We remember an interview we did with Art Brut, in which they attempted to entertain us with their wisdom and faux pharmacological humor. Frankly, we thought it came off a bit forced and that they took themselves a bit too seriously. Enter Britain’s Johnny Foreigner and their attempt to charm us with music and their interpretation of the way of the world. I remember going to see Guided By Voices shortly after they signed to Matador and as they prepared to join a Lollapalooza tour. Despite the lofty expectations of the crowd, Robert Pollard showed up, stumbling drunk as if he didn’t care (which he didn’t). He wandered onto the stage, did his best Pete Townsend leg kick and proceeded to blow us away with his ramshackle interpretation of rock and roll. Listening to Johnny Foreigner’s music and reading this interview is as close as you’re going to come to reliving that experience. Aggressive, shambolic, entertainment without a hint of pretense…. just the way we like it. Alexi spoke with us for this interview and gave us the view of the world from the mountaintops they’ll be climbing as they ascend to rock greatness.
TDOA: It seems like packaging and artwork are something you put a lot into. Can you tell us a little bit about the artwork that appears on your records and website? 3-D album covers, handmade cardboard covers and such, they all look great! Who is the mastermind behind all of this and is there a central theme that we should be looking for?
Lex: Ha, there’s no mastermind as such. Just us drunkenly throwing ideas around and not enough people to tell us no. All the fancy packaging we’ve done has a) lost us money and b) been totally worth it. The drawings are done by our friend Lewes Herriot. (myspace.com/thedarkinventory) He’s started branching out now, designing for other people and getting his shirts in topshop and such, we’re dead proud. Our emails generally go like this – “Can you do a ghost, eating another ghost, with a telephone in its mouth and a speech bubble coming out of the receiver? – “What, like this?” – “YESSSSSSSSSSS!!” We’ve never met anyone who can put our music into pictures as well as Lewes. We got to know him from some awesome gig posters he drew and he’s done all our stuff since we signed to best before. And he’ll do the rest of it too. He’s as much a part of our band as guitars and gin.
TDOA: You recorded a record in New York City, you’ve toured in Japan and you’re based in England. Can you talk about the cultural differences that you perceive between the three?
Lex: In as much as musicians should probably stfu about cultural differences, here’s my 2 cents. There are cunts all over the world and there are lovely people all over the world. And if they wear Pavement t-shirts then they’re probably friendly. If they’re men with pointy shoes in England then they’ll probably fuck you over at some point. I think American people take everything too seriously, Japanese people take everything too seriously, English people take everything too seriously and we’re all idiots.
TDOA: We’ve gotten a great response to our site from people in Japan, so we feel obligated to ask for you to share some of the crazier stories of your tour their.
Lex: You get off 12 hour flight, you take two trains with all your gear and suitcases and walk to hotel in sweltering heatwave, you dump gear, change clothes, go out with friends of your label, get messy drunk in a succesion of gaijin bars and restaurants, get future-taxi to warehouse birthday party in downtown shibuya, score some weed and finally get to sit and reflect on being awake for 48 hours and spending the last 7 wondering what was going on. Gets to about midnight, birthday boy strips naked onto trestle table and his friends move it to the centre of the room and place little birthday cakes on him and light the candles. Stroke of midnight, all lights and music cuts out and everyone in the room, as if brainwashed, starts singing Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds at the top of their voices. You’re well above the streetlights so you see this mostly as shadow light by frequent cameraphone flashes. Friends blow out candles and eat cakes off naked guy with their mouths alone. Singing finishes, lights and pa come back on, boy gets dressed, party carries on as normal. It’s over a year and your still not sure if this is a normal right of passage for shibuya teenagers.
TDOA: Who directed and thought up the concept for the video for Criminals and how you like making videos?
Lex: it was a louche genius called matt maude, he works as part of a collective called left eye blind and they’ve done videos for sky larkin and grammatics and a bunch of other cool bands. we loved the concept when he told us (chainsaw!) and we spent 2 fun if tiring days in an abandoned film school making it. we’re pretty lucky in that thats only the second “performance” video we’ve done and left eye blind are all young and unembittered as well as being super professional, so it was a lot of fun. usually, making videos is us sitting down with various memory cards of footage on different file types and swearing at windows movie maker.
TDOA: You’ve played with a lot of great bands. What have you learned from the assortment that has helped you with your career?
Lex: Um, find your advantages and play to them mercilessly! It’s a weird thing to talk about and a lot of bands don’t, ’cause stagecraft, for lack of a better word, is sort of the same as cheating or posing in indie rock. Which is why Dana and the Mae Shi are awesome to watch because they have these hyper personalities and watching their band is like trying to have a conversation with all of them at once. Whereas if we tried those kind of antics, it’d be stage school forced cos we’re not naturally that POW!!! as people. There’s nothing worse than meeting someone in a band and realizing they have a stage persona, it’s a fucking con. And while you can respect people for being good actors, it doesn’t make them good humans.
TDOA: I noticed a reference to Lex reading Martin Amis. I feel like bands rarely admit to reading at all any more, let alone someone like Amis. Are there literary references in your lyrics or are you just broadening your horizons?
Lex: There’s loads of stuff that I’ve stolen! I read waaaay too much and waay too fast. I think it helps (that) I smoke a lot of weed. I have a DS with like, every game ever and I waste so much money in second hand book shops. I don’t follow the literary scene at all, and I get just as much out of a well written trashy 70s sci-fi novel as whatever stuff I buy that has Booker Prize stickers on it. But I mostly only buy from charity shops, frittering my PDs away £1 at a time.
TDOA: As you prepare for a new tour, what can folks expect to see at a Johnny Foreigner show?
Lex: Junior playing a bit of guitar, Kelly pressing the happy birthday button “accidentally” in every fucking show. One of our techs Gaffa taping my guitar back together mid show. Our merch boy San obsessively filming everything for the film about our selves we’ll never make. Me trying not to lose/break the mic, and us borrowing members of the other bands for extra bits and bobs. Same as ever, really. Only, slightly tighter and maybe less sweatier (I’m kidding myself. I’m fitter till proven otherwise)
TDOA: How often does someone ask you, “which one of you is Johnny” and how badly do you pummel those folks?
Lex: It’s odd, ’cause we don’t answer, ’cause we think they’re referring to someone else, then when we realize. We still don’t answer. I dunno, using a name as a band name is a concept that some peoples minds literally cannot handle.
