LONDON GIG TONIGHT/TOUR/NEW EP/HEARTBREAK BALL/CASHMUSIC/ACRES ACRES GIG & DOWNLOAD




Hi everyone!


    
UNEXPECTED BUT JOYOUSLY DELIGHTFUL GIG TONIGHT IN LONDON    

So yesterday I got an e-mail from Vampire Weekend's agent saying that Rostam from the band had personally requested that I support them tonight in London, at King's College. Luckily I didn't have anything on (OK, OK, if I had had anything on I would have cancelled.) So that's nice. No idea if it's sold out or how much tickets are, but I'm on at 8 (playing with the band).



FREE MP3 FROM MY NEW BAND

acresacres.bandcamp.com (more below)



TOUR

I'm doing a solo acoustic tour through the UK in October & November. Tickets will be available on the door at all dates.

21 Oct 2009 London        In-store at Pure Groove, Farringdon to launch 5 VERSIONS EP (all ages/free)
22 Oct 2009 Reading         Oakford Social Club
23 Oct 2009 Brighton        New Hero
24 Oct 2009    Bristol        Louisiana
25 Oct 2009 Oxford        Wheatsheaf
26 Oct 2009 Derby        The Royal
27 Oct 2009 Birmingham    Hare & Hound (free!)
28 Oct 2009 Leicester        Sweeping The Nation @ The Firebug
29 Oct 2009 Norwich        The Birdcage
30 Oct 2009 Winchester    The Railway
1 Nov 2009    Manchester    The Kro Bar
2 Nov 2009     Aberdeen    Tunnels
3 Nov 2009  Inverness    Hootananny (please note new venue)
4 Nov 2009 ???             are you in scotland? would you like us to play your house party? get in touch!
5 Nov 2009     Glasgow    Brel
6 Nov 2009     Wakefield    Escobar



NEW EP



So I made an acoustic EP with versions of my favorite songs from my two albums, plus a cover. You can download it for free from jeremywarmsley.cashmusic.org in return for an e-mail address.
For those of you that prefer hard copies, they'll be available at gigs or you can buy one at jeremywarmsley.bigcartel.com.



THE RETURN OF THE HEARTBREAK BALL - 14th FEBRUARY 2010



Last Valentine's Day, I put on an event called the Heartbreak Ball at the Slaughtered Lamb, in London. It was great – we had Johnny Flynn, Slow Club, Stars of Sunday League and a host of other wonderful artists plying their trade to an intimate, sold-out audience. Well, I'm doing it again in 2010, this time at one of my favorite venues in London, the Bush Hall, and with a bit of help from the very wonderful people at End Of The Road Festival.

The line-up will be revealed over the course of the next four months, but you can rest assured it'll be very fine indeed. In the mean-time, we have tickets on-sale now, for those of you that want to make sure you're going to be spending a happy Valentine's – no matter who you're with.

Tickets available now from http://www.wegottickets.com/event/54854.



CASHMUSIC



CASH is a not-for-profit organisation based in Rhode Island, Florida, USA. They are very fine people who help bands develop the tools to get their music heard by more people. They made that lovely site for the 5 Versions EP above. Anyway they're having a fancy raffle to raise a bit of money for their operation and I've donated a prize. You can buy a ticket for $15 and if you win, you can have me record a cover song of your choice (within reason and subject to discussion - and by this I mean I'm not going to do any Atomic Kitten songs - S Club yes, Atomic Kitten no). More at http://cashmusic.org/?show=jeremywarmsley. There's some other great prizes there, too.



ACRES, ACRES



My main project at the moment is a new band called Acres, Acres in which I sing and play guitar. www.myspace.com/acresacres. We're playing two shows in London soon - 20th October at the Notting Hill Arts Club, and 17th November at the Old Blue Last (the OBL show is free!)

You can get a free download from acresacres.bandcamp.com. Bloggers, feel free to host this on your sites.

There's another three songs up on our myspace (myspace.com/acresacres).




