WE RIDE WE RIDE SKELETAL LIGHTENING

first, for the whole world and moon:

NAMES

click to listen to our 4 awesome new songs!

you can buy some as a tshirt here, and some as badges here

second!

JOHNNY FOREIGNER CURSES AMERICA 2012

So far, America, you have missed:
Us playing in Wilmington. Us on a beach at night. Us staying in a mansion. Us on a beach in the day. Us failing to play a Halloween show in Durham in costume. Us being jealous of everyone's lovely houses. Us climbing onto a roof opposite the Lucky Strike factory and setting off fireworks. Us playing to 7 people in a sports bar in Richmond. Us projecting shapes onto the Lincoln Memorial  and us playing a rad show to lovely people in DC whilst SOME CUNT STOLE MY FUCKING IPOD TOUCH FROM OUR DRESSING ROOM.


We've been playing shows supporting the excellent Hammer No More The Fingers and it's almost over and it's been rad fun and THERE'S NO TIME TO BE SAD.

our last show with them is today/tonight/11/3/2012 at Golden West in Baltimore MD

the next leg of tour-lamb is going to be at least 1 whole sense better cos Mr Ben Rausch will be rejoining us to do his awesome visual projection magic:

4th - The Fire, Philadelphia PA tickets with Hop Along and The Sidekicks
6th - Glasslands Gallery, New York NY tickets with Motive and Rumours
7th - Great Scott, Alston MA, tickets with Guillermo Sexo and Speedy Ortiz and Infinity Girl
8th - Sierra Grill, Northampton MA, 10pm $3 with Pachangacha, Nervous Passenger and Speedy Ortiz
9th - Binghampton University, Vestal NY, free entry, with Steve Labreque's Wild Ride


and then, home stretch, we're joined by our labelmates, responsible designated drivers and rad punk rock band, Nervous Passenger.

10th - The Green House, Pittsburgh PA, with Nervous Passenger and Legs Like Treetrunks
11th - 40 Walker Street, Athens OH, with Nervous Passenger
12th - Rachaels Cafe, Bloomington IN, with Nervous Passenger
13th - Milhouse, Kalamazoo, MI, with Nervous Passenger and Forget the Times
14th - The Sound Cellar, Chesterton IN, with Nervous Passenger
15th - Johnny Foreigner Vs Chicago, Subterranean with Waterhouse, My Dad and Nervous Passenger
16th - The Sett at Union South, Madison WI, with Nervous Passenger
17th - Johnny Foreigner Vs Swerp, Swerp Mansion, Chicago IL. with Nervous Passenger, Noumenon, and Scoundrel (mail: info@swerprecords for address)

AND THEN FUCKING CANADA YEH?
thanks to the beyond helpful and super awesome music band Elos Arma,  who'll be our support and emotional crutches for the whole leg.

20th -
21st - Blackshire Pub, London ON with Elos Arma and More More
22nd - TBA, Guelph ON with Elos Arma and Bowjia, $5 all ages
23rd - TBA, Toronto with Elos Arma
24th - TBA
25th - Montreal TBA

tbas will be a'd in the next week, we'll shout about it loudly for sure.

two things we cannot stress enough yo:

1) this is thee most fun ever
2) fuck nose when we'll be able to afford to come over again so you should totally book that flight
3) if anyone has an Ipod touch they want to offload for cheapy price (real cheapy) then plz get in touch
SEE YOU SOON!
Xx

always chances

Hello World, some brief things:

: Ebay people, thank you so very much. We have enough money to fake our americacanada tour on a secret backlot soundstage buy some plane tickets, this is totally looking like a Thing that can happen. If you haven't already, can you all please let us know if you'd like your winnings to be signed, and the mystery drums skin winners tell us how you'd like us to desecrate them. Stuff will be posted out on Monday

: -i worry- tshirt people, the shirts were hella delayed getting to us and most have been posted out, the rest are going out on Monday too.

- this guy here is called Herio Braker, and he's the magic guardian of our new recordings. He's been hanging out at our studio the last few days and we've been charging his sigil with the power of awesome loud guitar pop. You too can help us out here, look into his eyes, focus your happy thoughts on the sign he's holding, and he's spew those vibes over our new songs in the next week:

he can see you thru the screen because he is magic.

