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Blitz spirit
4 June 2012
This was the view from the crowd during our headline set at the Goring & Streatley Jubilee celebrations yesterday. What a night!
During set-up and soundcheck, fears were afoot that the incessant drizzle would keep people away but, as it turns out, the age-old stiff-upper-lip Blitz spirit kicked in and a huge crowd braved the weather for an awesome night of singing and dancing.
You can’t really close a queentessentially British Jubilee celebration without playing “Hey Jude”, so we did – and here’s a video shot from the crowd.
Oh, and the street party that preceded the concert – spanning the length of the villages’ twin bridges – has been getting press as the longest in the UK. Possible Guinness world record apparently…! Read more on the ITV website.
People of Goring & Streatley, thanks for being part of one of our highlights of 2012 so far. As homecoming gigs go, I can’t imagine one much better.
*image originally posted on Twitter by Debbie Walpole, @DWTBC
Two men and a dog
16 March 2012
In case any of you were wondering, this is what a dog looks like enjoying hot-off-the-press Lightyears tracks.
I think she’s in some kind of trance.
Phoebe was the sole witness to the three days George and I just spent in his studio up in Yorkshire working on a batch of tracks for The Lightyears’ new album. You can tell the music is speaking to her from the look on her tiny little face (unlike many Jack Russells, Phoebe is a die-hard fan of diminished chords).
Meanwhile, Tony has a handful of tracks he’s been working on and there’s a rumour John is vying to fill the rest of the album with slap-bass solos, which I’m obviously very excited about. So things are shaping up…!
This album will come with an unusual bonus – a novel, about the band, by the band (well, me). Based on a true-ish story, Mockstars chronicles how The Lightyears got together, and sheds light on the people and places behind the songs.
Watch this space for updates…
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
MOCKSTARS
by Christopher Russell
Chris and George are best friends, and they want to be rockstars.
Unfortunately, a childhood spent playing in the school orchestra and listening to Jimmy Nail has left them a little fluffy round the edges, and at the age of 23 they still live with their parents and travel to gigs in a Skoda. So how do two boys-next-door from the Home Counties go about taking on the cut-throat, image-obsessed world of rock and roll?
Easy. They’re just going to have to fake it.
‘Back in the nineties, when everybody else was at illegal raves chomping ecstasy pills, what were you boys doing?’
I look at George. He shrugs.
‘Jigsaws,’ I reply.
‘We’ve got a LOT of work to do…’
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Thank you Cape Town!
6 February 2012
Thanks to the amazing crowd at this year’s Cape Town Tens gig… what a belter! Apparently it was a record attendance too. Check out this tiny video Tony shot from the back of the stage.
On the right you’ll see what it looked like from where we were standing. What a beautiful bunch. In fact, let’s face it – you okes in Cape Town are hogging all the decent genes.
Anyone who can write in and tell us where in the crowd George’s mum is standing gets a free CD*.
(*George’s mum, you can’t enter.)
Rock & Roll Jackanory
23 January 2012
Last Monday we spent the day on a Lightyears film shoot at our favourite local bar, Powder Keg Diplomacy on St John’s Hill. That’s right, I’ve got all the lingo. We were ‘on a film shoot’. We had a clapper board with our name on it, the full works.
The shoot was in two parts – 1) filming three short extracts from my upcoming Lightyears novel, Mockstars (and, in doing so, pioneering a genuinely groundbreaking new art form we like to call ‘Rock & Roll Jackanory’) and 2) filming five new live music videos.
We’re beavering away on the edits as I write, and you lot will be the first to know when there’s something to see. To keep you amused in the meantime… erm… click here to find out what my dreams look like.
Yeah? You like that? Yeah? Of course you do. Of course you do…
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16 January 2012
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16 January 2012
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16 January 2012
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11 January 2012
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Maecenas tellus dui, aliquet at pulvinar eu, fringilla sed nunc. Sed dapibus urna sed ipsum interdum rhoncus. Suspendisse nec ante et nulla ornare gravida quis quis ipsum.
