Tuesday, December 22, 2009

London Calling

I was trying real hard to find the live show We were promised Jetpacks played @ London Calling 2009

Found it, and there's loads more like

danana....
Fight like apes
Wild beats

Just nuff innit

watch

jr

http://3voor12.vpro.nl/tv/#/41129336/42818568/3

Saturday, December 19, 2009

denmark, tokyo, leeds?

omg right i know i know i know i know qwwe havnt done a blog for ages and you probably think we've stopped caring. NOT TRUE!

we've been super busy
here is the last 4 weeks checklist. you'll have to imagine the checks. or, ticks.

european tour. england tour. japanese tour. ireland tour.
3 festivals, the biggest nightclub in asia, the smallest pub in hamburg. £140 papa johns bill. 1 new guitar. 1 lost camera. 2500 people on saturday, 7 on monday. hotels, motels, chalets, floors, it feels like we mostly slept in seats. 2 x 12hour flights. 4 x 18 hour drives. 3 different splitters. (not cos we kill splitters, but each one did die a little at some point)

anyway yeh we been super busy. and and some point soon we'll write more about it. we're pretty much off till february and there'll be a little christmas present from us to you presently. little, no hopes raised plz.

also.

the next single off ofo fof our album will be Every Cloakroom Ever.
here is our logic. The stupid pop radio channels arent playing us enought to satisfy our egos/rent demands EVEN THO we send them the songs we think are the most pop radioable. THEREFORE if we put out a song we think is pretty un pop radioable they'll play it and WE WILL HAVE WON THE SYSTEM YAYYYYYYYYYYaughts for everyone.
anyway, ((if)) (but prbly) ((TOUCH WOOD)) we'll do a ltd 7" pressing too. ATLAST, AMIRTE??


anyway, what i actually came on here to do was like, FUCKING RAGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE cos of this stupid lets get RATM to number 1 campaign. people im friends with are actually, literally buying this and like, i think im actually disgusted buy it.

its a setup right? this isnt a war for the future of processed pop music. noones going to sack simon cowell and banish xfacta if rage gets to number one. its a blur vs oasis chart panto dressed up and aimed at the lowest common denominator. now its THE NME vs X FACTOR.


this kid on our twitter wrote "its just to stop x factor getting to no.1 all the time".

and if twitter aloud for extra long patronising comments this is so what i would have sent..

even if simon cowell, the incredibly astute Music Industry wank that he is, doesnt directly benefit from the increased funds to Sony Records that ratm sales bring in, he's taking full advantage of the fucking amazing PR for his pet singing boy. you do understand, this isnt actually taking anything away from x facta sales? noone here is on the fence about which to choose, yr just polarised to pick one depending on you being an nme kid or an x facta kid.
theres this wierd and scarily stupid streak of pride running thru these arguments. the attitude is "LETS LIEK, TOTALLY SHOW THEM!!!" and noones quite figured out who we're showing.


here is my radical idea. i cannot be arsed to start a facebook group. but if i did it would be called, instead of buying ratm again for christmas accept that some conflicts cannot be solved over a month and instead buy something you really really love and give it to someone who'll buy xfacta and hope that in a years time THEY LIKE CAPN JAZZ TOO. group


i dunno. sorry to be all END TIMES again, but for the generation we grew up from - actually being derided for liking alternative music, or like, having to search, physically, in cd shops for stuff that was LITERALLY ALTERNATIVE, this is a giant coffin nail moment. its worse than nme being sponsered by fashionable hair. it should feel like we've evolved into mainstream and bought our values and ethics with us, but we havnt. we've just our hair and our distortion pedals co-opted. my converse. his nintendo. her sense of Fucking Dignity. every other meaning of the word punk.

and now, we can like, BUY OUR PRIDE BACK! even tho epic will probably sink all yr hard earned 99ps into the next script album before they try and take a band like ratm again. even tho it'll mean simon cowell sells a shit tonne more records and gets his BIG FACE everywhere. even tho theres a tonne of bands we probably love more who could really do with the money and support. even tho we own the song anyway.

THATS NOT GOOD CHRISTMAS, MAN!



well this isnt a war but it sure as fuck is a landmark battle. if more stupid trolls buy RATM than buy XFCTA, that means "alternative" is now a bigger genre than "pop". and that doesnt make it alternative no more. genre fail.

im going to bed ill be back happilierrrrrrrr

goodnight everyone
xlex

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

where we are and how we got here.

2 cancelled gigs
21 hours of driving
4 'welcome to (insert country)' phone network messages
1 near disaster (when we were unfortunately stuck for an hour and a half in Belgium waiting for a recovery vehicle to fill us up with diesel after we nearly ran dry with no stations open nearby. Big oops all round)
1 Alan Partridge marathon
0 weed

but

WE'RE HERE!!!!!!

Hello Germany. We're back.

Berlin tonight (where is white trash again?), Hamburg tomorrow then HELLO AMSTERDAM.

we have a day off there. red light district ahoy!

jokes.

well ok we'll see where the day takes us. post ideas here.

Probably just get stoned and lose passports, that sounds like fun.

In-joke-ahoy.

love

kx

Sunday, October 18, 2009

a big dump of words from my tired head

hello everyone
we've been off tour for almost 23 hours and its nearly my birthday which im spending putting stuff on ebay and going through my bag wondering why everything smells of gin and cranberrry juice. i think i prefer the 2000 album that spotify mistakenly lists as being the xx to the actual the xx album and i thought i should write something so people didnt think that the tour we just did Actually Killed Us.

right

thank you nottingham for filling a room we couldnt come close to last year and giving us like, Actual Confidence
thank you oxford for the nicest steak dinners ever everest
thank you birmingham for the singalong bits that mean more to me and kel than any other night weve been on that stage which is like a bazillion
thank you exeter for the guy with the ghost shoes and the juice selection
thank you brighton for the flies in the toilets and the thuggish doormen
thank you london for the biggest show we've ever done on our own. (sorry, we'd have done an encore if i wasnt being violently sick!)
thank you sheffield for the hotel room and not putting pictures of me being sick on the internet
thank you manchester for putting up with us and our broken gear and supersizing our travelodge rooms
thank you leeds, you know the score..
glasgow, sorry, just, sorry.
thank you liverpool for killing yr barfly and fixing our stuff cheap and reaffirming our beliefs that people in liverpool are just, BETTER.
thank you cambridge for a suitabley drunken and happy ending.

thank you dan for coming with us to sell and fix and document and entertain us
thank you mark for driving us and definetly not being some kind of louche secret druggy pervert or anything
thank you francis for making us tour laminates and generally taking care of EVERYTHING EVER



um, so. yeh. i had to walk to the supermarket, it was the first time ive walked more than ten minutes or listened to headphones for 2 weeks, it was well odd.

anyways, commerce, otherwise know as holy fuck were on tour for the rest of the year how do we afford to live time.

the remaining stock of new tshirts is available to purchase from our merch store as of NOWNOWNOW. this hyperlink goes to the buying them screen

theres more news obviously, we'll write about the tour properly too. cos dan took a million videos and pictures and some of its PRETTY RELEVANT.


xxxxxxxxxlex

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

flapper show

seriously, girl from nothampton, ive never been so rude to anyone, ever. Im so so so so sorry. You have guestlist for life if you dont hate me. Godsssssssssssss

Friday, October 2, 2009

TOURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

at fucking last.

it seems like ages since we did any serious actual touring. sorry theres been not much writing, we've been busy doing things. special things, like rehearsing that song we never play. YOU KNOW THE ONE ITS YOUR FAVOURITE. at least, we hope. we've been rehearsing about 20 songs. which is stupid, cos we die if we play more than 12 in a row. but yeh, in the interests of Generating Some Hype, please tell us what songs of ours you'd most like to hear us play at the show that you are coming to if you are. yes. and we'll talk about it on sunday at practice and be like, djs? fuckoffffffffff..

i've spent 3 hours pressing buttons and assigning real time expression latch switches (YEH!) on my crazy japanese pedal board. as soon as i'd stopped laughing at the "instant knob mode". im unsure if this is a good thing, cos i have to do less pedal ballet, or a bad thing cos at least i was well practiced at said ballet.

anyway,we havent been completely anti social.

beatcast tv filmed our afternoon londondon show, and are showing the first half here. part 2 comes next week (7th October). you can also see us be interviewed by legendary kingston ladies man del, on this word :YES!

also also also
thanks ellie for holding the camera still admist a TEENAGE RAMPAGE.

um, also, new shirts! for tour! we're getting th yellow one printed again cos loads of people asked us to and we'd probably run off a cliff if you asked us too to.
the others are a black one what looks like this, only on a tshirt and without the annoying white lines:


and a white one that looks like this


why did we not think of that before?

we'll put some on the merch store too when we get them. yayers.

