“Brooklyn”, live at deXter Bentley Hello GoodBye radio show (Resonance FM)
Category Archives: Music
New stuff, ‘Shanty’ single and… live record – 11th Feb!
Hey peeps,
How’s it all going? Big men of 2010? Rode from Hythe to Islington to see Thomas Tantrum, the Moules and Montage Populaire last weekend, brought back some memories of the summer, seems like aaages since i toured then – not for long, read below.. see you at a gig real soon..
New Band, New Years
wow. Mental new years! Basically jimmy shivers, dave wade-brown, and me have got together for a little side-project. It’s called ANN THE ARC and sounds a bit grungy like sonic youth, a bit grungy like pavement, and a bit grungy like nirvana or the replacements.
Ace, basically. so all the fuss at new years was, we went down to cornwall to record some tracks in our friends’ house with Dan Parry (who did the Fresh Legs stuff and also some 6NS stuff, among others). in the end we managed to get through about 12 tracks (and a shitload of booze and leccy on the metre – was reeeeal cold) so whaddya know, there’s an album there! we recorded pretty much 95% of it LIVE too!!! I’m itching like hell to show you the stuff, but there’s a wee bit of mixing left to do so it all sounds really really good. but, remember the band: ANN THE ARC… rest assured i’ll let you all know! loudly…
‘Shanty’ single
Sotones are releasing ‘Shanty’, one of the tracks from the Oxjam EP I did with Jackie Paper last summer. It’s gonna be out on iTunes / Spotify / VERY limited cassette on the 8th March and like the EP, all proceeds will go to Oxjam. As well as the title track, there’s a live version featuring The Moulettes and ‘Mary Rose’ which some of you will remember from like, years ago.. we’ve kind of resurrected it. Or ‘raised’ it, if you will..
To, well, flog records basically, I’ll be on tour in March. We’re still settling the dates but stay tuned for an announcement soon. If you think there’s somewhere cool I / we could play (some dates will be solo, others with the East Street Band) drop me an email to joe@sotones.co.uk huh? like, good club nights but weird interesting stuff too, yeah?
Live Record! 11th Feb at Hamptons
Let’s face it, I’m shit at recording. I’m not very good at playing the guitar, and I even get a bit nervous singing when there’s nothing but a red light to look at, which is weird. I overcook stuff; I take way too many takes, or too few; I try and drink to chill out and get wasted; I redo the lyrics at the last moment, then find I can’t get my tongue around them, or it sounds naff.
No, I prefer playing live by about a million miles and to be honest, most of the time I only really see recording as a way to get you to come to gigs so we can all hang out. cos lord knows records don’t make ANY money, ever! haharrrr!!! (by the way, did i mention i’ve got a bunch of stuff on digital now? buy buy buy, $uckers…)
SO.
The obvious thing to do is try a live record. simple, really. get a load of people down, rehearse loads, maybe even film a little bit, offer everyone who comes a free copy of said record when it’s finished? yeah, that’s what i’m talking about. i’ve been running down the setlist, trying out various guitars for different songs, really getting into it all. it’s going to be quite a quiet / intimate kind of show. maybe even a bit sad here and there. but ultimately good and happy etc.
When is this epic live event taking place, I hear you ask? It so happens I’m playing at Hamptons in Southampton on the 11th of February. I’ll be supporting Polly And The Billets Doux, who are well good, having been all over the radio etc. At the moment they’re doing the whole tour-gig-instore thing.
