Little interview for all y'all x

Hullo there folks,

you can hear the new cover versions on our player, and the ep willl be available on iTunes and elsewhere on Monday 15th November.
they were recorded in various different places over the last 6 months, and we hope they'll make a nice segue into the next album, due out in Spring.
as those who have been around us before will know, we love to knock out a singalong when we're together - but, having also don 'Over and Over' by Hot Chip when we started out, and recently finished our version of 'Come To Your Senses' for the rerelease and Willkommmen Collective cover album of The Leisure Society's The Sleeper, it'll certainly be a while before we can be persuaded to knock around with other people's music again.

meanwhile, the cover artwork is a cover itself.
it's based on this classic Maxell add, featuring supercool Bauhaus frontman Pete Murphy




our image features myself under the dust covers, and was put together in the space of three hours by Solange Leon de Iriarte
hope you enjoy them both, james
 

nothing Halloween related here folks - just news that back we go to the land of gourmet foods, parking fines and pigeons.
been a while since we've been up the Smoke, so there'll be a few additions to those who've come to see us before.

we're also ably supported by
Left With Pictures

"Using a range of instruments, equipment and sounds - from Gregorian plainchant to electronic tape loops - the band feature three tenor voices and the occasional Kazoo and create what the trio describe as "Claude Debussy on a shoestring budget." - THE GUARDIAN
http://www.myspace.com/leftwithpictures

and
Vadoinmessico

who don't have a handy Guardian quote for you, but are also vry good indeed judging by their myspace;

www.myspace.com/vadoinmessicoband

hope you can make it into the heart of disgraced banker-land, EC1 to the Slaughtered Lamb Tuesday night. it promises to be a great night if only for the wonderful supports, but we'll try and put on something special for you too
tickets here

http://vimeo.com/4765181

Chestnut Sunday recorded in Austin the day after South By South West finished. The squeaking you can hear in the background is the sound of millions of bats about to leave for the night's hunting. Cue hundreds of ill-judged puns about Bat For Lashes, A Bat Out Of Hell, Bat For Good etc...... Plenty more songs on the Wasp page on Vimeo

The Miserable Rich tour diary May/June 2009 Germany, Austria, Holland and France

 

Day 1

Well, outside of the band a few strange things have been happening – let’s just say people are not always what you think they are…

Rhys, James and myself had a lovely flight to Frankfurt and a bit of a kerfuffle getting to Hazelwood central, but eventually got there to meet up with Mike and Will to eat a lovely Thai meal.      

Tonight we had the night off so we played Weetabix – probably the best card game in the world – sponsored by a well-known breakfast cereal which contains some wheat…

 

Day 2

I’ve been so excited about this tour I found it impossible to read the last Sons of Noel and Adrian tour diary through sheer jealousy. Note to self: jealousy is not healthy…

First gig of the tour was in Marburg supported by the lovely Kenneth Minor (Hazelwood) now sporting guitarist and American Steve. Their guitarist did some really cool stuff with slide, and pedals tremolo and volume. Steve did some cool stuff playing bass and hi-hat simultaneously.

Pre-show we talked politix with Steve – general slating those whacky tripped out politicians – if the current expenses “crisis” wasn’t so laughable it’d probably turn me homicidal. We discussed the Hutton enquiry and how the nation was bullshitted to on quite a big scale. Anyway enough small talk…

The gig was lovely – really good for a first show of a tour as opposed to the usual first night nerves syndrome.  We stayed up at the hotel bar and the boys drew biro tattoos on my arms of a wolf and a chicken, or something.

 

Day 3

Second show was in Dresden. I have to say I felt ridiculously self-conscious on stage tonight and generally had my first night nerves on the second night. Post-show Mike and me worked on our new cover – Abba’s “I believe in Angels” with a twist of doing it in a Zorba the Greek stylee starting slow and speeding up stupidly fast. Mike plays mandolin on it which seems to add to the Greek-ness. More cards, beer and thankfully bed.

 

Day 4

 

Awoke from slightly traumatic dreams containing bits of human flesh lying around everywhere – I must be a psychotherapist’s wet dream.