ALSO (finally) you know how we're awesome yeh? if you go to our website after midday monday, you'll get a surprise. (of the non rapey kind)



okimgoingknowbyeeeee

Monday, September 28, 2009

economic disregard

totally had to blug this, its the video for 4 or 5 magicians new single and its dead good. They = first on when our twoer gets to london, October 10th at le garage, make sure you catches them.
xlex

Monday, September 21, 2009

teenage ramp age

we went done a gig
it was in bristol. bristol is ++good.
it was fun. here is a video from some scraps off stuff on my phone. some of it i even recorded on purpose.



thats 3 minutes of yr life you can never get back, sorry.

For the last 4 months, we've had "one small toy robot" at the bottom of our rider. and every promotor who sees it and goes "ha ha ha NO" apart from these lovely people. who buy us something that isnt a robot but still has buttons and glows green so is acceptable. yay bristol. the bbc filmed our soundcheck and broadcast it on a massive screen above the stage for no apparent reason. when we came to play they replaced the camera feed with a screen saver advertising a teenage rampage, whatever that is. anyway, that was a bit wierd. blakfish turned up about 30 seconds after they were due on stage, played an amazing show, then went to europe, that was pretty cool. and gareth lc! came and sung a song with us. since he was there we made him play guitar for a song. and since he already had a guitar on we made him play at the end too. that was fun.

also last week we played artsfest in birmingham. we've always thought it was a bit crap but have since realised thats cos noone ever asked us to play on a massive stage in the middle of cenntenary square before. here are some photos we robbed of the internet. they totally made me cut my hair.. our extra guitar player for the day was geordie, you can listen to his very good band >here





o scene girls of birmingham, we know yr only crushed against the front cos saving aimee are on next...

Friday, September 11, 2009

VIDEO EXCLUSIVE O ROCKSOUND INTERNET!

hello all

the prize for exclusive video dropping goes to
rocksound magazine. we like rocksound. they = 4real and they championed distophia, dont you know.

nestor larkin is tour managing us for the next couple of days, even tho he is in Dental Wars. we have to try very hard not to break or smoke in sky larkins lovely van. wish us luck! THANKS NESTOR!

so tomorrow we're on at 1pm and soundcheck is 11 so we have to load in at 10.30 so we have to leave here at OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGggg.

anyways, lewes is playing some guitar and hopefully we have some Brass Action. cos, it seemed like a clever idea to do unrehearsed multiple instrument stuff when we had a really important filmed show. yes. also, we have a new soundman, his name is francis and we'll show you him soon. if he doesnt hate us.

right. yes, VIDEO GO LOOK ITS GOOD ISNT IT WE TOLD YOU IT WOULD BE. the bayliffs looked 100% accurate, but were actually really nice.

byeeeeeee

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

LONDON - here is a message from our mgmgmgt::

You probably know that the new album 'Grace And The Bigger Picture' is coming out next month - October 26th - and a single, 'Criminals' is released on 12th October.

To make some extra special versions of the album, we're filming a show THIS SATURDAY (12th September) at the Borderline, London for a DVD to accompany 'Grace..', and we'd like you to come down. It's free, of course.

The show starts at 1pm prompt, so it's doors at 12pm - all ages invited.

In order to get in, all you need to do is email johnnyfreestuff@gmail.com and give us your name - all people are allowed to bring a friend. A plus 1, as they say in the evil music biz. It's limited to 150 people, so please mail us soon as you can.

Where's The Borderline? It's here:

Hope you can make it.

There's going to be lots more news in the coming week, so stay tuned to the website / myspace / things like that.

And don't forget that the band are on tour soon - we'll also be visiting the rest of the UK, Europe and beyond in the coming months.

thanks

Team JF


soooo um, yeh. we hope you can come. sorry its short notice ETC. dress to impress cameras plz.

traaaaa xlex

Monday, September 7, 2009

ohai hard shoulder

its been a while...

addendum.

took that picture at about four in th afternoon. kelly flew out of paris this morning and jun and lea and me had a nice easy drive back to home in time for tea. just got in. FUCK YOU, the AA. something went bang about 3 hours drive from home. we waited on th hard shoulder, the AA said they'd be an hour. then after an hour they said they'd be about 45 mins. we got drunk. after 45 minutes, they said ten minutes. then they rang back to say, actually, more like an hour and a half. RAGE!!!!!!
then a towtruck came. towtruck man said he'd been waiting for us about 8 junctions down the road for the last hour or so cos the AA messed up. HE RAGE!!! the AA also said there were two of us not three so the towtruck man couldnt fit us in. we sobered up. lea and towtruck man take turns to phone AA and beg for taxi. taxi is arranged. taxi is not arranged. taxi might be arranged, AA isnt really sure. towtruck man can't leave us to wait on hard shoulder on our own, he's obliged to stay until we're safe. to pass the time he tells us about yesterday when he was on a similar job just down the road, - he was waiting with a family on th hard shoulder when a car came, only it wasnt a taxi, it was a 4x4 and the driver was texting or something. tl,dr : the 18yr old girl got crushed and died mostly instantly and the 80yr old granny had her legs amputated on the scene. just down there, he points...
AA eventually organise a taxi. tho, they don't know where its coming from or how long it'll be. suspect AA have probly just ordered themselves pizza instead.

after about another hour of not dying in a horrific stupid sober mess, another AA man comes and drives us to a safer layby. van gets towed off, taxi appears, head off, overtake van, and all meet up at an industrial estate in redditch at midnight. it was kinda romantic in a 3rd album suede sense, ie, not really tho...

anywayss we're home and alive, our van is not. o dearrrrrr. tomorrow or something i'll write nice things about the beautiful venue and friendly awesome crew and lou barlow saying nice things about us. meanwhile,lorene took nice photos. im sorry about my beard..

xlex

Sunday, September 6, 2009

tonight we sleep in suburbia

tomorrow we take Paris, France..


xx

OH! and also, next week we come home. for artsfest. you know, ARTSFEST!
we're playing a big special stage (truck) in front of the ICC. its free (for you).
Here is a list of what time we and the other AWESOME bands are on (the truck):

Sunday 13 September, Centenary Square Stage

12:30 The Skyline
13:15 The Lines
14:00 51 Breaks
14:45 The Amateurs
15:30 Templeton Pek
16:15 Mexicolas
17:00 The Arcadian Kicks
17:50 Johnny Foreigner
18:45 Saving Aimee
19:45 Elliot Minor
20:45 Reverend & The Makers
21:45 Athlete

isn't that the best line-up of bands like, EVER?
really?
guys?
GUYS?
COME BACK!
oh we'll be drunk alright...

xx

Thursday, September 3, 2009

criminininininininininals

OUR NEW SINGLE!!!!!!!

hello everyone


our next single is available on october 12. digital only, i'm afraid (of the future)


criminals is taken from our new album. you can hear it on our myspace. it is recorded by a man from fudgetunnel and mixed by a man from kenickie. that is how we operate.


the bsides are super new notheardbefore songs recorded in our practice room and at kel and juns house by dom james. there's also a lovely desktop wallpaper thing and a whole bag of love that isn't exactly tangible, it just pours out of your screen and bathes you.


we hope you like (buy) it.


in other news


- the arts for the album are all done. omgodsssssss its perfect. EVERYONE LOVES LEWES! i wish we could show some off but you'll all have to wait.


- we have plane tickets booked for south africa and you don't ahahahahahahahahaaaaa


- my teeth are all better now, thanks for asking


xlex

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

weekend cultural excursion plan.

holy fuck paris, mange this:::


DINOSAUR JR ET JOHNNY FOREIGNER!
EN CONCERT LE 6 SEPTEMBRE A L'ELYSEE MONMATRE!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

thats like, THIS SUNDAY! THE ONE COMING! Sguestlist vee?


rad.
also, our collective hearts have been cracked by the love spilt on us from people in australia. we were well jealous when dana got there first. we probably shouldnt have seen the crazy voodoo gypsy about it but still, WE TOTALLY WANT TO BE THERE. plz beg yr music industry for us. say we have relatives out there who need replacement surgery or something.