Because of getting rid of the recording equipment etc (plus no-one gives a shit) we have to do the recording at the start of the night, so make sure you get there at the start of the night – doors are 7.30. it’s £5 and like i said, make sure we get your name and details so w can send you a record when we’re done (we won’t put them on any maillist or anything like that)
The facebook page, if you can be arsed, is: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=307285802081, and make sure you’ve got your best rowdy singing / heckling voice on!
see you,
joe x x
PS: in other unrelated news, some group somewhere have found a way to ask people in comas what they think about stuff using fMRI (kinda). I reckon they think about what we think about, ie highways, sex and bombay mix. or is that just me?
new year la alalaa
hey peeps
so – a bit quiet for a while because all that goddamn snow just before christmas killed my laptop. cycling through a mad blizzard in northeast london with the moulettes’ manager to get to their video shoot and heaving in looking like a yeti did my indiana jones rating a power of pooj, but buried the precious silicon chips. god knows how i’m going to survive without one.
but then, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because straight after christmas i set out with shivers, dan parry and dave wade-brown in my nan’s camper van on a super-secret mission to falmouth. it was cold, we ran out of electricity and storm’s very kind housemates might have just gone deaf for the rest of this new decade, but it was WELL worth it. more to come soon, hahharr!
also dave got drunk on NYE at mags’ in land’s end. and I mean VERY drunk.
what else apart from drinking, skating and seditious sessions? well, i’m back working for sotones for another few weeks. hopefully i’ll get the sack at the AGM, we’ll see. plus i want a canoe, anyone got one?
oh yeah – on the 22nd i’m curating a night at hamptons. i know i play there all the bloody time, but this go round i actually get to pick the bands and DJs and dress the stage and stuff, it’s totally my night!
here’s the event, http://www.facebook.com/ev..ent.php?eid=238389029806woooooooooooohoooo! the idea is to go for a kind of film noir thing like raymond chandler, or the dwarf bit in twin peaks, or something. hope everyone comes and dresses up loads. like this stuff http://t2.gstatic.com/imag..es?q=tbn:ymiOMYXaBFDE0M%3A..http://justfellshort.files…wordpress.com/2009/09/nig..ht-hawks.jpg
playing are MY LUMINARIES who i have fucking loved since I ran into them in dublin years ago, and nato, who are in my opinion the best band in the south by a million miles, joe ann the arc and a special guest.
so i hope to see you there! x
ps: congrats to barny & robin, getting engaged behind my back, apparently… huh.
Read more: http://www.myspace.com/lonelyjoeparker/blog?page=1#ixzz1524Y35Uy
A different FREE song EVERY DAY til XMAS!!
Over every day in December up to Christmas Day I’m giving away a different song for free each day! I’m a bit excited about this.. I haven’t figured out the whole tracklist, some of them aren’t even finished yet. Fuck, some probably aren’t even written yet, for all I know..I think I wanna get back to a clean slate for this album I’m doing in January you see. Plus stuff gets recorded to be heard, no? Some of them are old stuff, some demos. Some released, some on tape, some never heard. Plus some live gems.
In the meantime there’s also some good gigs coming up this month:
- 5th – FREE – The Library, Upper St, Islington
- 8th – Little Johnny Russel’s, Southsea
- 11th – Sotones Christmas Party, Hamptons, Southampton
- 23rd – Mintsouth Christmas Party, Soul Cellar, Southampton
So to get today’s head over to http://www.myspace.com/lonelyjoeparker .. and tell your friends!
Have a good christmas,
Joe xx
some wee gigs where i demo stuff
yo peeps,
doing a bit of writing at the moment, but got a few low-key gigs coming up where i’ll be trying out the new stuff etc… most of these are FREE shows, so do come, would be ace to see what you think:
NOVEMBER 2009
6th – secret gig, london (but email me if you wanna come)
9th – Mr Wolf’s, bristol
10th – 3One7, finchley
16th – Winchester School of Art
hope to see you there, exciting shit coming up i promise! more later x
What I did next
Hi peoples.
I’m writing this with my battered laptop on my lap (and the ever present cup of strong, shitty, HOT instant coffee) in yet another front room belonging to someone else.
I sat down the other day while I waited in the drizzle for the train from somewhere weird in Sussex to London, and started to work out how many trains/busses/cycle rides I’ve taken in the last year since I set out busking up the East Coast in the states…
It turned out to be a bit to hard to remember. Looking back my memory is kind of a bit too fucked, but my diary and the persistent ache in my back and patches on my gig bag tell me that the longest I’ve spent in one place since this time last year is a whopping 7 nights . . and that was technically while on holiday, helping out a friend at a studio in Bulgaria (Furnace – will be recording there soon – check it).
