13. 2001 a minks odyssey - Dunoon and a ferry to catch, but emotion, sunshine and space in our ears and our eyes, take me away....

14. Redsky - nothing is left, nothing is here, nothing is sacred, nothing is REAL