 

The drive to Nurenburg should’ve taken two hours but ended up taking six due to a series of a RTAs (road traffic accidents). It was a joy to arrive at Muz Club safe and with lots of games to play. I particularly like this Velcro dart board with balls for darts – great! “Eric you require forty…” etc.

We played this outside in the warm summer air and chatted to some of the Great Bertollinis.

Tonight’s show was absolutely lovely and could not even be tarnished by my shit-joke telling. I told my semi-legendary Simpsons joke to a silent response. I tried to make up for it by saying “They loved that one in Manchester…” James’ joke/story telling fared infinitely better – he’s good…he’s very good.

It seems each time we come to Nurnburg things get a bit silly, i.e. we get a leetle beet drunk and tonight was in no uncertain terms the very same. We ended up in a bar were there was an open mic. I played for about an hour – Like a Rolling a Stone, Another Brick in the Wall, I Believe in Angels and many, many more. It was fun. A lovely night all round.

 

Day 5

Being somewhat hungover we drove the five-hour journey to, oh, Vienna. It’s been so sunny and lovely on this tour. Last time we were in Vienna it was snowing but now it’s super-hot – extremes in temperatures – something to do with being far in-land or something.

Canada’s Caroline Keating was supporting tonight, playing the lovely grand piano – she is a very talented singer/songwriter and when she eventually records her debut album we’re all certain it will be amazing.

Before the show scanning Haus Der Musik’s concert programme it described James as “Mastermind De Malplaquet”. However, it turns out when translated the article was actually suggesting James’ specialist subject on Mastermind would be, err, The Miserable Rich…  Okay so that last sentence is a lie, but someone’s gotta keep our impressionable egos in check here, right? 

Tonight’s show was officially “sold-out” – ah, those magic words. Lovely audience and a hugely enjoyable show.  Great to see so many familiar faces.

We stayed up in the hotel with Caroline and friends, and a metal band from Munich called Apron. Another late night, but being a rock’n’roll hotel breakfast goes on till midday – woo-ho!

 

Day 6

After me nearly losing a video camera worth “quite a lot of money” our lovely Austrian booker Tom took us round Vienna. We were all a bit jaded but found a lovely elephant statue and just enjoyed being there. 

So out of the city and on to the small town of Steyr at the foot of some of Austria’s fabulous mountains. The venue was in one of those commune type places – lovely and rustic, graffiti, wood, table football and next to a beautiful greeny-blue coloured river – the water of which is so pure it’s drinkable.

Amazing hospitality from our lovely hosts too – this place was kinda heavenly. We were not expecting massive amounts from the show but it turned out the audience were awesome – cries of “schön!” and “Yaaaahhhh!” after each song made us feel great. When we were leaving the stage one local gentlemen got up and gave us each a kiss. We did two encores in the end as the crowd were so wonderfully persistent finishing with Golden Brown. T’was a magic show indeed…

Post-show we shared our card game with some of our new friends from Steyr but it turned out they knew the game anyway and showed us a thing or two about how to play…

 

Day 7

Awaking at our lovely retreat I had a touch of fear since we’d decided we’d go swimming in the river this morning. As beautiful as it looked, rumours were the water was “quite cold”. Nervously we stripped down to our shorts and tentatively took it in turns to enter the unknown. Well, I don’t like to swear but “Fuuuuccckkkk!!!” is the only appropriate way to describe how insanely cold it was. Once all in Carsten was to photograph us preferably before we died of hypothermia. He told us to “stop shaking…” for the camera but my survival instincts were just too strong - even for the sake of great art.

We hit the road for the five–hour journey to Dornbirn through some of the most glorious scenery. In blazing sunshine we passed beautiful lush green and snow-capped mountains – awesome and then some…

We played a lovely, big theatre type venue with a massive stage and big sound. Again another lovely audience and a really good performance - I think we’re getting quite good at being consistent - not to blow our collective trumpet or anything. Some people we’d met last year in Rorschach were there too – I think James confused them by over-complimentary comments about their looks.

Backstage we were all getting a bit silly and decided to make the “best sandwich in the world” causing great excitement all round – it turned into a real Scooby-snack – enormous, but was quickly polished off.