Thank you for reading this far. Your prizes:

ROCK FACT: Luther Vandross got an early gig singing in David Bowie's backing band. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bed-pnf6oGY

BAD JOKE    Q: What do flies wear on their feet? A: Shoos.



Thanks! See you all at a gig soon I hope.



JEREMY



PS - anyone get to End Of The Road this year? Was it amazing? Do our friends at EOTR a favor and vote for them at http://www.festivalawards.com/

UPDATE, SCHMUCKDATE

Hi everyone!

I have some gigs coming up before the end of the year: shows in New York and London this month, and then a tour of England & Scotland in late October/early November. Tickets available on the door except where noted.

SEPTEMBER
23rd - New York, Pianos - Argh! First US show in two years. Please come!
26th - London, Union Chapel with Johnny Flynn (liable to sell out - buy tix in advance!). This is prrrrrrobably going to be my last big full band gig for a while.

OCTOBER - BIG SOLO TOUR THING

For some reason I always go on tour in October. Dunno why. This year is no exception. This is going to be a pretty special set of shows - really intimate venues, so I'll be playing solo, taking requests, doing lots of covers & stuff. My new band Acres, Acres is going to be a bit of a priority for me for the foreseeable future, so this could be the last tour I do under this name for a while.

22nd - Reading, Oakford Social Club
23rd - Brighton, New Hero
24th - Bristol, The Louisiana
25th - Oxford, The Wheatsheaf
26th - Derby, The Royal
27th - Birmingham, The Hare & Hounds
28th - Leicester, The Firebug
29th - Norwich, The Birdcage
30th - Winchester, The Railway

NOVEMBER - THE SHOW MUST GO ON
1st TBC
2nd - Aberdeen, Tunnels
3rd - Inverness, Mad Hatters (TB absolutely C but looking 90% likely)
4th - Fort William, Fired Earth
5th - Glasgow, Brel
6th - Wakefield, Escobar

Facebook event for those who like to sign up to things on the internet at http://bit.ly/EgtpK.

I have this funny little acoustic EP, "5 Versions" that I made at home that I'll be selling at these shows.

No ROCK FACT this month, it turns out that ROCK FACTS are pretty boring. Instead, check out my favorite new band, WASHED OUT at http://www.myspace.com/thebabeinthewoods. Oh! And two tracks I produced for the fantastic STRICKEN CITY are being released on an EP they're releasing this month.

That's it! Bye now.

HELLO PEOPLE

OK. so I've got masses of news about various things.

1) So I put together the best band I've ever had playing my music. Basically it was going so well we decided to break away and actually be a real band. We're probably called Acres, Acres, and we have two gigs in London this week. Thursday 20th at the Lexington, and Tuesday 25th at White Heat (supporting the incredible Three Trapped Tigers). Both shows start around 8:15. Hope to see some of you there. Expect to hear some recorded music before the end of the year. We've written an album and it's all going jolly well. Warm jangly guitars, swirly keyboards, heavenly backing vocals, jagged grooves, big melodies.

2) In other news: I was going to be premiering a new orchestral thing I've written called "The Ragged Choir" at the Union Chapel, London on the 26th September. Due to logistical problems, we're not going to be doing the orchestra thing. It'll just be a "normal" full-band set (possibly with a few new songs thrown in). Actually this may be my last full-band set under my own name, playing the songs from my first two albums for a while........

3) I'm currently booking myself a solo tour of the UK in late October. Want me to come to your town? Let me know.

4) I booked my first ever show in New York! I'm playing at Pianos on the 23rd September, at 8pm.

5) A collective I'm involved in, Little Words, has gone live. www.myspace.com/littlewordsband. Just a bit of fun with some friends, playing songs by the likes of Magnetic Fields & Daniel Johnston.

That's it from me. Night night.

Jeremy

Wow, my blog's been quiet lately.

Since my last blog...

