You may see me about Brighton and the south east over the coming months, soaking up those rays through a full winter coat. It's just the kind of guy I am. On a serious note though, it's been so chuffing well hot these last few days - this morning felt like waking up in a tent at Glastonbury at 9 in the morning after mainlining Trill the night before with the singer from the Pidgeon Detectives - yes, THAT good!!! Lovely weather, by the way. Anyway, I don't want a repeat of the fucking artrocker night a week or so back. Please, Brighton, PLEASE!!!......you can do better than that. For starters, the 'List will be ripping it up at 12 in the afternoon outside Brighton library (yes, you heard it right - Jubilee Square, literally outside the new Brighton Library)....on the 15th of May. That evening we'll also be doing the Revenge club (apparently playing on a penis-shaped stage - arf!!!)....The next day (the 16th) we have an afternoon showcase with Moshi Moshi Records at 2 in the afternoon at the Albert, then I have two solo shows, first at PoNaNa (at around 8), then a really, really late one at the Komedia around 1am. See you there, and there, and there, and there....and there! TW x
Grill Mackerel with Toasted Garlic Butter....
Category: Pets and Animals
....smells amazing when it's cooking downstairs. Anyway, myself and Chris T'n'T are still on the lookout for floors on which to crash on this little summertime jaunt we have lined up for may/june. So far, we are sorted for Glasgow, Hull, York and a couple of others - all the dates are up on the myspaces so please get in touch if you can help. Tcheers!!!
T
X
p.s......the new Chap album, 'Mega Breakfast', out this month, is, um, amazing! Buy it. There's a couple of new tunes up on their myspace for perusal - 'Ethnic Instrument' and 'Fun and Interesting'........Brilliant.
16: The Great Escape, Brighton (Komedia Studio Bar & Po Na Na) 19: The Amersham Arms, London (New Cross) 20: Joogleberry Playhouse, Brighton 21: Fibbers, York 23: Brel, Ashton Lane, Glasgow 24: Festival Without Fields, Hull 25: Barfly, Cambridge 27: The Enterprise, London (Chalk Farm) 28: Jericho Tavern, Oxford 29: Bodega, Nottingham
JUNE 2008: THOMAS WHITE SHOWS
1: The Boiler Room, Guildford 2: The Louisiana, Bristol 3: Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff 4: The Glee Club (Studio) Birmingham 5: Little Civic, Wolverhampton 6: Brudenell Social Club, Leeds 8: The Musician, Leicester 10: The Cellars, Portsmouth
Most of the dates are with Chris T-T and they are looking for floors/spare rooms to kip on/in where possible. If anyone's feeling kind enough to help out, do not hesitate to contact at the Thomas White Myspace (you can also watch the home made video for The Runaround and log in to see new photos by Kirstie)
Keep checking Drift Records for news on the new "I Dream Of Black" LP.
SPARKS SPECTACULAR: Sparks have announced the first bands to support them on their album-a-night 20 gigs at the Islington Academy, London between May 16 and June 11 2008 (more info) These twenty shows will see Sparks performing their first 20 albums – one album per night, commencing with the 1971 album Halfnelson and concluding with 2006's Hello Young Lovers.
Just a quick reminder to any folk in the Brighton area - RESTLESSLIST - Live tonight @ The Water Margin, Middle Street, Brighton. Onstage 10pm....
So the issue is more prescient than even I first thought. This whole thing brings up so many debates that really need to be had. Yes, Jim Davidson himself isn't particularly dangerous per se - it's the people taking what comes out of his mouth as verbatim and applying that to their reality that worry me. Myself and Alex used to work with a particularly racist individual, and when we finally came to hear a Jim Davidson tape some years later (which I bought for a 'laugh' at a petrol station - tee-hee!), it was like peering into the inside of this fellas brain - just the same hackneyed, small-minded observations, passed down from generation to generation. Don't want to get heavy, but at this point it's a good idea to check out Genesis P. Orridge's thoughts on the matter - "if humans are going to evolve any further, we need to get rid of this binary make-up, black and white, male and female - the need to attack what is different" - go to youtube and type in "soft focus" then follow the links to the Genesis P interviews. Amazing stuff, though it is RATHER heavy, and a bit of a digression from our original point. Anyway, I don't think the argument is about free speech/free country (which would surely be the angle JD would take).......the point is, the younger generations growing up right now just don't hold his archaic, backward, racist, and ultimately wrong views. He is simply out of date! Who's the "Grandad"?
