Indietracks Interview
Hello! As you may already know, I’m playing the violently lovely Indietracks Festival this year
And I’ve just done an interview with them. You can read it by clicking here!
It’s my usual rambling nonsense, enjoy! 
Indietracks
Yes, I can confirm that I am playing Indietracks 2010!
Woowooo! Choo chooo! etc.
See you there, popkids!
London Popfest 2010
Last Sunday, I had the honour to play London Popfest 2010. And I played on the same day as three fab bands, Leaving Mornington Crescent, Horse Shoes and The Wake. Yes, that The Wake! :-O
First on were Swedish razorpop stars, Leaving Mornington Crescent. I love LMC’s mix of 60s’ girlpop and Buzzcocks, I love their short, punchy songs and I love their MPC drummer. Mmm…
Pic courtesy of Marianthi
Then I played and I had so much fun! The audience was really friendly and I felt a proper sense of connection, despite it being a bigger venue than I’m used to playing. I talked to loads of lovely people after and even sold some records.
Next were Horse Shoes who played a set of dreamy, summery songs with innocent melodies that reminded me of early Field Mice.
Last on were The Wake. It felt quite bizarre that I was standing, watching The Wake, a band I’ve listened to for years. They were amazing. Very raw and full of heart, it was a singalong set.
Thanks to everyone at Popfest for putting me on, I had so much fun playing. And thanks to you if you were in the audience that night, I’d give you all hugs if I could!
Original Sin Interview
I’m very happy to be interviewed for the excellent Original Sin site! Click here to read it!
London Popfest Comp
Hello! I’m honoured to be playing London Popfest this Sunday. And they’ve just stuck up a FREE comp of bands that are playing. It features Horowitz, allo darlin’, Red Shoe Diaries, The Wake, Leaving Mornington Crescent and looads more. That’s some of the loveliest indiepop bands in the world right there. And there’s a track from me too! 
Click here for the comp!
love and kisses,
Jyoti
London Popfest!
Yaaay! I’m playing the 2010 London Popfest, full details here!
If you go, come and say hi, don’t be shy!
Merry Crimbo!
Hello! Even though I’m a bit of a bahhumbug when it comes to Crimbo, I thought I’d give you all a little pressie this year. Ladies and gentlemen, I present the present of the Mental At 5am EP!
Did you read this rambling post? Read it now? Good!
Well, the night I talk about there, the night that Mattias Cosy Den stayed over is when I recorded this live, acoustic EP. We stayed up very late and I chose one of my own songs plus a couple of covers that I love. Here’s what’s on the EP:
1. Death In Kettering
This is one of mine, taken off the last album, ‘Don’t Mention The War.’ I love doing this song acoustically, I don’t know why. It’s just one of the purest songs I’ve written. Whenever you write a song, you have the idea of it in your head and then, after a while, you have the finished thing. Mostly, the reality will diverge from the idea. But ‘Death In Kettering’ is probably the closest I’ve got to the idea yet.
2. Mellow Doubt
Probably my favourite Teenage Fanclub song. It’s such fun to play and sing. I first worked it out when I was on a promo tour of Germany in 1997. I was on my own in a hotel room, missing my wife terribly and feeling totally isolated. All I had was my guitar and this song on my CD walkman (yep, it was that long ago!).
3. It Doesn’t Matter Two
Like every true Depechie, my favourite album is ‘Black Celebration.’ And this sublime love song is off that classic. I think it’s prime Martin Gore: sex, death, lust, nihilism, existentialism all wrapped up in catchy melodies and sharp lyrics. And it sounds a bit Russian too, for some reason.
4. Mattias
This is Mattias signing off the night in Swedish. I do hope he’s not being rude!
If you’d like to have this EP, just click here and I’ll be yours in a jiffy.
I hope you enjoy it, have a lovely festive season and a wonderful 2010!
love and kisses,
Jyoti
Lovely Balls
I just found, via Twitter, a lovely article written about the impact of music that mentions ‘Your Woman.’ Here’s an excerpt:
According to Dillon, a critical moment in music occurs when “you are listening to a piece of music and say, ‘Somehow this changes everything’.” One such critical moment in my life was hearing White Town’s only hit Your Woman from the album “Women in Technology”; I was around thirteen years old. White Town’s vocals were unlike anything I had heard before. The sexual ambiguity and the sonic narrative (that is, the narrative created by the music, lyrics and vocals) pushed the boundaries for me. Somehow it changed everything.
(Source: Excuse My Solecism)
It’s a great read and I’m flattered to be included. Thank you!
White Town Live At HDIF, 24/9/09
(pics by Ian Watson)
Wow - I had a brilliant time playing at How Does It Feel To Be Loved? in London on Thursday night. And I was honoured to be on the same bill as Honey Pine Dresser, Cavalcade and Arthur & Martha. All fab bands and lovely peeps.
The gig started off a little bit unevenly - I was trying to tune my acoustic guitar with the tuner pedal but the disco was so loud, the tuner was trying to tune that. So, I tuned up, hit an E chord and… chaos! My god! I finally had to get the bewildered DJs to turn the music down completely and then managed to get it right. Tuning up is one of things you take for granted, it’s almost an irrelevancy. Until it fails and then you realise how utterly boned you are.
