Hey friends of Jake,

Apologies from all of us for the protracted radio silence, things got a little crazy at the end of last year and Jake and the boys have been taking a well earned break; you can always say hi to Nunz or Rob through their profiles in our top friends.

Our big news is that after some kind of computer error or whatever I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got is finally going for sale through various download sites, we're still waiting for a few to catch up but you can already check out the album on Rhapsody (link straight to it on Jake's main profile page).

Thanks to everyone who's been writing and leaving comments, it's nice to be so missed and we love you all for your ongoing support, we'll be back soon with more downloads info; check it out, it's a really cool album and best listened to start to finish!

x

From the collected mass of Jake, the Velvet Roots and Lil' Pony

Hey hey,

Just a quick one to let you know we made a few minor updates, tweaked the page here and there, hoping you're all having a great Christmas season and are looking forward to the New Year.

Myspace is letting us add a couple of new tracks to the page so we can have six in total, I'm sat here wondering what tracks to put up and thought I'd see what you guys thought, so send us a comment or a message or whatever and tell us which song you'd like to see up on the Myspace player...

And look out in the new year, we're back in Jersey and NY through Jan-Mar before Nunz and I fly over to the UK for a couple of weeks playing some warm, cozy and highly rocking acoustic sets at a bunch of our regular UK haunts, adding the latest gig dates right now...

xJ

Hey guys,

Just a quick note, we put a few new photos up of the May tour, and I'm told shots and video clips from October will be turning up pretty soon. Hope you checked out the new header image for the album too; thanks to two multitalented members of my management team Suzanne did the original cross-stitching and Steve (who does most of the artwork) made it look a couple of hundred years old and did the back and the CD face and stuff in a straight 12 hour session about a day before we left for the UK, thanks guys!

More coming soon, we're just getting caught up on it all!

xJ

Wow! I can't believe it's been like 2 months since I wrote something here; we rushed off on our UK tour and since we got back it's definitely been all about taking a bit of time off. I'm gonna write some more about the tour and the year gone by and stuff in a few days, right now, it's serious updates time, so here we go, with the manager staring over my shoulder...

1. UK October tour; we had an amazing time, thank you to everyone who came out and hung out and everything else, more on that soon though...

2. UK October tour reviews

http://www.bristolrock.co.uk/BandPages/JakeStigers/Review/JStigersReview.htm

3. New album; I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got went on sale on the tour, US residents should be able to see a Snocap store on our main page where you can download it and it will be out on iTunes and all those things very soon. You can pick up copies at all our gigs and we'll figure out some more stuff soon; we'll add a couple of new tracks to the page soon and stuff. We're also pleased to say that this album is getting digitally distributed by Coffee Music; a new bit of the company that books all our UK tours thank you guys!

3a (I forgot this one and had to come back) New album reviews

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/11/21/141522.php

4. After Christmas we're back in the studio to record a new album for release at the end of 2008.

5. Because we're recording our regular UK spring tour will be a slightly more mellow affair; just a few weeks over March/April with myself and Mr. Signore doing some acoustic stuff and things like that...

6. But you better be ready for October, Berto and Rob are gonna blast all our damn ears off.

7. At the same time the album comes out our often mentioned DVD will also be available, charting a year of our touring experiences in live shows around the UK, on stage, on the road, all that stuff, I haven't even seen any of it yet, Coffee Films have it all locked in some underground top secret vault somewhere and a bit like the Arc of the Covenant in Indiana Jones if you look at it when you shouldn't all kind of bad stuff happens. Anyway, they made the short film Out of Idaho and win awards and things so expect it to be pretty awesome, a lot of you met the director Steve masquerading as one of our tour managers at the UK gigs last year.

OK, that's enough for this moment in time I think, we love you all, a belated Happy Thanksgiving to you all, hope to see you at a show soon, drop by and say hello...

.....xJ

PS Curtis, sorry man, but the hair, I had to...

PPS Check out Curt's new album Real Emotional, he recorded his own version of Only Wanna Be With You on there.

You wanted it, you played our little game, so you got it; even though a few of you disbelieved!!!

Myspace seems to be having one of those odd weeks where our number of friends seems completely random, anyway, there was a point last night where it topped 26,000, you guys totally annihilated the 70,000 track plays and we got more than 10 mails from people putting us up in their top friends so thanks to you all for playing, we'll let the extra track plays cancel out the slight short fall of comments and if you go back to the main page now you'll find your free Only Wanna Be With You (live) MP3!