I May Be 24 Now, But I Still Fucking Hate Jim Davidson
So, I'm 24 today!! Whatever. I'd like to take this pivotal moment in my life to start a Jim Davidson thread on the site. Or rather, an ANTI-Jim Davidson thread. Ha, and ummm, HA! So, I think we're agreed - the guy's a fucking reptiloid. Also, just a little question of free speech here - how come so many people are censored on youtube/myspace and have their postings edited/withdrawn, when out-and-out racists like Sir Jiminy Cricket (and Manning and.....et-shitting-cetera) are allowed to broadcast their small-minded, backward race-babble to the world?!! Please do not let his appearance in your town go without a hitch (he's touring a new 'show' right now). The man is vermin, and needs to be treated as such. His (and others') plight against the true integration of all races into this country is a pressing, worrying issue, and can be brushed under the carpet no more. TW X
As promised, here is a home-made shonk-marathon, set to "The Runaround". I need to apologise in advance for the shit quality - trust me, it looks fresh on my laptop, it's just lost a bunch of the definition in translation. I shall endeavour to improve this soon, and upload the results. In the meantime, enjoy some seriously pixellated psychedelia!!!
Firstly, there are some fresh shots recently posted here: www.kymmo.com of ESP playing at Lyon In Rock (click on gallery then festivals) and Ninkasi Kao, Lyon, at the end of last year (click on gallery then concerts) Very lush indeed.
Secondly, I am currently watching E.T. - hey, it's a Saturday afternoon!!! Anyway, on the subject of 80's things (I'd forgotten both how crap the effects are, and how scary Drew Barrymore was as a kid actor!) ....ESP have been asked to contribute a cover of an 80's song to a compilation, the exact details of which I don't know at this moment. Any ideas - bearing in mind the only guidelines are that it has to be a song from the 80's.....?!
They do, believe me. In every way. It is just such a pleasure, on every level, to play on the continent. Apart from great venues and even greater crowds, we had the best meal of the tour in Lyon, on our day off. A small Italian place next to our hotel, me and Al opted for the Roquefort, apple and walnut salad, and we weren't dissapointed. The waiter even got his bass out from behind the bar when he realised we were a band (photo) The shows weren't bad either.
We had an absolute stonker in Vienna (Lyon, too) ....and supporting Ian Brown again was great, not to mention Matt and Damo stepping up to the 3-piece challenge at The Bataclan like true professionals (photos) After which we sprinted across town to be reunited with Al and play our own little headliner at Le Showcase. Brilliant. Can't wait to go back in the autumn.
More photos in the Gallery HERE thanks to Damo Waters (and in the Myspace Pics)
Also, and this is a very tenuous tit-bit, me and Alex have begun preparations for the next intallment of ESP-ness. At present, the plan is to issue an EP of brand new material in the autumn, with a bunch of touring to accompany, followed by our fourth (!!!) LP proper. Currently un-titled, the EP will certainly feature new live-favourite 'Things Snowball' and 'We Don't Need To Fight Anymore', as heard on our myspace.
On a completely different note, we (myself and Chris T-T) are in the process of organising our May/June tour. The dates are up on both our myspaces, and we'll be looking for floors/spare rooms to kip on/in where possible. If anyone's feeling kind enough to help out, do not hesitate to contact me at my Myspace or the ESP Myspace Anyone providing a floor/bed will get as many guestlist places as they need at whichever shows they wish.
Debut Solo Album – I Dream Of Black: Released 14th July on Drift Records
His first solo outing, I Dream Of Black, is a home crafted dream-scape of whirring synths, psych-guitar, and the instantly recognisable vocal. With the self-imposed remit of "making a cohesive record without going anywhere near a studio", Tom set himself up with a Tascam 4-Track tape recorder and began brainstorming.