TDOA: If you could “eliminate” one current band from the planet, who would it be and why?
Lex: Can we kill off the Manic Street Preachers now please? I just read an interview with Nicky Wire (I used to WORSHIP this band 10,15 years ago) and he’s like a bumbly old man trying to be controversial. It’s Gene Simmons-embarrassing. He was talking about the FAC and how he was opposed to anything involving Ed O’Brian on principle and he got all his facts wrong. It’s so fucking desperate and pathetic, like, he knows the only we he can get attention is by moaning about something. We could just bring his old self back from the past and he’d stab him up with no hesitation. If someone could write that into Radiohead fanfic, it’d be made up..
TDOA: Can you explain how you got from ‘We left you sleeping and gone now’ to where you are now, musically? Is it reflective of a change in what you’re listening to?
Lex: Um, sort of like this – waited up was as much us experimenting for our own sakes and me playing at being a producer as it was a band album. When Kelly came in we made a conscious decision to limit ourselves to guitar, bass, drums and sa21, so we could go play as much as possible (we toured by public transport. awful idea) and the best of those songs went on arcs and waited. Then we spent 14 months on tour and wrote a bunch of songs around/about/because of it and that became grace. We’ve had the summer off and now my head is full of a million new songs and I’ve had the time to play around with 3rd album ideas like brass sections and drones and a triple lp set made of gold etc. So there’s definitely a connection in how much time we spend sitting around doing nothing and the amount of alternate instrumentation in our songs. um.
TDOA: You’re tour itinerary for the remainder of the year is amazing. Are there particular cities that you’re particularly excited about seeing? Any chance we’ll see you in America in 2010?
Lex: Berlin, again, and Tokyo, again, and Amsterdam shows are always fun. There’s a bunch of smaller UK towns we’ve never been to too They can either be dire and blacklisted forever ever or be amazing, whole town comes to party shows, its always slightly more fun not knowing. To be fair, we’ve madly excited for all the exotic places we’re going to, but they’re all dwarfed by our South African tour in February. It’s our most spied upon wishiwasthere destination on google maps. How many indie rock bands get to touch actual elephants? we = privleged beyond status.
Winter Tour Dates
Nov 16 2009 MTC Cologne
Nov 17 2009 Bang Bang – Karrera Klub Berlin
Nov 18 2009 Astra Stube Hamburg
Nov 19 2009 the marquee brussels
Nov 20 2009 Paradiso Amsterdam
Nov 21 2009 BIG REUNION Skegness
Nov 23 2009 Louisiana Bristol
Nov 24 2009 Joiners Southampton, South
Nov 25 2009 Sub 89 Reading
Nov 26 2009 Boiler Room Guildford
Nov 27 2009 Sugarmill Stoke
Nov 28 2009 Fibbers York
Nov 29 2009 Cabaret Voltaire Edinburgh
Dec 3 2009 Drunkard’s Stadium (Minami-Kashiwa, Chiba) Chiba
Dec 4 2009 G-Side (Hamamatsu, Shizuoka) Shizuoka
Dec 5 2009 HMV Yokohama instore Yokohama
Dec 5 2009 Dragon Club, reclash all night event (Yokohama) Yokohama
Dec 6 2009 British Anthems (TOKYO GIG) TOKYO
Dec 11 2009 Cyprus avenue Cork
Dec 12 2009 Auntie Annies Belfast
Dec 13 2009 Academy 2 Dublin
Feb 12 2010 JF ARE OFF TO S.A Cape Town
Feb 17 2010 Klein Libertas Stellenbosch
Feb 19 2010 Hotbox Johannesburg
Feb 26 2010 RAMFEST worcester, south africa
To purchase the music of Johnny Foreigner on iTunes:
Frankly, I think we lost the trail for a bit there. It’s fun to interview the artists that we’ve loved for years, like Pavement and Echo and the Bunnymen and we have spent the past month feverishly trying to top ourselves with even bigger interviews. But in the end, you know those bands already and we assume you’ve come here to hear great new bands. This has been an amazing decade for music and there are still a lot of good bands out there, who we know you’ll love as much as we do.
With that, we bring you the Swedish band, Sad Day For Puppets. Listening to SDFP is like digging through your bag of Halloween candy and finding the greatest lollipop ever; every lick providing a different, delicious flavor. I hear Sebadoh, wait it’s the Primitives, no it’s My Bloody Valentine…..mmmm, delicious! Their debut release Unknown Colors should be sitting in everyone’s top ten and you can expect to hear more from them as they prepare to launch a tour with an impressive list of bands joining them.
We were fortunate to catch Martin Kallholm who plays guitars and writes the music and lyrics for the group as they were preparing to leave for their tour. He talked to us about the new album and their future plans.
TDOA: Is it true that you had written the entire album prior to going into the studio?
MK: Yes, all the songs were written before we started recording. I don’t think I could do it any other way, I want to see the big picture before going in the studio. To start recording before there is a complete cycle of songs would feel like looking at pictures from a vacation I’m still on.
TDOA: You do your own production on your music. Have you ever considered using an outside producer or do you prefer to have control over the sound of the records?
MK:Alex has been, and still is, our producer. He is also our record label and our bass player, and on top of that a close friend. We work close together and for me that’s an ideal situation. I wouldn’t want to work with someone who told me to rewrite a verse or how to arrange the songs.
TDOA: I believe you also write the lyrics for Anna. Is that true and do you help her with vocal melodies as well?
MK: I write the lyrics and vocal melodies, but Anna sings the songs her own way and she makes them sound way better than I ever could. That goes for everyone in the band.
TDOA: Clearly, you have all of the music in your head. Do you find yourself writing certain parts first (bass lines, guitar or vocal melodies) or does it vary from song to song?
MK: I always write chords, melodies and lyrics at pretty much the same time. I can’t think of words and music as separate parts.
TDOA: I’ve seen some live video of the band, but no conceptual videos. Has the band done any videos and do you have any feelings about making them?
MK: No one in the band knows how to make a video, so we’d have to bring someone in, and that scares me a bit. A bad video could really hurt a song. But eventually we’ll have to do it, and pretty soon I guess.
TDOA: You’ve referenced early 90’s bands and their influence on you. I also hear a little C86 influence, like The Primitives. Are you aware of those bands and do they influence your sound?
MK: I don’t know much about C86, when it comes to indie music I’ve listened a lot to bands like Smashing Pumpkins, The Cure, Dinosaur Jr., Blind Melon and The Lemonheads.
