Wo-ohh!

Very proud to be launching our new tour t-shirts. What do you think? Click on the image to see it more clearly…
Massive love to Kevin Pollard who worked very hard to design them with me and also to Professor Matthew Bennett of Bournemouth University who gave us kind permission to use the image from his paper on the history of human footprints.

They’re for sale at gigs and will also be online very soon. Well worth a catalogue pose…

Important Tour News

With a very heavy heart it looks as though there are some gigs I’m not going to be able to play this month and I wanted to explain why.

A few of the dates we booked were in quite big venues, and in places I’ve not played in much before. We were aiming high and looking forward to growing into them this year.

And it has been an awesome year. There’s an album in the shops, new EPs released, songs on the radio and all sorts. But I’ve not managed to play as many smaller dates around the country as I’d have liked so far, and without that kind of promotion some venues start to look a little big for us.

After all it takes a lot of hard yards to get 350 people into a room in Leeds. You have to build up and earn it. I’ve got some more work to do before I deserve that gig. Note to self – it’s better to book a venue that’s too small than too big. Let’s smash a 100-capacity first ey?

So sadly the following dates are being rescheduled for smaller venues, or consolidated into other gigs. For everyone who bought tickets for them please accept my apologies. I really am very sorry.

May 3rd – Newcastle – The Cluny 2
May 9th – Nottingham – Glee Club
May 10th – London – Dingwalls
May 12th – Bury – Met
May 13th – Leeds – Brudenell Social Club
May 20th – Liverpool – Eric’s

I hope there is another date you can make in the meantime. The list of current gigs is here.

If you had bought a ticket, I promise you’ll get your ticket fee refunded, although you might lose your booking fee. This is one of the worst bits and I feel awful about that especially. We’re already busy rearranging these dates for alternative venues, and I’ll pass them on as soon as I get them.

There’s so much to look forward to though. We’ve never sounded better as a band, and the new songs are so exciting to play. The house concert competition is still going, and anyone who bought tickets in order to enter will still be part of it. We’ve got the rest of the tour still to play, rearranged dates, new dates, house concerts and festivals, and the exciting prospect of starting work on a new album. Bring it on!

I’m pretty determined to get back in these venues. But they’re so good that I don’t want to play them until they’re full. Not passable or half-empty but full. So let’s get to work!

Thank you for allowing me to do what I love, even if I screw it up once in a while.

Here are our existing dates – I can’t wait to rock them.

Love
Jake

In Support of Supports

A while ago I asked around for support act suggestions and now I’m happy to announce most of the line-ups for the tour. Some came from people submitting links via email, some came from the open mic tour, some were booked by promoters without any input from me and others are people I knew of already.

If you’re looking to come along to a gig, it’s always good to show your support for the support acts. You can maybe start by taking a listen to some of them now? That way you might even know a song or two by the time you show up. After all – who knows who you might discover?

2nd May – Manchester – Deaf Institute – Ivan Campo
3rd May – Newcastle – Cluny – Leslie Roley
9th May – Nottingham – Glee Club – Chris Tye
10th May – London – Dingwalls – Handshake + Annie Eve
11th May – Oxford – Oxford Hub – Red And Other Colours
12th May – Bury – Met – Chris Tandy
13th May – Leeds – Brudenell Social Club – Charlie Barnes + Hunting Bears
17th May – Kendal – Bootleggers – TBC
18th May – York – Fibbers – The Smoking Years + Rob Hughes
19th May – Sheffield – Plug – Sarah Mac + Elliot Morris
20th May – Liverpool – Eric’s – TBC
22nd May – High Wycombe – Bucks New Uni – TBC
24th May – Cardiff – Full Moon – Alex Segdmond + Dewi Griffiths
26th May – Exeter – Phoenix – Paper Aeroplanes
27th May – Bristol – Louisiana – Hot Feet + Rebecca Philip

House Concert Tour

House concerts are intimate, unplugged acoustic gigs in a place just like yours. Whether pin-drop quiet or a little more raucous they’re always a great excuse to bring a great bunch of people together and listen to music.

