March 15, 2011

Johnny Foreigner Third Record Underway, Plotting Single, Tour, Chicanery

Johnny Foreigner -- There When You Need It
We haven't had adequate time to keep readers apprised of the goings-on of our top-serious favorite band since publishing a review of their excellent but exhaustingly titled EP here in November. Sure there was the Stagecoach split single, and various YouTuberies. But what has Johnny Foreigner been up to the last several months? The big news is the Birmingham, England-based noise-pop titans are in the midst of recording its third full-length, according to this post at Formspring. Johnny Foreigner are producing the as-yet-untilted set themselves, which we in indie rock call "doing the Fugazi." Another Formspring post states that the band will issue the first single from the pending collection in mid-April; as there has been no other announcement or plan for pre-orders, we're guessing this will be a digital single.

Record No. 3 is being created with the help (we presume of the engineering variety) of Sunset Cinema Club fronter Dom James, who has recorded a number of JoFo b-sides over the years. Off the top of our heads we know that Mr. James recorded the two songs released in the .zip file titled Johnny Foreigner Is Aces released in Feb. 2009, but we think he may have also recorded the tracks for the fabled Johnny Foreigner/Sunset Cinema Club split single released on Laundrette Recording Company in 2007 with the 3-D sleeve art. According to Twitter the band recently "re-amped" the guitars for a Deftones-styled guitar attack, which apparently is going to be polarizing? There will likely be grand piano, and as of early February drums had already been tracked on five songs.

Based on a lengthy blog post from February in which fronter Alexei Berrow disclosed the plan for the next record's album art, there are at least 15 songs being considered for the new collection, or at least the new collection and its attendant b-sides. Considering the band sorta cleared the decks of unofficial releases in February with the release of the digital EP There When You Need It, we wonder whether that is going to be 15 all-new tracks. That would be sort of amazing, but not unlike our heroes, who have churned out an abundance of songs during the last five years, more songs than most bands probably ever write ever. Right?

In the time-honored manner of How Things Art Done, Johnny Foreigner have plotted a tour of the UK in April, which you'll notice is right around the time we are supposed to be seeing the new single. Makes you excited, right? Remember during the last album cycle when you tore yourself away from listening to the Projekt A-ko record long enough to dig on "Feels Like Summer?" We're sure Johnny Foreigner has one like that sitting up their sleeves. The dour, soulful and largely unamplified tracks of recent months are wonderful, but we feel a rock song coming on. We feel it. Tour dates are below, as are embeds and buy links for the tunes on There When You Need It. Act accordingly.



APRIL TOUR WHAT HAS NO NAME YET

04/02 -- Edinburgh -- Haddowfest
04/03 -- Edinburgh -- Haddowfest
04/18 -- Wakefield -- The Hop
04/19 -- Aberdeen -- Cafe Drummonds
04/20 -- Glasgow -- Nice n Sleazy
04/22 -- Nottingham -- Bodega Social
04/23 -- Preston -- Mad Ferret
04/24 -- Milton Keynes -- Sno Bar
04/26 -- Birmingham -- Hare & Hounds
04/27 -- Liverpool -- The Shipping Forecast
04/28 -- Manchester -- Night & Day
04/29 -- Stoke -- Underground

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