Fans may recall that Johnny Foreigner briefly blitzkrieg-bopped their way through South Africa in late winter, playing some shows and a festival and generally — based on the photographic evidence — having a grand time in a stunningly beautiful country. The Birmingham, England-based indie giants had such a fine time, in fact, that they are considering recording their third full-length record there, according to this blog post what you already read. A return to South Africa to record a full-length will not be Johnny Foreigner‘s maiden recording effort there, however. During the band’s jaunt earlier this year it laid down at least one track with a fellow named Peach, and this track is awesome, and Johnny Foreigner put it up for free downlizzle over the weekend right here.
The synth-tastic “With Who, Who And What I’ve Got” is a gorgeous number that downplays guitars while at the same time overdriving the 8bit production sound to approximate the band’s desperate guitar pop attack. The song, incidentally, also fulfills the requirements of our Indie Axiom for Awesomeness no. 3. We doubt “With Who, Who And What I’ve Got” was written entirely in South Africa, but to the extent that country had any positive influence on the material, we’d be thrilled to hear what the band can do recording a full length “down” “there.” Check it out for yourself.
True fact: Johnny Foreigner are playing that Wichita Records 10th Birthday thing at The Garage in London you’ve been hearing about. It’s in July, 15 July as a matter of fact, and that’s a long way away, and that’s why you’ll need a calendar, yeah? Doors are at 7PM and the thing will set you back 15 pounds, which we think sounds fair. The Wichita thing has secret headliners and we know who they are and we can’t tell you and doesn’t that make us cool? Frankie and The Heartstrings will also be playing. You’re wondering why Johnny Foreigner is playing the Wichita party, what with their label being Best Before. Well, don’t get your tin-foil hats all crunched up, it’s just that Johnny Foreigner has people, and Wichita has people, and some of those people are the same people, and presto-chango! It’s synergy.
Reason No. 2 that you’ll need a calendar is Johnny Foreigner disclosed in a blog post yesterday or the day before that they are going to nip this never-having-properly-toured-America thing in the bud by trying to ninja together a tour themselves based on crowd-sourced market, venue and booking information. Read the band’s solicitation here, and then roll up your sleeves and pitch in.
Fans of Birmingham, England-based noise pop superlatives Johnny Foreigner who pre-ordered the long-awaited, forthcoming “Every Cloakroom Ever” single found a surprise in their email inboxes Tuesday in the form of links to download digital versions of what is now the Every Cloakroom Ever 10″ EP. The collection was originally slated to be a single but got blown out to four tracks after enough fans jumped on board with pre-orders to make the cost structure work. Another cool thing is that the digital version of the EP was delivered as 320kbps MP3s and .WAV files. You might wonder why they bothered with the WAV files — until you listen to the bass in the WAV file of the title track, which bass sounds as if it will explode through your speakers. So awesome. The physical manifestation of Every Cloakroom Ever has a fuzzy release date, but it is generally expected to ship next month. As the band has spent a fair amount of time in a different hemisphere in recent weeks, and there was touring to take care of prior to that, and given Johnny Foreigner is handling the vinyl release itself through special arrangement with its label Best Before, the extra time to get the product out is reasonable. Especially considering the cover art will include the name of every single person who pre-ordered the physical media, as (we imagine painstakingly) rendered by the inimitable Lewes Herriot.
In addition to the title track, the aforementioned EP contains three b-sides: “For The Chains,” “Things I Would Have Swapped For Heart-Shaped Glasses, 2001-2006″ and the actually quite wonderful remix of the title track “Ever Every Cloakroom.” The remix is notable because fronter and guitarist Alexei Berrow takes the vocals handled by bassist Kelly Southern in the original version and vice versa. Between that and the brilliant production, we humbly suggest that this remix may actually be better than the source itself: maybe. “For The Chains” (lyrics posted here) is driven by Berrow’s spiraling spoken lyrics, much like the verse of the “Criminals” b-side “Palace Fires.” However, “For The Chains” is somehow more melancholy despite having a bigger electronic beat. The big, airy reverb on the clean lead guitar, some phasing drone and surprise-filled, layered production (that knocking sound tucked into the eaves of the last 30 seconds actually drives us a little batty thinking someone is at the door) makes the amazing track perhaps the most We Left You Sleeping And Gone-ish of anything the band has done in the last five years. “Things I Would Have Swapped For Heart-Shaped Glasses, 2001-2006″ (lyrics posted here) opens with a somewhat discordant and Pavement-y riff (delivered at twice Pavement speed) that is sure to make the track a quick fan favorite.