TDOA: I generally hate asking about band names, because I assume it’s an old topic. But Sad Day for Puppets is such a great name. Can you tell us how you thought of it?
MK: The band name comes from some TV show me and Marcus was watching together, a puppet show took a bad turn and someone said something like “this is a sad day for puppets”.
TDOA: Are there any plans for a U.S. release and tour supporting the record?
MK: We’re releasing a vinyl single on Cloudberry Records in the U. S., in December I think. We’d love to go there and play but have no plans so far.
TDOA: You’re in the midst of a tour with some great bands (A Place To Bury Strangers, Darker My Love, etc.). Do you like listening to the other bands when you’re playing a show or is it hard to enjoy when you’re thinking about your own performance?
MK: I only enjoy watching bands that I know and have listened to a lot, and normally that’s not the situation on tour. On this one however, we open for some great bands that I’ really want to see, especially A Place To Bury Strangers.
TDOA: Once the current tour is completed, what’s next for the band?
MK: After this tour we will finish recording our new album, and we hope to be done by Christmas and have it out early next year.
To purchase the new record, click on the link from iTunes below:
Catch them on tour at one of these fine venues:
Nov 5 2009 Loppen (with The Twilight Sad) Copenhagen
Nov 6 2009 Feedback Fever Club (with Lothar) Hamburg
Nov 7 2009 Bang Bang Club (with The Twilight Sad) Berlin
Nov 9 2009 Nachtleben (with The Twilight Sad) Frankfurt
Nov 11 2009 Scopitone Paris
Nov 12 2009 BBC session with Marc Riley Manchester
Nov 13 2009 Twee as f**k London
Nov 14 2009 Moho Lounge (with A Place To Bury Strangers) Manchester
Nov 15 2009 Cockpit (with A Place To Bury Strangers) Leeds
Nov 16 2009 Rough Trade East (In-store gig) London
Nov 16 2009 Borderline (with Darker My Love) London
Nov 17 2009 Portland (with A Place To Bury Strangers) Cambridge
Nov 18 2009 The Garage (with A Place To Bury Strangers) London
Nov 20 2009 Paradiso London Calling Amsterdam
As you’ll recall, we interviewed Pavement’s Spiral Stairs last month. Today, we’re happy to bring you the new video for the song ‘Cold Change’ from the new record. Enjoy!
We’re fascinated by the various reactions of those artists who pioneered the “shoegaze” sound in the 80’s and 90’s. While they seem split, we have a firm belief. Great songwriting makes for brilliant music, regardless of the genre. While the effects pedals or the production of the song may exactly replicate the sound of a band you’ve heard before, it’s the assemblage of notes that makes any song stand out.
Which brings us to The Arctic Flow. Songs veer from ethereal beauty to pop delicacies while maintaining an dream-like quality (watch us deftly avoiding adjectives like; icy, chilling, etc….) that leaves you with a disconcerted smile…..just the way we like it.
Brian Hancheck is the one-man show behind this avalanche (oh crap, we did it anyway didn’t we….) of sound.
TDOA: Can you talk about the challenges of this being a solo project? Do you enjoy being able to control all the parts or do you occasionally wish for outside contributions by adding people to the project?
AF: I guess the biggest challenge is when time is a factor, trying to get everything recorded in such a short time can be crazy. In the past when I used to play with other bands, the challenge was communicating my ideas to others. It’s much easier for me now and it just works. I know it doesn’t work for everyone, but I can’t see it any other way.
On the other hand, I have a couple of projects that I am collaborating on with some other artists, but it’s mostly just a one time thing.
I do wish I had someone to help me on vocals sometimes. You know, someone to sort of coach me along. But, yeah, I enjoy being able to do this on my own. It suites my personality really well.
TDOA: It’s easy for writers to make the ’shoegaze’ association, but the shoegaze movement had a lot of different types of bands. Can you talk about the bands that have influenced you the most?
AF: Well, I knew the shoegaze thing would come up. Strange enough there seem to be two schools of Arctic Flow fans, the ones that like the more shoegazy things, like “Sentiments and Artifacts” and ones that like “Untill December”-they’re just pop songs, but with different production. “Until December” which was on the Holiday Records Pop Music Compilation Volume 2, is more Smith’s like guitar pop, without all the haze. So now it’s like having two styles, but I enjoy it. It’s just the way the songs come out. The next release is going to more guitar pop, than the last EP was.
But to answer your question, and I could fill a book, but obviously The Cocteau Twins and Slowdive are two huge influences. The Cure is my favorite band ever, even though I don’t really sound like The Cure. But The Smiths, Map, Chapterhouse, My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Starflyer 59, The Beach Boys, and recently Horseshoes and Victory VIII, have been great influences.
TDOA: We’re guessing that most of your songs start with guitar melodies and build from there. Is that accurate and talk us through the songwriting and recording process.
AF: I don’t so much write songs as build songs in the studio. Usually it starts with a melody in my head or just a line, a few words, or something. But in the studio I’ll have a drum part and just start with a rhythm guitar and just layer from there. It can be hard to just have something simple, I like to fill up all the tracks I can, but there have been a few songs, like “Too Late To Say I’m Sorry” that have like two guitar tracks.
But once I get the backing track I’ll ride around with that for a few days and come up with lyrics. Other times I’ll write an actual song on the guitar, but that doesn’t happen often.
TDOA: Have you played live and has there been consideration of putting together a full band?
AF: I played one show a few years ago opening up for a band inside the House of Blues restaurant, it was ok, just me and an acoustic guitar. Didn’t translate well.
But no, I don’t play live. I don’t have the time anymore to put together a live band being a family man and all. Plus the music scene in Myrtle Beach is a complete joke. I get requests here and there and would like to play some festivals and things if I was invited. But as for now, The Arctic Flow is just a studio project.
TDOA:The artwork on each of your releases have been really tremendous. Who has done the artwork for each and how much do you contribute to the process?
AF: I am so glad you asked about the artwork. I am a firm believer that the artwork is such a major part of an album. My friend, Jacob Graham, from Holiday Records does all the album art. It is a passion he has. I think he does all the album art for all the Holiday Records releases. He will just listen to the music and then send me what he comes up with. It is always brilliant and I am so happy to have come in contact with him and the whole Holiday Records crew. It’s like a family.
TDOA: What’s the long-term goal for The Arctic Flow?