1) Been playing guitar with the lovely Fanfarlo at some of their gigs. Great band, good fun.
2) Done lots of production with new acts like Tawny Owl (whose new single is out now on Milk Bar), Paul Dixon, Kit Richardson and Stricken City.
3) Oh and A Classic Education's first single, which I produced at the end of 2007, is out now on Bailiwick.
4) I sung with the mighty House Of Strange at their amazing gig at The Space.
5) I put together what might be the best backing band I've ever had. I'm not going to tell you who's in it because if I do someone will poach them. That's what normally happens. (Speaking of which, catch my old bassist Gbenga rocking it with Metronomy at a stage near you this summer. Awesome!).
6) Oh, I made plans to record album #3. It's a rockin' tribute to the impotence of love and the futility of hope. And it's a glorious celebration of why life is worth living anyway.
7) And I made plans to finally, finally, finally, premiere my "lost album" [well, EP, really] The Ragged Choir at the Union Chapel on 26th September. And possibly record it later in the year, too.
8) I accidentally booked myself a really busy summer full of gigs.
9) Hanging out with my one-year old nephew, Julius. He's a nice guy.
10) Started writing a screenplay with Elizabeth Sankey (www.readplatform.com). It's kind of a cross between Kes and a Beach Boys documentary. I say starting. Don't expect it to be finished any time in the next few years.
11) Oh, I toured Germany! Hey Germany, it was nice to hang out. And I played in Paris a couple of times.
12) And I did loads of fun solo gigs all over the UK just for fun really. Thanks for the good times Wolverhampton.


Anyway, here's my upcoming news (taken straight off my e-mail bulletin. If you want to sign up to it, send me your e-mail address. It's worth it, you get two free mp3s. Gosh wow.)


------


I was going to take the summer off but people keep on asking me to do things. So I have a bunch of stuff happening in the UK over the next couple of months. If you're not in the UK, you can skip this bit and go straight to the end of this e-mail, where I've included a ROCK FACT and a bad joke to entertain you.

3rd July - Manchester: This Friday, I'm playing at the Deaf Institute at Same Teens' club night as part of the Manchester International Festival - the Mystery Jets after-party, to be exactly. This'll be the first show with the line-up of my new band. £5 entry I think. http://bit.ly/3BwRq
11th July - Lounge On The Farm festival, Canterbury. I'm on at like 1. This is a sweet festival on a lovely site with Edwyn freaking Collins headlining. http://www.loungeonthefarm.co.uk/
15th July - London: Acoustic gig in aid of War Child at the Tabernacle, Notting Hill. http://bit.ly/c9XPC
17th July - Latitude Festival: I'm playing a set of Daniel Johnston & Tom Waits covers, with my side project Little Words.
25th July - Truck Festifval, Beathive stage. Latitude is the bee's knees. I'm sure you knew that already.

1st August - "The Great Escape" - a charity festival somewhere in the south of England. I literally don't know anything more than that yet, and google just found me a kid's camp in Philadelphia. It's not that.. We're headlining the Communion stage. If anyone knows anything more about this, please e-mail me and let me know. Lol.
2nd August - Kendal Calling festival. This is a lovely festival in the Cumbria. Mumford & Sons are headlining our stage, think The Streets and Ash and others are playing too http://www.kendalcalling.co.uk/.
3rd August - my side project Little Words is doing a set of Magnetic Fields covers at Stars Of Sunday League's EP launch at the Luminaire. Stars Of Sunday League is an awesome singer-songwriter friend of mine.
12th August - London: Great Banana Hoax at the Boogaloo - this is a cute acoustic night in Archway, north London
14th August - Summer Sundae Festival - I'm playing a little solo show at this wicked festival in Leicester. You've got Mystery Jets, Bon Iver, etc etc. http://www.summersundae.com/. I'm also playing guitar with my friends Fanfarlo at this festival.
16th August - Bloom Festival. Another cute festival in Gloucestershire. We're playing in the Communion tent alongside Johnny Flynn & others. Also playing with Fanfarlo etc.

After this, I'm going into the studio with my new band to start putting down album #3. EXCITING.

Then...

