transatlanticism

hello!

On the eve of our UK tour, we'd like to do some announcery. actually i guess, part one of a two part announcery. This is the one that sets the scene, and you can expect plot exposition in a weeks time.




first, some more tour dates:

Johnny Foreigner Vs The Atlantic

OCTOBER
30th Satellite | Wilmington, NC w/ Hammer No More The Fingers

31st Pinhook | Durham, NC w/ Hammer No More The Fingers

NOVEMBER
1st - Republic | Richmond, VA w/ Hammer No More The Fingers

2nd - Velvet Lounge | Washington, DC w/ Hammer No More The Fingers

3rd - Golden West | Baltimore, MD w/ Hammer No More The Fingers

4th - The Fire | Philadelphia, PA w/ & Hop Along, The Sidekicks


6th - Glasslands Gallery | NYC, NY

7th - Great Scott | Boston, MA - Clicky Clicky Music Blog Show Spectacular

8th - TBA | Northampton, MA
9th - Binghampton University | Buffalo, NY

10th - TBA | Pittsburgh w/ Nervous Passenger
11th - TBA | Athens w/ Nervous Passenger
12th - TBA | Toledo w/ Nervous Passenger
13th - TBA | Kalamazoo w/ Nervous Passenger
14th - Sound Cellar | Chesterton, IN w/ Nervous Passenger
15th - JOHNNY FOREIGNER VS CHICAGO - w/ Water House, Nervous Passenger, My Dad @ Subterranean
16th - The Sett | Madison, WI w/ Nervous Passenger  
17th - JOHNNY FOREIGNER VS SWERP - Johnny Foreigner, Noumenon, Nervous Passenger, Scoundrel

!HOLY SHIT THATS AMERICA!

Well, some of it. The west coast, we're sorry, we just can't afford you yet. S'not like any offers have been beneath us, but airfare/backline/van, it's just out of our reach at the moment. If the last couple of weeks have taught us anything, it's not to base geography or distance on perceptions honed playing Turbo Outrun. It will happen at some point, we promise, but that doesn't mean we're not going to nag you all to ROAD TRIP over to see us.

We're hanging out with some awesome bands too; we're supporting Hammer No More The Fingers for a few shows, and be supported by Nervous Passenger at a few more.

Canada, You are happening too. We're going to be homeless tho so be gentle. Come back next week when we'll be adding shows and confirming the TBAs.

ANYWAYS RIGHT, none of this would have been possible without Swerp. What a great segue:





Secondly, we'd like to tell you about our new American label! Our second American label. Seriously right, in 2008 we sat in a boardroom high above Manhattan and signed contracts for provisional 9 month tour commitments to the same stable as Avril and Fallout Boy. In some alternate universe, our definitions of punk were alligned and at least one of us is married to Nickelback.

What really happened next is we met this guy J Matthew Nix. He was into our band and became our friend when he brought us coffee. We made each other videos, it was kinda like romance. The kind of romance where 18 months in one of you starts a party fuelled record label to promote bands you love and the other one is in a band looking for a label (but you also live in a different country)

That's happened to you before, right?

This kind of magic only happens in Chicago. Please take this as a formal transfer request from one twin city to the other. Swerp is pretty much our punka saviours helping out with our American tour, (which we hereby christen, Johnny Foreigner Vs the Atlantic) but we hope it leads to more adventures and better metaphors. Our first new Swerp release will be in partnership with Alcopop. and it will be called [better segue]

sweet

NAMES

magic-infused Herio Braker, 2d realm variant

Hello the world.

we would like to tell you about our new record / EP / badge set / tshirt / pretentious transatlantic art fag project.
and it is called NAMES.


We made it in the small hours of last week in our super secret Digbeth studio, with our long time producer Dominique James. It's our first recordings as a 4 piece, so it's totally appropriate that, as the first release with our Swerp, we now sound even more like all them American bands people say we sound like. If certain songs ended up as our Kieron Gillen style parable, and vs everything a Grant Morrison sprawl, then please let this be our Warren Ellis run.

NAMES will be available from the 27th October, (which is our last Vs London show) and you can buy from either label. They're the same but different.

There are four songs. one is for Swerp, one is for Alcopop, one will be communal and one we're literally going to give away for free next week like the net-savvy musicians we are.


So, in the UK, Alcopop will be releasing a fancy set of 6 38mm badges (pre order now!!), and in the US Swerp will be releasing a NAMES Tshirt hand coloured by us.

Each will come with a download code for their 3 songs. We'll be selling them on tour too, OBVS, and if you've had enough of us playing silly buggers with formats, you'll be able to dl the country-specific songs separately for £99.