Look at the main Myspace jukebox, underneath "Only Wanna Be With You" you will see some little text links and the "download" one is clickable, the download comes straight from Myspace, you can even pick up front cover artwork for the single in our "Pics".

Hope you enjoy it, we've got more cool stuff coming, like how about the digital release of the Live and Loud album? Previously only available at gigs and in the UK you'll now be able to download the whole album, check back here for details very soon!

And did we mention the new album going on sale in October...?

xJ

Hey guys,

Big thanks to those of you who have mailed us so far in our little free track giveaway, well we made the song plays last night which is pretty awesome and the new friends is getting pretty close, ohhh the comments are lagging a little though... Come on, send us your glitter graphics and silly pictures and shots of cats doing dumb things, isn't that what Myspace is all about?!

I'll be checking back in tomorrow with that MP3 in my hand...

love you all................................xJ

OK Myspacers, this weekend we have a challenge for you...

To celebrate the forthcoming tour, and also to time with the Live and Loud album becoming available for digital download, we're going to give away a completely free copy of "Only Wanna Be With You (live)", it's the song I co wrote with Curtis that he also recorded a version of recently, and general feedback has been it's a favourite of everyone's from the Live album, so we'll make it available right here on Myspace.

BUT! We're looking for some action this weekend... OK, only on Myspace, weekends are traditionally a quiet time on the page so give us some traffic, as soon as we have reached;

70,000 song plays

26,000 friends

2000 comments

And at least 10 of you put our page in your top 8 friends (mail us so we can see!)

Then we'll make the track available. I know, we're making it easy, I just want to give everyone a present really, I'd make you all jam if I could. You'll find some new banners down near our own top friends you're very welcome to use; just what they mean shall be revealed shortly...

Leave us some messages! Get us some new friends! Get music for free!

xJ

PS, next week, we may just post up a ouple of the tracks from the new album, oh yeah....

Hi Everyone,

Well you probably noticed we gave the Myspace a little refresh yesterday, and we're going to be doing some more to it in the following weeks, keep a look out! For now...

Firstly a big hello to our tour sponsors, we're very proud to have on board the only microphone company a musician needs in Shure, and the continued support of the wonderful folks at GMS Drums (if you've ever been to a gig, Rob always plays a GMS kit) and Dawsons music stores (who helped us with our backline and provide handy consumables), they're also joined by Springhill; a UK spring water company who have provided us with about a million litres of Yorkshire's finest spring water; MASSIVE thank yous to all of them, you can visit their sites by clicking the logos on our main page, tell them we sent you!

Secondly thanks as ever to my talented backstage team for working out our October UK tour and making the website and posters and everything always look so beautiful, particularly Suzanne and Gelli at Lil' Pony and Coffee Artists for another great tour, Steve at Coffee Design for the various photos and graphics and CD artwork (which Suzanne helped with this time!), thanks also to our own Rob Draghi and brother Chris for their photos and to our wonderful friend Ian in the UK for taking some great photos and helping us out in a million ways with our ongoing world domination plans.

So what's the BIG news? We're currently mastering our new album, a largely acoustic take on a whole bunch of new songs after considerable demand from people at the UK shows for an acoustic album; we're just getting them manufactured now to go on sale during the new tour, they'll be available after that at all our live shows in the US, as is the recent live album, and both are going to be available digitally very soon, and yes we are in the process of building an online store selling CDs and merch for all the people out there we're not getting to see so much at the moment outside of the UK and the East coast; we'll be back! We promise!

Finally, don't forget our fan club, this is really going to get moving over the next year, join the Fan Club Myspace, join the club for free at http://www.jakestigers.com/fanclub.php and you'll get sent a free MP3 of Jake performing End of the World solo acoustic; only available by joining the fan club. Soon we'll be offering a variety of membership options including a street team (expect lots of free stuff) and a subscription fan club membership which will get even more exclusive information and goodies. We're also working on fan club weekender packages intitially for the UK tours; travel from the south to our favourite gigs in the north or vice versa; drop us a line if you're interested in getting more details as we work them out.