Monday, August 31, 2009

"i'd rather fly the sonic youth flag than wear something positive"

ive spent the day watching all of america or busted and charlie has *almost become my new hero.
im put off actually herosing him cos the first time i was around him his band were playing their debut gig in whsmiths and they closed off the computer section so i couldnt buy printer paper, and the second time his other band were playing their debut gig in my record shop and he made me go buy him towels.

but anyway yeh, its fucking awesome

has anyone else seen it?

it's an old mtv docuseries about busted's first trip to america > they want to go and play real shows with guitar bands > their label treats them as a boyband and makes them do the usual pop routine > lulz ensue.

its so tragic but so well made, it's like spinal tap only with real people.
theres an actual useless quivering out of his depth ian faith guy, a hideous desperate artie fufkin label vp, a tactless dumb girlfriend, mysterious disappearing drummer guy, they go to kurt cobains house instead of elviss. anyway its dead good watch it on google videoooo yeh.

i actually came on here to say WERE SIGNED IN JAPAN AGAIN YAYYYYYYYYYYYYy

not that anyone japanese that read this so i guess its pretty pointless information. but yeh,

HELLO PONY UP RECORDS!!!!!!!!!!!

hopefully this means we'll be back over super soon. which is good news cos we need to restock converse and, honestly, we miss yr superevolved country and amazingly friendly people and beautiful food and crazy drinks and cheap fags and toy robots ARGH CAN WE JUST COME OVER NOW PLZthxxxxx

xlex

Friday, August 28, 2009

ocean colour scene are back?!

oh man, didn't we kill them already?




Friday, August 21, 2009

MERCHOIDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!




hello two things


1) ive been slack posting merch this week cos in addition to all that stuff below ive been working for robot dinosaurs from america (TRUE) and ive had the worlds worst toothache and we have more stuff to sign and i wussed out of faking everyone elses signatures and writing rude messages. but we're going to the envelope store today and everything'll go out tomorrow. SORRY..
2) if anyone wants to buy stuff but can't cos paypal hates them or doesnt accept their country then get in touch with us and we'll sort it out.
im really sorry to leave a post soley consisting of commerce, but all the good news is secret for now. the merch store is our total lifeline this summer, thank you everyones!
xlex

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

there's nothing i would say no to..

hello

sorry we've been kinda silent. we've been doing all sorts of fun things we can't share yet. like, watching the finished criminals video. and fergs amazing custom scenes video. and, making loads of video ourselves. and listening to our fully finished, slightly different-to-the-promo-copy mastered album. and listening to our newly mixed bsides for criminals. and arranging loads of cool people to remix us. and arranging south african visit. and planning something else secret. and criminal. and we've been hackshually working. and having an internet battle with some used-to-be-famous faded music journo (he wrote to me to apologise but i still think he's an idiot)

so our tour is selling well, we're told. yay. hurry up october. also, i've messed about with the gigs page on our website so there's a archive of past fun things we've had. if yr obsessed with us then you'll have seen most of it, but you should check out the feels like summer tour page cos theres loads of new photos and words as well as kellys final DiS tour diary where she makes everyone sing a hymn and jun kisses pete calories again. heres linkage: menu page and feels lke tour page.


also, does anyone know any brass players? like, trumpet/trombone/saxomophone (sorry no clarinets). cos we want to rob some scales from them to make our tour set More Epic. If you know (or indeed, ARE) someone who lives near one of th shows, can you prod them in our direction plz? thanksss


also. i have the worlds worst toothache, i would like to make public my thanks to our friend anja who came to visit and made me dinner and drunk and bought me crazy safrican painkillers and big rizlas and this:

that i have wanted for AGESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

k more news soon! bye!

xlex

Friday, August 7, 2009

some girl having a 'tin bath' and some other stuff

http://news.uk.msn.com/odd-news/article.aspx?cp-documentid=149033576
mega-lulzzzz!
weirdo
new songs! we've been doing (not recording) some more today
one goes like this, da da- da da da- da da -# harmonic - repeat
and one goes dadada dun, dadadadun, dadadadun, dududududuuuuuu
srsly, beavis and butthead'd have a FIELD DAY
and that last one has an oxes riff in it
and one song is dubbed 'I totally beat the futureheads'
but it's not really called that
and the other has the lyric 'hairy butt' or 'halibut' or something in.
don't ever say i don't give you the 411.
grrrl xxxx

Thursday, August 6, 2009

and spit out yr bones for coathangers

not only did junior make a lil video of us doing bsides, but i discovered the annotations thingy on youtube.

YAY WORDS!



the tracklist to our album WENT PUBLIC today. noone told us and we thought everyone was going to be mad at us cos it had leaked. then someone told us and everything was fine, again.

also, we'd like to apologise to people that work in topshop having to hear our song all the time yr instore playlist thing. we've all worked jobs that involve 9 hour shifts with a 1 hour mix cd, and we find it pretty unsettling that a band as anti-fashion as ourselves is deemed suitable for shopping music, but, y'know, OVERDUE BILL: FINAL DEMAND and that. y'know that rilo kiley song that goes, and the bills keep changing colourrrrrrrrrr... thats my favourite rilo kiley moment. ANYWAY its going to get worse for you all cos they're running the video in a week or so too.

also, because our band is Teh Coolest, reebok and atticus said we can come to london and rape their shops up. which is aces, dont get our scavvy hearts wrongd; i dont really care for the dead bird guys but THIS = TEENAGE WIN.

unfortunatlery i'm still not famous enough to warrant peavey giving me a free amp. VIOLINS PLZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

also, we have some plans involving BEING ILLEGAL PUNXXXX, we'll tell you when we're allowed.

byeeeeeeee xlex

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

i was cold, i was naked, etc...

anyone who has had the (mis)fortune of touring with us/ jumping in our van/ spending time with our goodselves will know of our (my, ok) obsession with this absolute classic.... If our 8th tour diary from May just gone ever sees the light of day you too can bare witness to it's awesomenezz. Until then, hear these people not do it the kinda justice we can



seiously, this'll be my last non-sensical message.

oh and thanx lewes for drawing my attention to this video, i nearly cried with joy.

grrrlx

Monday, August 3, 2009

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

hiya!!!
so we played y not festival this weekend just passed. The crowd were superawesomelovely and we had loads of fun. I don't think I've ever played so bad in my life, but still, twas a ball. Here's a pic:

y not

thanks mark for taking this!

(there are more pics www.keepingsomedarksecrets.com)

I played in my wellies!

anywayyyy

pasta and gears of war await me

stay cool y'all

grrrl x

Thursday, July 30, 2009

shizzle me nizzle

bsides y'all.
we're doing some.
now.
they sound like musicals
kxxxx

Monday, July 27, 2009

i'm going to be useful (for a change)

here have this - our first fan forum!!!!

so totally flattered.

http://johnnyforumer.com

see what he did there?

thank you Gareth (who set it up)

please go there and say nice things

or things like what some of these here have been saying
http://m.drownedinsound.com/community/boards/music/4190410

cos i don't mind the bad, free country yeah?

just don't call us twee
love to everyone
grrrrlxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sunday, July 26, 2009

dear dairylea..

last night we played in the corner of a tiny pub for sheffields tramlines festabule. it was fun

also:: here is a crossmedia expunging of hop farm goodness from the start of the month

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

Starting to get excited i am - Jr

Friday, July 24, 2009

Jr really likes this vid.

Haven't posted on here yet meself, and as its so easy i feel ashamed.
Here though is a present from me.
Anybody out there who has any Grandprix86 stuff, please email them to me, i will trade for some dairylea slices. yum
Pretty please.
They be a band some of the members of pennines were in before this innit. Feckin tunes i tell thee.
safe safe
Jr

Thursday, July 23, 2009

i watched flags of our fathers yesterday.

it soo so sooo nearly broke through my cold capricorn exterior, neeearly. Actually, Brotherhood did that like, 2 years ago.
Ok, if I'm honest about it, My Girl did that when I was about 8. Macaulay Culkin DIED by being stung by LOADS OF BEES! How could you not cry at that? Srsly? Unless yr not an 8 yr old girl of course, duh.

I'm destined to never add anything of any relevance to this blog.