Ok. SO, meet you back here next week with Canadian shows, new songs, and more details about the NAMES releases. Going on tour now, BYE

xoxo

harriet, by j matthew

or, lets play at being the music industry part 4628247

if you've just switched over, when we were in america, we had a few days to kill, and, for no good reason other than he's awesome, j matthew nix sent us a treatment for a video he wanted to shoot for harriet, by proxy. it was totally rad and fun and (for us) easy, we shot on our penultimate day, in chicago, which is kind of our spiritual motherland, and after a month spent using cgi to make my hair less grey, we have the finished package ready to show you guys.

it's fucking special.

last week saw us debating amongst ourselves, our label, our manager and our press dude on the best way to release it. as i think yr all sick of whining about by now, we r skintd, so th most obvious route seemed to be, find a way to monetize it; but that seemed kinda wrong considering the whole crew worked purely for the joy of it and never even mentioned anything as disgusting as money. and and and then we asked you guys, who pretty much gave us a list of every music website ever, and we were still undecided, till jack pop hit on the rad idea we're executing in the next few paragraphs. apologies to the 405, who, if one facebook post is anything to go by, are at least, 300% better than the nme and the dis, but th most punk thing to do seems to be this:

(actually the most punk thing to do would be to get you to make the video, but j matthew beat you to it, so consider this the second best option crossed with a bit of healthy experimentation)

You get the exclusive. yeh, YOU. welcome to the fun fun world of music journalism. here are two links to our manager's dropbox.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1121527/JxFx%20Harriet%20by%20Proxy%20Med.mov

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1121527/HARRIET_BY_PROXY%20-%20iPhone.m4v

the first is our awesome video for harriet, by proxy, the second is the same thing only ready for iStuff. The Music Press won't see this till the end of this week/start of next, and we'll put it on our youporn account and that soon if you just don't want to play our stupid game anyway.

If you do, then, here's the Product. remember, RIGHTCLICKCOPY!LOL. I've done at least 1000 interviews in the last few weeks where i've tried to articulate, in as least a pretentious manner as possible, how our band is way better for everyone if we replace as much of the industry as we practically can, with awesome human beings who just do stuff for the sheer love of being involved in something they believe in, and how that's pretty much our definition of punk and how we try to conduct ourselves. and it works; we meet a super skilled video guy on the other side of the planet and now we have a super skill video. So, in keeping with our lets-see-how-far-we-can-push-our-luck-with-no-money ethos, please feel free to post it all over the interwebs in ur utubes yadda yadda meme out.

here are some words of accrediting that need to be seen first, cos we know you internet people like to play fast and loose with copyrights. mention j matthew nix tho, cos this is all his fault. and us. and yourself, yr our internet dude, remember.

The big city is no place for a lost little ghost.

Directed by J Matthew Nix


-- CREW --
5D Operator: Mark R. Smith
7D Operator: T.J. Bachorz
Producers: Bruce Bohr and J Matthew Nix
B Camera Team: Nick Nylen
Transportation: Lance and his Dodge Caravan
Editing and Post Production: J Matthew Nix
Gear and Facilities provided by Absolute Vision: http://www.absolutevisionproductions.com

-- CAST --
Johnny Foreigner - Alexei Berrow, Kelly Southern, Junior Elvis Washington Laidley
Harassed Parkgoers - Dan Gardner, Ryan Allen
Terrified Passerby - Justinn McDaniel
Human Corkboard - Richard Scott
Disillusioned Twentysomething - Nick Nylen
True Patriot On Bicycle - We never got his name, did we?
Harriet - Herself

-- SPECIAL THX --
Freesound.org users Rhumphries, fonogeno, and stijn for recording their awesome city ambiance, Jack from Alcopop, Tim Kinsella, Emi Nakamura, Cat Briggs, Owen Cluer, Nyssa Preinitz, Christina Mulé, Pat O'Hara, Ashley Lusk, Jane Nix, Ken Nix, Lauren Nix, the kind man at Officemax who let me make 100 photocopies of a lost ghost poster at 6 AM, every goober who whined about The Big Show doc taking longer, every person who stared blankly at the camera in the background, Bank of America, Navy Pier, Subway, that tasty Italian place, coffee, wrist braces, Blood Red Shoes, Sky Larkin, Copy Haho, Los Campesinos!, the entire Jofo road crew for trusting a bunch of crazed Americans with their precious cargo, Final Cut, After Effects, Lady Luck, Father Fortune, and you for watching!

i feel everything vaguely polemic i've written on the internet in the last few months has had the spectre of matt from king adora hanging over me. specifically the myspace bulletin that read "come on guys, lets do an arctic monkeys". fuck those old ghosts.