Iain has been nominated for Best Song Musically and Lyrically at the 2013 Ivor Novello Awards for Jake Bugg's 'Two Fingers', written by Jake and Iain.

Iain received an Ivor Novello Award in 2005 for Snow Patrol's album 'Final Straw'. The Ivor Novello Awards represent the highest award for songwriters in the UK.

Check out the nominations here.

For the last year I've been collaborating with the immensely talented young Jake Bugg and I'm proud to announce the release of his eponymous debut out today on Mercury Records.

We've worked together on a number of tracks on the record and it's an exciting slice of folk and rock'n roll rolled into one. Proud to be a part of it.

Check out the 9/10 NME review of the album HERE

If you ever made it down to Ambridge Acoustic Review (a show I put on in the beautiful surrounds of St Luke's Church W Holloway) then you'll want to make it along to The Steeplejack Sessions. Same venue, same idea, new trousers and fresh beer. It's going to be special - the line up is silly it's so good...

we have Boxes (Carey Willetts of Athlete's brand new acousto-melodious-raw loop-song party),
Foreign Slippers (Sweden's Gabi Froden who's voice has been compared to heaven and something better than heaven)
Luke Sital-Singh (so hotly tipped it's dangerous, Guardian were raving about him last week, sings from a place most of us dream about)
And me...

I'd like to provide you with links to all the above but tbh I wanna go try and write a song. Come to our show, it will be unmissable... get tickets here...

http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/3822972614/efblike

So one good reason why I haven't been out playing live, nor made a new record of my own (as yet) is that I've been producing the incredibly talented Jake Bugg. Our latest track 'Taste It' is Fearne Cotton's Big Thing on Radio one this week and our last track together 'Lightning Bolt' enjoyed four Radio One 'single of the week's. Things are building in amazing ways for Jake - Donovan, Noel Gallagher, Tim Burgess, Chris Martin are all big fans - his album will be out Oct 2012.

Check out the video for Taste It here

400 crazy lucky competition winners from across the world are invited to Bushmills Live this week on the 20 and 21st June. The line up includes Benjamin Francis Leftwich, Marcus Foster, The Staves, General Fiasco, David C Clements, Snow Patrol, Foy Vance, Elijah Wood.

I'll be playing with the band, and enjoying celebrating my birthday (!?) in the oldest distillery in the world with a whole heap of music-makin pals. Doesn't get better!

On top of that, tune in to Radio 1, Absolute, XFM, or 6 Music to hear Jake Bugg's Lightning Bolt which I played on, recorded and produced for the extraordinary Notthingham wunderkind! It's playlisted on these stations.