we'd like to introduce you to Raph and Maud-Elisa. From now they're gonna be with us onstage to play the new songs. Raph is playing drums and Maud-Elisa is playing mainly guitar amongst keyboards and bass. We've been rehearsing all week with them and they did a great job, worked really hard. We rehearsed 11 hours a day and they learnt 10 songs in a week. It's rare to find such dedicated people. they never complained and it's hard to believe that we were so right about them coz they're such good company. We've been very happy to be able to set something right musicaly, the new songs request more instruments and we think we got the right vibe with them onstage. for the 'fans' of the first john & jehn formula , they shouldn't worry , it is different but it's still us, it's just better! and if you want to see us play, well... see you at the Zenith in Paris on the 26th Nov , that's gonna be our first show with the 4 of us! hehe
ok, our second album is recorded, done! Matt our soundman (see his blog http://www.wotarackit.blogspot.com/) is gone now, he's been a perfect company for almost two months. We are very much happy with the sound and the songs, it's groovy! it should come out in Spring 2010.
In the meantime, we've been trying our skills this week into the great adventure of music for films. We met a french guy in London few years ago, called Guillaume Foresti. He saw us play one night with the Black Lips at the Proud Gallery. He kept in touch with us over the months and talked about his project of a short film with Stephane Demoustier. So here we are now, working on the soundtrack. The film was shot in 35mm with the two actors Marc Barbé and Arly Jover. I have to say after 2 months working on our album, it is relaxing to record an instrumental soundtrack, to mess around with noises and effects haaaaaa (sound of content). The 2 directors talked about "Sombre" by Philippe Grandieux as an inpsiration for their film, musicaly. The soundtrack was by Alan Vega (member of Suicide). Below is the final scene of that movie with the cover of a Gainsbourg song by the american band Elysian Fields. It's great.
we ve been invited yesterday night to the nick cave 's new book promotion night . It was in a very posh theatre in paris on the champs elysee avenue. Vulgar can of beer very expensive at the bar , not cool. Nick cave , warren ellis , martin casey were playing light version of old and new songs. It was a bit lame ... Nick cave started the night explaining that people can ask questions whenever they want to him , every kind of questions...But later on you could see that proposition was not very sincere , and he became a bit annoyed by the whole thing. Promotion's night disguised in 'a night with nick cave ' as written on the ticket is quite bullshiting people. It looked more like take the money and run. Nothing about litterature , nothing about music , just questions on his mustache or stuff like that. Egocentric night for the fans , no fun.
as we are in the studio recording our second album, Antoine (who directed our video for 'oh my love') is here with us and shoots a film about... well.. the recording, us in the studio... and more. It's all groovy, see the new pix. alriiiight, have a lovely time,
today is the day we have the pleasure to share with you 2 remixes of 2 songs from our first album. Dont hesitate to contact the guys to say how good they are :) (to download the remixes click on the images)
THE FIRST ONE: song: 20L07 album: John & Jehn artist:Golden Parking nationality: French location: lives and works in Marseille myspace: www.myspace.com/goldenparking
THE SECOND ONE: song: Lady Spider album: John & Jehn artist:Yon nationality: English location: lives and works in London myspace: www.myspace.com/yondur other links: fealreal.blogspot.com/
I wanted to show you the first idea for the video of 20L07 ... the idea was to steal( or recreate) the central scene from the wonderful movie 'ma nuit chez maud' directed eric rohmer. You will notice how jean louis trintignant and francoise fabian were amazing actors. Didn't see it? run my friend and find a copy...It is proper NOT boring french cinema.
we've been to Namur in Belgium to play a show. we had a special driver this time : Anna G! She's an old friend of us and she is always great company. (as you can see)
we drove to south of France yesterday, the recording is getting closer!!! we also have Matt , our soudman, with us now. he will stay for 2 months and finish the second album with us. we are excited as little kids!
I finally have the pictures of the boat trip we had with the Franz in Musilac in July; Below is Julie, a friend of us from London who's now working with Franz Ferdinand on tour; she's great!!! we were so happy to see her again.
Julie
I KNOW the damm pictures are all too blury, aarrgg , sorry, the boat was moving a lot... but let's say it brings a little impressionist fashion to the portraits, no? I had to take the most scary away though :)
Nick
Alex
We spent the afternoon on a rented boat, we could hear the bands playing from the festival ; the driver brought us to some cliff where we jumped in the water, some very high! it was very cool;
John
Then we party all night , dancing on some Michael Jackson tunes, waou!
we're in France now preparing the recording of the second album ; doing demos and also some administration things; we're going to record at home again but the studio is getting better; Matt, our sound man, will come at the end of the month; So the album should be done mid-fall;
last 2 weeks have been mad; we didn't have a chance to post any blog, also we were waiting for some pictures to show you ; All the pictures were made by the magnificient SAM NEUHARDT (also the video director for the '20L07' video and 'i can see you' video)
St Tropez was the weirdest place we've ever played in, i mean at first sight because we arrived in a camping!! Actually one of the biggest in all Europe. But we set up for sound check and then spent few hours on the beach, so it was very cool! The gig turned out to be very pleasant, lots of young people were there and some of them even knew the lyrics and sung with us. After the show we wandered around the beach and the bungaloos, bought Chichis and met lots of people; we were a bit the stars of the camping for that night haha the crew was great too, they actually invite a lot of good international bands to play, which is cool.