After that initial hoo-haa, the gig itself went beautifully. The audience was really attentive and, for such a large number of people, really quiet. I’d almost say they were Swedish attentive!
What made me beam was seeing people singing along with songs that weren’t ‘Your Woman.’ There was a lad right at the front and I swear he knew the lyrics to everything from ‘We’ll Always Have Paris’ to ‘Death In Kettering.’ That’s basically 19 years’ worth of White Town covered! How flattering is that?
I was also pleased because there were sooo many cute girls within my sight. If I’m singing to women, inevitably, I sing better. It’s basically why I keep doing the rest of what I do, for that brief time when I connect with someone like that, look a total stranger in the eyes and open my heart to her. I guess if I was gay, I’d be singing for the cute boys. 
Of course, the biggest response was for ‘Your Woman.’ Everyone was singing and jigging about, it was a bouncy, party vibe. Which is always ironic since it’s such a depressing and horrible song! It’s always rather spooky to hear lyrics you wrote in a tiny spare bedroom being sung back at you en masse!
After the gig, I chatted with loads of friendly, highly sexy people and even got to dance to ‘Sensitive’ with a group of them.
I was also chuffed that I sold quite a few records, including some copies of my debut single you can see being held by the gorgeous Jen above.
And then, to top the day off perfectly, we even managed to track down a proper Full English at the services on the way home. I could feel my arteries blocking as I scoffed it! Yaaay!
Earlier in the night, Ian HDIF was asking me why I’d never played London before. And I told him the truth: I’ve never been asked! Admittedly, I hadn’t got any kind of proper live thing going back in ‘97 when ‘Your Woman’ was in the charts but I probably could have knocked out an acoustic set.
But I also reminded him that when I wrote this rant, he was the only person who got in touch with me to ask me to do something in Britain (HDIF DJing back then). It’s all a matter of having people like Ian Watson or Mattias Jansson around: people who put on nights for all the right reasons and who refuse, steadfastly, to make it easier by putting them on for all the wrong reasons. There aren’t many of these gems around, I know my life would be a lot greyer and sadder without their influence. And I suspect yours would be too. I’ll remember playing that gig on Thursday night, the people I met, the fun I had singing for them, for a long, long time.
And if you’re the supercute, manga-eyed girl I was singing the perviest bits of ‘Death In Kettering’ directly at, sorry but I couldn’t help it - you’re gorgeous!
Cosy Den Five Year Festival
(Click any of the pics to see a gallery of the day!)
Just over a month ago, on August 1st, I played the Cosy Den Five Year festival. It was brilliant. This is the line-up for that day:
Jap Adaptors
Tada Tata
Paddington DC
The Paper Merchants
White Town
Vit Pals
Allo Darlin’
Suburban Kids With Biblical Names
Cats On Fire
Erik De Vahl
Mats Jonsson
I recommend you check out each and every one of those bands. They’re all brilliant. I can honestly say there wasn’t a single band I disliked or didn’t enjoy on the day. And I’m quite grumpy when it comes to multi-band all-dayers so that’s not faint praise. Since coming back, I’ve made a little iTunes playlist of the bands from that day, yes, I am that silly.
I first played Cosy Den waay back in 2005. Click here to read about that.
Back? Good.
Well, everything I said in that post still holds true. Sweden still feels like my musical home. The audience at Cosy Den last month was fabulous: attentive and involved. I’ve been to too many gigs in Britain where hipsters yammer on through the whole thing. They’re there to be seen, not to see the bands. Not at Cosy Den!
It was a wonderful feeling to be sitting there, just me, my acoustic and this group of people ready to connect, willing to go where I wanted to take them. Well, I say wonderful, it’s actually the best feeling a songwriter can have. I do love getting fan mail and nice comments on videos but there’s nothing to match interacting with an audience.
Because of personal shit I’ve been going through, the gig was intense even by my standards. I had to hold myself back a couple of times as I didn’t want to go mental on stage and start sobbing. After all, the show must go on. Innit?
Mattias from Cats On Fire guested on the second verse of ‘Your Woman.’ He was great as they’ve recently been doing me the honour of covering my song live. Click here to see that. (And, in return, I completely murdered the second verse of ‘Higher Grounds.’ God, I was awful. )
The whole day seems dreamlike to me now. That’s why I’ve waited so long to write about it, I needed to process it all in my head. It all seems too good to be true. The music, the people in bands I met, the people not in bands I met, the venue. Honestly, it was more like watching some beautiful independent film than playing a gig.
Instead of selling my records, I decided to give them away in exchange for secrets. As a result, I got to talk to loads of people and hear their secrets. None of which I’ll ever reveal, of course - a combination of trustworthiness and my terrible memory will ensure that.
I owe Cosy Den a lot. If Mattias hadn’t emailed me all those years ago and asked me to come and play, I wouldn’t have had the best gigging experiences of my life. And I wouldn’t have played with some of the best bands in the world. I find it quite amazing and a little scary how such a simple initial action (an email) can wind up affecting my life so much.
So, thank you Cosy Den! Here’s to five years of greatness and to many more too!