But I’m not complaining. Couldn’t. I fucking love this! Megabus stubs and empty bottles; scribbled set-lists; snatches of new songs on answerphones and coffee, coffee, coffee. Would be nice to get a week or two to sit around and relax, maybe write some of this up, though. For instance…
It’s been a hectic ole year. From busking on the L train in NYC to recording the Oxfam 12″ in London, Bike Touring across the UK to hitching a ride in Georgia – and some wonderful amazing shows and audiences! Big thanks to everyone at Sotones, Hamptons / Long Live Rock & Roll, Ejector Seat, Believe Digital, CSV and Oxfam for all their help..
Also, really special buttlicky love to everyone who helped out or promoted us on the Bike Tour. You were all amazing and couldn’t have done it. Especially the BBC and Campaign Against Arms Trade – we were meant to be helping them, but they were so organised it was a massive kick up the arse for us!
~~~
Oxfam 12″ – ‘What’s Wrong With Broken Glass’
Oh yeah – about the Oxfam EP. Thanks again to everyone who helped. Got some great reviews, have been selling well and generally ace. Please have a listen and buy it if you like – it all supports Oxfam and god knows however hard the credit crunch is stiffing us in the UK, the rest of the world is even more shafted.
You can buy MP3s online here, or get the 12″ vinyl! We’ll send you MP3s if you want those too with every vinyl purchase, just ask. The vinyl looks and sounds fucking lush (they’re individually numbered, you know), and you can get it in southampton and reading Oxfam Music stores, or from Rough Trade East (they’ve nearly sold out though). You can also mail-order through Rough Trade.
~ ~ ~
Musical stirrings
So what next? most of the 100+ performances this year have been me, solo, with my smashed acoustic. It’s been nice doing things that way – you get a lot more freedom when you’ve only got yourself to rely on – but it definitely limits what you can do and where you can play. It does. And the lows are as dark as the highs are bright.
Over the summer we experimented with some full-band arrangements; a whole range of sounds, some folky, some electronic, some Feist-y, some straight-up rock stuff. What I found was that I like them all, and that there’s plenty of room in the songs I’m writing at the moment for all of this stuff.
So I think we’ll probably just keep doing that for a bit. Maybe a single or two early next year, see how we go? You never can tell. I’ve been listening to a lot of Feist, St. Vincent, PJH and Cat Power (all girls strangely; I think they make much smarter music) this year. It would be nice to weave some of their, like, eclecticism and subtlety into stuff I’ve listened to for ages like YYY, Tom Waits, At The Drive In, Pavement and of course THE CLASH who will never ever stop being my favourite band ever.
Live shows for the next few months are gonna be a bit of a pick and mix then, as I’ll be trying out a few different arrangements of stuff and try and blag various people into playing with me.
I like the idea of having a power trio at the centre (which tonight means Jimmy Shivers, me and Dave Wade-Brown) with maybe a couple of multi-instrumentalist types most of the time, and pulling in friends like The Moulettes, Pete Lyons or Moneytree for big gigs and special stuff. Stay tuned, we’ll see…
All the best, thank-you so very very much for all your kind support (& keep teling your friends!). Hope to see you at a show sometime and crash on your floor,
Joe x x
ps: thanks again to the East Street Band, at various times:
Jimi Ray
Campbell Austin
Ben Stoop
Peter Lyons
David Miatt
Jimmy Shivers
Dave Wade-Brown
Barny Lanman
Ollie Austin
Hannah Miller
Ruth Skipper
Tom Cummings
Rysia Burmicz
.. and admin/press/artwork stuff from:
Storm Poorun
Sally Campbell (CAAT)
Rob Milner (Oxfam)
Billy Mather
Caity
Liz Moores
Jimmy Hatherley.