Our next show was in Angouleme for The Garden Nef Party Festival. We met our friends Joe Gideon and The Shark there on friday the 17th. They couldn't stay long, they had to drive to England for the next day. It was a shame, but they did a great show.
We also met the guys from Franz Ferdinand again and they confirmed their wish to have us on tour with them in November in France. We love their shows, it is very inspiring for us to see them work, so we said yes straight away! They are really great guys and very supportive with our music and forthcoming album.
The Garden festival in Angouleme happens in the hometown of John so this show was very special to us. Lots of friends and family turned up and the festival crew was very proud because they knew John since he was a teenager. We had great time.
drawing by thibault balahy for la garden nef party festival.
we've been playing at festivals this week. We were in Liege last Saturday playing at 'Les Ardentes' Festival. Our soundman never arrived to the show -he was taking a train to arrive in the afternoon but missed 2 of them and ended up watching us play instead of doing the sound! He was very upset :) we saw Tricky backstage but didn't have time to meet him...
We were playing in 'Musilac' the next day, in Aix Les Bains. We estimated that 10.000 people must have been watching when we played. It is the biggest crowd we ever played for. It was very different from everything we've experienced so far but very fun! we want to do it again!! Franz Ferdinand were headlining. We met the guys and they were very nice to us, inviting us on a boat trip in the afternoon after our show. We had a fantastic day and the festival crew was very nice. have a look:
Next show was in La Rochelle, for the festival 'Les Francofolies'. We drove for 9 hours in the day to get there on time ( Big thanks to our wonderful driver mr YANNOSH). The crowd was very responding :) after 40 minutes of show we went out to see friends and drink in bars until late. La Rochelle looked like a zombie town with drunk people everywhere in the streets.
Tomorrow we are driving towards St Tropez for the festival 'les plages de rock'. And then back in Angouleme At the garden nef party festival ,we are really looking forward to play there, all our old friends and family will be there it s gonna be magic.
Thanks for reading,
Love on the Beat John & Jehn
Photos taken by Yannoche (our friend and driver) at The 'Francofolies' in La Rochelle during the sound check.
we were in London when the king of pop died. We saw lots of friends and had a great time dancing on Michael's tunes.Even if you hate the man , all the quincy jones work with him was legend.
Last weekend we played for Solidays, what an adventure! I broke my back on the Saturday morning when loading the van with John in London. He then had to drive the van to Paris with me lying at the back. I just couldn't move at all! The Solidays festival found an osteopath in Paris (the same who cures Johnny hallyday! haha) and he just did his thing on my spine so that the pain was less strong when I woke up the next morning. But still, i couldn't play a gig! On the Sunday, we met the all medical crew of the festival who decided to do an injection of pain killers in my butt!! the all thing turned a bit crazy. The needle -as John recalls- was so big it looked like it was made for a horse! I thought..."Only 2 days in Paris and I've already shown my butt 3 times to different people!" before they sting me. Eventually, the pain disappeared an hour after the shot; I was feeling stoned and couldn't feel any pain anymore. I was actually laughing a lot; we did the show like that... it was very weird... I was feeling high ,i was trying so hard to play the best show even if I couldn't do my best moves ;)
But as usual people were great and very supportive. Thanks to them!
Then we rested at the backstage area under the trees, it was so hot that day! with our friends from Koko Von Napoo. We met Metronomy and saw their show which was very good.
My master and friend DUKE GARWOOD is back with a beautiful album called 'the sand that falls' also a very rare ep called 'he was a warlock' Very seriously , the world has to understand how this man is a genius. Be clever my friends and buy this as soon as you can (itunes or here). This is 100% pure good music.
on my last post someone asked us if we were to play again in London soon, and so we did ! last night we played at the Film Institute in London and it was so good to be back home ! The venue was a cinema where people were seated, but it didn't take 2 songs for them to stand up and start dancing in the alleys. You can't imagine how much we love it, it makes such a difference to us. We want to thank everyone who came yesterday night, you were all so great.
Before the show, we did an interview with the guys from "Ciné Moi", a new tv channel about french music and film. We'll post the link as soon as we get it.
Also, we played with the french band "Koko Von Napoo". They are really nice people and they play a kind of 80's, new wave, B52's, ESG music. 3 girls and a man. very good bass lines... check them out here: Koko Von Napoo i had fun watching their show, dancing and taking pictures:
now we're in London for a week before playing in Paris on Sunday. lots of love Jehn
Yesterday we were in Bordeaux. We did a showcase in la FNAC. The place was good and the sound not too bad for a promotion date so we were happy. Lots of people turned up, even old friends that we hadnt seen for a long while. We played for 20 minutes and then there was a press conference about the french festival La Garden Nef. People could win John & Jehn posters and different stuff... Thanks to all who came and met us. We had then a walk and a drink in the wonderful city of Bordeaux, there were lots of people in the streets even late at night. we felt a bit like in Spain. Today we drive to Paris where we're gonna meet our soundman Matt. Then tomorrow, Maubeuge for the festival "Les Folies". Can't wait!
This week we played our show in Paris at La Maroquinerie. We had a great night. It was the first time we played in front of such an enthousiastic crowd in Paris. Two girls had written J&J on their cheeks it was very cute. La maroquinerie is a great place to play, the sound is good and the crew is great. Le Prince Miiaou and Gemma Ray played before us. We had decided to perform more songs from our first album so started the show with 'I can see You' and '1,2,3' that we never played before but very much enjoyed having in the set. The first half of the show was volontarily darker than the rest. All along, we both felt very relaxed and happy to be here. We wanted to take the most of that moment, and we did, up to the encore with '20l07' when people were singing the song. At the end we played a cover of Bronski Beat, 'Smalltown Boy' and I heard people singing the tune when they were leaving the place.
