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25 August 2009 And don't forget you can download the proper recorded version of that song for free (sort of!), from this very website, if you haven't already. Wooo-wooooo! Two days later, of course, we were back in Sheffields playing in front of ten people – but Eux Autres were glorious and Standard Fare excellent despite the flu robbing them of their key asset in Emma the singist. There was something radiant and fine about it all, despite or perhaps because of the big contrast with Indietracks. Across all of that loveliness falls the dark shadow of the news that Rob is being forced to quit the Juggernaut because the Man says he has to leave Sheffields. And of all the destinations his job has to take our marvellous hi-fivin' drummer to, where does it have to be? That's right – chuffing Grimsby! I've told him at least he can come and watch some high-class fourth division football with me, but somehow it failed to cheer him up. Any road, we've spoken to a new drummer and it all looks quite positive, but I don't wanna tell you any more than that yet in case something goes horribly wrong. Our last gig with Rob is this Saturday but there are still solo popshows going on while we get the replacement trained up – keep your eye on the gigs page for details. Lastly for now, it's not quite to do with the band but you might still be interested, I've just made my first ever zine! It's mostly about indiepop (articles about Horowitz, Stuart Indietracks, Jam on Bread, The Deirdres, Sarah Records) but there's a bit of other stuff in there too. People have said some very kind things about it, and some of them aren't even me! If you want a copy, order from Caramel (or Fraction Discs for those of a Scandinavian complexion).Sorry, I've got to go to bed now. I'm knackered. Ni-night!
6 July 2009 As if all that were not excitement enough for one lifetime, we're heading down to Bristol this weekend to do two things: record a session for Rocker at Dandelion Radio and play on a stunning line-up at the Big Pink Cake weekender (it looks brilliant: a sort of Queen's to Indietracks' Wimbledon). We'll have to let you know more about this later, like which songs we're recording and when it'll go out, because at the moment we have no more idea than you! And at the end of this month, if we haven't dropped dead from all the excitement and heat, we're playing a sort of Indietracks warm-down show to an adoring home crowd in Sheffield, just after the festival, with the amazing line-up of Standard Fare and Eux Autres! Hit the gigs page for more details. Eeeeeee!
1 July 2009 The first thing I have to tell you is that I have done an interview with A Layer of Chips fanzine-turned-webzine about this month's Indietracks festival (and indeed Indietracks festivals of the past). It should give you a nice, rounded view of what to expect in Butterley in three and a half weeks' time. In just a week a so, meanwhile, you'll be able to download 'Hey Dr Beeching' from this site – and there might still be another surprise to come in connection with that, so if you're not already on the mailing list, get yersen signed up now and be among the first to find stuff out! That's all for now but there will be more soon.
10 June 2009 So what's been a-happening? The Mariners stayed up. We've worked up a Juggernaut version of 'Where The Music Still Plays', the nice song I debuted solo at the Indiepop All-dayer in Nottingham last November. The Mariners stayed up. I've written a piece about trains, stations and popshows for a beautiful zine called Intercity Baby '09 (buy a copy from Caramel and pick up a few other goodies while you're about it). The Mariners stayed up. We played some popshows in Sheffield, Nottingham and Leeds. And did I mention about the Mariners staying up? But what's a-happening next? I'll a-tell you. The Pete Green Corporate Juggernaut are releasing 'Hey Dr Beeching' as a free download to coincide with our appearance at next month's Indietracks festival. Woooo-wooooo! Yeah. I've just been back over to Stoke to resume work on the recordings we started last year, and 'Beeching' is all mixed and just needs mastering and it sounds proper lovely. So watch this space! And if you're not already on the mailing list, join now and you'll be among the first to hear when the track becomes available. Also next month, we're heading to lovely Bristol for a couple of nights – first to record a session for Rocker at the redoubtable Dandelion Radio, and thence to perform on Saturday afternoon at the Big Pink Cake weekender. More details can be had on the gigs page. Cross your fingers for us that the train doesn't get stuck for several hours outside Birmingham in a flood this time! Amid all this Juggernautery there are some solo gigs coming up too: in Nottingham on 28 June and, remarkably, at the Moseley Folk Festival in Birmingham in September. Yeah, I know, but if St Etienne count as folk then I'm sure I can just about pass. It looks very much like I'll be on at the same time as the amazing Rose Elinor Dougall on the other stage, which would be a major gah factor, but I guess I could always catch up with her later to ask for haircare tips. So, if we don't see you in Hull this Friday there'll be plenty of other chances (you'd best hit the gigs page now and make sure you know about them all, really). Bye for now!