Jim, you get two credits, see? Happy?! x
So, about my favourite song…
Let me tell you about my favourite song.
There’s a song link and lyrics coming up, but first let’s have a bit of a yarn…
‘Leopard Limousines’ is on Joe Strummer’s first solo effort, a record I stumbled upon in the uni radio station catalogue as I thumbed drunkenly through looking for Clash vinyl the night he died. Looking for Joe Strummer, punk rock warlord, I found John Graham Mellor – and struck gold.
It remains the only record I’ve ever stolen from a station, and the only one I want played at my funeral. As possibly the most underrated and hardest-to-find commercial recording of Joe’s (only on vinyl, and those are like hens’ teeth) you might not know it very well, so here’s a quick intro:
It’s the arse-end of the Eighties (yes, they WERE shit), The Clash are a distant memory, and Joe Strummer’s been kicking his heels, jobbing in films and battling the black dog in Spain for a few years while an indifferent public obliviously buy Timmy Mallet’s ‘Bombalerina’ by the thousand and the Tories continue to fuck up the country.
Encouraged by a chance encounter, and with a back-breaking load of frustration, regret and wanderlust, Joe holes up in LA with a few cronies to have another crack at making music, his first named recordings for over 4 years…
‘Earthquake Weather’ (Sony, 1989) turns out to be more rambling and unfocused than any of his previous work; in particular (drawing on his penchants for soundtrack and Western imagery) the lyrics are cinematic where the Clash were hyperactive; the message ambiguous where they were bellicose.
The unsettling mixture of organic sounds, raw emotion and diffuse themes failed to chime with the concerns of either his core punk fans (by now many of them, in any case, downing mohawks and getting on with the business of family life) or music nerds more interested in Detroit or Manchester than Andalucia via California. The record performed poorly in the shops; aside from a spell with The Pogues, Joe wouldn’t make music again for another half-decade.
Today the album plays more like a sketch-pad than a fully-finished work, with bold, yet unfinished ideas (‘Sikorsky Parts’); standard Joe Strummer stompalongs (‘Gangsterville’ in particular recalling the worst moments of Cut The Crap) or ragga covers (‘Ride Your Donkey’) and the odd gem (‘Island Hopping’, ‘Sleepwalk’). This last set of songs are most at odds with Joe’s public image as the air-punching, rabble-rousing ‘punk rock warlord’ – but in these plaintive, hesitant vocals (“… what good would it be / If you could change every heartache that ran through yout life and mine,” he mourns, on ‘Sleepwalk’) I think we get a much more interesting glimpse into his life and motivations than on all 6 sides of ‘Clash on Broadway’.
‘Leopardskin Limousines’ is the best example of this, and is worth a listen in that sense alone – but the off-kilter piano ostinato, restrained guitar and gravelly vocals elevate it, for me, from ‘best Strummer tune’ to My Favourite Song status.
The lyrics read like an atheist’s prayer book, or perhaps a letter of atonement to his family. Remorse and despair are mixed with glimmers of wry hope and fond reminiscence, and it’s this last emotion floors me; where Joe Strummer conjures up “…Charlie Parker, Chevys / And late night barroom brawls” we stand beside him and see all that, as he intended. But now, after his passing, we can simultaneously peer round the kitchen door at John Mellor, up alone with his demons in the small hours of the night, slumped against the fridge slugging brandy and trying to forget.
Each time I listen, this song throws up more and more questions: would the record do better these days, carefully filtered through the networks of bloggers, rather than foisted on an unreceptive mass market by Sony? Would the songs be more fully realised, given modern tools like GarageBand and ProTools to play with? Why was it so long before he recorded again? And – crucially – who was he writing to? His wives, kids, mistresses, father – or himself?
But the question I always come back to, as I did the first time I heard it, sitting devastated on the radio station floor that December, is ‘why did he have to go?’
Joe Strummer R.I.P.
