Stadium gig this Saturday

We’ve just been invited back to London Road Stadium to play in front of a sell-out crowd of 12,000 people this Saturday afternoon before the Peterborough United Vs Swindon match. 

Peterborough United, who were promoted last May from League Two, have just achieved a consecutive promotion and so next season will be playing in the Championship. They wanted a party atmosphere and so they called on us! And we shall deliver.

We have an interesting history with PUFC, A.K.A. “The Posh”, with whom we released a charity single last year in aid of local organisation Free Kicks, which sets up days out in sport for sick and disadvantaged the children. The single raised a ton of cash and even reached #45 in the iTunes Plus Top 100. We were then invited to perform at the closing match of the season and, subsequently, at a pre-season friendly against Manchester United a few months later. Click here to read up on our adventures at Posh on the Tour Diary page.

We are already in talks with the club with regard to playing in the stadium more regularly during the ’09-’10 season. Watch this space for updates…

And congratulations to the Posh for a second promotion in a row!

Goring Unplugged – Goring-on-Thames – 24/04/09

Some guys have all the luck

So, somebody told me this story today and I decided I had to pass it on.

The story comes from a Radio 2 DJ who apparently told it on air this morning. It is 100% true.

There’s this dude, OK, who’s really into Harley Davidsons. He’s a fanatic. He’s owned a particularly beautiful Harley most of his life and has kept it in mint condition. He loves this machine.

One day he decides to expand and get a side-car. ‘Course, he doesn’t want any old side-car – he wants a Harley side-car, the real deal. After weeks of phoning around dealers in the UK he discovers that the only place he’ll find what he wants is America. Cue another lengthy process of calling around dealers in the States. Eventually he finds a company who have what he’s looking for. A genuine HD side-car, ready for exporting.

The American chap on the other end of the phone asks the guy a few questions about his bike, including the chassis number. He says he needs to go away and make a few enquiries and then, mysteriously, proceeds to call back every twenty minutes or so with more questions – “What colour is it?”, “When did you buy it?”, “How much did it cost?”, “Who sold it to you?” and so on. Our protagonist is nonplussed. Did they really need to know all this stuff just to sell him a side-car?

A couple of hours later he receives his final call from the American dealer.

“Go and look underneath the seat on your bike sir. There’s something there I think you’re gonna want to see.” 

Still none the wiser, the Harley enthusiast goes outside to where his bike is waiting on the drive and lifts up the seat. Underneath a message is inscribed into the metal: “To Elvis, from Johnny Cash.”

A week later he sells the bike for three and a half million quid.

Yikes.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to lift up the bonnet of my Peugeot 106 to look for the following inscription: “To Celine Dion, all my love forever, Rick Astley”.

LYs to tour East Coast USA

This summer we will be returning to America to play three states – New York City, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

On Thursday 30 July we’ll be playing the “Summer In The Square” series in Union Square, Manhattan. This will be followed on Saturday 1 August by a headline show at Milkboy Coffee in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, and an afternoon performance at Burlington Amphitheatre in New Jersey on Sunday 2 August. For full details visit the GIGS page.

Whilst in the USA we are also hoping to secure a slot on WXPN radio’s legendary “Free At Noon” broadcast at the World Cafe in Philadelphia. This is an incredibly prestigious show – recent performers include Gomez, Damien Rice and Adele and the broadcast goes out to a national audience of several million people. We performed live on Matt Reilly’s WXPN show back in 2007 and so the next step up is to be part of the station’s weekly live concert. Here’s the fun though – YOU can help us secure the slot by visiting the WXPN website and requesting our track “Sleepless” for airplay on the station. Click here to visit the WXPN website and request “Sleepless”! It’ll totally rock our world if you do, we promise.

This will be our fourth visit to the USA and we’re excited to be seeing our US fans again. Click here to read my tour diary from our last Stateside visit.

Whatever happened to the rockstars?

Sean Adams, editor of the website DrowedInSound, claimed in a Sunday Times article yesterday that today’s “rockstars” are a pale, diluted imitation of their ’60s and ’70s forebears, “hopping into bed with the media, the Man and the Establishment” to inflate their own fame, ticking the boxes of rebellion rather than actually rebelling, seeking attention and notoriety for its own sake rather than plugging the cause of the avant-garde and using their music to change the world.

D’you know, I think he has a point. Winehouse is a formidable vocalist but as a rockstar she’s a bit of a shambles. The Libertines were ground-breaking but since their split Doherty has essentially been clumsily resuscitating his rockstar status by crashing in and out of rehab (as well as in and out of bed with Miss Moss) and smacking up in public. Martin and Bono promote admirable causes but they’re not exactly revolutionaries – everybody agrees that Fair Trade is a good thing and so the pair of them are really just mouth-pieces for the liberal middle-classes.

These days the term “rockstar” is applied as often to comedians (such as Brand and Boosh) and politicians (OK, perhaps only Obama gets this particular treatment) as it is to musicians and as a result the epithet is beginning to lose its meaning, argues Adams. When will a new breed of musical renegade step in to fill the shoes of legends gone by? And, more importantly, will the desperate, profit-seeking music industry allow them to shine?

As for The Lightyears, well, I wouldn’t want to appear hypocritical and we are certainly doing everything we can to keep the rockstar spirit alive. Last week I stayed up past midnight TWICE and one of those times I didn’t even brush my teeth before bedtime. 

Live the dream people. Live the dream.

Rare LYs track used on Philadelphia compilation

An extremely rare live version of Lightyears track “Inside Job” has been included on a compilation album released this week in Philadelphia, USA.

The album is called “Milkboy Live Vol. 1” and comprises eleven live tracks recorded over the last two years at the Milkboy Coffee venue in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. Milkboy was one of the first venues we sold out on the East Coast and has featured in every single one of our American tours since. Click here to visit my USA tour diaries and read up on our past adventures at Milkboy.

The release also feaures The Brakes, Jim Boggia and the late Robert Hazard, the Philadelphia legend who wrote Cyndi Lauper’s hit single “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, in one of his last recorded live performances.

The Milkboy website says of The Lightyears involvement in the project: “We were glad to include these British lads. They came to us all the way from England, where they were voted best pop/rock band at the first ever UK INDY Awards in 2007. They have great elements of pop in their quirky style of rock and roll. They come complete with 3-part harmonies and a drummer that stands up to play. What’s great about this tune is that you won’t catch them playing this anywhere else. After selecting the song, we found out from the band that this is an early version of a song that went on to become something completely different. The Lightyears agreed after a listen that the tune was rocking. Thanks to the guys for giving us the exclusive track, ‘Inside Job’.”

In fact, “Inside Job” was a re-working of “We Keep The Beat Alive” from our 2005 album Mission Creep. It eventually became the track “That Was Us”, which features on our 2009 album London, England (click here to visit the LYs shop where both albums are available now priced £4 and £5 respectively).

“Milkboy Live Vol. 1” is available now for $7 (around £4.80) from the Milkboy website – click here to visit the store. You can also purchase it as a download from iTunes.