- also, we're going to make another shirt, for th UK tour. What colour should we use, we are awful at this. TELL US PLEASE.

- also also, recording makes for long hours late at night spent listening to each other play the same thing over and over again. so, one last favour, if you could all write your very bestest jokes in the comment box below, that would ease us thru the nights greatly.

thank youuuuuuu

xox

EXORCISM OF THE SELF

so, um americanada. hi there. as you may have seen leaked onto the interwebs, we have a few shows pencilled in for October. Truth be told, we have a decent run down the east coast and we're looking at practically at Canada and kinda more desperately optimistic at the west coast too. ITS LIKE ANOTHER COUNTRY COMPLETELY and finding shows that'll pay enough to justify flying over and paying for more backline hire is getting increasingly tricky. blerghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Anyway, (and this is where the rest of the world may start reading) all this dreaming is immaterial if we don't raise enough money to fly there in the first place, so here is todays super awesome news bomb.

presenting THE GREAT GET JOHNNY FOREIGNER TO AMERICANADA AUCTION 2012:

in which you guys get to buy awesome unique us - related artwork, and we then get to spend your money on plane tickets. this is definitely the best plan that ends with "we then spend your money on plane tickets" that you'll ever be involved in.

It's been kinda cool exorcising all this stuff to the internets. like old men who sell their war medals for cigarette money, only instead of cigarettes it's the holiday of their dreams, and they've already squeezed all the kudos and usefulness out of those medals anyway. and they also have perfect digital scans of them too. And noone is sad. This is a terrible metaphor.

What we're saying is we would rather live for the future (TOUR AMERICANADA) than accumulate scraps of memories designed for firing at other people in the first place. More news soon, but we've found an awesome US label that can sort us out with a van and someone to drive it and awesome bands to play with places to play and sleep and money to make more records, but only on the basis we can get out there in the first place.

So you guys, here is 2012's most Un-Kony crowd sourcing appeal. We've put up 16 different art packages from the last few years, all handmade unique original versions of things that ended up being record books, tshirts and things, as well as a couple of surprises. There's hopefully enough stuff to spread out so no-one has to pay OTT money, tho those with higher than average bank balances are encouraged to buy for other people as well as themselves.

1.) Grace and the Bigger Picture cover

2.) Grace and the Bigger Picture booklet pack (4 pieces) 1/5

3.) Grace and the Bigger Picture booklet pack (4 pieces) 2/5

4.) Grace and the Bigger Picture booklet pack (4 pieces) 3/5 (graces lyrics)

5.) Grace and the Bigger Picture booklet pack (4 pieces) 4/5

6.) Grace and the Bigger Picture booklet pack (4 pieces) 5/5

7.) Gin Dagger Cite her Bar Cut cover set (2 pieces)

8.) Feels Like Summer cover set (3 pieces)

9.) Criminals cover set (3 pieces)

10.) I Ghost JF Tshirt design

11.) Are You Hungry Now design (b&w)

12.) Ghost Vomit Eurotour design (b&w)

13.) South Africa tour poster

All the above are a4 photopaper sheets made by Lewes and are The Actual Ones Off Of The Record and whatnot.

13.) Arcs Across The City stage banner
a giant smelly heavy banner featuring (decayed) cover art

14.) Mystery snare skin (smaller than a floor tom skin)
15.) Mystery floor tom skin (bigger than a snare skin)

authentically toured and destroyed by junior, these found objects are waiting for YOU to tell us what to draw on them. if you win, that is. we specialise in fraudulent family crests. idk probably.

16.) look there are people like that out there and if we don't cater for them it's like we're dismissing their ability to function as part of the human race and since we're selling it anyway, we're not exactly high enough above them on the evolutionary scale to be proud about it anyway.

17.) kelly's pants. don't click that.

There spread across a couple of different accounts so treat this as a contents page, i guess.

So there you go, good luck and we hope that you all get what you want and the combined value of which puts america within practical distance. everything can be signed on request and if we're coming to your yard at any point on tour then you can pick it up. that may be quite a small chance, but we're announcing our UK dates in literally hours, so we'll throw in Guest list to any show for winning bids too.