Today we are in Tours, going to perform at the festival Aucard de Tours. Tomorrow we are back home and will work on some covers project we've had for a while now.
take care all, and thanks for those you came to see us in Paris.
The very good cultural french/german tv channel ARTE filmed our performance on the movie 'diary of a lost girl' . follow that link HERE , there is some extracts with an interview (in french, sorry , no in fact i'm not sorry , just learn bloody french, you'll find your first lesson by the monthy python below in our blog ).
Hi, last week end we've been to the festival "C'est dans la Vallee" in Sainte Marie aux Mines. Beautiful festival set in a valley near Strasbourg. We were sleeping in an Auberge on the top of a hill with a nice view. It was very peaceful.
All the people from the festival have been great to us. We performed our Ciné-Concert on the film "Diary of a lost Girl" with Louise Brooks on friday. They brought a big piano for us, we were very lucky! a big wooden Pleyel (i never played on a Pleyel before) it sounded really good. It was such a release to play the sound track in front of people cause it's been a while now we started working on it. It was filmed by a tv crew from Arte (French-German tv channel) so we might have a link soon to give you so you can see it. We were very happy about our performance, we want to do it again!
Our set up is a little bit different fom our gigs: John plays guitars, bass, armonica and a kick drum. I play piano, organ, melodica and percussions. We both do some singings. It sounds more 'organic' without the electronic drums. The promoter from the festival said it was one of the best Ciné-Concert she'd seen in 7 years! It was a huge compliment :)
During the festival we met a Greek young man called Alexander Voulgaris. We never met him before but we had few conversations with him few years ago on the internet. We didn't know he was going to be at this festival. It was a real surprise. Alexander contacted us maybe 2 years ago to ask the permition to use one of our songs in his film. We said yes and sent a cd to his house in Greece. Last week-end we met him for real and he gave us a copy of his film called "Pink". And we must say we were very impressed! His film is very good. If you have any chance to see it I strongly recommend it. The song he uses is an old song of us that has never been released called "Teenage song", we used to play it live for a while. Alexander is said to be one of the best Greek directors of the new generation and that must be true.
last week we were in Paris. 3 bands we like were playing;
Clinic on Monday at Le Café de la Danse. They were brilliant. I talked to the bassist after the show -very nice guy- they were afraid the sound had not been good enough because their sound engineer had not been able to come for that night. Café de la Danse is a nice venue but apparently they have problems with neighbours, which means restrictions on sound... But that didn't reduce the quality of their show. It was very... clinical! (obviously:) cause they dont speak to the audience, but , boy, when they play! their music is just so good!
On Tuesday it was John's birthday, we went to see Deerhunter at Le Nouveau Casino. It was the best gig we've ever seen of them. Perfect sound and dynamic. They were only 4 on stage and Bradford was doing a lot of guitare, which was very enjoyable. Bradford Cox was smiling, making jokes! it was a real pleasure to see him like that... happy! they didn't leave any silence between the songs until almost the end of the show, allowing songs to emerge out of massive walls of guitare sound. Songs were like visions, not sure where they came from and when they left you. it was magic! the show became even more surrealist at the end when, in a middle of a big noise, Bradford invited someone from the crowd to play his guitare onstage. he took the photographer's cameras and started taking pictures of everyone and himself making silly postures. Most of the people in the crowd were covering their hears but that didn't seem to affect them. the bassist and the guitarist gave their instruments to the audience to play. they opened bears and started chating with everyone. all very relaxed except the drummer who hammered his drums for 10 minutes without showing any signs of weakness. Waouuu! We had great evening after that, champagne with the Nouveau casino crew celebrating 3 birthdays at the time. It was very nice.
On wednesday, we went to see Bat For Lashes at Le Bataclan. sold Out show, lots of nice looking girls in the crowd :) A week before we had seen PJ Harvey and John Parish in that same venue, invited by their soundman, Head: incredibly nice man that John met when he went on tour with Joe Gideon and the Shark in the UK. Bat for Lashes had a very nice costrume with black and white stripes. The show is... perfect, playing the songs excaclty as on the album. she did an acoustic version of Daniel and played the song again at the encore. she has a great great female drummer. very good sound.
These are more pictures taken during and after our show at the festival "Les Femmes s'en mêlent" in Toulouse. They were taken by our friend Regis Feugere who lives and works in Toulouse. You can see his work here : http://regisfeugere.free.fr/
Micachu with John & Jehn tatoos on her arms !!!!! + sweet Raisa, Micachu's keyboard player, with J&J tatoos too !!! + Jehn at some party... + John after the Rough Trade East show
These are pictures from the tour we did in April. The first is a picture of us with our soundman Matt Farrar, doing a sunglasses competition. He's still with us after 3 years so this is a change to say how great it is to have him doing our sound and spend some groovy time on tour. We love you Matt! The second is John with the great "Legendary Tiger Man". We played with him one night and his show was brilliant. It is very funny to see how those two look kind a of alike... mmm how disturbing... We are thinking about having him to play with us in Paris the 9th but not sure yet if that's going to be possible -logistics aarrgg...