AF: The Arctic Flow will be around a while. The luxury of what I do is that I can record what I want when I want with no pressure. Everyone at Holiday is so laid back and lets me submit music at my pace. It’s a great situation to be in. Everyone has been so great.
We have a new release coming in December and 2010 is wide open. We’ve put out two EP’s and a single so far and would like to release a full length at some point.
In the mid 1980’s, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions were a huge part of the alternative scene in England and the U.S.. Chiming melodies, great musicianship, coupled with the lyrics of one of the premiere songwriters of our generation, Lloyd Cole. While many artists disappeared after starting their solo career, Lloyd Cole has continued to make music that surpasses the quality of his group’s work. This is proven by a glance at the 2009 release of “Cleaning Out The Ashtray”, a 4-volume collection of B-sides and rarities that encompasses his entire career.
We tracked out the As faithful readers know, we like to embed videos of the artists that we interview. Universal Music Group has provided more barriers than any artist in the history of the site, by banning use of Lloyd’s videos. Outrageous. While we love his work with Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, we strongly suggest you go on youtube and watch videos of his solo work.
Since he is in the middle of a tour, Lloyd suggested we conduct our interview via Twitter, which was a daunting experiment; 140 characters to probe the brain of such a brilliant songwriter. Nonetheless, we appreciated the opportunity and are pleased to share our experience with your wonderful readers.
TDOA: Can you talk about the box set release of b-sides and how it was negotiated?
LC: Tapete Records (Hamburg) handled the licensing hassles, thankfully, and they were just great to work with. Wish all labels were like them.
TDOA: I thought Warners did a good job promoting Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, but not your solo albums. Agree or Disagree? Why do you think it happened that way?
LC: Geffen did first two then Capitol took over with Mainstream. I preferred working with Capitol. Gefen had it easier with initial momentum. Why didn’t it happen in USA is the question- hard for us to fit into any radio format hurt. My unwillingness to play game didn’t help.
TDOA: Lyrically, your writing style seemed to change and focus on your life experiences. Was that a conscious decision and can you talk about your current state of mind vs. your time when LC&TC were first starting?
LC: I had finally lived a little. To start with so much was vicarious via literature and film. My London year (70-80) does feature heavily on Rattlesnakes. Wrote most but some tunes were by others – rattlesnakes, BNFrnd. Writing – Today there is less I haven’t tried + I know what I’m not good at
TDOA: What led u to record Plastic Wood? Such a departure from your other work!
LC: Separation of Church and State – to try to stop my tendency to add that stuff to my songs… It didn’t work, really. Still I like PW, still
TDOA: Seems to me that bands don’t put an emphasis on lyrics, in the way that you, Costello and that ilk do. Agree? Any sense of why that is?
LC: See Lennon and Macca. Sometimes it really doesn’t matter, but when lyric draws attention to itself it had better be good. Unlike, say…Pulling Muscles From a Shell – that William Tell line is ghastly.
TDOA: How did you enjoy the LC&TC reunion a few years ago?
LC: Enjoyed reunion immensely but at the same time felt vindicated in my career path. That music was then and nostalgia is fun once in a while.. but not something I want to be doing as my main gig, so to speak.
TDOA: what are you plans for 2010?
LC: Record new record. Tour with Pale Bluegrass small ensemble. More prose.
While we generally provide you with links to download music from iTunes exclusively, there’s something to be said for the quality of Lloyd Cole’s website, which you can find here.
Or you can go to iTunes here:
We like videos, yes we do. As you’ll recall, we gave you our picks to click at CMJ. Since then Warpaint was signed to Rough Trade and The XX blew up more (if that’s possible). Here’s a quick look at the videos we’ve compiled that show our favorite bands performing at CMJ.
There are bands that spit out new albums every year in slap-dash style that focuses on volume, rather than content and then there is Engineers. Like their name, they carefully construct atmospheres and layers that suffocate in a way that has never been more pleasant. Their mini-album Folly was released in 2004 and was followed in 2005 with their self-named first full-length. That album rarely left our “most played” lists and left us gasping for more. We had to wait until 2009 for the brilliant ‘Three Fact Fader’ to enter our world. Taking the spirit of shoegaze, Cocteau Twins and ethereal bliss and spinning it to it’s next logical step they’ve created one of the best records of the year. Bassist Mark Peters took some time to explain the process that is Engineers.
TDOA: After your split with Echo, there was some conjecture that the band was breaking up. Was there ever a point where this was a possibility? If so, why and how did you manage to keep it together for the release of a new album?
MP: After the Echo split we were a bit tired of living in each others pockets, so we decided to have a break and get jobs and do other things. Apart from Simon we have known each other for a long time and took breaks away from working together before, so this was not a big deal. I think we all would have had a feeling of disappointment if the album hadn’t come out because we were happy with it and after putting some tracks on Myspace we got a really positive response which was something that did us all a lot of good. When Kscope approached us to release it we then came back together to record the extra tracks and do a remix for Steven Wilson. These things went well so we decided to do some gigs which is a thing we have missed having in our lives, and we’ve loved doing the five we’ve done (three with Porcupine Tree) up to now and are really looking forward to the European tour we have lined up in December. Ultimately we want to come to the U.S again because that’s where our music was written to be played.
TDOA: Can you give us some insight on your collaboration with DJ Sasha on the remix of Sometimes I Realize? How did you meet and did he in any way influence the songs on Three Fact Fader?
MP: Unfortunately we’ve never met him, although. The collaboration came about after we were approached by Barry Jamieson (A Sasha collaborator who was once in the techno duo Evolution), an old friend of ours who had heard the record and thought that that track would fit on Sasha’s new remix album ‘Involver2′. I really like that mix, it compliments the album nicely. We’ve had a good remix done of our new single by Ricardo Tobar from Chile that takes our stuff in the right direction too.
TDOA: Do you feel like Kscope has been supportive and do you forsee releasing the album in the U.S.?
MP: Yeah, Kscope have been fun to work with. Not to rubbish echo (who looked after us very well while we were there, it has to be said), but we feel a bit more at home on that label in terms of the general ethos of the people who work at the label, and even though we are not technically signed to the label, we may soon be recording a new album with them. ‘Three Fact Fader’ has been released in the U.S which is something we are very happy about, and we feel like it’s only a matter of time before we start to gain a good reputation there.
TDOA: You’ve said that there aren’t many bands around now, who try to be an enigma. Can you give us some insight as to the meaning of the title and cover art of the new record.
