Empire Records

is still one of my favourite films ever. The reason me and kelly went to work in a record shop. Its a pretty fairy story tale that never plays out in real life; indie record store threatened by The Man,and despite being woefully underfunded and staffed by slacker cliches, stages epic rock show, raises cash at last minute and stays TRU PUNX 4EVA.

this is our empire records moment.

. you know whats rubbish about being a small band? big companies. the kind of big companies that can swat you away and squish you without losing any sleep. sometimes they don't squish you tho. they just sign a publishing deal with you and offer you a couple of grand to buy flights and hotels and petrols should you get offered, say, an awesome US tour, then when you come to claim the money THEY DONT FUCKING EVEN BOTHER TO PICK UP THE FUCKING PHONE YOU RAT BASTARD CONNIEVING GREEDY CORPORATE FUCKHEADS.

um yeh. so we have no idea if they're avoiding us cos they know we're owed money, or they're on holiday spending our money, or they're planning on throwing a big party in toronto when we land and showering us with tourbuses and free guitar strings. even just showering us, would be a better situation than we've landed ourselves in now. IDK, maybe they're all round avril lavigne's house singing system of a down songs.

So we're coming to america alright. We guessed aforementioned Industry Cunts would find some excuse to delay paying us so we cleared our band account into juniors, put our personal savings, borrowed cash from our tour manager and our manager manager, and brought everyones tickets. American Airlines even charged us double by accident, meaning juniors bank account is a seething cauldron of debt and redness; but at least we have the tickets. What we don't have is hotel money, van hire money, driver hire money, petrol money, food money, merch-making money, don't even want to think about how we're going to afford the hitmen we want to hire now-money.

Anyways, so we've been panicing and pacing and comparing hitman quotes, realised we need to have some sort of garage sale. think of this as that tv show that goes into people's houses and sets up stalls outside selling their old crap to the rest of the street. We're a lot nicer than those people, our old crap isn't crap, and we have a waaaay more noble goal than trying to raise the cash to put auntie gladys in a home or get a kitchen extension with real wooden beams.

Here is some stuff for sale. virtual packages, if you will, from various points in our history.

Johnny Foreigner's Great Digital Goodwill Sale:

for £5 each:

We Left You Sleeping And Gone Now; Also....

(pre kelly home made country rock)

comprises:

"we left you sleeping and gone now" - 11 track album

"also..." 4 extra songs we made a week or so later

14 previously unseen hand made backdrops from when we used to have a projector

40 period photographs

copious self absorbed liner note waffle

Every Day Is A Constant Battle

(original recordings and demos)

comprises:

"every day is a constant battle" - 17 track pre-waited up demo compilation

21 previously unseen handmade backdrop things

27 period photographs and posters

all our pre - best before record art (including 3d polaroids and all 5 bullring covers)

more liner note waffles

For £4:

Johnny Foreigner Does Wichiten

High Quality Bootleg Audiovisual Setmenu:

8 songs recorded this summer as part of the Wichita Has A Week Long 10th Birthday Party celebrations at the Garage in LDN, featuring 3 totally new songs + cameos from the chaos horns and gareth and neil campesinos!

comprises:

full set shot with 2 Hi Res cameras from front of house and sound desk audio

mp3s of sound desk audio

danPOV package - see and hear but not smell the show, an interview and other fun larks thru the HD eyes of our tech dan

two extra bonus mp3s of acoustic live session songs

and for £2.50 each

Johnnyforeignerisaces (hearts edition)

ltd edition tour EP, 7 otherwise unavailable recordings, 24 period photos from juniors camera, and 2 awesome lush desktop wallpapers made in collaboration with World renown architect and Topshop founder Lewes Herriot.

Johnny Foreigner @ Wichiten

just the audio from our superfun LDN show (+ 2 acoustic songs)

so yeh. you can see full tracklistings for everything by clicking the respective links.

we're using bandcamp to distribute the music, everything else will be sent via the miracle of dropbox to yr email as soon as we see it. It'll be checked everyday from now until forever, so nothings going to get lost and delayed unless the government cuts off everyones internets.

Last of all, if you'd like to guarantee getting one of lewes's beautiful heart/america tour tshirts you can preorder by clicking here. They'll be sent off a week or so into the tour.

Tho we clearly can't stress enough the IF YOU DONT GIVE US YOUR MONEY THEN WE ARE COMPLETELY SCREWED, we're still old enough to remember spending £15.99 on joan of arc albums from tempest (rip), so asking a combined £16.50 for 49 songs and a bunch of video and home made arts stuff doesn't exactly feel like begging. still, look at our big eyes and silky fur. you know if you don't pay, we get put down right?

K cools. Whatever you give will go directly into the america fund, i was lying about the hitman. Thanks. back soon.

(TLDR : we're selling everything. go here and here and please please please all the gods in the world let us raise enough money to be able to actually do this tour.

stay close. xxxxxxx