26th September. London: This is it. In January 2007 I started writing & demoing a project I was calling "The Ragged Choir". It's basically the best thing I've ever done. It's a story I wrote about two kids who find a magic world in their back garden, set to music, with orchestra. If we actually manage to pull it off in time, we'll be premiering it at the Union Chapel as part of Transgressive Records' 5th birthday, in support of Johnny Flynn. It's 25 mins long so we'll play it and then do a couple of older songs too. bit.ly/xUFFU. Hopefully we'll record it soon after.

That's about all my news that I can think of. Thanks for your time.

As a prize for reading this far, here is today's ROCK FACT

Today's Rock Fact is to do with Neil Young, who I think we can all agree has once again proved how awesome he is this week with bravura performances at Glastonbury & Hyde Park.

In 1977, Rod Stewart's execrable version of "I Don't Wanna Talk About It" topped the official Uk pop charts. This would be unremarkable except

1) The song was written by Danny Whitten. Danny Whitten was the guy about whom Neil Young wrote "Tonight's The Night" and "The Needle And The Damage Done". He was a founding member of Crazy Horse, played a fat guitar on Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and was generally a total dude (or at least he was until he descended into heroin-addled rubbishness and died. Stay off the drugs.)

2) Number 2 that week was the Sex Pistols "God Save The Queen", and a lot of commentators are pretty sure that the chart officials rigged it to save the British public's morals.

So there you go. Danny Whitten, the archetypal rock junkie & Neil Young's best friend, wrote the cheesy sadsack ballad that kept punk from hitting #1. Well, it's better to burn out than it is to rust.

Crazy Horse – I Don't Want To Talk About It on Spotify.

Rubbish joke:

Snow White received a camera as a gift. She happily took pictures of her friends the dwarves, the beautiful forestry, the cottage, the queen, etc. When she finished her first batch she took the film to be developed. After a week or so she went to get the finished photos. The clerk said the photos were not back from the processor.

Needless to say, she was disappointed, and being a bitchy drama queen, she started to cry. The clerk, trying to console her, said,

"Don't worry. Someday your prints will come".

(literally that's the first joke that comes up if you google "rubbish jokes").

(also, has anyone read Neil Gaiman's version of Snow White from his short story collection? it's great).

See you this summer! (Unless you don't live in the UK or aren't coming to a show, in which case, enjoy the sunshine. Unless it's not sunny where you are. Etc.)

JW

Hi everyone!

So I released a single on Saturday as a free download.. It's an acoustic version of "If He Breaks Your Heart" from my last LP How We Became.


You can get it from

www.jeremywarmsley.com/heart/



Help yourselves! Enjoy! Pass the link around to anyone you think might enjoy it. Hope everyone's having a cheerful day...




And I made some new T-shirts to celebrate!






Thanks to everyone who came down to the Heartbreak Ball! Wasn't it a good time?


Too bad A Classic Education had to pull out, but I thought Gossamer Albatross, Stars Of Sunday League, Johnny Flynn and Slow Club all played career-best shows. Brilliant! Pictures here (thanks Richard)



Upcoming shows (UK):

22 Feb Manchester - Mushaboom Uke Fest @ Moho Live - Sparky Deathcap, Mersault, etc

24 Feb Taunton - The Perfect 5th - Seen Magazine launch with Paper Plane Pilots etc



OK... see you all soon!



Jeremy

Happy new year everyone!

Having a lovely evening perusing some Youtube stuff...



This guy was playing downstairs when I played at Clwb Ifor Bach in Cardiff back in June. Amazing!



Never saw this one before. James is an old pal and deserves more kudos for his incredible album "In Debt To", which this is taken from. Great vid.



This was a video done by my old chum Adam Lieber. Great, great video. And a cover of Daniel Johnston to boot...

Sigh. I was just going to post that but there's lots to tell:

News:
Playing a set of Daniel Johnston & Tom Waits covers at the Bishopsgate Institute, London on 15th Jan, as part of the London Short Film Festivals "Outsiders" event. (How exactly I qualify as an outsider is anyone's guess!) Tickets.