MP: I don’t think you can try to be enigmatic, as this usually has pretentious results. If there are fans would like it if there was a profound and mysterious reason behind our title and artwork, I have no intention of spoiling that.
TDOA: Do you enjoy making videos or do you consider them a “necessary evil”?
MP: We have shyed away from appearing in videos in the past (apart from ‘Home’ and the super 8 video for ‘Clean Coloured Wire’) as we’ve never felt that we are an image band, so there should be something interesting instead a generic performance based video. When we did do that on ‘Home’, I found it a bit narcissistic and wouldn’t rush to do it again. Having said that, I don’t consider videos to be merely promotional tools – they can often be great works of art, and sometimes much better than the actual songs they accompany. My favourite of ours is the animation video for ‘Forgiveness’ We asked for the director to portray us in an unflattering light and to me it captures the vibe of the band really well.
TDOA: You’re very up front about the wide range of influences on the band and specifically this record. As we grow older our influences change. For someone who has only heard the first record, how would you describe the differences between it and the new one and how those influences patterned that change?
MP: The first record was very much a studio record and we were living very much in our own world whislt we were recording it, which was great fun, but on this one we wanted to get over the energy of our shows and have more of a live feel to the production. The songs were written as a group as opposed to in pairs or alone as they were on the first, which I think enhances the feeling of this being a group record. The influences are alot different too, which is important, as while we don’t want to keep radically reinventing ourselves in the quest for commercial appeal, I don’t think any band should keep making the same record over and over as it’s boring for both them and their fans. The 70’s Beach Boys albums, Phil Spector and The classic Eno and Warp albums were the template for the first albums and then we were listening to Sonic Youth, Harmonia, Neu and The Breeders. I don’t think influences always have to have a bearing on your sound or writing. Sometimes when you get a feeling that you relate to from a track, the effect that it has is that it makes you pick your guitar up, but that doesn’t mean you imitate what you’ve just heard.
TDOA: Can you describe Ken Thomas’s influence as a producer? Was he there primarily to capture the sound of the record or did he provide suggestions about song structure and overdubs?
MP: He had a subtle influence on us whilst recording I’d say. Although he did help us with some of the technical aspects of recording, he had more of philosophical approach to his production style with us. He helped us get what we wanted and took care of the technical side, encouraging us to focus more on playing and getting good performances. He did help us a little bit with structures to start with – we worked at our small studio in North West England getting the songs right before going to a studio to record them. Ken’s suggestions about overdubs was quite candidly minimal. He just wanted us to do what we do as well as we could.
TDOA: When I hear ethereal songs that don’t have obvious “pop” melodies, I’m always curious about the gestation of the music. Can you tell us how a typical song is born for Engineers? Do you start with a bass or guitar melody and build from there or do you start with a vocal melody?
MP: Not usually with just a bass, but maybe a bass line over a drone or a sample perhaps. Often with a guitar, but usually vocals never come first. I like cutting loops out of effected guitar passages because I like the idea that a random fleeting moment in a jam can make up a song. I’m glad we sampled Harmonia because Michael Rother sent me a genuinely nice email about the track, explaining that we had got the right feeling and that it gives him goosebumps.
TDOA: Do you write your lyrics after writing the music or do you have the proverbial “notebook” of lyrics that you match to the song once it’s been written?
MP: No, lyrics either come off the top of our heads or are written after the melody. Lyrics are something of an enigma for us. They either come all instantly or take weeks to get right.
TDOA: You appear to be vociferous music listeners. Who are you listening to now that may end up influencing your next record?
MP: I’m listening to Lou Reed at this very moment, so maybe he will… It tends to be that I listen to the vocals more in the older music I listen and the instrumentation on stuff from the late seventies onwards. That’s not always the case though. I would love to make a record that has a very futuristic feeling about it. Not just in terms of sounds, but something that makes you feel what it will be like to be a human in thousands of years’ time. Not comic book futurism but music that is genuinely more developed emotionally. At the moment though I really like the track that Bradford Cox has done with Laetitia Sadler from Stereolab called ‘Quick Canal’ for his new Atlas Sound album, Seefeel’s ‘Quique’ and the new Fuck Buttons album.
TDOA: We’ve interviewed bands like Ride and Catherine Wheel who hated the “shoegaze” tag. Can you tell us your feelings about that tag specifically and the concept of music writers need to pigeon-hole bands into categories?
MP: Those bands were on the receiving end of that term when it was very negative. I don’t think we would have had a record released on a major label if there hadn’t been the revival in the press, but there’s been some anti-shoegaze reviews of our stuff, so it goes in waves. The most interesting thing I have to say on this matter is that I recently did an interview with an English paper about the shoegaze revival and when I googled his name and the topic, an article that he wrote in the early nineties called ‘Shoegazing R.I.P’ was the first thing I found. Shoegazers have to remember that people are just doing their jobs, and that life isn’t all just about ethereal walls of sound…
TDOA: What’s next for the band once you’ve finished the current dates you’re playing through December? Any plans to come to the U.S.?
MP: As I’ve said a few times, we would absolutely love to come over there to play again. The idea of the band was sort of concieved on a fly drive holiday to the U.S when a few of us drove down the west coast and back up through Nevada listening to our favourite music for a few weeks, so if anyone wants to bring us over we are more than willing…
To purchase the music of Engineers, click on the pulsing, throbbing iTunes button.
Actually it’s Margaret Fiedler McGinnis and actually this incredibly gifted artist also has PJ Harvey and Wire on her resume. Impressed much? When Moonshake first crossed my eardrums in 1991, it was clear that C86 was over and a great new sound was emerging. Their brand of dub-bass post-punk created atmospheres inside of brilliant melodies. Margaret alternated vocal duties with David Callahan, which created a fun debate amongst us as to who was the better vocalist. I stood firmly in the Fiedler camp and when she broke off to start Laika, I was rewarded with her efforts to take Moonshake’s sound into the stratosphere. A quick review of her wikipedia page will show you that this is one of the most multi-talented people to emerge from the 80’s alternative music scene. We were thrilled that she took a moment from her schedule to talk to us.
TDOA: What led you to move from the U.S. to England prior to forming Moonshake?