At the hotel there were stuffed beavers or otters ornamentally in reception. Now, it has to be said we like a pun or two, frankly if it wasn’t for puns we’d have nothing – our lives would be an empty, vacuous, desert of an existence...Every so often a pun comes along so good, so powerful it blows our minds… So there are these otters or beavers in reception and Mike from out of the skies plucks the words: “Yeah, but they don’t give a dam…”

Okay, so it’s not much but that’s all we got – keeps me going anyway…

 

   

  

  

 

 

 

          

 

     

      

 

 

 

      

 

  

     

 

Hullo there time-travellers,

taking a little break while mixing the next album to give you a little nod 

about a mini-extra-special-tinie-tiny-release we have just had on iTunes.

as some may know, much of the first album was was essentially our

Miserabley Rich orchestrations and arrangements of songs which had

been, at various times, my solo acoustic electronica project -

James Grape (some people still believe this to be my real name,

but if you had a surname as difficult to spell as mine, you'd have a

nickname too) - and my and Will's alt-rock band interpretations of

those songs as The Grape Authority.

some of the songs changed a great deal (North Villas), some were

written as we recorded the album ('secret' track Lullaby of Death),

and some were written together with the band (Poodle). There 

were also quite a few where we kept the arrangement and augmented

it with a pronounced string section, written by the incomparable and

highly in-demand messrs Calderbank and Siddell.

a lot of the early stuff, i must confess, leaves me hot of face and flushed

with embarrassment. it had all been mooted for release by Brighton's 

Skint records, home to one Fatboy Slim you may remember (very polite 

man, and one who people kept asking me if i had sung for when he 

released Praise You, but sadly i never got asked - bloody good video mind). 

thankfully, a combination of slacker tendencies, chequered love-life and 

fairly serious substance abuse meant that i never delivered esrtwhile 

Midfield General, then label boss and all-round lovable Arsenal fan Damian 

(gunner) Harris the album. my face could have been redder if i had - 

but the errors of my ways during this period keep me from completely

saving grace.

nevertheless, there are one or two tracks i still like from this time, and

those folks at iTunes who were kind enough to make us single of the week

back at the end of last year have decided to put out a couple of these versions.

the ep (is two tracks really an ep?) goes under the title Grape Authority versions,

but it's essentially the James Grape stuff without the electronica - and with Simon

James from My Little Problem on cello ( i hadn't started working with big Will

'man with two hands' Calderbank at that stage, and was also playing with Simon

in the Bonobo live band) and one of my best friends, Shaun Young adding some

of the guitar.

it's now up there on the UK iTunes should you feel in a completist mood and have 

£1.58 burning a whole in your debit card. weird price, eh?

what you get is a pretty raw country version of our blues-love-song-about-

the-music-industry ex-set opener Monkey, and a stripped down but jaunty take

on working-every-day-for-the-rest-of-your-life ditty, The Time That's Mine.

many reminiscences leak through my cortex as i listen to them, but i must say,

they're not too bad. it's nice that that time in my life and the songs' lives are remembered

- and, y'know what? i quite like them.

maybe you will too

cheers now.

time to eat some cheese.

double mature, of course.

james miserable (neé grape)

also available at Amazon.com, i've just noticed

a big "HULLO" from all at Miserable HQ,

how have you been?
it's been a little while and we hope you haven't felt neglected.
the reason for the news-gap is mostly, but not only, a busy recording and performing schedule.
that and drinking and playing too many card games.

there is, however, good news (!).

not only have we recorded a new album, but there is a bonus ep of covers nearly ready too.
we are still deciding when to release the new album, but the ep of covers should be available in the next couple of months.
it's almost certainly going to be free (in digital format), so, although we have promised to send out new covers regularly to you folks, and then 'not-quite-been-as-efficient-as-we'd-like', you will still get them all in the end.

sorry - we hope that makes up for our slight slackness.
if not, well here's a free remix of a popular song from the first album - Muswell -
courtesy for the rather excellent Chicken Feed.
you can find him in our myspace friends.
just click this link and download!
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=T3M7AO9V

and while you wait for those new releases to be announced,
you can hear the new songs and covers, as well as some older favourites,
on our next continental tour, next month, supported by FM4, GoTV and ByteFM.
we will be playing in Austria, Germany, Netherlands (hopefully) and for the very first time in France
- where our album is only just being released.

