Soton Unstaged – Thursday

hi everyone,

(sorry for bad typing, weird catalan keyboard disaster epic)

a quick reminder that this week there are loads of gigs happening in weird places courtesy of Soton Unstaged / SMILEFest (more)

I´m playing the Thursday show at the Quilters´ Vault, as is Anja McCloskey. The gig is 7pm – 9pm only (don´t know when I´m on within that). i think they´re filming it too for the uni TV, so best frocks only please.

The vault is a cool medieval bolthole on the High st below bar — down near the isle of wight ferries where Unit 22 used to be. if you don´t know where that is there´s a map here.

i´m going to be playing a bunch of old and new stuff, totally acoustic, the demos from the album basically. it will be good. if you want a sneak peak of some of the album tracks go here. and if you want a full prelisten email me and i´ll send you a soundcloud link.

hope you can make it!
joe xx

Album demos progress

Hey

So, the album demos are rolling along. Recording in March is looking like more and more fun. This weekend we cooked up a load more demos with Dave (Miatt & Wade Brown, Thomas Tantrum) and Campbell Austin (Moneytree) – starting to sound really good as we work the kinks out. Have a wee listen:

The ‘preproduction demos’ in that set are the ones you want… We’re making track notes on Soundcloud as we go (which is a really nice easy way to do it, by the way – remember minidiscs..?) So please let us know what you think, just click on the bar under the waveform to comment!

More to come, some pics, and don’t forget the acoustic gig on the 3rd March..

Laters x

I want to stay in touch with you all… just not on Facebook.

I am leaving facebook for a while*.
It is boring but compulsive, and that is a bad combination of things.
Here’s what I’m doing instead.
You can comment below thru FB / Twitter / Disqus
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Yes. I’ve had enough, finally.

To get my instant-gratification social-networking rocks off, I’ll keep using twitter to send important ‘ooh, look, I just saw a banana that looks like Woody Harrelson’ updates. If you want to follow that crap see http://www.twitter.com/lonelyjoeparker

For actual communication I’m gonna use letters on this site, just like this one below. You like? I do.

A scanned letter from Lonely Joe Parker, Feb 2011
I have a pen

So to fling new demos at you I’ll keep using myspace a bit but also soundcloud cos the whole thing’s just… nicer. Like this new demo:

You might have heard that I’m not working for Sotones any more. It was a big wrench, and I still love them all, but I’ve been brewing a really good record for 4 years now, and the time is ripe to go for it.

Recording notes
The LP we are doing has ended up a mixture of new stuff and (ahem) Greatest Hits...

The idea is that I want to concentrate on things I like, those being:

  • writing,
  • doing science,
  • playing,
  • presenting science
  • and touring

… and not things I don’t, like

  • updating facebook
  • checking facebook
  • spending entire weeks on facebook

So the plan is that Dave Miatt, Dave Wade-Brown, Michael Anderson and me (plus a couple of special guests) are going to go out to Bulgaria in March to record an album at Furnace Studios

We’re doing a lot of pre-production on this one, even though most of the songs are fully written because it’s basically gonna be, in Davo’s words “a Joe Parker greatest hits, yeah? Done really well, really.. right! Isn’t that what people wanna hear?!”

We’re down to a shortlist of just 30 songs now, which includes faves like Number Nine, Brooklyn and Stutter but also new ones like Sherine!, Barny’s Bathroom and really new one Dead Man’s Pen (listen above or on Soundcloud). NO, LizSpanish Girls is not on the list!!!

When we get back we’ve got about a month to mix it. Some will be done by us, some by friends (Parry etc) and also remixed (paging rude_NHS and Ed Hix now..) and there’s going to be a few sprinkles of production magic courtesy of the brilliant James Ewers (My Luminaries.)

It depends on how the sessions go, but the likely plan is we’ll do a couple of free tracks and a single over the summer (anyone up for a 7″?) with some gigs then aim to get the LP out about October in time for all your crimbo stockings.

But we gotta get there first – so there’s pageloads of arranging and rehearsing to do for now! Will be bunging new tracks up on Soundcloud – updates about that on this site and also twitter if you want to follow us on our little journey…

In the meantime we’ve got a couple of gigs before we go:

  • Sat 12th Feb
    SeeSound.co.uk showcase, Alleycat, 4 Denmark St, Soho WC2H 8LP. Deets heredoors 4-11pm — SET TIME 8pm
  • Thurs 3rd Mar
    Soton Unstaged, Southampton. Oxfam Music Stage (TBC – check here for full details)

Listening a lot to Black Hearted Love at the moment (PJH/John Parish). Looking forward to her new album, too…

Well. Thats enough from me, so see you soon and thanks for leaving the warm blue safety of Facebook and coming over to mine for a bit.Hope you enjoyed it, come back soon!

Joe xxx

*Okay… I’ll still put gig listings up there, and let you know when the LP’s done and records are coming out…
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I like PJ Harvey a lot and she had a new album.

Who is great? PJ Harvey is. See:

Singer PJ HarveyThat’s her heading up the reviews section of The Fly this month. I don’t know if the album’s actually any good because I’m not going to listen to it until I buy it, and I’m skint now. But (for once) The Fly’ve put a good artist on the front. Normally you have to buy your way into that rag (e.g. same issue – The Joy Formidable cover and, surprise, surprise, full page ad just inside…) but PJH just storms in there by the force of her back cat’s unimpeachable, eclectic brilliance.

Top 5 Polly Jean Harvey Tracks:

MMMMMmmmmmmmmmnice