Last week end, we were in Belgium. We played in Brussels at La Botanique Festival with our friends "Joe Gideon and the Shark". It was such a great night. It is always a great night when we play together, the audience is always happy. We should do a european tour together! We sold lots of merch an finished our night in a strange cool night club with belly dancing on tv screens and a man singing oriental songs on dance beats. People were dancing like in a swingers club hhmmm but we had great time.
hello people of the universe , here is an other mixtape for you. You will find in 60 mins of love at least one song to help you in your love quest.
the sexual drawing is made by jehn.
enjoooooooy.
The track 'love' list is :
love must be catchin on / JULIE LONDON too much love / LCD SOUNDSYSTEM i feel love / DONNA SUMMER love is the drug / ROXY MUSIC computer love / KRAFTWERK and i love her / THE BEATLES in love / THE RAINCOATS strange love / DARLENE LOVE when love calls / DANIEL JOHNSTON & JAD FAIR when a fool loves a fool / LEE HAZLEWOOD do you love me (part 2) / NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS don't love you / TV ON THE RADIO loveless love / THE FEELIES love builds up / ELECTRELANE
This article is from a local French newspaper, it was published in April this year. What was interesting is not the article so much but the story around it:
What the title says in French is “John & Jehn, the rock’n’roll music duo discovered in London, was actually born in Claix!” (Claix is a small village nearby). On the background of the picture you can see our family house in France where we have our studio. It’s a great place (very silent, best place for writing music). But you see… the problem is… this house is not in Claix. Indeed, the distance between us and Claix is of 4km, when the OTHER VILLAGE, called Mainfonds, is situated at 2km from our house... So we are not from Claix, we are from Mainfonds! MAINFONDS!!! and the difference is huuuuge!
This local newspaper is the most read paper in the area and is taken very seriously by the people here. The next day, the MAYOR of Mainfonds made a phone call to our house to complain that the name of his village was not mentioned in the article. We also received phone calls from relatives insisting on us making apologies to the mayor hahahahahahaha we didn't obviously, but were kind of fascinated by the effect a little article can have...
during our tour we played in London at Rough Trade East, the big shop in brick lane. They have a new photo booth there where they ask the bands to take pictures of themselves. here they are. we didn't know the shop was keeping records of everything picture the booth takes. they said "just have fun"... so we did ooooo yeah!
We just finished our tour today with a date in Toulon (near Marseille); it was a very great night with good energy. We almost thought we were not gonna make it because the organ broke down during the sound check, but John and our soundman Matt spent two hours and repaired it !!!! ouuufff we thought the gig was not gonna happen!
anyway, the tour was great, we played shows with 'Micachu and the Shapes' in Barcelona and 'The Legendary Tiger Man' in Lyon. We just fell in love with those two bands; it was very inspiring to meet them, we feel like we're gonna play together again. Micachu is working on a remix of one of our song ('Looking for You'); she's on tour at the moment but will finish it when she gets more time. We're also gonna remix her song 'Lips' when back home. So there's some mix exchange action going on here! I took a lot of pictures and I'm looking foward to develop them so that you can see.
we are in Spain at the moment. yesterday was Madrid, tonight is Barcelona; part of the "les femmes s'en melent" festival (meaning "girls getting involved", something like that...) women are getting involved then with skirts and high heels, it's funny -exept from Micachu who I haven't seen with heels already... hmm maybe not tonight no.
this drawing was given to us by a french guy called Paul (www.myspace.com/hedguul) and we liked it so here it is.
I'll be very quick (I only have a goddamn 15 minutes internet connection in the hotel tonight in Biarritz!) and post few pictures of the shooting for the video "oh my love" by our friend Antoine Carlier. You can see the trailer and read our interview for Dazed and Confused here : http://dazeddigital.com/Music/article/2980/1/John_and_Jehn_Are_Still_Loved_Up
we were in London a week ago to do an acoustic session for the Free magazine The Fly. They call it the courtyard session. It turned out we did it in a skip. We found some chocolate , badges , top shop bags and carpet squares in it. the link is here : http://www.muzu.tv/player/undock?ni=10209&ai=182929&ci=127619&ep=0&ea=0
Today we are shooting for the video "oh my love" in Paris. Small crew and good friend. it;s all fine.
we have a new song on our myspace . It's called 'oh my love' and it's gonna be released in uk in april on 7'. This is part of a lot of new songs , but be patient for the rest folks....
We are in Paris this week end , working on videos, again i know, we are always working on videos! but certain things take time especially when you want quality :) and no one is really behind our ass so... we can do what we want! which is cool; The rest of the time now we spend preparing our "Cine-Concert"; we are writing the music for an 1h45 old silent movie with Louise Brooks. it is not easy but we manage. The choice of the film was made by the festival "C'est Dans La Vallée" organised in the home town of Rodolphe Burger (an underground french singer songwritter). The film is good, it is called "Diary of a Lost Girl"; it is melodramatic but we try working by contrasts, we'll see what comes out.
hello, we've been touring in France since last week; just the 4 of us in the van. j+j+Matt(our soundman)+dub(our driver, roadie). tonight we are in Angers. it was a full night, which is the best . last week we did a show at the festival 'LA ROUTE DU ROCK' in st Malo with the Archie Bronson Outfit. we had fun with them drinking white Russians. yes, on our rider we have vodka+Kahlua+milk to make white Russians (although we dont drink that much we have it just in case Duke Garwood is around so we can offer him a drink, he loves white russians!). the Archies played some of their new songs and personally I am looking forward to hear the new album.it sounded from what i heard more heavy and dark than before, very powerful, straight to my stomach. we play gigs and usually go to the merch stand to chat with people. they are very kind and most of them ask for autographs ; but it is hard to come out with new fun lines every night. going to bed now soon,in our 2 stars hotel; apparently the number of stars depends of the number of albums you've released! the Archies had a 3 stars in St Malo ggrr
«I wanna leave a happy memory when I go/ I wanna leave something to let the whole world know/ That the rock’n’roll daddy has a-done passed on/ But my bones will keep a-rockin’ long after I’ve gone»
Call him an angry man, so be it; cause I wish there were more angry man in the world if they all resemble Andy Inglis.