2008; it's the year of the rock n roll vicar baby, and we're starting it early in October so book your tickets now!

xJ

Got up & said a prayer today for the families of Sept. 11^th  & all of those who were impacted thereafter. It's hard to forget about that day. All of us were living in NYC at the time. I watched the 2^nd plane fly into the 2^nd building from my apartment window in Brooklyn. I watched the debris move in one ominous cloud toward the same window & completely fill the apartment with toxic dust & people. That's all I could keep thinking about for months, walking through the city, cleaning the apartment, & cleaning windows (my day gig at the time). I just kept thinking "we're walking on people" it kind of felt unholy in a way (not the cool kind of unholy either).

It's raining today, I just think of it as preparation for the October tour. Nunz & I are mixing today, tomorrow, & Thursday. The new album sounds amazing. All new songs for you to sink your teeth into. Yes we have versions of "let us take you there" & "miss reality" & they both kick some serious ass. In the beginning of "let us take you there" Nunz blows a solo that I swear to God emotes the same spirit as Mississippi Queen by Mountain. These sessions have been different than the rest, because we've been doing it so fast. I mean, almost everything has been 1 take. The spirit of the moment has been caught, I feel, at least. I even play drums on a few of the tracks like the first album.

The garden is winding down now, the tomatoes were late this year so they're just now starting to kick & I don't know what the hell happened to the peppers. But I've been jarring/canning fruits & vegetables this year. It has been the coolest thing. I've made hot- pickled-garlic-string beans, & strawberry, & blueberry jam. This has been one of the things that I've wanted to do for years, so now I'm doin' it.

I know this sounds so un-rock-n-roll but I've done my time with the pipe & the booze & the crazy chicks throwin' your clothes out the window at 4 in the morning & let me tell you, this is a hell-of-a lot more fun. I read an article recently about the guys in Velvet Revolver & I thought how much more fucking cliché can you get. Who hasn't gone to rehab, who hasn't struggled with this or that? You wanna know what the new frontier is, have a family, & try & raise your kids right & keep your marriage together…… That's rock-n-roll to me, because I don't hear any body talkin' about that except for Bruce Springsteen, & Bono. I'm sorry, those 2 are all the rock-n-roll I need right now. Take the MTV  VMA's  right now. That show sucked, Britney Spears?  Miss teen USA, Hello……give me a damn break, no wonder kids don't want to buy cd's anymore. Their rock-n-roll models are idiots.

I gotta stop before I get in trouble. But I must say my challenge to street-fight Kasabian still stands. My band against yours, lets go……………

See you in England in October. Book your flights now cause' they're going fast.

xJake……………………………

PS, we also came across this pretty cool blog about one of our Uk shows;

So it's been a while since I really wrote anything very meaningful here, thought it was time to share some of our recent adventures with you all.

We've been home for most of the summer and it's been quite nice. We played our neighbors annual pig roast. Which he's been doing for the last 25 years and we've been playing for the last 3 years. The crowd was amazing, over 350 people in attendance and our friend Greg, a singer-songwriter who we met in Brighton when we were in the UK in May, came over for the roast. He played also and everyone gave him nothing but love. 

As for me I've just been writing as much as I can, tending to my garden and recording with Nunzio, you got it, some all new tracks getting laid down at the Crib... Being back in the studio with Nunz, Roberto and Rob has been a real treat. Everything has been 1 take and that's it. We've been trying to leave a lot of the grease and emotion in these tracks; mistakes, coughs, conversations, everything. The recording has gone extremely fast and when we're all together recording it's usually the first take that we end up keeping.

I recently purchased a dulcimer from West Virginia. This instrument was hand-made out of spalted maple and the sound holes in the thing are made out of walnuts split in half. Such a beautiful instrument. We've used it already on some of the songs that we've cut. The sound is like nothing else, it just shimmers when you strum her. You tune it to the key that you are playing in, it's pretty wild.

We're gearing up for the tour. We're over in the UK again for the entire month of October. So I'm just preparing myself emotionally for rain and expensive food. The upside is that we get to go back and see all of our friends, family and play music every night with each other to the always awesome crowds.

So nothing more to report over here except, look out you dirty scousers we're coming to rock your country like it hasn't been rocked since Thin Lizzy recorded Jailbreak, preferably the song "I'm a rocker"

I'll write more soon, before we come over again……

xJ…………………………………