do come along and see us if you can -
and thanks for your support on our last dates away from home -
where, to our surprise, tickets sold out in advance of the shows and everyone seemed to know the words.
maybe book in advance if you want to be sure of catching us.
tickets are on sale now.

here's where we're playing-

18.05.2009 DE - Marburg, Kulturladen KFZ
19.05.2009 DE - Dresden, Socitaetstheater
20.05.2009 DE - Nürnberg, MUZclub
21.05.2009 AT - Wien, Haus der Musik
22.05.2009 AT - Steyr, Röda
23.05.2009 AT - Dornbirn, Spielboden
24.05.2009 DE - Stuttgart, Laboratorium
25.05.2009 AT - Salzburg, argeKultur
26.05.2009 DE - München, Rote Sonne
28.05.2009 DE - Hannover, Feinkostlampe
29.05.2009 NL - tba
30.05.2009 NL - tba
31.05.2009 DE - Beverungen, Orange Blossom Special (w/ Get Well Soon, I Am Kloot, Maria Taylor and more)
01.06.2009 FR - Paris, Le Nouveau Casino

hope to see you there

in the meantime, you can catch up on our adventures in the US in March in some of the video we made out there-
black cab sessions
(a very hot day in Texas)
wasp video 1
(jamming with UK labelmate Denis Jones on a balcony in NYC)
wasp video 2
(failing to earn any money on the streets of NYC)
wasp video 3
(and finally playing a proper show on St Patrick's Day, NYC)

we promise to bring the whole furious five on tour with us this time
so you'll be getting a full 25% better value than the Americans did.
hurrah!

i'd also like to recommend one of my favourite bands, personal friends, and fellow Willkommen collective founders
Sons of Noel and Adrian
who are on tour in Germany from today.
They are an awesome band live, (and not just because they feature two of our band, Mike and Will, on strings.)
The tour dates are up on their myspace page
and i know they are playing at our German label home,
Hazlewood's Yellowstage in Frankfurt this Friday 17th April.
Show them a good time, won't you?

till next May then, have a fab month,
and don't drink all the beers before we get there

james x
miserable 1

Fellow weather watchers,

with Jim tucked up in bed with throat lurgee -
his computer resides in the coldest room in the building, entered only by the most intrepid surfer in the central heating months (that's September to July in the UK)
- and our attempts to tap in a regular blog looking faintly pathetic, i thought i'd have another go at my occasional blog on Love songs.
(well, it will be occasional once i've written this second part.)

in the last part, i mentioned how it was typical of songwriters to write about sex and love. bread and butter was a phrase tossed about like breadcrumbs.
today i'll write about something in-between.

lust.

the barmaid's canon was so named because it seemed to me that everyone has fallen in lust with a barmaid or barman at some time in their lives. i am no exception.

tricky one, that definition, mind.
it certainly IS lust, but when you can't speak properly, can feel you heart in you throat (and the stomach, ah, that knotty stomach), it's not just plain old bawdy desire, is it?

actually, i think i have a plausible explanation for that.
a friend of mine told me that she had fallen in love with her first major boyfriend because he didn't say very much. as a very well-read young lady of passion and imagination, it was very easy for her to use his silence as a blank canvas on which to paint her image of perfect love.

now i believe the 'strong silent-type' so beloved of fortune tellers and Mills and Boon novels is about mystery and self-reliance. in this case, however, my friend discovered that this wasn't the case with her lover. his silence was just an indication of there being nothing much going on in there. nothing wrong with that - some of the nicest people are some of the simplest, and there's many a complex pain in the ass - but for her this was such a shock to discover that she was too embarrassed to speak to him for the next five years.

when you have a crush on someone you don't know, there's also a blank canvas. you can build their personality anyway you choose, and tailor it to your image of perfection. that's why your heart beats so strongly as you pass them by, or - heaven help you - they smile at you.
you imagine their interior landscape to be as attractive and desirable as their outer shell is to you. and that can be pretty powerful stuff, as you no doubt know.