Sorry alexei. Sorry Jr. Sorry everyone.

girl x

aaaactually, we're playing in Sheffield (Tramlines) on Saturday, is that relevant? Good. Have that.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

ive just read this awful review of us

i mean, its not awful, the guy totally bums my guitar playing and appreciates our music FOR WHAT ITS WORTH LIKE. and he enjoyed our set, which is obviously THE POINT
but
(its about the free show we did at the flowerpot)

says he saw us "mincing around looking nervous cos noone was there" then we get a "rent-a-crowd" then "agree to go on when there audience is an acceptable size"

and at the end, i apparently have a guitar-trashing temper tantrum which is filmed for the feels like summer video. WHAT EXCUSE ME? as far as me and my guitar and the guy who made our video WHO WE DIDNT EVEN KNOW HAD BROUGHT HIS CAMERAHH this is all spurious lies that make us look like some poxy music biz band.

which is so much bullshit. like we could afford rent-a-crowds. or even tell the promotors when were going on. but really, the guy namedrops talking to me, like, whatafuckinghonor, and i feel like i was conned. i remember him, i think, i was drunk assss, and he seemed like a nice guy. apart from this wierdly cynical overimagination i'm sure he is.

i dunno, im all for people writing shit on the internet cos its ONLY THE INTERNET and other peoples opinions dont really bother us. especially when they're wrong. but that hideous style of writing, like, mock-cynical i-know-all-the-tricks really REALLY depressess me. one of the UNIQUE SELLING POINTS YOU CUNT of our band is we all have this stupidly naive attitude that people who like our band also like other bands we like, and therefore each show is a whole room full of potential friends. which is a super-flouncy faux punk statement worthy of jonah mantra, but probably the last bastition of anti-cynicism id stand by. we're not like, popstars, we're just as skint and sorry as everyone else, we weat the same tshirts, were on the same fucking side and we'd like to swap mix cds, we just happen to write good songs and weve had some good luck. simple.

anyway it was nice to be able to mince around YR OWN FUCKING SHOW without feeling like yr making a negative impact on yr press. where else are you supposed to mince round? the mincing rooms? god i have this image of him when i went to see if anja or gavin had arrived, or got a drink, or god forbid actually talk to people who like my band, staring at my back thinking "he looks nervous, he's a nervous mincer"

igsrhnvrahrevre

i only clicked on it cos there was a link for a review of feels like summer that said it started with a guitar riff that was stolen from a feeder song. and mentioned the t word. (twee. cos we're twee. HOW THE FUCK ARE WE TWEE YOU FUCKING IDIOTS. ARE YOU NOT SUPPOSED TO LEARN THE MEANING OF A WORD BEFORE USING IT JESUS FUCKING CHRIST PLEASE SOMEONE EITHER EXPLAIN HOW WE ARE TWEE OR LET US EXECUTE EVERY SELF PROCLAIMED MUSIC WRITER WHO DENOUCES US AS SUCH THANKS GOD. anyway she didnt like it, its a rubbish twee song, not as good as los camp, greaty, and thats good yeh? thats the sides i was ranting about before. doesnt like us but doesnt "get" us, so the actual opinions dont bother us. if we wrote music for everyone to get, then, we'd be rich. i mean, rubbish, not us doing what we love doing at getting paid for it. and, apart from rants like this, doing what the fuck we want has done us pretty well, and we know who our friends are k thx.

But, this mince-proclaimer, he likes us. i think. i mean, he's theoretically on our side, he liked the show, he likes our songs, i daresay we share loads of the same records. and that totally bums me out. im never talking to anyone ever again, goodbye forever.

(apart from the internet)
(or if you do the secret knock on our mincing room door)
(and on stage)
(im not really im just moaning, sorry if you thought this was going to be fun. bye)
(apologies are twee. FUCK YOU, everyone)

xlex

Friday, July 17, 2009

i dont seem to dance much any mooooooooooooore

so we're going to film a video tomorrow. i have to be up in 6 hours. im not even tired. we dont even know what we're going to wear. you can't tell 3 different people to dress uniformly. we're not PSYCHIC! we've formed a plan, take all our clothes with us. at least we rejected the 50s biker combo idea.


anyway it seems way more pro than what we're used to. the call sheet for the shoot lists like a million names. "with more crew to come" WHATS A CALL SHEET?
and, it takes 2 days! we're like, the editors or something. i think we're sleeping on th directors floor, which is v v nice of him but does maybe give our amatuerness away a bit. pass the call sheet?

we're not quite sure whats going on, like, even more than usual. bayliffs, chainsaws, us playing a song. cant fail really. I BAGSY THE CHAINSAW.

also, i doubt anyone really cares. but the george pringle album isnt out till september. SHE SAID JULY BEFORE AND I WAS DEAD EXCITED AND NOW I HAVE TO WAIT TILL THE MONTH WHERE I'LL HAVE NO MONEY. and i dont want to beg a promo cos the art'll be awesome. also im kinda worried cos she posted some pictures and one was of a track-labelling sticker, like wot recording studio people use on their machines. which for anyone else i'd be supergeekily excited to see, but for someone who made such a big thing of creating these amazing soundscapes from garageband its a bit awwwwww. cos there's like a million hideous industry men whod absolutely ruin this perfect punk thing that she created on her own.

i guess its pretty rude for an audience to be annoyed by an artist evolving. i want th rerecorded songs (i dont know if songs is the right terminology) to be bouncier and sparklier, im dreading some producer guy turning everything into neat blocks of fours, or beth orton style coffee table musik.

we won a popularity contest on a popular uk music website last year, and the prize i got was her phone number. ive lost th phone now but i dont think i'd ever call her. she walked past me once and i totally spilt my drink. which would be a handicap in explaining that i fell in love with carte postale way before i saw a picture of her and thus arent just fawning her beauty..

hey i know, instead of getting some sleep why dont i just write rubbish on the internet. this and dave-javu have killed an hour nicely.

we'll tell you how it went. (unless it goes really badly) wish us luck. or do some voodoo stuff to make us sleep plz.

xlex

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Can Bear Grylls

talk in a non-dramatic voice? Srsly! Talk. Normally.

In other non johnny foreigner related news, i am now officially in lust with algernon cadwallader. Y'know, didn't wanna jump on that bandwagon when everyone around me was falling in love with them (I like to discover a band at my own leisure).
Unfashionably late, always. Honeymoon period still = some kind of cadwallader on repeat for, i don't know, 4 days straight.

Is anyone watching my tour diaries? do they need more tits and ass?

when i say that, i mean more birds and donkeys. I think that'd really boost viewing figures.

I don't have any real news for you I'm afraid. I'll think of some gossip to divulge in my next post.

the girl one. x

Friday, June 26, 2009

bzzz


first:: answerssss

yes our lovely next album is called grace and the bigger picture. it has an alternate title too but we'll leave that for a bit.
the cay session is a peel session from dec 2000. these 4 songs, they're just ridiculously good. bug me to mail you them
yes £100 is fine. would you like a sneak preview? i think this link lasts for 24 hours, so be quick.
(note to record label: not real leak)
it was a tempting offer but £100 between 3 people doesnt write off that much guilt.

second, check this out>>>>>>>>!!




this is by our friend eds. THE ROBOT FELL IN LOVE!! we burbled something about a toy robot and he came to see us in laaaaahden and then went and done this. howgoodisthattttttttt? eds also makes zombie films that feature people we know looking undead. they're great, but not so heavy with the robot love scenes. you should go here to see more. i cant wait till we get to do some dvd collection thing. i think we'll be on a par with the weezer one, but lose out to viewphoria. and viewphoria only lasts 2 albums, so we'd better get busy with the puppet scenes.