MF: I initially came to London in August 1989 just after finishing college. I just had my 20 year anniversary – how time flies! I had done my junior year in Dublin at Trinity reading pure philosophy and had met a boy there… well actually met him in Belfast as he had graduated from Trinity the year before. We had a mutual friend Karin, who last I heard had married an Italian count. Anyway, the boy came to NYC with me while I finished my senior year at Sarah Lawrence and then we both came to London so he could pursue a career more seriously. I liked the idea of moving to London as much of the music I liked came out of the UK and at the time in NYC (late 80s) there wasn’t much for me, outside what was basically a proto-riot grrl scene. Even though I was a guitarist I was into Public Enemy and wanted to buy a sampler!
TDOA: Can you talk about the decision Moonshake made to leave Creation in favor of Too Pure?
MF: We were managed by Paul Cox and Richard Roberts when we were on Creation. They had just started Too Pure but thought for some reason we wouldn’t consider being on their label! Moonshake were pretty much ignored on Creation, so when Ivo at 4AD and Beggars got involved with Too Pure it seemed like it was the place for us to be. I ended up doing 5 albums with Too Pure – the label doesn’t exist anymore but I am still on super friendly terms with all the Too Pure, Beggars and 4AD people.
TDOA: The differences between your songs and David’s songs seemed obvious very early on. Was it a source of conflict from the beginning? If not, can you talk us through how the differences in style eventually led to you going off to start Laika?
MF: I really liked Dave Callahan’s songs and his voice – obviously! That’s why I wanted to be in a band with him. But we were different people and wrote differently, but came from the same influences – Can, PIL, Kraftwerk, Eric B & Rakim and MBV to name a few bands. Moonshake was a collision – it was supposed to be a collision. But maybe after a while, the tension that was there in our writing and singing styles spilled over into real life. Things did get extremely tense on the last tour we did together in 1993 in North America.
TDOA: Was the split from Moonshake amicable and when was the last time you spoke with David?
MF: No it wasn’t amicable. In fact it took me years to get over it, which is kinda sad to admit. I haven’t spoken to Dave in years – I hear he’s happy and has twins and is a wonderful father.
TDOA: The polyrhythmic sounds of Laika were a departure from the “shoegaze” style that was popular at the time. What drew you to that sound and was it a conscious effort to move away from the shoegaze tag?
MF: Well, Guy and I were interested in rhythm but couldn’t get excited about 4/4. So, influenced by bands like the Young Gods we wanted to take rock rhythms and turn them upside down and inside out. 7 is great! I’m not really sure anything other than the first Moonshake EP (imaginatively titled “First”) was labelled as shoegaze anyway. So there was nothing to move away from!
TDOA: How did Too Pure react to the split? It seems like they were more supportive of Laika, but perhaps that’s because your records were so well received by the media.
MF: At the time of the split Too Pure were brutally fair and equally supportive to both projects – they really didn’t want to take sides. I’m not really sure what happened but I think Moonshake (mk II) spent more money than Laika and were selling less records so that was that.
TDOA: You’ve performed with a who’s/who’s of some pretty great bands (Moonshake, Laika, PJ Harvey and Wire). With Moonshake and Laika you were writing songs, but my assumption is that you didn’t have that control with PJ or Wire. Did you prefer playing your own music or did you just enjoy the variety of the experiences?
MF: I am a musician and a songwriter – they are different things but sometimes get combined. I love just playing – it not being “my band” or my job to sell tickets, “put bums on seats” – just to go out there and play guitar. And I can’t really think of a lot of artists I would want to work with actually. But Polly and Wire are fucking up there with the best (if they are not the best, in fact I only really have two bands I love more, and that would be Led Zeppelin and Kraftwerk).
TDOA: I remember seeing Laika live and being overwhelmed by how good the sound was. Did you prefer playing live or recording in the studio? Did you really effort to make sure the sound was good live or did I just luck into a good venue?
MF: Laika sometimes had a really hard time with live sound because I am such a quiet singer. But when it was good it could be really good. Studio and live are different things. I like the perfection achieved on record but I crave the spontaneity live. And I love traveling the world and meeting crazy people – for example last week I was off on tour with Wire – you can’t get much further apart in Europe than Oslo and Cadiz unless you’re talking Tromso, or the Canaries! It was fun. Exhausting, stressful, crazy fun. Hey as you’re Detroit did you see the show with Tricky at St Andrews Hall in 1995? I seem to remember that was a good ‘un…..(ED. NOTE: Yes it was!)
TDOA: Is it true that the rise of illegal downloading contributed to your decision to stop recording as Laika? Do you see an avenue for musicians and labels to make creating music financially viable?
MF: Well the last Laika album sold less than all its predecessors. I don’t know why – maybe it was crap?! But we sold steadily more and more until the last one which didn’t do so well. And that coincided time-wise with everybody getting broadband. People were still coming to see the live shows, so go figure. The band also stopped being a going concern when I took the decision to go to law school in 2005. Guy decided to travel the world shortly thereafter.
TDOA: Guy Fixsen says there’s half an album that’s done and that Laika will reconvene to finish it. How accurate it that statement and do you think you will make music again?
MF: Well, both Guy and I say the same thing – yes there is half an album and yes it would be great to finish it. And it would be great to play some shows and visit countries like Japan which we never got to play in. But we were a couple both professionally and personally for a long time – over 10 years – and the personal side of that is over and sometimes it’s difficult to work together. Didn’t Stereolab just call it quits for similar reasons??? Guy’s really busy with production – the Lonelady debut is awesome. And Guy and Rob Ellis (PJH & Laika drummer) will be playing live with Lonelady from next month. I’m always busy – Wire, BBC, craft crap (making & teaching), plus I’m renovating a house that my husband and I just bought in deepest East London. It’s all good!
We’ve loved The Raveonettes from day one, so it was a bit of a thrill to get an opportunity to talk with them. Taking the Mary Chain’s noisy guitars and the self-acknowledged influence of the Everly Brothers, mixing it with the beautiful vocals of Sharin Foo and the brilliant songwriting of Sune Wagner, they created a huge buzz with their first ep ‘Whip It On’. Their new album ‘In and Out of Control’ is their first since leaving Sony and carries on the tradition of scathing guitars and great vocals. Sune Wagner took some time while touring to answer a few questions for us.
TDOA: In and Out of Control is your second album for Fierce Panda. Can you talk about the advantages and disadvantages of operating on a non-major label?
SW:We have a more personal relationship with the individual people who are working our album. We’re in complete control of everything we do and we make a lot more money ha ha…sometimes it’s a shame we don’t have bigger budgets to get David Lynch to direct a video or something…
TDOA: Why did you leave Sony?