Listen to it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?..v=o7bF63VeTiY
Leopardskin Limousines (J Strummer)
Noontime the lunchstand tilts
It’s you baby walking in with your stilts
You don’t have to eat here no more
Cos the sauerkraut’s been on the dog-bowl floor
They made an old film of this
It shows in Hindu out on Air Pacif
Shoulda seen it coming ’bout a mile away
Especially when you don’t hear no harmonica playWhat you can see is something you saw
When you were a little girl
Some picture passed by the Hayes Commission
About a prairie and a Kansas whirl
It’s true I didn’t have a part in it
I was working out at Disneyworld
Dressing like a duck, not giving a fuck
Baby you can dream it’s a pearlPeople gonna wanna Xerox you baby
It’s a good thing you ain’t a Chickasaw
Or your soul would take the overnight train
To Pittsburgh calling Baltimore
People gonna wanna Xerox you baby
What will it do to your mind?
Hang gliding off the Grand Canyon
In a Coney Island for the blindWith me, it’d be Charlie Parker, Chevys
And late night barroom brawls
With real or imgainary friends and enemies
Who strike their heads when they fall
On the chassis of a classic Bull Nose special
That adorned our livingroom wall
Nobody’d be disappointed, if you’re the one they wanted
Blazing out across the waterfallPeople gonna wanna Xerox you baby
They got a quota to fill
Got some cat named Juliean
And a Jap in a pad on the top of the hill
People gonna wanna Xerox you baby
It’s a good thing you ain’t a Chickasaw
Or your soul would take the overnight train
To Pittsburgh calling BaltimoreSuppose I should drag my stuff on out
But I don’t like the memories
Found a pint of brandy on top of the fridge
And it’s working like an antifreeze
So California is running short of water, oh
The magazine turns in the breeze
It’s the bargain of a lifetime dreaming of gold
Baby look in the treesIt’s your Chinese year of the animal
And it must be one that preens
Those firecrackers going down the hill
Signify the end of our dreamsIt’s gonna be so beautiful
In those Leopardskin Limousines
When they spread you out in white
All over Harpers and Queens.
What’s Wrong With Broken Glass 12″coll
STEP017 – released 28/07/2010
Buy now: iTunes | eMusic | Amazon | Spotify
“A split release of jaunty confidence and empathy. It’s worth buying a turntable just to hear this.”
Matt Golding, The Fly
“intriguing melodies and playful composition… highly alluring.”
Track Of The Day 15/12/09, Q Magazine
“Gentle finger picked guitar and stream of conscious lyrics.. like a late night busker serenading the drunks staggering their way home… Get it for the Indie kid in your life.”
Singles Round-up 14/12/09, Clash Music
“a strange, yet fantastic collaboration”
Will Slater, The 405
Itinerant bum, romantic, and songwriting-genius-in-rags Lonely Joe Parker stumbled on a brilliant idea when he made it back to the UK last year, fresh from a busking tour of the eastern US seaboard. A planned tour following the Obama campaign trail had threatened to derail when a robbery in Miami left him penniless with 1000 miles to home.
But down on his luck amid the squalour and splendour of an American election, he sat down with a $20 pawnshop guitar and wrote a new clutch of songs inspired by his surroundings. Motivated by the chink of change in commuters’ pockets, he dug deep into americana, conceieving a twisted soundtrack to his predicament that took Tom Waits-ian observation and St. Vincent or Feist’s sonic vision, blended with a streets-eye view of the USA. The songs earnt their creator enough change to make it up to NYC, where gigs in the East Village and Williamsburg followed.
Back in the UK he began to wonder why the songs that had earnt his own keep couldn’t help others too. Hitting the buffers in the docklands of his native Southampton, he ran into guitarist and songsmith Jackie Paper – better known as David Miatt – himself taking time to decompress with a raft of misfit songs written following a hectic six months with his band Thomas Tantrum. Critical acclaim had seen them catapulted from rehearsing in a garage by the docks to the Reading, Bestival, SGP and Latitude festivals and national radio appearances (including BBC1 and 6Music), but now winter had bitten and an older, folkier impulse led him to pen a book of wistful, almost melancholic songs that didn’t fit in with his day-job-band’s indie-pop template, referencing Elliot Smith and Nick Drake more often than YYY or the Pixies.