Scottish and friend of ours, creater of the brilliant moto "We Care Because You Do" for his live venue in London, Andy made himself the director of THE LUMINAIRE , best venue in London, without having to be ashamed of it; and that's pretty rare.
The Luminaire has been the first place to help us when we arrived in the uk because Andy actually cared about the music and liked it; and his venue was not only the place where we met the best people and the best sound engineer of the town (who became our personnal sound engineer!) but a place where we saw the best gigs in the best live conditions that you can ever dream of in the whole uk (concidering the small capacity of the place). Cause, let's be honnest, what you usually call a club in London is mostly a shithole!
but let the truth come out of Mr Inglis:
"The UK live music scene is more buoyant than I can ever remember it.”
If I hear one more person utter those words in the press, I’m going to bounce an SM58 microphone off their heads. The live music scene might be buoyant at the O2, Wembley and Glastonbury but from where I’m standing (a 275 capacity venue in London) it’s rotten to the core, has been for years and will continue to be for the foreseeable future because no-one gives enough of a shit to do anything about it. It’s like looking at Chelsea and Manchester United and proclaiming that football is in good shape? You think? You’ve looked at the Scottish Third Division lately?
Let’s get some home-truths out of the way first, for those of you still living in some kind of delusional world where Britain rules the (air)waves. We have some of the world’s finest bands yet we house them in some of the world’s worst venues with the surliest sound engineers, rudest bar staff, most disinterested venue managers and intimidating doormen. We treat artists and audiences as if we don’t want them in our buildings and this we do in the name of entertainment. We should be ashamed of ourselves. Our small venue circuit is globally derided. Small venues are crumbling. Investment from public or private sources is almost non-existent.
There are, of course, many clubs on these isles which fly in the face of this sort of pessimism; homes for good music run by those who care and nurture, and employ excellent staff and train them well, respected and loved by audiences who attend and artists who perform. But they are the exception. This isn’t some golden age of live music. There are too many bands, too many shows, too many pubs throwing up tinny PAs in the back room. We can’t cope. The audience is being split, the promoters are being asked to front tours for bands who shouldn't actually be touring if they stopped to think for a minute because the financial model at this level makes no sense. Agents ask for more than a band is worth. Promoters struggle to make any money, or break even, or just limit their losses and so the next show they do becomes harder to pull off. Clubs are finding it more difficult to sell tickets for many of their shows. The music industry either has next to no understanding of how difficult it is for small venues, or it does, and couldn't care less.
Mobile phone operators, brewers and fashion brands wrap their logos around anything wearing skinny jeans and battered Converse. Vodafone; supporting live music! T-Mobile: supporting live music! Crap. Support, by definition, comes from below. It’s a foundation upon which an entity can be nurtured and developed. You can’t put Editors on at Proud Galleries and call it a ‘guerilla gig’. You can’t invent a new live music award show and claim you’re supporting live music. What you could do is take a small percentage of the profits from your ludicrous roaming call charges, and plough it into the small venue infrastructure, funding sound desks, mics, XLR cables, multi-cores, parcans, monitoring systems and the like. And what would you get for it? Your logo on flyers and posters? Some branding on the walls or staff t-shirts? Nope. Nothing. Nothing at all. No branding. No marketing opportunity. No audience to exploit. You’d just get a warm glow of satisfaction from knowing that you actually supported live music [though I confess I don’t envy you the task of explaining it to your shareholders].
So live music is the new cash cow and now we see the major labels scrambling around, thrashing and flailing to reposition themselves as ‘music companies’ after belatedly realising that they need a new cow to milk. And god knows they’ll milk this one until its teats are cracked and bleeding and venues are closing down around their ears, and they're wondering where they can showcase another aural barrage of creatively bankrupt, derivative indie-rock-by-numbers.
Let notice be served: live music in the UK is - in many respects - completely and utterly fucked.
This is a picture I took of the duo 'Wildbirds & Peacedrums' in Rotterdam, Holland. We were staying in the same hotel and we had breakfast together. They are the nicest people and their music is so good. she sings and he plays the drums. their shows are raw and simple energy of voice and drums: the essential. all you need from music is in their music.
ha we'd like to introduce new members in the john & jehn team
first mr ANTOINE CARLIER one of the best french music video director , he is currently working with his old pal and very best friend of us mr JOE TATOO (already our artworker). They are joining their talents to prepare a video for our next single called o'my love. ANTOINE JOE TATOO Also an other talented artist is working on a smashing animation movie for our song the ghosts : here is mr BEN.
It's gonna be a good year.
love
john.
ps : Jehn told me 'what don't you say it's my pictures?'
ok today we confirmed our song 'Fear Fear Fear' is going to have a video.
The director and friend, Prisca Lobjoy, will come to London and shoot the video with us early February. We'll also have 2 days of shooting in Paris.