THANKS EDSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!! THEDSSSSSSSS. XXXXX

thirdo


we have booked (had booked for us in a complicated process we still dont understand) a new UK tour for october. im sure it'll upset most people cos they dont live in one of the 11 cities were going to. but its not places we went to last time. apart from the 3 gravity well cities of birmingham, london and manchester. we'll tell you about it next week, i imagine




4th


my periodical smashing pumpkins obsession has now extended to shouting at darcy when watching documentaries on youtube. on my phone. at work. i love them so much i cant even rank their albums.
kbyexlex

Thursday, June 18, 2009

its not that we're special, its just that we're close

hey everyone

sorry we havnt been very internet-prolific lately. heres a load of words to make up for it.

this has what has been happened to us :
kelly has a job in coventry with a really impressive title. she doesnt think its worth the hour and a half commute twice a day. juns been working every waking hour in a bar by the canals. the better the weather = the more customers = the more he has to work. harsh.
i've been working for take that and selling various heirlooms on teh interents.

junior's computer had a heart attack and the hard drive with all our artwork and songs and other historic files momentarily died but its all ok now probably, ta.

crappy band laptop that ive adopted and abused is now the longest surviving computer in our short history. yay! whats a firewalls?

we played in cambridge last night. we love cambridge, it so beats oxford in th indierock stakes. we played some graduation ball. they had a noise limit of 85dbs. and since talking is 80dbs and our band is louder than talking, we thought it'd be a pretty lame night. luckily we got away with the dizzing excess of 110dbs. tho the people clapping and cheering us were in clear breach of pre-organised arrangements and should be prosecuted accordingly. uni gigs are a weird taboo for bands at our level. basically, you get payed a ton of money and get treated like performing monkeys for the evening. read powder by kevin sampson. anyways, in that we owe other peoples approx 10 tonnes of money and quite enjoy certain perfoming monkey aspects, its a bargain we're pretty willing to endure. especially when we walk out the marquee after playing into fucking narnia. well, not narnia exactly, but, a giant garden lit up with fairy lights and free bars and foodstalls and fairground stuff set up around every tree. so, an adult enid blyton narnia. its kinda spoilt when a security guard tells us he's dead sorry but he's been told to quietly eject all the performing monkeys. so we dont get to see the mad orgy finale but do help ourselves to our combined body weight in burgers and currys. and chain drink raspberry moh-he-toes, whoever he is..

also, i made a mixcd of the best songs ever made for sweeping the nations covermount feature. it was fun. if the result of this band is one other person simultaneously being in love with sleeper and rapider than horsepower, ive truely done good on this earth.

the interview process is starting up again and i think, "whats the new album about" is going to replace "how did you form" as most oft-repeated question. and its kinda annoying cos we have no soundbitey cool answer yet. a year ago we were kinda smartarsed and told everyone it'd be a concept album about a band, yeh, who go on tour a lot and go round the world and then go and make their second album. and thats pretty much what we've gone and made. i can pretty much place each song in a different city, which is going to wreck our googlemaps song thing when i get round to updating it, but will make us look dead international and cool. actually, since some of the songs are about people i still speak to/ would like v much to be on speaking terms with i might well bottle it. i imagine being emily kane / jackie big tits / whoever was fun for all of 5 minutes.

anyway, 2008 was like, thee most hectic/extreme/fun year we've ever had and grace and the bigger picture is our attempt to document it.

here's some more fun facts about our new longplaying record associated stuff.

- junior used meg whites bass drum. it was good.
- i tried one of trent reznors distortion pedals. it made me really angry. there was something evil about it
- kelly borrowed this hand made one off fuzz pedal from alex and fell in love with it. she has some plan to get photos of the circuit boards to try and make another.
- we stayed in williamsburg, which is like shoreditch only with better accents and cheaper pizza.
- one day xtian from meneguar recognised us in the street. XTIAN! FROM MENEGUAR!
- one of the songs features a title mostly designed to make tubelord go "aaaaaaww"
- one of the songs has 3 drums tracks! look paul and john are you jealous?
- we got much better weed deals than when we stay in manhattan.
- tho less party invites
- not that we had the time for any parties. tho we went for breakfast with sky larkin one day, and had a pizza-off with fight like apes.
- alex told us loads of gossip about bands we could never possibly repeat.
- one song features 3 seconds of us pretty much playing a bit of princes and princessess by cay. i robbed 3 notes of a longpigs melody too. and we tried to do a stapleton piano bit. but on the whole, theres way less steals than before. apart from the first song, which is based on Traditional Chord Sequence so its fine.
- one of the songs is the first time ive put a girls name in the lyrics And Kept It. shame she HATES ME..
- alex made us change a chord in this one bit. SELL OUT!
- me and kelly had an intense argument about some minor singing bit that noone else'll ever notice. i think this is tradition now.
- some of the songs are really short. we didnt notice this till we were done, they seem fully formed to us. maybe we have shortened attention spans.
- the last song is called close... which should be pronounced close as in the deus quote at the top of the page, not as in 1234, close the door. *ive totally remembereded writing this that theres an instrumental sleeper bside with the same name. i used to play it in djs sets and try get people to guess who it was cos its basically a velvet underground song played at increasing speeds. anyway SUBCONSCIOUS THEFT IS STILL ART (y)
- one song is called, in every cloakroom ever. there's versions of it all over the internet called weird different things cos the various people we've told the title to didnt understand our accents. and it was called something else anyway.
- there's a lot more song title confusion to come, yay.
- if it leaks then, in financial terms we are fucking doomed.
- we hope you all like it.


we've been skirting round the issue of new songs. my head is full (of them) but it seems a little early, what with having a whole album of unheard songs not even out yet. its pretty fun to think about tho. ive been obsessing over smashing pumpkins, i seem to do this every 12 months. machina ftw. anyway, album no.3 = double cd. yeh.



and, we've been asked to do a song for a guided by voices compilation. which has led kelly to change her find 57 different times and come up with a short list thats reall not that short.

we figure, might as well do two covers if were at it. any suggestions?
george pringle, cay and chow chow are the current leaders in my/our head. i have these cay songs from a peel session that would have been on their second album. they're so so so good.

that was a big rambling spiel about not a lot really wasnt it. i hope you enjoyed it.
xlex







Thursday, June 4, 2009

soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon

hd

getting sooner!

also, look what i found on teh internetzzz this afternoon



i dont know what this is but it's well good.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

you can buy this one, this one, this one.....

thank fuck for commerce and big cartel..

unless we go snow patrol, theres no way we're going to be able to pay our way on mere music alone. so, praise be, we finally have our own worldwide internet online virtual merch store.

actually, gareth did it all and i'm in charge of boasting about it.

like this::

LOOK! CLICK ON THAT PAGE BELOW AND BUY OUR NEW T-SHIRT DESIGNS!

we hope you do like them and purchase them. so do all the people we owe money to. ooops! we'd like to institute some kind of extra box where you specified whether we were to spend the money you pay us on household bills, backdated council tax, or a decent curry. but thats just silly.





because buying band shirts from h&m is fucking lame..





because we love detail and backstory and that, know this::

we're running this store out of my bedroom. i'm worried i'm going to accidently post one of my shirts instead. plz tell me if i do.


if it says we don't ship to yr country, thats just because we havnt programmed in the postage costs yet. so, either mail us here or johnnyforeigner@hotmail.co.uk and we'll go down the post office and ask the smelly old woman about it.

YOU SHALL ALL WEAR

OUR BEAUTIFUL ARMOUR



thx xlex

Friday, May 1, 2009

plz plz, come work our band for us..

i totesssss forgot this earlier.



this is a message from gareth who manages (and copes) with our band.



Hello you. We're looking for nice people who like our band to collect names for our mailing list and give out badges and stuff at our shows in May.If you'd like to help (and we'd love you to help), then what you need to do is:


1) Be old enough to get in - some gigs are 18+, so please check!

2) email ::: gareth@fearandrecords.com :::: with 'i'll help you, johnny foreigner' in the message title we'll hit you back.


What you get:


1) two free tickets to the show

2) some nice JF bits and bobs

3) our undying love. THANK YOU!





--------------------------------------------------

you should so do it. we promise you'll be teh indie rock worlds most respected street team, and you can sip our gin and we can offer each other practical relationship advice and stuff.

kthx goodnight.xlex

Thursday, April 30, 2009

feels like merchinger!

a-ha.

we've been making lewes do shedloads of stuff lately. you'll see a load more soon. if he was a machine we surely would have broken him. anyway, here's our new t-shirt designs. i hope the charm involved overides the fact that we're all awful with colour schemes.
you'll be able to buy these on our Official Johnnyforeignerfeelslikesummertour Tour. sorry jay/rest of world. rejuvenated merchy shop soon, promiseeeeeeeeeeeee...