Thanks for taking part anywayssss. This mass potential exchange of past for future is our friendly and less greedy homebrew version of kickstarter, and there's a fair chance it'll fail cos we weren't relentless or extortionate enough, but at the very least we'll be able to buy a big enough bowl to all cry in. forever.

xoxoxo

long way around the sea.

im starting to worry that i'll forget how to feel loved. fsdnosgnwoesvdiovsiovdyhnjm.

you know when you tumblr stalk people and you realise the whole site is basically one big repost that says "ohai i have liek, no confidence, plz tell me my boob-hinty self shot makes me just as attractive as the last girl to do a boob-hinty self shot and if not here's someone else's photograph of some brand i identify with only taken with the contrast up because i am quite artistic and appreciate colours"?

do you ever think, when we're all like, 50 years old with real jobs, that all our neuroses will have been vanquished as a result of such mass digital catharsis, and we'll be all the more balanced and responsible people for it and thus improve humanity?

i thought i should fill some space here cos it looks like we died on the way to america. we nearly did, but thats another story. like, a 12 page tour diary i've just finished and need wing-arm to proof read. so, here is a bullet point list of the kool things we have done since i last wrote here

- america (obviously)

- was huge and brilliant and one of the few places where epic is not hyperbole. THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who bought stuff off our internet shops; you paid for the first legs deposit on the van and some buffalo wings. Those who went above and beyonds, we have a file on you and you'll get some kind of non-monitary reward at some points. ridiculously text heavy tour diary also coming soon.

- our split 7" with stagecoach came out.

- lewes did an art-off with secretly swedish and it came out beautiful. we contributed a song called tru punx don't get 2 choose, the title got cut along the line somewhere, presumably by the Grammar Police, and a barbershopified version of good luck with your 45

, which took about a 90 years for me to mix properly because none of our babs were in time and cool edit went mental and destroyed the piano sounds (tho i think that made them better). Stagecoach do a song called not even giles, its probably their best song ever and has 63 different catchy bits, and a cover of salt pepa which glides and floats and is infinitely better than them internet acoustic covers. I guess im mostly preaching to the converted, but, if not: BUY IT. all the reviews have been rad too, not that such things should matter to those with their own ears.

- its AWESOME CAKE TIME:

- we played phizz fest in wimbledon, it was fun and games but being broke meant using the inhouse sound man, which is fine unless they're a complete mentalist like this guy. does anyone remember ozric tentacles? me neither, but this guy used to be one, an

d seems all the worse for it now. i don't want to write a para telling sad tales about the behaviour of some old hippie casualty but i'd recommend bands play at the grove and experience this broken storm of a man.

- our EP came out. well, slowly. the cds are all done and ready and come with a little photoghost, the 12" are sitting in the corner of wing-arm and frobots front room being turned from black canvases to handmade works of amazement.

We totally didn't think this project out. each record sleeve, from start to finish, takes about 20-25 mins to make. We have 500. urkz! luckily we have plenty of van time to production line ourselves. 150 have already gone to alcopop hq, so preorders there should be fulfilled soon, and we're trying for another 100 this week for our distributor, so if you've preordered from somewhere else then maybe yours is the next one i write.

It's kinda sad in a way, i wish we could gallery them for a while, cos they look so impressive lined up on the floor, but no-ones ever going to see more than a few in the same place.

Anyway, im picking up the last sets of photos from wichita next week, so then we'll do all the prize work for everyone. This also has awesome reviews for those of you who still buy music based on decimal scoring, so thank you all you journalisty types. for sure, we're #betterthanthebeatles. Seem to have done a million interviews too, and none of them have been shit, so im sure you'll be pleased to read some more rambly gubbins elsewhere. these are probably my favourites, interviews are getting fun: 1998 loaded magazine bloke test style and pictionary style (also, audience pictionary style)

- We did a Brand New Song for gold flake paint and played it in a freezing cold art gallery in bristol. Its called, a kings heath story and is about snow and stuff. you can see our dan branching out into the world of live percussion too. it should be up next week, meantimes here are words cos i know you like it like that.