This summer, I’m looking to play 5 house concerts around the UK hosted by people who help support the May tour. You’ve been thinking about having a bit of a thing round your place right? Maybe this is it? It’s set up like a competition. Here are the ways to enter.

Buy a ticket to a gig using the links below. This gets you two entries into the competition and you’ll get a free download of a track called Ghostess which we recorded live in the studio recently. If you’ve already bought a ticket, just ask the venue when you get there and they’ll give you a redemption code which does the same. Easy.

Retweet my tweets about this blog. This get’s you one entry into the competition.

Help on Facebook. You’re not allowed to use Facebook posts as a competition entry (boooo) but if you do share my post about this you’ll be looked very kindly upon.

Once the tour’s over I’ll pick 5 winners at random, arrange suitable dates, look marginally less scruffy than normal and come play for you. Any questions? Post them here.

Hope you’re up for getting involved and see you on tour. Don’t forget to come say hi it always means a lot.

Ghostess EP Stores

I’ve put together a list of all the shops that are stocking the Ghostess Live Studio Sessions EP. I hope they all end up in happy hands.

If you can’t grab one from a shop, we’ll be selling them on tour. If you can’t make it to a gig, I’m afraid they may well go elsewhere sorry.

If you’d like me to make a special exception send me an email and it’s possible I might be able to help.

Big love
Jake

Sound Knowledge
101 Collectors
Rise (chain)
Music’s Not Dead
Derricks
Davids
The Concorde
Gatefield Sounds
Octave RMS
Reflex Records
Acorn Records
Record Corner
ST Records
Spun Out Sounds
Union Music Store
Townsend
O’Neills Record Store
Jumbo Records
Malcolms Musicland
Record Collector
Vinyl Tap
Fives
Crash Records
JG Windows
Reflex
Sound Cellar (Chain)
Tower records

Ghostess Live Studio Sessions

We’re celebrating Record Store Day on 21st April by releasing a limited edition run of 250 CDs – the Ghostess Live Studio Sessions.

“Ah Pip do you remember the giddy dance we would do down the promenade after buying a new CD from Mr Milligan at the Virgin Megastore?”

For me, Record Store Day is not about the nostalgia of ye olde days, it’s about enjoying music on CDs, vinyl and cassettes as well as online. It’s also about a physical place you can buy these things at, talk to staff about music, buy things you wouldn’t normally buy, look at packaging…

With unlimited tracks to listen to on Spotify and YouTube, I browse and channel-hop, but sometimes find I treat music too lightly. It can feel harder to fall in love with music like that and harder to remember which songs I’ve fallen in love with.

I still love CDs and I’m delighted to be part of Record Store Day this year. Our release is a three track CD of material we recorded live at Snap Studios earlier this year. The tracklisting is:

1. Ghostess
2. Feet Don’t Fail Me Now
3. Pondering On A Scenario In Which I Am The Hero

Each CD is hand numbered and signed. All performances were completely live with no edits, overdubs or trickery, and were excellently recorded, mixed and mastered by Adam Crowe. The talented artist Jennie Vallis designed the beautiful artwork. Please show your love also to my amazing band of brothers, Harry Mead (drums), John Parker (double bass), Kevin Pollard (piano) and Fraser MacColl (guitars) who played so exceptionally as they always do.

Many of the CDs have now been sent to record shops around the country, ready for release on the 21st April. The best way to grab one is to visit one and ask them if they have a copy. Or I’ll be doing some in-store performances:

Saturday 21st April
101 Collectors Records
101 West Street
Farnham
Surrey
GU9 7EN
I’ll be playing solo from 10am-10:45am

Sunday 22nd April
Sound Knowledge
Unit 22
Hughendon Yard
Marlborough
SN8 1LT
I’ll be playing with John from 2pm-2:45pm

If you don’t manage to grab one then, we’ll be selling the rest on tour. I hope they find their way into loving hands.

Jake

Many Fish To Fry DVD – Live Concert + Interview

So we’ve covered The Lyrics Table and the previously unreleased video for The Light. The rest of the DVD is taken up by a full-length live concert and a track-by-track interview.