So we know that pre-orders were taken and fared very well. One thing we don’t know is if folks who did not pre-order will be able to get their hands on the 10″ vinyl. We’ll try to get the answers for you.
Is the written language in South Africa that we can’t read called Afrikaner or something? We don’t know! We can’t read it (OK, we just wikipedia’d it, it is apparently like Dutch), nor can we read what we Googled up about MK here. But fortunately this interview with our heroes is conducted in merry olde English. The band comes across a little tired but it is still humorous to hear them ponder what animal would be their mascot and how much marijuana one would need if they were alone in Siberia. And Kel loves chocolate milkshakes! Who knew. Anyway, watch the interview, think about how awesome it will be when Johnny Foreigner finally comes to your town, and et cetera.
So We-Are-Awesome is a blog/nightlife thing in South Africa? Or something? They just posted this video of Johnny Foreigner tearing it up at Assembly in Cape Town Saturday night. Obviously it is not live sound (the soundtrack is “Salt, Peppa and Spinderella”), but the pictures are way pretty and the editing maximizes the excitement. So there. We-Are-Awesome, we salute you.
OK, so maybe it isn’t quite as it sounds, but Johnny Foreigner have been confirmed to be playing Live at Leeds 2010, a music festival taking place in the city between April 30th-May 3rd. The day which they are playing has yet to be announced, but they join the lineup alongside acts such as 65daysofstatic & Frankie and The Heartstrings. We don’t have a poster to bring you yet either, but the Live at Leeds website has more information as well as ticket information, which are currently being sold for Saturday 1st May for £15.
Long-time readers may recall from when we covered Johnny Foreigner signing to its current label Best Before Records [story here] that the label is the bottom rung on a corporate ladder of which the top rung is UK media and entertainment consortium MAMA Group. Actually, for that metaphor to work we suppose the entire ladder is MAMA. But either way, this is no longer the case, as on Feb. 1 it was disclosed that the UK-based music and video retailer HMV (“his master’s voice,” seriously) had acquired a controlling interest (56.4%) in MAMA. While the two previously had an existing partnership for ticketing and merch sales, terms of the new deal between the two companies are complicated [press release here], but unless we are missing something, the acquisition of the controlling interest means HMV now owns Best Before Records as well. What does this mean for Johnny Foreigner (and Glaswegian labelmates Dananananaykroyd)? Frankly, we don’t know. HMV’s top executive was quoted saying “[t]he acquisition represents a further significant step for HMV as we continue the transformation of our business begun in 2007… Building on the successful platform created by the formation of our joint venture with MAMA just over a year ago, we will be embarking on exciting new growth plans for the Group in live music and ticketing.” “Live music and ticketing” doesn’t seem to include record labels or artist services for Johnny Foreigner. To speculate, in the continuum of possibilities we suppose the acquisition could lead to something like tour sponsorships or heavier promotion at retail (well, at least at HMV stores). Time will tell, but the fact that Johnny Foreigner is self-releasing the vinyl version of its forthcoming single “Every Cloakroom Ever” does little to clarify how the deal affects Best Before and the band. The digital version of “Every Cloakroom Ever” is released tomorrow to digital storefronts. We just visited our go-to North American-serving stores and the single is not yet available there (sometimes those things pop up early; not this time, however). [UPDATE: We've received a couple comments that we haven't approved because they say things that should really be coming from an official source. If an official source wants to comment to us on the record, our email address is in the sidebar. Cheers.]
With the band jetting off to South Africa in less than a week, taking in RAMFEST along their way, details of their first 2010 UK Festival Appearance have been announced. After a quiet summer last year, we’re hoping that the band takes in more of the summer festival season, however their first date comes on Saturday April 3rd at Hinterland Festival in Glasgow, Scotland. Surprisingly headlined by a Friendly Fires DJ set, Johnny Foreigner look like they’ll be playing near the top of the bill on the 2nd stage. The festival’s last.fm page claims it to be “A brand new music and arts event for 10,000 music fans over two days, at a dozen venues, with one all access ticket….” and you can buy tickets here.
Keeping Some Dark Secrets is curated and edited by Luke Cotton and Jay Breitling, two guys at opposite sides of the Atlantic who thought that all there was to know about Birmingham, England-based indie rock geniuses Johnny Foreigner should be accessible in one place. Now it is.
What you will find here: news, exclusives, release information, lyrics and a community of rabid Johnny Foreigner fans. What you won’t find here: any commercially available tracks.
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