SW: We fulfilled our 3 album deal and decided to try our luck with an independent. All the people we used to work with at Columbia were all gone so we felt it was the right move.
TDOA: Anything that you’d change about your history with them, in retrospect?
SW: No. We had complete creative freedom and we worked with the big guys like Don Ienner. I loved it.
TDOA: How do you feel about the process of making videos? Creative outlet or necessary evil?
SW: I can’t say I totally enjoy it but sometimes it can be fun. We wanna get into making more low budget videos with wacky ideas. We’re shooting one very soon and it’ll definitely grab people’s attention and probably won’t ever be shown on any commercial station.
TDOA: Can you talk about Thomas Troelsen’s contribution to the new album? I know you share writing credits with him, but I wonder specifically about his contributions. Did he write guitar or vocal melodies or did he just assist in the arrangement of songs?
SW: Thomas is an amazing songwriter and like me, he works very fast. He’s a melody writer but has many ideas about all the various instruments. He would constantly challenge me to write better melodies and play the guitar a little differently, it was a very creative process.
TDOA: How has the songwriting process changed for you since Chain Gang of Love? Do you find that your influences are changing and has that affected how you write?
SW: I don’t know if the influences has changed but as a songwriter you obviously get better at your craft.
TDOA: I’m really curious about the song, Boys Who Rape. Did Sharin write the lyrics and what led to the decision to address this topic?
SW: I wrote the song as we were recording the album cause I felt we needed a little attitude and up-tempo stuff on there. It was vaguely inspired by an old friend who was raped mutiple times by her uncle. Those pigs.
TDOA: Do you prefer playing live or recording in the studio?
SW: I like them both but being creative is more fun.
TDOA: You’ve acknowledged the influence the Jesus and Mary Chain had on the band early on. There seems to be a lot of bands that have jumped on the bandwagon, but aren’t trying to add the other influences that you have. Do you find these imitators annoying?
SW: No. I like what we do with our influences and we have a tremendous amount of respect from other bands. I think it’s great to be able to inspire other people like that.
TDOA: What are you listening to these days and can you tell us about any new bands that we should be listening to?
SW: I kinda enjoyed the XX album and also a band from SF called Girls. We’re on tour right now with The Black Angels and I’ve always loved them to death.
TDOA: Once you’ve completed your current tour, what do you plan to do next?
SW: We end our touring on December 18th in London and then I wanna start writing the next album and I also wanna release another solo album. We’re working on a song for a cool movie and we have plenty of touring coming up in the new year too.
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It’s been a while since we had time to compile the best songs that have crossed our path recently. You’ll find that we’ve added links to purchase some of the songs through iTunes. When that wasn’t possible, we’ve given you the link to the band’s myspace page. We’re going to pass on describing the songs this time. Go in with an open mind and know that we’re challenging you with the best music we could find.
Your New Favorite Band: Johnny Foreigner
We remember an interview we did with Art Brut, in which they attempted to entertain us with their wisdom and faux pharmacological humor. Frankly, we thought it came off a bit forced and that they took themselves a bit too seriously. Enter Britain’s Johnny Foreigner and their attempt to charm us with music and their interpretation of the way of the world. I remember going to see Guided By Voices shortly after they signed to Matador and as they prepared to join a Lollapalooza tour. Despite the lofty expectations of the crowd, Robert Pollard showed up, stumbling drunk as if he didn’t care (which he didn’t). He wandered onto the stage, did his best Pete Townsend leg kick and proceeded to blow us away with his ramshackle interpretation of rock and roll. Listening to Johnny Foreigner’s music and reading this interview is as close as you’re going to come to reliving that experience. Aggressive, shambolic, entertainment without a hint of pretense…. just the way we like it. Alexi spoke with us for this interview and gave us the view of the world from the mountaintops they’ll be climbing as they ascend to rock greatness.
TDOA: It seems like packaging and artwork are something you put a lot into. Can you tell us a little bit about the artwork that appears on your records and website? 3-D album covers, handmade cardboard covers and such, they all look great! Who is the mastermind behind all of this and is there a central theme that we should be looking for?
Lex: Ha, there’s no mastermind as such. Just us drunkenly throwing ideas around and not enough people to tell us no. All the fancy packaging we’ve done has a) lost us money and b) been totally worth it. The drawings are done by our friend Lewes Herriot. (myspace.com/thedarkinventory) He’s started branching out now, designing for other people and getting his shirts in topshop and such, we’re dead proud. Our emails generally go like this – “Can you do a ghost, eating another ghost, with a telephone in its mouth and a speech bubble coming out of the receiver? – “What, like this?” – “YESSSSSSSSSSS!!” We’ve never met anyone who can put our music into pictures as well as Lewes. We got to know him from some awesome gig posters he drew and he’s done all our stuff since we signed to best before. And he’ll do the rest of it too. He’s as much a part of our band as guitars and gin.
TDOA: You recorded a record in New York City, you’ve toured in Japan and you’re based in England. Can you talk about the cultural differences that you perceive between the three?
Lex: In as much as musicians should probably stfu about cultural differences, here’s my 2 cents. There are cunts all over the world and there are lovely people all over the world. And if they wear Pavement t-shirts then they’re probably friendly. If they’re men with pointy shoes in England then they’ll probably fuck you over at some point. I think American people take everything too seriously, Japanese people take everything too seriously, English people take everything too seriously and we’re all idiots.
TDOA: We’ve gotten a great response to our site from people in Japan, so we feel obligated to ask for you to share some of the crazier stories of your tour their.
Lex: You get off 12 hour flight, you take two trains with all your gear and suitcases and walk to hotel in sweltering heatwave, you dump gear, change clothes, go out with friends of your label, get messy drunk in a succesion of gaijin bars and restaurants, get future-taxi to warehouse birthday party in downtown shibuya, score some weed and finally get to sit and reflect on being awake for 48 hours and spending the last 7 wondering what was going on. Gets to about midnight, birthday boy strips naked onto trestle table and his friends move it to the centre of the room and place little birthday cakes on him and light the candles. Stroke of midnight, all lights and music cuts out and everyone in the room, as if brainwashed, starts singing Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds at the top of their voices. You’re well above the streetlights so you see this mostly as shadow light by frequent cameraphone flashes. Friends blow out candles and eat cakes off naked guy with their mouths alone. Singing finishes, lights and pa come back on, boy gets dressed, party carries on as normal. It’s over a year and your still not sure if this is a normal right of passage for shibuya teenagers.