Prisca is mostly known for having done all the videos and artwork for the band Gotan Project. She is also a good friend and very professionnal. We are very much looking foward to do that.
She stayed with us 3 days in France when we were recording new demos and we experimented some ideas with her, we're going to use projections waouu!
We just came home from the Union Chapel where we saw our friend Duke Garwood play. It was amasing and such a good place for his music. We could hear every whisper and every little note of his guitare. Magnifique!
you know as musicians how we like to play and meet people on tour and bands etc. However ,there is a hard reality in the fuckin music buziness explained really well by mr Steve Albini (do i really need to present the guy?) Take your time and read it all : http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
next week we'll be bak in Holland for several shows in the lovely cities of Utrecht, Amsterdam etc... We'll probably meet our friend photographer Vrederick again there. I take advantage of this to post few pictures he took in our hotel room in Rotterdam after one of our shows.
Hello, we are back from Les Trans and Paris. We wanted to thank everyone who came to our show at Le Nouveau Casino in Paris; it was sold out and apparently some people couldn't get in so sorry to them; this picture was taken by Julien Mignot (you can see his blog here http://julienmignot.canalblog.com/) very good photographer we met in Rennes; he also took pictures at Le Nouveau Casino so hopefully we will show more when he's ready;
After few days of rest we're still working; especially on our new songs but also on videos (!) with 3 different friends of ours; if everything goes well we should have a video for Fear Fear Fear in the new year;
We are in Les Transmusicales Festival in Rennes, France, this week. We played yesterday for a wonderful audience. and the rest of the time, we are wandering around, seeing bands and doing interviews.
As we were walking in the media center, we met our crazy girlfriends from the fashion magazine 'Modzik', very nice girls we always have fun with, Faustine and Eléonore.
We were scandalised they didn't offer a slot for us in their pages about the festival!
Their idea was to create pictures around the theme 'Les Trans' . Some bands had the idea to do "Trans-plant" or "Trans-Ferdinand" pictures. We had the idea to do "Trans-Sexual" as no one was keen on doing it.
Eventually, we're going to be the front cover! haha
I’ve been on nick cave’s tour this week cause my very good friends joe gideon and the shark were tour support in uk. So gideon called me and invited me to help them on that . That was fuckin good ,even more than fuckin good. Joe gideon and the shark were beautiful on this big stages , they ‘ve got a new single out , check them out urgently!!!!
Now I’ll talk a bit about what I saw on the side of the stage when the bad seeds played. God I never saw such a good band in my life. I was a proper fan of every single mr cave’s songs before , seen him on stage several times but never that close and believe me it makes a godamn difference. On every shows I was hiding behind the monitor sound engineer on warren ellis’s side of the stage. War is the best word to describe what’s happening on stage when they play. I’ve been litteraly scared of the intensity of this guys on stage , they are shouting at each other , motivating each other like if they were under attack . Nick cave is at the front of the boat fighting with the audience like a mad admiral. He brings his guys into the fight by screaming at them and they 've been fuckin goin into it each single night since many years now. Technicians and roadies are running around the stage , jim sclavounos is creating an earthquake on his pink drum kit ( yes you can have a pink drum kit and look like a bad motherfucker) , Mick harvey is clearly the main lieutenant after nick cave , conway savage , well is off his head most of the time but still beautiful … Warren ellis brings all the madness and decadence in a very unique way, his body goes in all kind of directions , he plays exclusily tiny guitars ( electric mandoline I think) , He looks like a bad motherfucker too. They all look and sound perfect. It’s just the best band alive. I met some people around them on this tour , I heard many stories about their relationship through the years , someone has to write a book about them. 100% commitment , I never saw that for real before this tour. It was a revelation , I’ve seen the light.
John is gone to follow Nick Cave on tour this week; he is doing the roadie for our friends 'Joe Gideon and the Shark' who are supporting Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in England.
If you dont know them you should check them out, they are a fantastic duo, brothers and sisters.
check the video below.
So John is having a good time watching M.Cave from the side of the stage, and I'm in London enjoying the craziness of the town,
another post to show that video we made for the french famous newspaper liberation. It 's on their website and it's called libe labo... Apparently on the comments few people didn't like our songs , i like to read bad comments , i never take the time to review things badly on internet cause i would need a second life for that.
anyway here it goes , just tell us if you hate it or love it or shut up forever .
we've been on a little tour in France and Luxembourg.
We played in Clermont-Ferrand and our show was being programmed live on the French Radio. Soon we will provide you with the link to Radio nova to listen to it.
we also played a show at Luxembourg. We originally accepted that show because it was with Gravenhurst and we are big fans. We had a great night and a bottle of champagne that we shared with him and his manager back at the hotel.
Below is a video of one of our favourite song of him and he also says nice words about us at the end. Thanks to Nick and Michelle from Gravenhurst, it was a pleasure to meet you.
Below is a link to listen to an interview we did with this nice guy called Conor in Cork, Ireland. We thought it was going to be an interview about us, but it was even better than that: he wanted us to speak about Serge Gainsbourg. And so we tried! Sitting in our van in front of the venue with the lights on, eating the sweets left on the table and people seeing through the window...
The show is part of an Irish university radio called Cork Campus Radio 98.3 FM, the theme is to ask musician to talk about an artist from the past.
Jehn
(You can listen to the show on 98.3FM, every Tuesday from 11am - 12.30pm, that's if you're in the Cork city area. If not, you can also tune in online via the Cork Campus Radio website,www.ucc.ie/ccr (follow the instructions for the live stream).