I'm playing shows at the Lock Tavern, London, Cambridge and Ipswich in the next month - see my myspace page for more details.

I'm planning a special show in London with lots of friends around Valentine's Day called the Heartbreak Ball. And I'm releasing an acoustic (ish) version of If He Breaks Your Heart as a free download on the day itself.

Looking to the future, work continues apace on various recorded projects, including a collaboration with Tom from buzz band* Three Trapped Tigers. Also I'm trying to finish off my "lost album" (every songwriter worth their salt has one) The Ragged Choir, and trying to decide what to do with the 30-odd release-worthy songs I've written since I made a record. (A few will be premiered at my upcoming shows !! ! !!!!!!!)

Three requests:
1) Does anyone know somewhere I can get okonimiyaki (Japanese pancake) or takoyaki (batter/octopus balls**) in London?
2) My Boss RPD-10 Panning Delay half-rack (an 80s digital audio effect unit beloved by few) is screwed. Does anyone have one they could give me a great deal of technical knowhow about effects units and the fixing thereof? It's utterly essential to my guitar sound, but none have turned up on ebay for at least 6 months.
3) Please buy my latest album, How We Became, from 7digital, iTunes, Amazon, Pure Groove, Rough Trade, FNAC or one of the many other outlets from whence it is available. And thank you to all those who have already done so and enjoyed it. I like you.

I want to also say a big thank you to everyone who's ever got in touch to say they appreciate my music. I haven't always been able to reply, but thank you. Just thought I'd mention it.

Oh so yeah, happy new year. 2008 was a great year. It had some of my greatest triumphs and only the occasional stomach-turning low. Best things about the year? I toured Japan, toured the UK three times, released an album and saw Springsteen, Waits and Cohen live in concert. The worst moment? Probably when I told a member of the audience at my show in Bristol in June that I intended to come to their house in the night and slit their throat. I just get lost in the music sometimes, man.

Top records in no particular order: Beach House, Bon Iver, Byrne/Eno, Eugene McGuinness, Fleet Foxes, the boy Flynn, the Hold Steady, Jay Jay Pistolet, Of Montreal, Mystery Jets, M83 Portishead, Three Trapped Tigers and the mighty mighty Wave Pictures.

What a great year for records.

And what a lengthy ramble. That's all from me. cheers!

* I use this term purely to annoy Tom, who probably won't ever even read this
**balls in the round sense, not the testicular sense

So when I was on tour back in October, we stopped off in Glasgow to play at King Tut's Wah Hut (such a great name for a venue). And to play an in-store at the mighty Avalanche Records, a great indie record store in central Glasgow.

Avalanche Records very kindly allowed me to film an episode of my TV show in their little upstairs rehearsal space. Malcolm Middleton and Emma Pollock came along and played brand new unreleased songs… which was very exciting for me as Arab Strap & Delgados were on the first ever mixtape I ever received from Tom Smithard, the friend who was responsible for getting me into music, and were therefore two of the first bands I ever got into. And Pictish Trail, who played a medley of Hot Chip tunes, is an old friend who sometimes plays in King Creosote's band, with whom I've toured several times. Good folks one and all, and it was an honour to share a room with them and hear them play.

Mp3s:
Malcolm Middleton - Red Travellin' Socks
The Pictish Trail - Hot Chip Medley
JW - If He Breaks Your Heart

Kobe by night

3 sleeping beauties; James, my old mucker Alex Hoban, Fumi

Kobe by day

This little dog was my friend when no-one else would be.

This little olde-worlde bit of Kyoto made me think of Spirited Away.

This little dog would not be my friend. Still, he had a nice jacket.



A rock garden in a (shinto?) temple. I never realised, when they said "rock garden", that they literally meant a garden made out of rocks. Seems kind of obvious now.

More temple beauty

Temple beauty, part 3: the reckoning

Three of my Japanese super-fans: Keiko, Chota, Kayo!

Warmsley style! Hai!