TDOA: Who directed and thought up the concept for the video for Criminals and how you like making videos?
Lex: it was a louche genius called matt maude, he works as part of a collective called left eye blind and they’ve done videos for sky larkin and grammatics and a bunch of other cool bands. we loved the concept when he told us (chainsaw!) and we spent 2 fun if tiring days in an abandoned film school making it. we’re pretty lucky in that thats only the second “performance” video we’ve done and left eye blind are all young and unembittered as well as being super professional, so it was a lot of fun. usually, making videos is us sitting down with various memory cards of footage on different file types and swearing at windows movie maker.
TDOA: You’ve played with a lot of great bands. What have you learned from the assortment that has helped you with your career?
Lex: Um, find your advantages and play to them mercilessly! It’s a weird thing to talk about and a lot of bands don’t, ’cause stagecraft, for lack of a better word, is sort of the same as cheating or posing in indie rock. Which is why Dana and the Mae Shi are awesome to watch because they have these hyper personalities and watching their band is like trying to have a conversation with all of them at once. Whereas if we tried those kind of antics, it’d be stage school forced cos we’re not naturally that POW!!! as people. There’s nothing worse than meeting someone in a band and realizing they have a stage persona, it’s a fucking con. And while you can respect people for being good actors, it doesn’t make them good humans.
TDOA: I noticed a reference to Lex reading Martin Amis. I feel like bands rarely admit to reading at all any more, let alone someone like Amis. Are there literary references in your lyrics or are you just broadening your horizons?
Lex: There’s loads of stuff that I’ve stolen! I read waaaay too much and waay too fast. I think it helps (that) I smoke a lot of weed. I have a DS with like, every game ever and I waste so much money in second hand book shops. I don’t follow the literary scene at all, and I get just as much out of a well written trashy 70s sci-fi novel as whatever stuff I buy that has Booker Prize stickers on it. But I mostly only buy from charity shops, frittering my PDs away £1 at a time.
TDOA: As you prepare for a new tour, what can folks expect to see at a Johnny Foreigner show?
Lex: Junior playing a bit of guitar, Kelly pressing the happy birthday button “accidentally” in every fucking show. One of our techs Gaffa taping my guitar back together mid show. Our merch boy San obsessively filming everything for the film about our selves we’ll never make. Me trying not to lose/break the mic, and us borrowing members of the other bands for extra bits and bobs. Same as ever, really. Only, slightly tighter and maybe less sweatier (I’m kidding myself. I’m fitter till proven otherwise)
TDOA: How often does someone ask you, “which one of you is Johnny” and how badly do you pummel those folks?
Lex: It’s odd, ’cause we don’t answer, ’cause we think they’re referring to someone else, then when we realize. We still don’t answer. I dunno, using a name as a band name is a concept that some peoples minds literally cannot handle.
TDOA: If you could “eliminate” one current band from the planet, who would it be and why?
Lex: Can we kill off the Manic Street Preachers now please? I just read an interview with Nicky Wire (I used to WORSHIP this band 10,15 years ago) and he’s like a bumbly old man trying to be controversial. It’s Gene Simmons-embarrassing. He was talking about the FAC and how he was opposed to anything involving Ed O’Brian on principle and he got all his facts wrong. It’s so fucking desperate and pathetic, like, he knows the only we he can get attention is by moaning about something. We could just bring his old self back from the past and he’d stab him up with no hesitation. If someone could write that into Radiohead fanfic, it’d be made up..
TDOA: Can you explain how you got from ‘We left you sleeping and gone now’ to where you are now, musically? Is it reflective of a change in what you’re listening to?
Lex: Um, sort of like this – waited up was as much us experimenting for our own sakes and me playing at being a producer as it was a band album. When Kelly came in we made a conscious decision to limit ourselves to guitar, bass, drums and sa21, so we could go play as much as possible (we toured by public transport. awful idea) and the best of those songs went on arcs and waited. Then we spent 14 months on tour and wrote a bunch of songs around/about/because of it and that became grace. We’ve had the summer off and now my head is full of a million new songs and I’ve had the time to play around with 3rd album ideas like brass sections and drones and a triple lp set made of gold etc. So there’s definitely a connection in how much time we spend sitting around doing nothing and the amount of alternate instrumentation in our songs. um.
TDOA: You’re tour itinerary for the remainder of the year is amazing. Are there particular cities that you’re particularly excited about seeing? Any chance we’ll see you in America in 2010?
Lex: Berlin, again, and Tokyo, again, and Amsterdam shows are always fun. There’s a bunch of smaller UK towns we’ve never been to too They can either be dire and blacklisted forever ever or be amazing, whole town comes to party shows, its always slightly more fun not knowing. To be fair, we’ve madly excited for all the exotic places we’re going to, but they’re all dwarfed by our South African tour in February. It’s our most spied upon wishiwasthere destination on google maps. How many indie rock bands get to touch actual elephants? we = privleged beyond status.
Winter Tour Dates
Nov 16 2009 MTC Cologne
Nov 17 2009 Bang Bang – Karrera Klub Berlin
Nov 18 2009 Astra Stube Hamburg
Nov 19 2009 the marquee brussels
Nov 20 2009 Paradiso Amsterdam
Nov 21 2009 BIG REUNION Skegness
Nov 23 2009 Louisiana Bristol
Nov 24 2009 Joiners Southampton, South
Nov 25 2009 Sub 89 Reading
Nov 26 2009 Boiler Room Guildford
Nov 27 2009 Sugarmill Stoke
Nov 28 2009 Fibbers York
Nov 29 2009 Cabaret Voltaire Edinburgh
Dec 3 2009 Drunkard’s Stadium (Minami-Kashiwa, Chiba) Chiba
Dec 4 2009 G-Side (Hamamatsu, Shizuoka) Shizuoka
Dec 5 2009 HMV Yokohama instore Yokohama
Dec 5 2009 Dragon Club, reclash all night event (Yokohama) Yokohama
Dec 6 2009 British Anthems (TOKYO GIG) TOKYO
Dec 11 2009 Cyprus avenue Cork
Dec 12 2009 Auntie Annies Belfast
Dec 13 2009 Academy 2 Dublin
Feb 12 2010 JF ARE OFF TO S.A Cape Town
Feb 17 2010 Klein Libertas Stellenbosch
Feb 19 2010 Hotbox Johannesburg
Feb 26 2010 RAMFEST worcester, south africa
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