Photobucket
Photobucket
Photobucket

yay! look at us, we're self-referencing our old shirts and we havnt even put out th second album. post-modernism ftw.
for more visual excellence from lewes "charlotte hatherley phones me at midnight" herriot click me do.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

johnnyforeignerfeelslikesummertour!

so, assuming that we get the last tours tour support through this week and lea can fix our van to m.o.t. standards, then next month we go back on tour around lovely engerland. like, a proper headliney tour with new tshirts and gigs where we're contractually obliged to play for more than 30 mins. yay!

here's some dates (of it)

official johnny foreigner feels like summer tour 2009

7th may, sheffield fuzz club, with tubelord
8th may, derby rockhouse, with tubelord (14+)
9th may, hull club nme @ welly, with tubelord
10th may, day off, rubbish
11th may, bristol cooler, with tubelord and oxygen thief (14+)
12th may, southampton joiners, with calories and copy haho (14+)
13th may, brrmnghmmm victoria, with calories and copy haho
14th may, kingston new slang, with super-tennis and youves
15th may, leicester sumo, with tubelord and copy haho
16th may, brighton great escape festival, DiS showcase, with idlewild
17th may, manchester deaf institute, with copy haho and calories
18th may, london flowerpot (camden) *special FREE show* (see below)
19th may, another day off, psssssssh
20th may, liverpool soundcity at the barfly, with hot club de paris and tubelord and calories (14+)
21st may, york fibbers, with calories and copy haho (14+)
22nd may, wakefield escobar, with copy haho and runaround kids (16+)
23rd may, newport meze lounge, with copy haho and calories
24th may, northampton roadmender3, with copy haho and calories


note how we're playing with awesome bands yeh?





plz note, brighton and liverpool, idlewild and hot club are th headliners and we're just tagging along. cos they won the toss, thats how it works, see. sorry to everyone on the rest of the planet, we'll get to you next.
also yeh, since yr here and obviously captivated by my writing style (ripped wholesale from amiga power circa 1994, natch) we tried really fucking hard to make the whole tour 14+. failed, obviously, but even getting this many shows has been hassle. so, if you live somewhere we can play and know of such a night then get in touch with/get them to touch us. and if you don't, then either start something yrself or stop whinging and run away to southhampton.
given the amount of money bands make off underage shows (lots) and 18+ shows (not lots), it seems slightly retarded that there arent more places in england bands can play without becoming entangled in a law about alcohol. but there you go...


right, londons, since yr so obviously better than everywhere else, this is what you get:

we're playing this place called the flowerpot in camden, just us, and its free in IF you sign up to our rejuvenated mailing list. theres no catches or nowt, this is purely an illdisguised ploy on our part to bump up the number of people we can spam with gig details and release news and stuff.

but if you want to come watch us play then yr probly intrested in things like that, right? unless yr a mental who just wants to come stare at kelly some. anywaysss, to sign up and get the secret password (or something), put yr emil in th box on this page right here. those of you with eyes will notice that this is th fledgling baby of a new website being made by Professhonal Compuetor Exprots for us. dont look at the rest of it! it's not finished! if you look we can't be friends anymore.


k, more propaganda soon..

xlex

Thursday, March 26, 2009

and you landed so gracefully

what happened on greenpoint and franklin
depends on whose asking







3 more songs to mix!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

moneyshot

is the term used in the Music Buisinessss for the photograph that shows
1) The Band
and
2) The Producer
in
3) The Studio


here's ours:




















we did this video interview thingy today for fake diy. we accidently convinced the interviewer that we had to squeeze into tiny cupboards to record the guitars. feel guilty. sorry hannah.

Monday, March 23, 2009

...

shhhhhhhhhhhhh

because i can't sleep and can't think of anything better to do, heres some videos of pop bands of the internet. we havnt really listened to much else oursleves the last few weeks but we have become slightly obsessed with certain songs for no apparent reason (apart from their inherent goodness)
excluding the one that kelly likes purely because it annoys me.

first right, this has been in my mental top 5 best songs ever since it come out in like, the Dark Years. everyone thinks slightly less of me but i totes dont care:



ignored band for ages cos everyone we spoke to was like "theyre the new life without buildings" and i was liek SHUTUP then we played wit them and they were absolute aces and supernice, and nothing like life without buildings.. and nowineedadrumroll! is in my head every morning. almost to point of irritation, reclaimed by aces video.



srsly, life without buildings.




then, via alex, So Many Dynamos. pleasetourplz? pure aceness:



noplzno:

rockbandphotocliches #349



don't you just hate it when:

aliens destroy manhattan and every fucking out of town indie band scrambles onto yr roof for a quick photo op. disgusting.


our album is pretty much done, thanks for asking.
multi thanks to fight like apes and sky larkin and dana and JUSTIN FROM MENEGUAR!!!!! for their contributions. what did they do? buy album = find out! go scene! go crookyln!

all thats left now is for us to sit behind alex as he pushes faders up and down and go: can you turn that bit up plz. no louder. no, louderrrr. not really, look at this photo


alex is the one with th white shirt in the middle. we dont need to tell him to turn it up..
making this record has been fucking amaze, we'll tell all soon. but now we're too busy listening to the sound of our own voices.

copy haho on beatcast, watch it, its vv good.

Friday, March 13, 2009

twitterrrrrrrrrrrrrr

what? twitter? really? we're not even fashionably late but username johnnyforeigner is already gone, if you want to know what we did 3mins ago when someone just said something that might seem funny if taken out of context, then our superimaginative username is

lexkelandjun

yay. twit the fuck out of us, plz.
also, when junior was tripletracking drums today, this fell out of our computer



robot crackerhandzz from johnny foreigner on Vimeo.

doyoulikeournewsongsoyoudoyou?
it not even got no singing

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

our 1st eurotour diary:::::







day one, travel day to dover!

rendevous redditch, hours of careful planning and following ley lines means that our tour is destined to start from birmingham's "answer" to twin peaks. it takes another hour of pushing, shoving and hoping to realise that there's no way we can fit both our bands and our stuff into our hired splitter. so junior's drums and xbox and katie's guitars get thrown away, we just about manage to fit our bodies in, and we're off.

yaytour! cosytour, mind, its like were on two mini backseats welded together. in fact, you can see the join. we can't complain too much tho, our beloved maddie went to van-heaven last month, we're grateful for anything that doesn't involve walking. spirit lasts about an hour then the van dies on the m25 and we're stranded. hour and a half in the freezing evening hard shoulder and the van is bundled onto a tow lorry. we're shuttled to the next safe place down the road, which turns out to be the carpark for a long abandoned creepy restaurant. us bands wander round taking photos of ghosts and scattered chairs, whilst lea and pete (our tm/soundguy) and the AA men try and recalibrate the flux capacitor. they get bored way before us, the dilithium crystals in the van can only be accessed by a mercedes specialist. so pretty much everyone and the van get a lift to tonight's travel tavern while me and nestor and lea wait for a taxi. wait like, 2 hours. get to travelodge, finish our weed in the carpark, and go to sleep superexcited to see our replacement van.







day two, paradiso, amsterdamn!



our excitement is totally justified when we load up in the morning. the only spare van the company had is like, King Of Splitters. airplane seats! hard drive full of films! curtain dividers! magazine racks! seriously, it breaks our heart to get out when we drive onto the ferry. me and jun and lea pay €10 for a superbreakfast. thats like, £10. its a bit rubbish.... we drop our bags in the hotel in antwerp and get to the paradiso in perfect time. the show is waaaaaay fun, we remember where the nearest cafe is, and people totally remember us (as the idiot english band who lost their passports, but still) and we're treated so well. there's gin in the fridge and the now traditional film crew who drop an amazing hifi dvd of the show to our dressing room after. i demolish the stage slightly by accident at the end, i try to apologise to the crew but they just laugh at me. amsterdamn = awesome. its a total shame we have to leave before we sleep. everyone asks if we'll be back for london calling, i hope we are..



day three fleche d'or, paris!





driving thru paris with a robot hand sticking out of the tiny sliding window trying to highfive passing crowds is more entertaining than any of us thought. hardly anyone responds. stupid anglais.
fleche d'or is mad right, it's based on an old train station. there are rails embedded in the floor and a madmax style train built above the bar. the staff cook food for us, and make sure we all have wine with the meal. this is totally normal in europe. in england you have to bargain with the promotor for mcdonald's money..everyone's supernice to us. weirdly we're on last at stupido'clock, its pretty flattering people stick around. especially since the two support bands are terrible awful rubbish that makes the 8 of us want to apologise to everyone who has come out. they were english so we're allowed to say that. we have a bit of a lamed gig, stuff keeps breaking and the monitors are made of cheese. but we're pro enough to laugh in the face of electrical connections. there's enough people who know our songs to make it feel like home, even if they speak english betterer than us. and they all seem to love us. ahhhhhhhhdontworrrrrry says random beautiful french person, tis alll punkrockkkkk. we do superwell on merch, we were kinda worried, what with not having a record deal here and all. were staying in an etap tonight. but french etaps replace the rape hole with a bath. an actual bath. heaven. this isn't exactly how we imagined paris, apparently we're in the ghetto corner. but it still looks pretty from the 30th floor..





