Squeeze, John Cooper Clarke

Squeeze, the enduring British pop act whose songs have tenderly and wittily chronicled life and love stretching across four decades, are to play an extensive UK tour in the autumn – their first, as a band, for three years.

As well as a vast catalogue including hits such as Cools For Cats, Up The Junction and Tempted, it will include songs from forthcoming album From The Cradle To The Grave, which marks their first collection of new tracks since 1998.

Squeeze have long been a captivating live act with an array of chart hits - which also includes the likes of Take Me I’m Yours, Slap And Tickle and Pulling Mussels (From The Shell) - but for this tour there is a further treat with new tracks which will appear on From The Cradle To The Grave. Some of the songs, including the title track, were taking shape as the band performed their Pop-Up Shop tour in 2012 and later this year they will be the basis for their first album of all-new material since Domino in 1998.

Support on the tour will come from poet and punk godfather Dr John Cooper Clarke, the bard of Salford. John shot to fame in the 1970s for his quickfire delivery of dry, biting and hilarious satirical verse, touring with the likes of The Clash and Sex Pistols. The tousled, raven-haired creator of (I Married A) Monster From Outer Space, Evidently Chickentown and Beasley Street has gone on to collaborate with Arctic Monkeys and been a panellist on BBC1’s Have I Got News For You. He recently recorded a new version of 1960s hit MacArthur Park with Hugh Cornwell and Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson.