‘Don’t Mention The War’ On iTunes!
Yaaay! Finally, I have more than just my ancient EMI album and a scattering of single tracks up on iTunes. If you click here, you can now buy my new album, ‘Don’t Mention The War,’ from your friendly, local iTunes.
Or, if you prefer the hardware version, you can click here and enjoy the luxuriant packaging I spent aaages designing.
Horses for courses, innit?
My heart leapt with joy when I saw the little tag on iTunes saying © 2006 Bzangy Records. It feels good to own my own songs.
More to the point, if my teeny-tiny label can now be selling physical CDs and downloads across the world, that means anyone can.
Aversion.com Interview
Click here for a new interview on Aversion.com. I was brutally interrogated by a scantily clad Matt Schild and, crying tears of rage and sump oil, I dissembled magnificently. Who is Keyser Soze, you may well ask? Well, it’s definitely not me.
Nope.
(cough)ALBUM!
First Album Review!
Woohoo! Got the first (and possibly the last, considering the non-promotion I’m doing) album review for ‘Don’t Mention The War.’ It’s off the lovely Aversion.com website and you can read it by clicking here.
Four out of five, motherfuckers! 
Think Matt Schild must be on some baad brown acid? Click here to listen to clips yourself and then you can fire off outraged emails at him, pointing out exactly how he’s barmy.
Buy My New Album!
Yep, so far my new album, ‘Don’t Mention The War,’ has only been available to the supreme clientele that is my mates in Derby. But eagle-eyed readers may notice the new box in the sidebar on the right —>
Now you can buy your own lovely copy of ‘DMTW’ direct from CD Baby! Just click the button or follow this link to have a listen to soundclips of the new tracks and see if you fancy shelling out for it. CD Baby ship internationally and I just worked out that if you’re a Brit buying the album, the cost is £10.67 including postage (or £9 if you opt for no jewel case). Not bad, eh?
I’ll do another update when it’s available on iTunes, hopefully soon!
Oooh, it’s exciting! 
Undressed
Last night I stuck the video for ‘Undressed’ up on YouTube GooTube. I’ve not watched it in years, so it was pretty fresh for me. I think Mark Adcock, the director, did his usual sterling job.
I’m in the process of doing some videos for the new album and watching this old one made me appreciate the time and effort put into it. And the editing! So many angles, so many studio shots edited into the location footage. And expensive dolly / crane shots.
Hmmm… it’s all a bit daunting now!
New Album!
Yep, after six years of moving house, going barmy, moving house again, etc., the new album is finally here! It’s called ‘Don’t Mention The War’ and here’s the tracklisting:
1. Make The World Go Away
2. A New Surprise
3. Somewhere Blue
4. I Was Trotsky’s Nun
5. These Are The MPs
6. Hold It In
7. Death In Kettering
8. Fanfare For Emma Goldman
9. Whenever I Say Hello
10. Theme For A BBC Natural History Series Presented By Richard Dawkins
11. The Straight-Edge Atheists’ Hymn
12. Sabrina, Won’t You Help Us Out?
There you go, twelve songs about love, lust, war, peace and teenage witches. I’ll be putting up clips of the songs soon so you can have a preview.
This album is about as DIY as you can get: I wrote the songs, performed every part (no guest musicians this time), recorded and produced it, mastered it (not fun!), took the pics for the graphics, did all the graphics and now I’m sticking it out on my own label.
Yep, ‘Don’t Mention The War’ will be Bzangy Records first release. The album was meant to come out on Ninthwave Records but they’ve sadly had to shut down for the forseeable future. My thanks to Dave for putting out my music and generally being very supportive and involved for the last few years. It’s a tough job running an indie label - I know as Bzangy Records will be my third!
I’ve signed up with CD Baby, so ‘Don’t Mention The War’ will be easily available in physical form in the US (and as an import elsewhere) and will also be on iTunes around the world. Give it a while though, I only sent off the first copies to them on Wednesday.
As I’m sitting typing this, I’ve got one of the 1000 pressed albums sitting to my right. It looks brilliant! I’m soooo excited to be releasing this record. Of course, every artist thinks their new record is the best yet and I’m no different. But I can honestly say, some of the best songs I’ve ever written are encoded on this small piece of shiny plastic.
From my heart, straight to yours!
White Town Live Vid
Yep, yep! Thanks to the “miracle of the cyberwent” (TM), even if you weren’t at the gig I did last Friday in Gothenburg, you can now hear my rather tremulous rendition of the first White Town song. Which was… White Town. (You can download the original 7″ version for free from here.)
Note my two lovely assistants, Ville from Cats on Fire and Stefan from Agent Simple. They both played much better than I did, the swine.
Thanks to the Cosy Den posse for posting up the vid on You Tube! Check out their other vids, there’s some real gems on there.
New 7″ Vinyl!
Another thing I brought back from Sweden, nestled next to a deep sense of well-being, was a little box containing 7″ singles. Yep, you heard right, shiny, shiny vinyl records. I can’t remember the last time I released a vinyl record, I suspect it was around ‘93 or ‘94. A bloody long time ago, anyway.
When I got home yesterday, I plopped the record on my deck, turned up the amp and listened, amazed, as sound poured out of the teeny grooves. And it sounded good. I’m not going all Neil Young on you but this is a lovely-sounding record. Whoever cut it did a grand job.
Now, I can hear you asking, “Where, oh where can we buy this slice of lovely?”
Well, popkids, if you live in Derby, amble along to Reveal Records and buy one from there as I dropped in a few this morning.
If you aren’t from Derby, I think you should head to the Heavenly Pop Hits website and bug them for a copy as they released it. They’re lovely people, very clean and I’m sure they’ll be able to help you out. Do send them actual money though, don’t just email them begging for free stuff.
The EP is four tracks:
A1 A New Surprise
A2 Melissa Joan Hart
B1 Make A Right At Jordfallsmotet (cover version of the classic Agent Simple song)
B2 Theme For A Post-Watershed Cop Show Set In Wellingborough
I’m very proud of it as I think it’s a great little EP. Of course, I would say that, wouldn’t I? But I genuinely think it’s poppy and punchy and if you make a tiny bit of room in your heart, it might crawl in there and curl up for a kip.
Lovely gigs! Shiny records! God, I love being a musician!
More Gigging!
No, I’ve not been slacking - I’ve been away for the last fortnight playing some gigs in Scandinavia, more specifically in Finland and Sweden. Note that I say “playing some gigs” rather than “touring” as that implies rock’n'roll excess. I only played four gigs which is much too leisurely to be rock. Still did a hell of a lot of travelling, though.
I only managed to do the shows because Gaz travelled with me as roadie, guitar tech and soundman. He basically did everything strenuous while I swanned around, fainting at the very mention of heavy lifting. Amazingly, even in a whole fortnight we didn’t have a proper argument, although things got slightly heated when I tried to sell him the Carter Leslie Doomsday Argument.
The gigs were all lovely, in different ways and we met some of the most charming people. I know musicians always say that but it’s true. If you’re in a band and you want attentive, caring audiences, go and play in Sweden and Finland.
I played with Goodnight Monsters at Dynamo in Turku, Erik Hallden in Stockholm and Cats On Fire + Agent Simple in Gothenburg. All the bands I played with do pop music so it was a dream set of gigs. No dull experimentalism, no “challenging” chin-rubbing excesses, real songs about real life. Such a breath of fresh air after the moribund British music scene.
Stefan from Agent Simple played on a couple of my songs at the Gothenburg Cosy Den gig and Ville from Cats on Fire was also kind enough to help me out at that gig and the two in Finland. They were worried about learning my songs but when I pointed out they were mostly two / three-chord wonders, they relaxed a lot.
The sheer beauty of the countries was, at times, overpowering. And a little intimidating because, let’s face it, the average Scandinavian is far more gorgeous than the average Brit. That’s no myth. Sadly, I was a bit rubbish at taking pictures as I was concentrating on not putting my back out like I did last year. But if you click some of the pics above, you’ll end up at galleries of the few pics I did capture.
Playing those four gigs was very special for me. If you came to any of them, thank you for being such a good listener and making me a very happy performer!
‘A New Surprise’ on iTunes
Yep, as a taster for my forthcoming album, the lovely Ninthwave Records have issued ‘A New Surprise’ on iTunes. For the amazingly tiny sum of 79p, you can buy the single track. Or wait a bit and you can buy the whole album.
Click here for the iTunes store link to ‘A New Surprise.’
‘A New Surprise’ is also the lead track for the 7″ coming out soon on Heavenly Pop Hits, but that EP also has three other tracks on it not previously released or on the new album. Yes, I’ve been slightly prolific lately.
Oooh, it’s lovely having new music to announce!