30 March 2009 Oooh! Also! The day after we play in Nottingham in April, I'm DJ-ing at another popshow, also in Nottingham. This is a very good thing because as everyone knows, playing records makes DJs loads more ace and cool and sexy than the people who actually make the records in the first place and, and just better, right. The DJ-ing gig is on Saturday 25 April, at a place called Sumac where anarchists live, apparently, and the bands are The Motifs, The Crayon Fields and Heptagons, who are ace, but clearly not as ace as me, cos I'm a DJ, me, yeah. Come and join in my polymath weekender! To date I have found two videos from the Juggernaut's set from last month's fabulous London Popfest: this one of 'It's Gonna Happen Soon' and this one of 'She's an Accountant'. Sound: good! Hair: very good! And, as Dan the Bass pointed out to me the other day, they are both better than the vids of us from last year's Indiepop Alldayer in Nottingham because on the London ones we don't look like we're all about to die. And finally, in other amusing video-related news, I noticed the other night, while Googling myself furiously, that the video search on the NME website turned up a result that might be embarrassing to the NME if they had any sense of shame whatsoever. I tittered to myself and made a mental note to write about it here the next time I did an update. Unfortunately the same search, for whatever reason, no longer turns up that result.
1 March 2009 So, hello to any of you who may be here for the first time after seeing us at London Popfest. It was a wonderful way to get back on the live scene, and no, just to clarify, we hadn't been practising the whole time we were away – we only had three practices and they were just in the last two or three weeks – so if we sounded good it must have been some sort of outrageous fluke. For those who weren't there, we managed to debut a new song, 'Tear Down the Daily Mail', which was satisfying. Hmm, and if you are here for the first time, or if you're here for the first time and you haven't joined the Juggernaut mailing list, why not join the Juggernaut mailing list?
14 January 2009 Warm and slightly moist thanks are due to all of you who voted 'Best British Band Supported by Shockwaves' to number 30 in the 2008 Festive Fifty on Dandelion Radio. Thanks! Especially since I didn't even have to ask you. If you haven't already bought the Platform Zero EP, please consider doing so now on the back of this stunning endorsement for its third track! The vote represents a gain of seven places since 'Everything I Do is Gonna Be Sparkly' made it into the 2007 list, so if my progress towards dominance of the Fifty continues at the same rate then by 2023 I will have morphed into some kind of hideous Mark E Smith/David Gedge hybrid. Speaking of Dandelion Radio, the Juggernaut have been invited to record a session for the station's ace DJ Rocker, and to play another gig in Bristol while we're down there. Woohoo! I bloody love Bristol, me. It's lovely. Rob and Dan are already blasphemously demanding non-rail travel after their admittedly protracted journey there from Sheffield last time – which was one of the more stressful preparations during last year's Collapsed Soufflé Tour, but the audience were so utterly wonderful that it hardly seemed to matter. Although I guess it's easy for me to say that, since I got there from London in barely any time at all. Anyway! I'll let you know more when we know when. There might be something in Birmingham soon-ish too. A popshow, I mean, not a city council that no longer puts superficial flashiness ahead of functionality and sustainability in all its planning decisions. And speaking of Birmingham, I don't think I've mentioned this on here yet, but about three months ago I started a blog to reissue, in mp3 form, the posthumous compilation album Effortless by my old band The Regulars. If you've been following my musical non-career since way back then, and remember the songs or even own Effortless, you might be interested in the new commentary that I'm writing, with reminiscences about playing and recording and writing the songs and the Birmingham indie scene of the late 1990s and early 2000s. If you've only ever heard my solo and Juggernaut stuff, then listen with fresh ears and see what you reckon. I'm posting one song every week (usually on Tuesday nights, for no good reason at all). Finally for the time being... December's now-annual flurry of internet airplay for 'Everything's Dead Pretty When it Snows' seems to have resulted in the song being used in a computer game (or a level of a computer game) with the magnificent title of Aggressive Alleys; but right now my favourite digital repurposing of one of my songs is this:
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