The live concert featured was shot in a small chapel in Soho, London, shortly after the album was completed. You might already be familiar with it if you’ve seen this video:

It’s all rather semi-acoustic and stripped back – very different to the album or how you’d see us live now – which I hope makes it more interesting to watch.

The tracklisting goes like this:
The Light
Reeling
I Saw Something
Pondering On A Scenario In Which I Am The Hero
Freddie Laid The Smackdown
This City
Inside My Mind (unplugged)
Sideline (unplugged)
Be With Me Once More (sort of unplugged)
Feet Don’t Fail Me Now
Many Fish To Fry

Finally, we also filmed a track-by-track interview where I talk about how the songs were written, what they mean to me and how we recorded them.

So there we go – the 2-disc album and DVD edition is OUT TODAY! If you’re interested in supporting little fish in big ponds, do consider getting a copy.

HMV – http://bit.ly/manyhmvfish or go into your local HMV.
Amazon – http://amzn.to/manyamazonfish
Play – http://bit.ly/manyplayfish
iTunes – http://bit.ly/manyitunesfish

Plus we have a tour coming up. Check out my gigs page to find one near you.

Have a lovely spring and summer
Jake

Many Fish To Fry DVD – The Light Official Video

A while back I got mentioned on twitter when a guy randomly drew this:

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Needless to say I was impressed. Because look at it – it’s bloody brilliant.

It was the work of Mister Castro, a creative type who’d recently moved from Edinburgh to New Zealand. I looked at the rest of his portfolio and saw this:


And bizarrely this (which it should be pointed out to youngsters is a totally accurate non-comedy educational video):

After that I asked him if he was interested in making a video for The Light. Happily…. he was.

Even more happily, the resulting video is extremely beautiful. We stuck it in the music videos section of the DVD as an exclusive, next to other sections that I’ve been writing about.
If that’s too annoying just wait until someone rips it and puts it on youtube

much love again
jake x

You can pre-order the CD / DVD here, out April 2nd -
Amazon – http://amzn.to/GDLzZQ
Play – http://bit.ly/GTKWIb
HMV – http://bit.ly/GQYllC

Or just the music -
iTunes – http://bit.ly/GGGqlz

Mister Castro is currently touring around New Zealand on a great adventure – catch up with him directly on His Facebook Page.

April Open Mic Tour

I miss gigging. I used to do it all the time, and now I just do it in tour bursts with big gaps in between. This is a privilege, and great if you’re writing a new album, but if you’re busy promoting an existing one then not so good. Whatever happened to heading out the door with a guitar on your back and not knowing what happens next?

I’ve decided to spend April gigging up and down the country playing open mics and little acoustic nights.

- I want to reconnect with playing live
- It’ll help promote the full band tour in May
- I love finding cool songwriters and new music. I’ll ask ones I like to open the gigs we do in May
- I want to have an adventure. I like adventures.

If you know of or run little acoustic gigs and there’s a slot free in April just leave a comment or email me. Hopefully I can come play it? The only condition is that if I’ve got a big gig near you in May, I can’t promote your night. That wouldn’t be fair on the people who’ve booked the May gigs. Sound alright?

Let me know! And hope to see you somewhere in the UK in April and May. Big love
jake x

Many Fish To Fry DVD – Lyrics Table

This is my table at home. Each morning I shovel cereal into my face here whilst reading crap on the internet.

Underneath though, it looks like this:

Lyrics to every song on the album are there. Some are written on with marker pen, some are the original scraps of paper that I first wrote the words on, complete with crossings out and changes of mind, all pinned to the wood. One day I’ll auction it off for charity, or put it on freecycle or something, but for now I still need it to eat from.

On the DVD you can explore each section of the table whilst listening to the album. It’s got plenty of other sections too – I’ll talk about a different section tomorrow.

Hope you’re all enjoying the spring weather. Love and best wishes to all, including people who aren’t reading this which let’s face it is most people
x

You can pre-order the CD / DVD here, out April 2nd -

Amazon – http://amzn.to/GDLzZQ

Play – http://bit.ly/GTKWIb

HMV – http://bit.ly/GQYllC

Or just the music -

iTunes – http://bit.ly/GGGqlz