The interview = http://www.ucc.ie/ccr/audio/uoh.wav
the myspace = http://www.myspace.com/theundergroundofhappiness
hi everyone we are still in France finishing the recordings plus doing some gigs. Tomorrow we are living for paris, we are in Poitiers right now because we played saturday night in the brand new theatre ( one of the biggest one in europe , amazing architecture) We had a great time , really good welcoming from the crew there. We did 3 sets in the night cause every shows were sold out. It was like being in that bill Murray film : Groundhog Day. You go in the shower between the sets and someone is knocking on your door shouting at you : "you are on in 5 mins"! The live pictures has been taken by Richard my very old friend from school, now he is a mad scientist , he's inventing new chewing gums ( the chocolate and mint one : it's him , no kidding)
also we did an epk : a stupid name for electronic press kit , which means you have to do a short video to present the band to the world. We were not motivated to do it first but then we had fun with our videast friend sam ( the tatooist in the video :joe moo, is also the artist for our album artwork ). Here you go:
this picture was taken in the BBC building before we did the interview with Steve Lamacq.
we are now far away from that moment, in France recording new songs in the country side with nothing around. Matt Farrar is with us to do the sound. we work and play boomerang to relax.
we are leaving to france today for a month, packing the stuff in the van, we are going to record and write new songs there. Matt Farrar our soudman is going to join us in august. we'll have a great time I'm sure. I have to go now. but we'll post new blogs later to keep you in touch. all the best,
here is a stylish diaporama of our little tour in july , we started in paris with the kills , then a cool festival in nijmigen called valkhof affaire , and brighton & manchester with cut off your hands (lovely guys) , back to London at the old blue last for an headline show ( great fuckin night it was) with our friends underground railroad ,and then liverpool & cardiff with cut off your hands again.
On thursday we 're living for one month to France : new tunes & good food.
We asked our friend Alex Marshall to write this text for us (see below).
Alex is a very good journalist, he writes for the Stool Pigeon and some other ecology stuff somewhere else I can't remember (sorry Alex), he looks upon what the government is doing basically, which is good.
I think he was very disturbed at first about what we were asking him. I understand his confusion because what we wanted was neither a biog, nor an article, it was more like a statement, we wanted to give informations about our present and our decisions for the future.
He did his job and did it well, i mean very professionally. In spite of all the constraints.
Because we did gave him a hard time.
First, he was not paid and though most of music journalists today work for free, it is never a good position to be in. Second, we took a lot of his time with different meetings trying to understand each other about "what exactly do you fucking want me to write?". We had no idea at first, we just knew we wanted "something new".
But there is a funny story attached to this text too:
We finally made up our minds and decided that me, John and Alex should meet for a kind of informal interview. Before that, we gave him two of our new songs so he could listen to them at home. The appointment was taken: 8pm at the ICA. Because of very bad traffic we only arrived there at 9.30pm and I know Alex, he is never late, he is always EARLY. With the pressure of making him wait and the pressure of traffic, and the reality of being a couple (maybe), me and John started to argue in the car and the argument was carried on in the street and in front of the ICA... where Alex was waiting for us, hidden behind the wall, we couldn't see him. I dont know how long he waited like that, hearing us, until he dared come out and raise a shy hand begging us to stop. It had been a long time since I felt so ashamed of myself. Then he asked us "so who was right and who was wrong?". We said we hadn't decided yet because he interrupted us. But in truth, John was right and I was just too proud to admit it.
But anyway, I dont know if we managed to reach our goal, I mean, if the piece is as good as our expectations. Maybe it is not (I dont think Alex thinks it is!) but in my opinion, it doesn't matter. What we understood and discovered while going through all that process with Alex is more important now than the actual writting.
Now we can go and record, we know what we want to say.
Thanks Alex.
Jehn
John & Jehn: an update by Alex Marshall
You’d have thought John & Jehn – the exhilarating French duo – would be spending their days now wallowing in success.
But for the pair, that album seems to have been shoved into the past. In their room in a north London semi – where recording equipment takes up all space the bed doesn’t – they’ve already finished two songs for the next record and they’re hoping to record the rest in the summer.
Impressively, the few new ones they have let slip live, mark a great change in direction.
Sister, the b-side to new single Fear Fear Fear, gives you a taster of that, filled with Gallic swagger. But My Love is the pick of the bunch – a great pop record, and nothing like the Velvets-inspired noir of their past. It starts simple, with little more than Jehn’s breathy vocals, but when the chorus hits, timpani, strings and trumpets roll in, Jehn’s voice soars becoming a genuine turn-on and… Christ! It’s stunning.
It’s easy to see which half of the band is to blame for the change. “It’s because of him,” says Jehn. “I would keep on doing the same thing if I could. Even before the first album was released, he was thinking about the second one. I was like, ‘We can’t think about that, we’ve got to play gigs and have fun.’ But he just said, ‘No’!”
“I just hate to repeat myself,” says John “I want to go everywhere. Every time someone says we’re a duo, I want to have 15 musicians on stage the next day. Every time someone says we are a guitar band, I want to use new instruments.
“We can’t be afraid of changing everything or doing something new just because it might end up sounding ridiculous.”