day IV
botanique, brussels!

for some stupid reason (qualityburger has an entrance off our hotel foyer) i eat chicken burger for breakfast. we gator around paris for a bit, scoring low on robot hand/native interaction..watch southpark in the van and i drift off watching the alien scenery thru the darkened mirror windows. im half asleep in the van and i think i hear katie talking of how tonight's gig is in an aquarium. and then i wake up, and we load into an aquarium. serious. tis a wierd art/nature centre, there are venues and gardens and a cafe, all in this beautiful old museum building. the venue crew are warm and witty people (total recurring theme alert). this gig's cooked meal and wine takes place an hour before we go on, so we're kinda unprepared. but nothing breaks and we're slipping into tour-smoothness. people are dead silent between songs, half thru politness and half thru translating what we're saying. i feel kinda patronising-tourist dumbing stuff down, but people understand us and dance about accordingly. aces fun. we don't get the lavish rider of sky larkin so we rob off their's. between us we have enough gin to get a whole battleship drunk. we swap an imaginary bag of diamonds for a block of hash with the lighting man, and at the end the bouncer asks us not not smoke it indoors. then he explains it's just because he quit so we should too.
we stay in a mad hotel, our room has themed bed covers. we find some free internet for the first time and send love back home, then climb the fire escape to the larkin's room and gaze out over the city. loads of buildings have amazing lights on the side, it puts the empire state colouring to shame. let alone birmingham's random cubes. its fucking beautiful, these amazing modern skyscrapers with moving blocks of colour and all these ornate cathederalesque buildings. one of them is missing a roof, so amid all this we can see into a small hall where a couple are sharing a bottle of wine looking at us drunken tourist wankers.

i heart touring.


day 5
gerbaude 9, cologne!



i wish all venues were like this. warehouse with giant pa and stage one end, and tiny bar room at the other. subs under the stage mean we can feel the music as much as hear it and it's so much fun. today's dish is curry and meats and sweets and two bottles of gin and beers and bread and dips. mushroom dip say wha? the gig goes dead smooth, the new songs feel like old friends and the crowd feels like new friends. we play super well (we heart loud stages) and the room fills up and bounces around. the soundman keeps giving us joints, we get educated on birmingham bands we've never heard of, seemingly everyone wants to talk to us and have us sign stuff, its acessss egotrip. only it's not cos they speak perfect english, and we barely know the difference between "ladies toilet" and "sausage based curry thing". we stay over the river in a beautiful hostel, its called the black sheep, and is, to all intents and purposes, a free house to stay in. our bedroom is the circus room, theres a tent drawn on the walls and various circus flyers pinned to the walls. we wish we had the dragon room tho..


day 6
day off! cologne!


aaaaaah another day at the black sheep. we're so lazy today, nestor and pete wake up early and go touristing while the rest of us drag ourselves out to breakfast at 2pm. first we sit on the roof and video a little song with office workers giving us odd looks form the tower over the street. lea doesnt have to drive, he wakes up, yawns, and opens a beer. we find europe's largest music store and depress the fuck out of each other finding bargains we can't afford. we've (our manager has) arranged new shirts to be delivered to hamburg so we have to make sure we have enough to pay the man. doesn't stop us buying lovely €5 pizza. we all get the translations wrong. who'd have thunk that pepperonzi (or something) meant peppers! and carbonara, theres no chicken in that! but its all super tasty and cheap, (beer is cheaper than pop) and we learn words for thank you and eggpizza.. find katie in a tiny record store buying an ancient sonic youth vhs i so would have got if id have got there first. instead i get a wierdy live casiotone single and an approving nod from the owner.
we spend the ends of our pds on chinese takeaway which we eat at black sheep with an overfriendly scottish ex army guy and a netherlands dude who's in town for the kings of leon show. we introduce him to the notwist and he plays us some dylan songs and me and jun and doug sit up in the kitchen after ewveryone else goes to sleep, trying to drink our way thru the rider. and that's where we leave you dear reader, jun's just said something rude to doug about not knowing the joan of arc back catalog, i'm going to roll our last joint, and we're going to go sit on the roof and talk about playing a show in hamburg tomorrow.


day 7, hamburg!
molotow!



this shit is totally organised.. venue owns an apartment we can spend the night in and our new (NEU!) shirts have arrived before us. the venue is a tiny pub right in touristland,and the rider highlight is a bowl of weirdy chocolate tail things. me and kelly go looking for tape to sort out tshirts but shops in hamburg only sell sex-related stuff and fast food, so we wander down the reeperbahn (of The Beatles Story fame) and take in so much fake tits and dildos and noveltyfuck that we start to feel a bit sick. we go on annoyingly earlier than advertised, so halfway thru room totally fills up. we sell our last saltnpeppa 10". german people like records waaaaaay more than english people. hang around the indie club after, swayed by discount €1 glasses of wine and general palavering. there are girls here wot like boys in bands and we is boys in bands. tradition innit. only, we're not the fucking enemy, so effort is wasted upon us. it's a weird state, being part celebrity and part meat and increasingly drunk. we're not even the fucking wombats, tho we do have grapes. infact, we have a little john malkovich room inbetween rooms we can smoke and eat grapes in. grapes, there always seems to be grapes around these days. take subway to apartment, feel totally german/drunk. 3 hours sleep. psssssssh.














day 8, schorndorff!
manufaktur!


we were kinda worried up to this point, no-one we've asked so far has even heard of schorndorff. and as we arrive its kinda obvious why. no chain stores or gaijin pubs, just a little green village made up of sleepy overgrown cul-de-sacs and abandoned tram lines. after the neon drunkery of hamburg, its completely what we needed. the venue itself is a big converted warehouse type thing, with panels of it deliberatly designed to look like they're falling off. tis kinda hard to explain. they so have a washing machine, YAY!, we all queue up for showers and clothes washing and chicken curry like a demented boarding school. the show is superfun, theres a total village fair atmosphere, we sell a ton of shirts, probably mostly down to my "NEU!" sign. there's this weird avantgarde US band on between us, a blatent double booking. i sit on merch and talk to this young couple, soaking up their subtlety free english ; "this band, they are ruining everyone's smiles, by the way is that a girl's hoodie you are wearing?" a lovely guy called phil manages to deliver us some weed. katie's kinda scared by him cos he takes her guitar away and returns it with all the strings tuned to A. at one point, phil asks me to tell the matronly woman on the door how we've invited him into our dressing room. i do so for the sake of drunken bonhomie and receive clearly disapproving nods from matron and mr matron pssssh ..stand outside smoking joints with the natives, pile in to van and drive to munich. being on tour messes up yr bodyclock. we've had about 3 hours sleep, driven all over the place, played a gig, got stoned and we're still not tired. so we walk into town to the burgerking in munich station, and sit watching the 3am gothics mingle around. i stay up too late delving into nestors ds collection, get forced to stop when my sd card dies. byebye every game ive saved in the last month..

day 9, munich!
ampere!




up early, go sightseeing (and toothbrush buying, stoopidweedmemory). munich's kinda pretty but there's not much to do on a sunday apart from take photos of ornate buildings and not get runover by trams. gamble not eating breakfast against the chances of a filling rider, gamble pays off superwell. 4 different plates of meats and cheeses and fruits and salads and ting, and, right, gin, yeh, thas 47%. thats like, 11% more powerful gin. halfway through our set these 3 crazy guys appear and start airguitaring and dancing and stuff, they totally make the night for us. after the set they tell us how they drove from austria to see us and how we were advertised to be on later. thanks promotorzzzzzzz! apart from that, the whole night is aces. the merch desk is next to the stage and we sit on the side and get drunk and sign things and watch les alloutes. after, we go back to the hotel and sort of slightly trespass in a railway yard to get some photos of TGVs at night. then we get chased out and i make jun take photos of me doing illegal and dangerous things i wont mention (but the pictures are fucking rad).



day 10, zurich!
mascotte!


wake up feeling like tour is going too quickly. spend €3 on awful breakfast and fall asleep on drive to switzerland. wake up at various borders to admire scenery: snow, mountains, snowy mountains, etcraaaaaah. another sumptous buffet rider. tho we're down to 4 bottles of gin. get cFr25 each to buy dinner. put in wallet and make more sandwiches. try sell last band bag for 100cfr but end up being haggled to 15. the gig is a bit flat, kinda feels like a sunday crowd. apparently the town is still reeling from oasis/glasvegas the night before. pretty fucking depressing if we share audiences. the sound on stage is mega tho, we're in our own world somewhat. at the end of the gig i try and run out of the venue with the microphone, i make it halfway down the stairs before i feel the lead taut. pssssssh. the austrian dudes turn up, late again, we give them beers from the beer mountain in the van and they seem slightly happier. i dont think i've even travelled that far to see a band, we feel awful for them..tis a way to make friends.... stay in drab featureless etap. lacking in rapehole again but makes up for it by having thee most featureless toilet any of us have ever seen. s'like, a Defacation Pod. eurgh. find some KKerazzy german video game program with reallife streetfighter skits and try and smoke out of the windows..


day 11, berlin!
magnet!