At the Blues Blues in Okayama. Annoyingly my photo of the stage didn't come out. As it was our last night, the bar staff dressed the stage with lots of kawaii cardboard animals. Thanks guys!

Lullatone! Shawn, Niko and Yoshimi. We met these guys through Fumi on our second night in Nagoya, and went to their house to film an episode of my TV show. Lovely people, lovely times.

So thus concludes my trip to Japan. I had an incredible time and it only remains to thank Fumi & James for being the best of tourmates, everyone who came to a show for being a jolly good sport, and everyone else who was involved - all the promoters, soundguys, support bands etc. Thank you thank you. You are lovely. Japan - is - amazing. And I cannot wait to come back.

Thank you, thank you.
Jeremy

So we got to Kanazawa, where Fumi (my label manager/Japanese tour manager) grew up and still lives, about 1pm. Kanazawa station has a famous arch which you can see here. Pretty trippy-looking. Fumi's lovely wife Yuki picked us up at the station and drove us straight to Kanazawa's best sushi restaurant.

You have to take off your shoes a lot in Japan. James (James Severy AKA Savoury Sev, my labelmate on Rallye) and I keep on forgetting to do this. At this restaurant there was a little house for the shoes. Real sushi, it turns out, is pretty different to the sushi we get over in Europe and in the states. Turns out that the little rice rolls are not sushi at all. They're nigiri, maybe you knew this. But nigiri in Japan is very different to nigiri in the West. In the West we have tiny little rolls maybe 3 cm across. In Japan the rolls are MASSIVE and there's less stuff in them – more rice, more crackly green seaweed stuff. Sushi only refers to the bits of rice with a bit of raw fish on top. My favourite was the ginger pilchards (no Eiffel Tower though) Also you don't mix wasabi in with your soy, some of the sushi comes with wasabi already on it. (Sashimi refers to bits of raw fish with no rice, fact fans).
There was also a delicious soup with bits of crab. In Japan you also eat the crab brains and eggs, both of which are seriously delicious. Believe.

After the delicious, enormous lunch, we staggered do Kanazawa's Musem Of Modern Art, which was really nice. Here's a photo of Fumi & Yuki in one of the exhibitions. It's hard to explain, but as you come into the museum, you see a swimming pool. However, it's an optical illusion – the pool is only actually 10cm deep, theres a 6ft tiled room underneath that you can see into, but the effect of the water makes it seem like it's a full swimming pool. When you go into the room it feels like you're underwater. Trippy.

Another cool exhibit was this enormous table football table. We played for about 20 minutes without scoring a single goal – the little players are so enormous and bulky that it's really hard to actually move them around. Good sweaty fun though.

After the museum, Fumi took us to his lovely Rallye shop. As well as running a very fine indie label, Fumi also has a very, very nice shop (www.rallye-kanazawa.com) which sells really cool clothes & accessories for chicks, and also CDs, funny little art books, badges, etc etc. Really cool shop, check it out if you're in the vicinity.

I wanted to take all these little guys home.

Then to the show! In a cool little bistro/café with a nice big back room with a beautiful Yamaha upright piano, called the Social. (The venue, not the piano). Not so busy tonight, but a really lovely crowd. We sold loads of CDs so that was nice, "So nice!". I finished up with my piano-cover of "River Man", best I've ever played it I think. Starting to really get back into the solo groove after several months of playing with the band, I forgot how satisfying it is to be totally in control of the music… oh shit, control-freak tendencies on the loose. Tranquilizers!
James played really well tonight I thought. He played a second song on the piano I hadn't heard before and "We Killed A Bus Driver" was a highlight as always. After we played, we messed around for a bit trying to write some Kanye-esque hip-hop, with me on the piano and James beat-boxing. As always with these things it came out totally obscene and is fortunately unprintable (if anyone's desperate, message me and I'll send you the lyrics..)
After the show, Fumi took us home for some delicious "UFO" yakisoba (which sadly didn't actually come from space) and then we went out (at 1am!!) to a traditional Japanese public bath. This was AMAZING, just as nice as the massage the night before… you have to go around naked which is a bit shy-making at first. But really nice… first off you go outside into really hot baths in the really cool out-doors, which is a really nice sensation. Then we tried the electrified bath… yes, that's right, a pool with electric current running through it!! Freaky. Then a Jacuzzi… nothing like Western Jacuzzis – you don't share, everyone gets their own bit. Then a really, really cold bath, which is bracing and slightly hypothermia-inducing but very pleasant. All in all, a good day.
It was nice to see the inside of a Japanese home, and Fumi & Yuki's home was really beautiful. I don't have any pictures but there was lots of greenery, lots of really nice things and the finest collection of French Tintins outside of my parents' attic. We slept under electric blankets. Lovely.
Thanks to everyone who asked for the special Japanese 2-disc "Art Of Fiction"'s – I'll bring a couple extra back in case anyone else wants one. £25 including P&P, message me for details.