“He’s constantly putting me in insecure situations like this,” says Jehn. “But that’s a good thing because it challenges me, it stops me getting satisfied. It’s what makes me a musician.”
we played saturday night at the monarch with let's wrestle and le tetsuo , both excellent. Great night it was. We made new friends and people were quite crazy and drunk . So finally we woke up today , sunday , and after eating the best sandwiches you can find in london maybe in the world( an italian place in crouch end , yes we will keep it secret) we prepared the photo shoot with steve gullick for tomorrow. It will be the cover of our next 7" , fear fear fear . We will pose in a typical even famous back alley of London with the words fear fear fear painted on white cardboards . Hope it's gonna work ... it should work cause steve is the best.
Hey we just came back from Ireland , we played 2 shows , one in Cork and one in Dublin . The Dublin one was part of the future days festival , we saw deerhunter , dean deacon and bonnie prince billy, amazing music... We had a great time with everyone in Ireland , it was a beautiful week end.
And yesterday night we went to see deerhunter again with liars @ koko in London , during the deerhunter show we were just behind a guy who kept farting and farting and farting. i wish this guy is gonna go straight to hell for that . The liars show was excellent as always , really shy crowd so we screamed as hard as we could , my voice is a bit fucked now.
We 're going to Paris tomorrow , we're gonna play @ La maroquinerie around 8pm , free entrance , we're looking forward to see the old friends.
hey we just came back from 3 days of gigs with those dancing days. Brighton , Leeds , London @ the 100 club... The last one was the best for us . Leeds was fun too. Those dancing are really lovely girls.
(all pictures by Stuart)
O and yesterday night we went to see our good friends and excellent Joe Gideon & the shark @ the luminaire , fuckin brilliant as the usual. check them out : joe gideon & the shark Also we bumped into sexy Andy from fuck buttons , where is my fuck buttons album man?
Ladies & gentleman ,we are proud to introduce everyone to mr Matt Farrar , john & jehn 's soundman. Since 2 years now , Matt became the third member of john & jehn. He is the soundman of the luminaire , if you 've been there before no need to say that place is the best venue in town in terms of sound quality...
We feel more than lucky to have him by our side . This man has the power to put a real big smile on our faces in 1 sec. You don't need any kind of drugs when you have a Matt Farrar. Unique .
JOHN.
ps : here is a video of him younger when he played in his former band with aaron emerson : CURFEW ( Matt is the bassist singer with long dirty hair)
waow , yesterday we saw einsturzende neubauten at the forum in kentish town. It was bloody marvelous . It was a honnest , generous and fascinating show. I liked the way they never go in the extremes , it was very neutral , i mean they know that they can go quite far in the sonic experiment but now they just found the good balance, it was a perfect exemple of how you control the energy . For that i guess you have to know yourself quite well and it seems that Blixa is in the good process. Fascinating artist and human being.
hey i made this mixtape for you. It's called 60 mins of melancholia. I know the sun is back but when i did the compilation it was fuckin raining all day ... But the sun will not appear everyday , and the time for my compilation will come! mwawaahahahahahahahah(evil )
I included a rare song from john & jehn , we recorded a cover of tim hardins years ago: if i was a carpenter , inspired by johnny cash and june carter's version.
check this artwork that the talented Marie Blanchard did for me , check her website below: http://www.marieblanchard.com/ so the playlist is :
1 blink /sonic youth 2 Elizabeth My Dear / The Stone Roses 3 Night Walks / Black Mountain 4 Love In Mind / Neil Young 5 Then We Be / Duke GarwooD 6 carpenter / john&jehn 7 No Need To Cry / British Sea Power 8 Rather Lovely Thing / Nick Cave, Warren Ellis 9 La fanette / Jacques Brel 10 Home / Clinic 11 Must / Daniel Johnston 12 Love Song / Syd Barrett 13 do what you will do / Will oldham 14 Children's Hospital / Atlas Sound
This blog should be an opportunity to introduce you to the John & Jehn "crew".
John & Jehn are more than just a two piece band, there's an all family working back there that is worth discovering, individuals with strong personalities working together! yey!
So the first of the serie will be "The management" with Sally Gross (our manager) and Sareata (her assistant).This video should give you an idea of the general mood in the house; oh yeah, you don't know? we all live together!
Hi this is Jehn. I write because we recorded the song "sister" this week-end and I thought I would let you know. It is a fine song, simple, classic, with good bass and claps. You may heard it before if you saw us play live. We've played that song for years on stage. now it's recorded. To kill some time we did those videos where you can see us and Matt, the third member of John & Jehn. A little bit of sillyness is always good for sessions... enjoy!
this video of Duke Garwood was made during our launch night at the luminaire backstage. I asked him to talk about his old guitar "lucy" . You should go and see him play acoustic on this particular guitar .He is a mix between jesse james and chet baker. Duke Garwood is one the most inspiring musician i had the chance to meet in my life. Go and see him play , you will feel lucky too.
Steve came to talk to us after one of our shows and said he wanted to photograph us for his exhibition in Rough Trade, Brick Lane. That's how we met him.
Those are the 2 pictures he chose for the exhibition, they were taken under London Bridge before we played at Shunt. You can see them near the desk in the Rough Trade shop just next to Thurston Moore and Beck! We were very honnored to be part of this.
Few weeks later, we spent an afternoon in his house to take some more pictures. It was very peaceful and funny. We offered him a bottle of french wine, he gave us a picture of Duke Garwood.
this blog of deerhunter : http://deerhuntertheband.blogspot.com/ is the main reason of why i'm creating a john & jehn one. It proves that it can be interesting and generous. This guy is very inspiring .
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