8 hour drive epic! we're up at 6, then fall asleep again in the van only to be woken up in a service station at 9 for feeding. we're machines, we need to be kept well. get hideous toothache, fall asleep on the front seat, megalegroom yay. arrive in berlin and step into most surreal day of tour so far. get out the van to get closer look at skylarkin superrfan autograph hunters, only to be presented with superglossy prints of us to be signed as well. tis a good start. wander to chemists - "me, english, tooth kaput", get given "germany's strongest painkillers". is a general sign of decent nights when the staff buy tshirts from you before you even play. berlin has a proper party vibe, and there are people here who're proper into us. like, they have records we made even i dont own. epic fail again with stage times, meaning today's Gutted hat is worn by anita from dresden who drove 2 hours on her own for 3 songs. watching her dance to us is kinda intimidating, she knows the words better than i do. nexttime next time next time.. painkillers and gin = winning combination, i have one drink and feel pleasantly toasted all evening. backstage is upstairs in a big hall with a snes and a giant buffet. me and nestor throw 70c polystrene planes at everyone then we have to say goodbye venue hello hostel. 8 beds in a room but we're all so tired no one even notices who snores most. sleep aided by amazing "kebap", easily the healthiest and tastiest kebabs we'll ever eat, ever..




day 12,
berlin!


day offffff. today we've been touristy. well, i mostly slept in the van and scavved internet in a carpark and accidently smashed a bottle of gin. but everyone else went touristing (and bought me a proper soviet hat from checkpoint charlie) and then we watched the police corden off a massive road for a motorcade and then we drink in the street for a bit before we go to white trash, which is like the acest burger restaurant in the world. we eat the same burger that elvis used to eat when he was in berlin. allegedly... feel about as bloated too. drive to rostock in preparation for ferry tomorrow. we're staying in an automated etap. tis kind of eerie, the grass is all overgrown and you get codes for yr room from a desk computer. how future is that? goodnight worlds!



day 13, copenhagen
rust!



wake up superearly for ferry. drive to ferry point. can't find ferry. panic! find ferry. stop panic, start picnic. at least, all you can eat breakfast picnic, we're determined to get enough food to last us a few countries. copenhagen is cold. there are girls riding bikes up hills in skirts and nordic model types cavorting around in tshirts and us in hoodies and coats and scarves shivering.
enconsed in our 8 bunk room, we find out that the british embassy has advised englishers not to go to the district we're due to play in. cos gangs keep shooting people there. english people, and people driving vans, and people with nothing to do with gangs. hey, thats us! fortunately, indie rock is a higher power than mere hells angels and turkish ultraviolence and culture clashes. (and we really need to get paid), so we check our 6s, move and fire, watch the shadows and unload into the venue in a slightly hysterical paranoid manner.
todays show is with metronomy, they're combatting the terror threat by being really fucking drunk, so we try to join in too. we have a shit soundcheck, eat awful watercurry before we go on, and the gig is wonderfullll. our guncrime jokes draw scared looks from pete and lea but generous laughter from the crowd. i have a moment watching an insanely beautiful (most people here are insanely beautiful) couple recoil backwards when we come in really loud in a new song, the atmosphere is great. we have to be up at stoopidoclock obviously, so we unload thru metronomy's superlofi lightsho set, and try to redress the good looks balance by clouting hordes of dancing kidzzz with our flight cases. we take a quick walk to the river before bed, super modern and hauntingly serene, never been so cold in my life but wanted to see how long i could last. slept super well, lost etiquette points for snoring.



day 14 oslo,
garage.








epic drive thru sweden. spend most of it asleep on stolen berlin pillow. wake up periodically at service stations to be epic confused by currency changes and foodstuffs. at one point i wake up on a ferry half convinced that i'm dreaming. "satnav says so" says lea. who never agrees with satnav thus surrealling up my day even more. buy a sandwhich on green bread with christmas coin money, have half a cigarette in a smoking pod and get bundled back into van and drive thru more postrock landscape beauty. stop for meatballs in ikea. lovely.
gig has shonky sound but is quite fun, we have a few dedicated followers here, and some total mentals. one girl grabs my ass and starts talking superfast to her boyfriend, i ask her what she's doing and she tells me she's helping sell our cds. someone asks nestor if he can watch him pee. someone takes a shit next to the van whilst were loading out. all this whilst the rest of the totally stunningly good looking population wanders round the pub fighting and kissing each other. this is the maddest country in the world but no ones out to shoot us so we sleep pretty good. we dont want this tour to end.









day 15 stockholm,
debaserrr




obviously, the best way to end the most fun tour we've had would be to play at some kind of pixies themed venue, so here we are. not before another trip to ikea where we find you can get FREE SALAD with the meatballs. we get even more lost getting out, it takes half an hour of simsville. anyway, debaser, yeh, there's a range of pixies song themed cocktails, but our van is creaking and weighed down with booze. and we can't take it with us. and leaving all the drink with the crew after a tour is really bad form. i got really drunk and don't remember much of this night. we played ok. kelly's best friend told us a hella embarrassing childhood memory about her. there was a pavement ist rad shirt. the toilets weren't unisex. our friend v from paris lost her job and decided to fly out to see us. that's pretty punk rock. the stage had curtains, i had two unimpressed hardcore girls standing infront of me thru our whole set, and we ended the night as ever, by packing away things into boxes, turning down offers to go to nightclubs we'd hate, and driving to traveltavern for sobering sleep.



about 5 hours later, we flew to heathrow, then to jfk, then caught a cab to our (TOTALLY AWESOME) rented apartment in brooklyn where we sat out on the street with our cases cos someone somewhere wrote the adress down wrong, and we thought, this is so totally us..

but thats another story.


this tour has been fucking acesssss. i know we keep going on about that fact. the late night how lucky are we conversation became a cliche about 3 days in. please don't mistake our eyes wide enthusiams for arrogance and deluded gloating. we're well aware that pretty much everyone we meet, whether shitting in the street or being impeccably cool and foreign, is more financially and emotionally stable than we'll ever be, lest we write a christmas song (retirement plan 1) or get a super-profitable sync (hello top gear!!!!!) and because we're of the righteously naive indie rock demographic (we've got surbUrbia here. on video. pirate video) who judge by music taste and converse choice it's slightly tragic that, the more people who like our band = the more awesome people we meet and more amazing cities we see = the less time we have to meet people or hang out in said amazing cities. it's like, showing you all these alternate worlds you could live in if you got a real job, and at the same time reminding you what yr missing back "home". this is still The Best Job In The World, tho, we're just mardy from jetlag..
we owe massive debts of gin and ting to nestor and katie and doug for letting us share their awesome tour and polluting their environment with us-ness. and even bigger thanks to tour manager pete, who is nothing like ian faith from spinal tap and has amazing taste in music, and even bigger and now traditional thanks to mr lea room for putting up with us and fixing our stuff and losing another two weeks of his life for the cause when he'd rather be on his speedboat being romantic. HAPPY GETTING MARRIED MR ROOM YOU OWE US BIG NOW YES??


also, it's insane how grateful half the people we spoke to were for us coming over when we get treated so much better by promotors and service staff. hot meals! wine! 47%gin! hello barflys! you dont care at all do you?

and and and, thanks to everyone who came to watch us and dance to us and humble us, as soon as this band is over, we're all moving in with you.

xxlex