Inspiration is derived from a myriad of different sources including The Dandy Warhols, RTX, Broadcast, Money Mark, Clearlake and The Wicker Man. Amid ambient electro-acoustica and playful surf 'wig-outs', the single The Runaround sees Thomas "channeling Courtney Taylor-Taylor circa 1998", while the albums' "only love song" Starry Nite 2 conjures up The Beach Boys at their beatific best. Starry Nite 3 splices Robert Wyatt's early seventies recordings with the dusty beats of Money Mark, and closer Wartime Love/Solar Collapse imagines the sound of a solar implosion as heard from earth.
They had an interview and played an acoustic session. Here's the transcript...
Hi guys, Electric Soft Parade here in the studio. Can you briefly introduce yourselves please.
TW: My name's Thomas White and I play guitar and I sing and write some songs and this is my brother Alex.
A: Hello!
So you're a family on tour?
TW: Kind of, except our parents aren't here and our cat isn't here either.
I heard when you made your first album, your parents had to sign the contract because you were so young back then?
A: For Tom. TW: For me yeah our Dad had to sign my bit of the first contract 'cos I was 16.
So tonight you're going to play at The Flex in Vienna… TW: Are we not playing Chelsea?
Thanks for correcting me. A: We did play Flex in about 2002.
I read that you remember still the Flex gig you played 6 years ago.
TW: It was great, really good gig.
And so tonight it's The Chelsea, also a cool club. But I think a lot of things happened in those 6 years, since you recorded your first album. How can you describe it, what's your mood, how's it going with the band and being on tour?
TW: Well I think the whole kinda musical climate's changed, there's a lot more bands, there's millions, thousands more bands than there were when we first started out. So you can look at that one of two ways; you can look at it as in it's over saturated and it's impossible to get yourself noticed, or you can look at it as there's loads of bands and most of them are pretty rubbish so it makes us look better, which is kind of how I see it. Sorry. But yeah.
Did you experience this rock music boom especially in England?
TW: The English press, the NME and stuff still do it, they still hype bands up when a band first comes out, and bands and labels still fall for it, you still get new bands spending ridiculous amounts of money on their first record and it's still happening nowadays but I won't mention any names, but there's bands who've come out even in the last 2 or 3 years who've done exactly the same thing that happened to us on our first 2 records is still happening.
A: People don't learn from these things. TW: The British music industry doesn't learn lessons.
A: We don't feel connected with that at all, we've always kind of done our own thing and just kind of exist.
You started with a major company and now you're on an indie?
TW: Well we're on different labels around the world now. With our first two records they were on BMG, it's like a blanket thing that goes round the world, you're automatically released on that label right throughout the world but indie labels suit us so much better because they just let you get on with it… at the end of the day, a painter isn't told to paint all his paintings in green because green's selling this year. It's a singular vision which creates a piece of art…
A: It's the irony of the music industry that they want something new and fresh but if you try and do something new and fresh they go no no, we know that works, do that. They try and push you around and labels like Truck and Rough Trade, they just take your record, whatever you say the record is and just release it and that's perfect for us really not to have to adhere to some set of rules, or a guy in a suit telling you how to do it.
Could you as a band, The Electric Soft Parade, make your living just by selling records?
TW: No, playing live, merchandise, PRS, most people don't really get the kind of levels a band works on. It is possible but that's not really the important thing. The important thing is to make something idiosyncratic, something that's true to us.
After 6 years, you started when you were 16 and you were 18, you're still very very young, so does it sometimes feel like "all my adult life has been playing in a rock n roll band", that's a little strange sometimes?
A: It is quite weird, you ask about making money and stuff, if we can make money off it. We do other things, I've got a job and I play with a band called The Pipettes. Tom plays with various other bands and does his own solo project as well. We've got loads of things going on, we then come back and do Soft Parade.
Tonight, it's bringing your new album to the Vienna Chelsea, and you're gonna play new songs… A: Play the whole record in order. TW: With visuals. We've got a screen on the go as well.
Before you do that, you've brought your guitar and you're going to play some songs now for our listeners. May I ask you what songs?
A: We're going to do Silent To The Dark which was on our first album and we're gonna do a couple of ones off the new album, Shore Song and Come Back Inside.
OK thankyou very much Electric Soft Parade. Thanks very much for visiting us.
