"FINDING WAYS TO STAY SOLO..." If being a full-time member of one of England's most influential and productive band's wasn't enough, all four members of Blur have recently spread their creative wings, and embarked on a number of side projects, solo albums and various musical and non-musical collabarations. Quite litterally, in Damon and Graham's case, who recently became the proud fathers of two little girls, born a month apart, no-less. Enough of that though, I'll try and keep this semi-musical. So, if you haven't been keeping up with all things Blurry for a while, below you'll find a brief rundown as to what they've all been upto recently.

GRAHAM COXON Graham's activity away from the Blur camp manifested itself in the form of his 2000 release, The Golden D. Released on Graham's own label, 'Transcopic' The Golden D continues his homage to the American underground, featuring two covers of tracks - Fame + Fortune and That's When I Reach For My Revolver - by Boston post-punk outfit Mission Of Burma. The remaining 10 are all new tracks written by Graham, with the opener, Jamie Thomas a tribute to his favourite skateboarder.

The Golden D

Tracklisting: Jamie Thomas The Fear Satan i Gratan Fame + Fortune My Idea Of Hell The Lake Fags + Failure Leave Me Alone Keep Hope Alive Oochy Woochy Thats when I reach for my Revolver Don't Think About Always Graham played all instruments, performed vocals and produced all of the album's 12 tracks. It was recorded in London's Matrix and Mayfair Studios earlier this year and engineered by Ben Hillier.

The Sky Is Too High

Unlike with his debut solo offering, 1998's 'The Sky Is Too High', Graham actually toured on this album, playing sold out dates in London, Sheffield, Nottingham, Glasgow and hugely successful performances at the Reading/Leeds Festivals in the UK, where he also joined his touring partner Rod Jones' band Idlewild (also on the festival bill) for an encore performance. You can buy and/or listen to Graham's new album at the Transcopic website, www.transcopic.com

Although they have not booked a tour, Coxon hopes dates in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco, Atlanta and Boston can be scheduled early next year to coincide when the other members have time off from their other commitments. Says Graham: "We did a tiny tour -- one show in Scotland and a few in England," Coxon says. "It was really good. I quite like doing it. In a way it's pretty scary, but I really enjoy singing."

DAMON ALBARN Damon, the self-confesed 'workaholic', has as ever, been keeping himself pretty busy of late. Between '97's 'blur' album and the present date, Damon has collaborated with a number of musicians including ex-Weezer bassist and present Rentals vocalist Matt Sharp ('We Have a Technical'), Cornelius ('Star Fruits Surf Rider' remix) and Massive Attack ('Angel' mixes). More recently Damon made an appearance with several other britpoppers (Ash's Tim Wheeler and Elastica's Donna Matthews) on the new Rentals album 'Seven More Minutes'.

The bulk of his activity away from the Blur camp, however, has been in the film industry. 1997 saw Damon's acting debut in Antonia Bird's 'Face' movie, alongside Robert Carlyle (Trainspotting, Angela's Ashes) and Ray Winstone (Quadrophenia, Scum). Damon played a young crook named Jason, his appearances were breif, his final scene; slumped in a seat with his brains sprayed over the wall following a gangland hit. Damon of course, was a pupil at East 15 a drama school in North London, before Blur were even thought of. Says Damon: "I went to drama school so at some point I always felt I would act. I had to really, my mum was very upset when I left drama school. I found it very difficult the first week; then I just sort of allowed myself to relax and it was enjoyable after that. It's very difficult thing performing onstage compared to acting on screen."

Damon teamed up with classical composer Michael Nyman for 1999's 'Ravenous' Soundtrack. The movie for which stared 'Face' co-star Robert Carlyle and director Antonia Bird. Both album and film received mixed reviews, the NME dubbing it the "give-the-monkey-a-violin-and-a-box-of-nails nonsense." Whatever. Undetered, Damon later went on to contribute five new tracks for the Kevin Spacey film 'Ordinary Decent Criminal', and music for the new independent flick '101 Reykjavik', Which Damon describes as a "bleak, mid-winter slacker comedy," with a "pulsating score". As of late Damon is heavily involved in his new project 'Gorillaz'. Click here to read more about Gorillaz.

ALEX JAMES Of all four members of the group, Alex probably made the biggest waves ouside of Blur with his 'Fat Les' side project. With ex-college mate and modern artist Damien Hirst (of 'sliced-cow-in-formaldehyde' fame) and comedian/Groucho Club drinking-buddy Keith Allen, the band has been described as "a private joke gone bizarrely public". Their 'World Cup '98' song 'Vindaloo' was heard everywhere that summer, kept of the UK number 1 spot only by the official World Cup '98 tune 'Three Lions'. Says Alex: "Obviously the records are shit. If I want to make stupid records with a bunch of idiots from the Groucho Club then fuck off, I will." The video for Vindaloo is a take off on the Verve's 'Bittersweet Symphony', with a Richard Ashcroft lookalike strutting down the street, waylaid by Keith Allen, sumo wrestlers, a gang of children, and a barely noticable Alex.

It is said that both EMI and the Blur management were sceptical about Alex's new-found side project, feeling that it undermined the Blur ethic. Graham had this to offer on the success of Vindaloo: "I think it's a successful track to do with football and all that, I just wish Alex wasn't involved in it because it's bloody horrible isn't it...? Just one of those horrible novelty songs that come out whenever there's something daft on...that's a different kind of annoying, that's really annoying."

That same year Fat Les released their christmas single 'Naughty Christmas (Goblin In The Office)' which, to the rest of Blur's amusement, stalled at a rather embarassing 21 in the UK singles chart. 2000 saw the release of Fat Les' third and final offering 'Jerusalem', the band's re-work on the 19th century poet William Blake hymn, which bears the legendary line "England's green and pleasant land". The song was the official Football Association anthem for the Euro 2000 championships held in Belgium and The Netherlands. Despite being officialy endorsed, the song never bettered the success of Vindaloo, reaching a credible number 10 placing in the UK chart.

Long before Fat Les was even drunkenly discussed in a Soho drinking house (probably), a social acquaintance with Stephen Duffy (The Lilac Time) and Justine Welch (Elastica)led to the formation of Alex's first venture away from Blur, 'MeMeMe' and a minor hit with 1996's 'Hanging Around'. If you can no longer find the single, the song can be found on Duffy's 'I Love My Friends' album. More recently, it has been reported that Alex is currently working on a film soundtrack for a British movie about football, which should appear later this year. Watch this space.

DAVE ROWNTREE Dave, along with Idlewild's Rob Jones amd 13/13's Toby McFarland, recently joined fellow band-mate Graham Coxon on his brief but highly successful UK tour, culminating in two great performances at the Reading/Leeds festivals. Dave also played drums on Alex James' Jerusalam re-work, and appears in the video. Dave has not been working on any musical projects, but sources close to the drummer have revealed that he has been working on a series of animations for MTV and the Channel 4 program 'The 11 O'Clock Show'. He continues to immerse himself in computers and at one time was a designer/contributer to the official Blur website. More recently, Dave designed a new interactive game for i-gig.com. Click here to go there.

Chief amongst Dave's passions though is aviation, In January of '95 he started lessons and the following month after bought half-shares in a plane. In August '95 he got his pilots licence. Dave has now moved onto advanaced flight techniques such as flying aided only by instruments, essential in bad weather as an inexperienced pilot's life expectancy in cloud is three minutes. Dave passed on the flying bug to bandmate Alex, who bought one of Dave's older planes and who is currently learning to fly himself.