i walked out when it ended on addison road where the cozy hearts were stowed. took yr parents whisky and yr bad advice and the bottle smashed on the ice. and we'll make the best with the heat thats left. we could shut ourselves in, i can't stay i can't stay awake. we should cover our tracks but the snows covered everything. blanketed, glistening, is this heaven for you. i walked out in the blizzard and i got soaked to the skin. from the outside looking in, the glow of the tv and the frosted glass and a shiver that won't last. and we'll stay under the blankets till we see the beams of searchlights silhouetting snowflakes against the roofs of old friends houses

- our youkay tour is almost over, just southampton tomorrow and then up to scotland in the heatwave. Thanks to everyone braving the weather for coming out, its been awesome and sweat-filled as ever. If you live in london then you clearly need to know about this SUPER RAD END OF TOUR/YEAR PARTY thats been added on, 13th december. o shit also, dom who does our recordings is doing our sound on this tour, and LOOK WHO HE MET ON HIS DAY OFF!

legendville. he wussed out about asking his opinions of joan of arcs album campaign which would have been interesting to hear. but still, jealous.

we gave ourselves transformer names. im flywheel, kelly is wing-arm (to be reborn mallet) and junior is frobot. dan has one too but it's so offensive that when i told everyone i'd mentioned it in an email interview they were kinda shocked. so if anyone can think up a new name for dan, that'd save us the time we really need to spend time drawing then cutting then scribbling then marking then glueing then pressing then taping then writing then labelling then packing then reboxing

.

k hope everyone is keeping warmer than i am. you can buy both our new records direct from our label right here

xx

GOODBYE IDIOTS!

that was a tv comedy reference, you're not really idiots. We're like 2 hours away from leaving for toronto and im totally hyper and not ready.

massive thankyous to everyone who brought stuff from our goodwill sale, and even massiver thankyous to the few of you who found the gift cash button on paypal, we're totally humbled. We're going to work out something very special for you folks in the neat future, you will be remembered.

The end result of cash-drive is enought monies to hire out a winnebago. well, we can only afford the first couple of weeks so far but it's an awesome start and means we can nix hotel costs and make dan cook us breakfast. so yeh. it totally wouldn't be possible if it weren't for you guys. karma says you all get swimming pools.

We're still totally on the scav for places to stay (winnebago sleeps 4 + 2 children and there's 7 of us..) and shower, so if anyone can accomodate us, plz hit us up here:

johnnyforeigner@hotmail.co.uk.

we'll totally guestlist you and tell your friends how rad you are.

if youve bought the digital film package and havnt had a link yet, curse dropbox and email us and we'll send you it.

Play Patterns was awesome fun. leeds = best city. sincere apologies to everyone who that had to leave cos things over-ran. we feel totally shitty about it but it was completely out of our control. if its any consolation, they only paid us half of what we were contracted for because they wanted to try and cut their losses a bit. THANKS FOR THAT GUYS, WE'RE REALLY RICH ATM SO JUST FORGET ABOUT IT K?

So we're another £350 behind what pathetic budget we had, but there's too much good stuff happening to start throwing knives, and Leeds is totally winning the most-extreme-audience-dancing league that we've just imagined.

SO QUICKLY BEFORE WE LEAVE YOU GUYS, here are the dates for our awesome UK tour to celebrate our EP release on alcopop. Support on all dates comes from Stagecoach, who you should be hella excited for.

Nov –

18 – Reading Play

19 – Northampton Labour Club

20 – Brighton Jam

22 – Cardiff Buffalo Bar

23 – Cambridge The Portland Arms

24 – London Barfly

25 – Guildford Boileroom

26 – Nottingham Gatecrasher

28 – Leeds Brudenell Social Club

29 – York Stereo

30 – Sheffield Harley

Dec

1 – Birmingham The Fucking Flapper! SWEET!

3 – Bristol The Croft

6 – Southampton Joiners

7 – Leicester Sub91

8 – Glasgow Nice N’ Sleazies

9 – Aberdeen Cafe Drummonds

10 – Dundee Doghouse

11 – Edinburgh Sneaky Pete’s

There's still a couple of shows tbc, but if yr a promotor and see a geographically suitable gap then hit us up. Notice Scotland: We found another city thats not glasgow or edinburgh or the other one. Is it any good? Plz no OMG YOUR NOT PLAYING MY TOWN letters, we've tried to spread ourselves around as much as we can, its ALL your fault for living somewhere with no suitable available promoter. In keeping with US sensibilities, we'll offer guestlist to people if yr coming a stupid distance. So so psyched for this, there's some awesome places we havnt been to for ages and stagecoach are probably my favourite band to watch in the world right now.