Whilst browsing for vintage Lemonheads in their local Oxfam Music Store, the two hit on the idea of a split EP to shamelessly showcase their songs while raising money and awareness for Oxfam Music. It seemed deceptively simple: do a record on tick, release it through the UK’s network of Oxfam stores specializing in vinyl (touring them to promote the release), get new punters into the stores themselves (essentially great local indie record shops that happen to be benefit empowering development projects worldwide) and walk off with the memories while letting Oxfam pocket all the filthy money.
Six months later, after many long hours waiting outside friends’ studios (Furnace, The Ranch) for spare time, instruments and beds to sleep on, these six songs are the fruit of that collaboration. Friends in Modernaire, Peter Lyons Band, The Moulettes and Moneytree also perform, while the record was mastered by Thomas Tantrum drummer Dave Wade-Brown. Co-operative indie label Sotones release the EP, with original artwork commissioned from local illustrator Billy Mather.
Tracklisting:
1. Brooklyn
2. Shanty
3. Raining
4. All The Wine
5. Natural History
6. Down Among the Dead Men
Press release (c) Sotones, 2009-2010. All rights reserved.
New live recording
There’s a new version (live) of shanty up
… featuring hannah miller and ollie austin, it starts a bit ropey due to a cold/curry/cobra combo but ends ace:
.. it’s the sort of thing we’re up to at the moment you see. well minus vintage moog circuits, that is.
In other very insteresting (to us) news, we’ve got a deal to press some vinyl of this EP i’m working on… ace huh?
More to come.. x x
About swanky instruments and sound musicians
Records in the works? I’m still working with Dave Miatt on our Oxjam charidee EP. The trouble about doing everything for free is that sometimes it’s hard to pull everything together. We’ve had about 8 different sessions with several people at the controls, as well as making a great live tape at Hamptons (thanks to everyone who showed up and sang!) … so by rights we should have pulled something together, a long time ago in fact. The reality is that we’re all busy with our own projects so it’s quite hard. Now we’ve got Tom, Rysia, Bea, Alfie and Audrey at Furnace Studios cracking the whip though, and I think we’ll get something tied up quite soon.. ‘down among the dead men’!! (for those in the know)
Erm what about my own stuff in all this? Well some of you will know that i’ve been slowly demoing up new tracks for about a year now, at home, with Neil Kennedy and Geoff at The Ranch in Nursling, and with Izaak Bullen in Winchester. It’s weird, I’ve never ever had any problems writing songs themselves but arranging – fuck – it’s not my strong point by a long shot…
Things have entered a new kind of phase lately, though. People are always coming up to me and saying ‘Hey Joe, if you ever want me to play with you, just give me a call’ and, for once, I’ve started listening. Without naming names we’re talking about some Really Talented People to a man and woman… . The guys at Furnace have also been really generous with their time and I’ve found we’re on totally the same wavelength when it comes to stuff like Pavement, Cat Power, Feist, PJH etc. SO we’re starting to gather a bit of recording momentum on the demos. Also gradually putting this band together – so at some point in the next several weeks we’ll hire a barn, truck all the hardware down and track it all.
The end result probably won’t be very Lonely-Joe-Parker-y, at least not in the ramshackle, unfinished way of old, but it still be seat of the pants stuff cos most of it’ll be pretty much live. Performances are gonna change, too – about 2/3 of the time it’ll just be me rocking up on the bike as usual, but for some shows we’ll do the slick luscious sounding full band thing. I won’t lie to you, that’s only gonna be shows where we get paid enough! You get what you pay for! I’ll still break strings and forget words though, just with a sick band there as well…
Read more: http://www.myspace.com/lonelyjoeparker/blog?page=2#ixzz152AqXgxI