VS LONDON IV show details

WHY MUST EVERYTHING HAPPEN ALL AT ONCE

VS LONDON IV: THE LAST STAND

no time for introductions, all these bands are rad and you'll regret missing them. unless yr already coming, in which case everything is totally fine between us and it's you that's making a THING about it.

Stephen H Davidson - him from Tellison, all heartybreaky ahhhhh

The Spills - THE GREATEST BAND IN THE COUNTRY RIGHT NOW STOP ARGUING WITH US AND LISTEN TO THIS

Evans The Death - stunning fortuna - grrl - pop with melodies that make the 90s seem kinda embarrassing

"unspecified ironic london 2 piece" - oh, those guys.


ALSO: MASKS:

see here now, it's halloween and we want to dress (you) up. you be the ghost:

lewes has asked me to remind you all that IT IS MISSING A MOUTH and you have to DO THE MOUTH YOURSELF.

DO THE MOUTH, GUYS.

also, feel free to colour in. or add horns. ghosts don't have horns, shut up alexei.


go here for a large printy version

how rad it will be if you all print out and make them and the front row is all ghost faces. excited! You will need string to thread thru the holes. and scissors for cutting. and a responsible adult. hey i can cut a fucking ghost out on my own, mom.


there's a few tickets available here and there should be some at the venue too. probably.

sorry to wait so long to divulge all this. it wouldn't be us if it wasn't delivered last minute and sweaty right?

xoxox SEE YOU SATURDAY LONDONTOWN

post tour verbal emission

O GOD SO MANY THINGS

the end and everything after: it's just gone 1am and it's mostly over. The venue is empty, erie dark and silent. We've finished loading out and go back in for goodbyes. We're slightly drunk and slightly high and still damp and dazed from the show. The bar staff are sitting round a table downstairs, smoking and waiting for us to clear out. One of them has a big fur coat like richey manic. I wander over to borrow a light. - and then we'll be out of your lives forever, i say. She looks me in the eyes, and, in the most bored voice in Nottingham tonight, sighs - excellent.

and our tour is over.

The worst part about being a touring circus, easily my most heart busting problem of being in a band, over money, sales, money or whatever, is leaving places. and the better the show/scene, the nicer the people, and the more we do it, the harder it gets. It's like being trapped in some terrible indie quantum leap episode, where every day you wake up in a new town, make new friends and see new bands and then come midnight you drive to the omnipresent magic travelodge. and when you pull out of the carpark the next morning, you have to start all over again. 

THIS MONTH HAS BEEN THE WORST FOR THAT.

by which i mean, the last month has been the most positive and awesome time ever. I don't just mean the usual; many people came and everyone had fun speech, tho that happened mostly everywhere and everywhere respectively. 

October is bands on tour season. we peek at each other thru blacked out splitter van windows in service stations at 3am. After a few days on tour, you can start to feel kinda processed; no matter how awesome (you think) your little circus is, yr still just venue fodder, calender filler, a bubble easily burst by one bored barmaid with an excellent coat and the only lighter. 

bar staff of the toilet circuits of the world, this time you were too late. We have consistently had our minds bent out of bitterness on this tour. We didn't have to argue for a bottle of gin once. That's never happened before. We've met bands that we've never heard of that are A M A Z I N G. We've met promotors that promote! Promotors that love what they do and want to be proud of their local talent and fucking work and flyer and network and help and foster a scene and make it look like the easiest, most natural thing ever. In that way, this tour has felt like a succession of party crashes, where, up until we play, we're never quite sure if people are there because we are, or there because it's clearly the best place to be.

It's also been the total opposite of that. I told you our minds were messed up. It's not just being overwhelmed by so many familiar faces, it's that all you faces seem to know each other, or have come to visit each other, or are-dating-and-blatantly-in-love-with each other. It feels like some massive messed up beautiful family reunion and we got to play prodigal son each night. So many alternate universes we could settle down in..

I'd like to think that this is no fluke. That we have left behind the world of promotion being a 3 year old black and white photo of us in a window, and local support bands who want to be lost prophets or whatever.  I'd like to think of this tour as a statement of where/what "our" scene is, post crash, right now. And, best of all, it really has fuck all to do with us. Most of these shows would have been awesome shows even if we never turned up. A whole bunch of thriving communities starting to see the rewards of the last few years graft. People proud of -their- bands. For all the cynics in this industry that are my age or older, THE KIDS ARE GOING TO SHOWS AGAIN.

So this tour ends on a small piece of forgotten grass just outside Birmingham city centre by the abandoned old train station, us and playlounge lighting the last of our sky lanterns and watching as they sail out of view over the skyline. urgh hippies. 

this tour never ends. 

thanks for your time.

UK tour merch + you

Hello! Presenting to you, our October 2012 merch collection.

It's all limited runs and we're not going to get them till the weekend, so we've put a bunch on big cartel to avoid disappointing those who come and want to buy new merch (or the 45923987235 other places in the world we're not playing)

 Buy now and, and we'll send them out by the 8th October. Please don't shout when we get to yours in two weeks time and we're out of your size. Click on what you like, or go here to browse round our store. We have a couple of red shirts and one white left, and other fun stuff too. BUT IT'S NOT NEW AND EXCITING LIKE THIS IS:::

all funds, as ever, get pumped into the Americanadian Dream.

I (ghost) JF Tote Bag, Silver on Black

over-size crest print shirt, black on blue softstyle

Octobering the Edges, A3 UK tour poster

K cool. That concludes today's presentation. Thank you for your continued support, see you soon!

xoxo

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

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