probably why it's often a terrible disappointment when you finally get to talk.
ah, expectation, you weighty bastard.

anyway, back to the story at hand.

my barmaid - let's call her 'R' - worked in a pub in Brighton - let's call it 'the S-W'.
dark, beautiful, exotic, mysterious and bestowed of a fine figure and funky dress-sense, she inspired in me - and not me alone i am sure - all the jaw-dropping, stammering, shaking emotions you might expect of a teenager with a crush on their teacher.

not knowing her, i was able to pin on her the greatest of intellect, bounteous knowledge, limitless patience, tenderest sensitivity, and of course a very dirty mind.

she would smile at me, i'm sure, when i entered the pub.
when i turned round, i was sure i caught her looking away.
friends didn't seem to notice this - a lesbian friend in particular was sure she was 'family' - but i convinced myself it was true.

the pub at that time was always jockeying for position with my shared flat as to which was my real home, and this attraction weighed heavily in favour of the boozer. i tried time and again to speak to 'R', and time and again courage failed, until....

well, one day enough was enough. i can't remember my exact approach, but i do know that i managed to get out a strangled invitation to go for a drink sometime, somewhere.
R smiled, batted her great eyelashes, and replied with the immortal line
"Thank you, but I'm being celibate at the moment."

i was crushed of course.
such a build up.
such a line.

friends laughed, and in time i grew to do the same.
in the months that followed, and as i saw the same object of my prior infatuation in pubs with other men all around town, enjoying what seemed a very busy celibacy, i learned to laugh at my own feelings too.

the song i wrote about the experience was intended as a bit of fun.
written around a run up the scale of D, i wanted it to be simple and memorable, like something from a children's musical - but also with a 'bit of blue'. a few have noticed that there might be some sauce in 'rough ride', and that 'lovely on the inside' may not be as innocent as it at first seems.

anyway, i played the song a few times as a fun singalong with my previous project, James Grape. it was fun, but it always had a bit of a 'cabaret' feel - not exactly the tone we were aiming at.

it got left behind.

until years later, when, having merely said hello to her in a computer shop - and what a heart-stopping hello that turned out to be - i fell for another stranger.

in the years that followed - yes, years- i said hello in the street to this wondrous incarnation many times. no conversation, you understand - too scary - but all the mystery, excitement and beauty to have me building up a vision of perfection in my mind once more.

somewhat older, and with a modicum more self-knowledge, i recognised what was happening this time - and remembered the old song. it went round and round in my head, as i waited each morning for this siren to pass, trying to time my walk to work to, "quite by chance", bump into her.

after a while i thought, what the hell, everyone must have felt like this sometime.
i took courage in my hand, and nervously played it to Mike, the TMR violinist.
well, he liked it - and what's more came up with not just a soaring string section, but the idea that it should be a canon, circling in on itself, ever growing in intensity, then dropping back to a few small parts. the cabaret was broken.

we recorded it, and i personally loved it.
jim, who'd just joined the band, loved it too - he even said it reminded him of Spiritualised, but i can't really see that and can't say i'd feel comfortable in such exalted company.

nevertheless, it gave me courage anew - and one drunken night in the pub, i decided to send it to the object of my desire ( i had managed to get her email in a manner not really befitting a gentleman. i'm not proud of it, but faint heart never won fair maiden as my gran would say).

i thought, well, if it doesn't work, at least i can say that i sent someone beautiful something i'm proud of.
at least i tried.

well, i don't know what happened to 'R'.
i saw her with a stable boyfriend after a while, and i'm pretty sure she had a baby and moved away. i hope she's happy, whoever she is and whoever she will be.
and her little one is, i'm sure, one fantastic reason for her and i never to have got to square one.

and for me there is another fantastic reason.
the girl in the street, the girl i sent the song to?
well, she just left my flat ten minutes ago.

we both were smiling.

i'll put the song up on our page, so if you haven't heard it, you can give it a listen.
and when we get back from that big country across the way there, i'll have another go at occasional blog writing.

james x