Ut sagittis libero et lorem varius a cursus quam tempus. Integer et eros quis turpis scelerisque facilisis et at lacus. Donec aliquam risus vitae nisl commodo a vulputate nunc faucibus. In felis odio, lacinia non molestie sit amet, sodales sed mauris. Sed eget massa nunc.
Nulla aliquam lacinia lorem ut ultricies. Mauris posuere diam ante. Ut dictum egestas mauris. Morbi et elit non nisi gravida gravida vel vitae lectus. Nunc vel nunc leo, eget porta purus.
Cape Town – thank you and goodnight!
17 February 2011
This was the view from the stage at our headline gig on the Saturday night of this year’s Cape Town Tens rugby tournament in South Africa. It was an absolutely fantastic couple of days and we were blown away by the reception from the crowd.
My only regret is that the ten-foot gap between the band and the audience meant that any attempt at stage-diving would almost certainly have left me with a ruptured jaw. And hey, I’m up for a laugh as much as the next guy, but there’s nothing sexy about a neck brace.
Hope to see you all next year!
Our Top 20 Moments Of 2010
16 December 2010
Festive greetings to one and all!
It’s been a quieter than usual year here at Lightyears HQ, as between us we have been busy finishing a PhD, having a baby, moving to Yorkshire and writing a novel. Having said that, we’ve still found time to get up to mischief on most continents and, in celebration of this fact, we thought we’d share with you our Top 20 Moments Of 2010.
(ps. I know what you’re thinking: ‘PhDs, babies, country houses and novel writing. Does it get any more rock ‘n’ roll than that?’. Well no, it doesn’t. I mean, who needs sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll when you’ve got nappies, Aristotle and fixed-rate mortgages?).
OUR TOP TWENTY MOMENTS OF 2010 (in no particular order):
1. Supporting Eliza Doolittle and Right Said Fred at Wembley Stadium
2. Discovering our name next to Barack Obama’s on a statue outside the Table Bay Hotel in Cape Town…!
3. Performing inside an ocean liner at The Queen’s Birthday Ball in South Korea
4. Watching the sun rise over Seoul after a night on the tiles
5. The birth of Jacob Lyons, the world’s first Mini-Lightyear
6. Leaving Wembley Stadium on a fleet of Virgin limobikes!
7. ‘Come With Me’, our first major label single release (released on Universal in January)
8. Watching our good friends Jukebox The Ghost on the David Letterman Show
9. Getting a standing ovation at the Burlington Amphitheatre in New Jersey on a hot summer’s evening
10. Turning ten years old (as a band, that is)
11. Appearing on Channel Four during Celebrity Big Brother at the climax of the T-Mobile campaign
12. Headlining the Cape Town Tens in South Africa
13. Performing to two thousand people in Astoria Park, New York
14. My first offical novel-reading in a country house in Durham (you’ll get to read it soon, I promise)
15. Watching the waves crash onto the shore at Cape Point, South Africa, after a killer tour
16. Discovering our second plaque of the year on Maureen’s Porch in Riverton, New Jersey…!
17. Appearing in Saatchi & Saatchi’s ’40 Years of Nothing Is Impossible’ feature for the T-Mobile campaign
18. Reading our double-page spread in the New York Daily News
19. Finding out that live music is back on at the Clapham Grand. Put FRIDAY 25 MARCH in your diaries now…!
20. Performing our latest stadium anthem ‘This United Kingdom’ (and then Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’) to 40,000 people at Wembley on Boxing Day
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So… looking ahead to next year, we hope to see you all at the CLAPHAM GRAND for our headline show on FRIDAY 25 MARCH. More details to follow!
The first novel in The Lightyears Series, entitled ‘Mockstars’ and written by, erm, me, is nearing completion. We’re also due to return to the studio in the early part of 2011 so watch this space for fresh material coming your way very soon.
Happy New Year folks!