Jeremy

Dear friends
I'm writing this from the "Thunderbird" bullet train that runs from Osaka to Kanazawa. Kanazawa is Fumi's home town and we're looking forward to visiting his home and seeing the sights…



This is the view from the train. Nice mountains.

So yesterday we were in Osaka. We went straight out for lunch at a local restaurant where we had a local delicacy called okonimiyaki, a kind of wheat pancake with seafood embedded in it that they cook on a metal plate in the table in front of you. Delicious. Then we checked out a few local music shops… not so different to the ones at home in the UK, although one big difference is just how well-stocked they are. That's true for shops generally; the shelves just seem to be a lot fuller, and, er, closer together I guess? Loads of choice. Hundreds of varieties of chewing gum for instance.



One of the music shops we visited had hundreds of the tiny guitars with speakers built-in, beloved of my friend (& sound engineer) Ash from House Of Strange.

Then we headed to the venue. In Osaka James and I were the first two acts of four, rather than headlining, and there were two other British acts: the Yelps, who were really cool guys, making interesting, jerky art-rock. They reminded me of my good friends, the sadly departed (and much-missed) Roland Shanks. The singer, Olly, had the poise and stance of a young Bowie. And then there was Parka, also very sweet guys, especially the drummer (whose name I've regrettably forgotten: wotcha, chap). They reminded me a bit of Hard-Fi and had some very catchy tunes.



The Yelps were incredibly good-looking and well-dressed, which doesn't come across in this really bad photo!



I did my bit for British fashion, too, with this awesome badge made for me by my friend Ed Saperia. He handmakes these cog-badges, the clockwork really runs too. Amazing. He's starting a steampunk band with some friends, very excited to hear the results!



The show was really good! Really busy, really sweet audience, a few people singing along even. I played a lot better than I did the first night, which I guess is to be expected, improvised a bit here and there and told a few jokes.







Don't be fooled by the double albums that I got, I'm still Jeremy from the block. Yes, the Japanese release of The Art Of Fiction has a 2nd CD with every B-side and rare track from 2005-2007 compiled. Brits/Europeans: let me know if you want one, I'll be bringing a few back with me from Japan that I'd be only too happy to send out. They're 2500 – say £25 inc p&p to the UK. Put your orders in now – drop me a line & paypal to jeremy@jeremywarmsley.com) and I'll bring 'em back with me for you.
After I played I met a few fans, who were all really, really nice. Keiko even brought me some gifts, so thank you very much for that! So sweet. In England you're lucky if you don't get bottles of piss thrown at you… in Japan you get give things. So nice! And a dude in a band called Rufus brought me his CD, which I'm really looking forward to hearing.

After the show we went for a massage. I woke up yesterday with incredible shooting pains all down my left shoulder so Fumi suggested a traditional Japanese massage. Amazing- very painful at times – but you're left with an enormous sense of wellbeing afterwards (to quote that masterful poet of modern times, Damon Albarn. Ahem).
OK, that's all from me. The plan tonight is to check out Fumi's shop, get some sushi, and then play the show… then we're going for a dip in the public baths! Exciting.

Jeremy