So yeh. E.P. time. All the tracks have been approved for mastering tomorrow. So when we finally fall out of aeroplanes we'll have something to listen to.

GUESS WHAT THO! SOMETHING WENT WRONG AND WE NEED YOUR HELP! Here is the Official Page for the release, details (and more lush pictures) are there. don't look at us like that, for once this isn't a money thing, its another stupidly impractical art idea that YOU can be part of.

i'd love to talk shit more but i have to go pack. OMGAMERICAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

OH MY GOD AMERICA (and Cananda), (Canada) AND AMERICA OH MY GOD

america, this post is solely for you. it's what you've been waiting for. no time for witty commentary:

WE'RE GOING ON TOUR WITH FUCKING LOS CAMPESINOS!

arghyarghargh. Those of you who've been following our super-america (and canada) campaign (backstory 1 & 2, i guess we'll be adding some more songs to that..) will know how much this means to us. Check the general goodness of these dates:

HNNNNG:

10/08/10 – Toronto, ON @ Wrongbar (All Ages)
10/09/10 – Laval, PQ @ Maison des Arts de Laval (All Ages)
10/10/10 – South Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground (All Ages)
10/12/10 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s (21+)
10/13/10 – New Haven, CT @ Toad’s Place (All Ages)
10/15/10 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg (16+)
10/16/10 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg (16+)
10/17/10 – Baltimore, MD @ Ram’s Head Live (All Ages)
10/18/10 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle (All Ages)
10/20/10 – Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse (All Ages)
10/22/10 – Dallas, TX @ Granada Theatre (14+)
10/23/10 – Austin, TX @ La Zona Rosa (All Ages)
10/24/10 – Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live (All Ages)
10/26/10 – St. Louis, MO @ Firebird (All Ages)
10/27/10 – Iowa City, IA @ The Blue Moose (All Ages)

we're main support for all these days except the two brooklyn shows where we're on first so we have time to go hang outside the hold-steadys rehearsal room again.

some more facts:

1) UK be jealous, we're going to be joined on these dates by our 2nd tallest friend and animation genius Ben Rausch. Ben joined us for our South Africa tour earlier this year and ran around the stage triggering live visual loops of ghosts and laser cats and preddy padderns and things with his bastardised keytar. Read his words about all that here. He's brought a foldy outy screen thing and probably doesn't quite know what he's letting himself in for.

2) These dates are all LC! shows, we might try and squeeze some more in between. See a geographically viable space? Got a basement? Hit us up NOW!

3) I know theres a lot of places we're missing out. Here is our official stance on the inevitable SOB SOB WHERES MY SEABOARD complaints: We're coming like, 3000 miles for this, its going to financially drain us, it's an amazing party-zone line up and its NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN AGAIN. So, you can either roadtrip out to some of the shows, or wait for us to accrue the airfare again and see if some (less amazing) band wants to take us out. You could be waiting a long long time.

4) If you wrote in for our teamerica campaign and live in one of the places we're playing, expect some kind of begging letter in the next week or so. Our touring party is probably going to be like, 7 people (we're taking dan to make sure we don't leave anything behind each night) and what would be lovely is if we met a few tru punx who had spare couches and lived close to each venue. Also, college radio peeps, fanzineybloggy people, anyone with billy corgans cell number, get in touch, lets do STUFF.

5) We're getting some merchymerch made up. We're pretty much going to have to rely on merch sales for food, so, hope you guys like tshirts.

here is lewes's superawesome US exclusive shirt design:

ITS A HEART AND ITS YOUR COUNTRY GEDDIT?

We'll be doing some kind of pre-ordery combo bundley thing offer pretty soon, whereby you get stuff for cheap if you order it before hand. You get a guaranteed shirt for cheap and we get to eat sooner, everyone's happy. More about that soooooon.

okcools. busy busy busy. stay close

xlex