Hello, everybody,
It's been a great few months for us at JBC Central. As we may have mentioned before, we were overwhelmed by your swiftness and generosity in supporting our fundraising campaign for the new record. We're pleased with the way that copies have been making their way out of the door as well, which, at the very least, affords Fishy an airing once in a while on his trips to the Post Office. We have sold copies in the UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Greece, Spain, Sweden, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and the USA.
If you don't yet have a copy of our new album you can order a CD or download from www.cdbaby.com or from www.maxeider.com by using the buttons below. The album is also available on iTunes.
We enjoyed brief, surreal trip to Japan, playing to lovely, knowledgeable audiences and meeting the charming Stuart Moxham, who, as part of Young Marble Giants, had been a profound influence on us when we were but youths.
While Max holed up in his Northern fortress, Pat gamely rode the Eurostar to Brussels to play an electric set to a gaggle of sophisticats in a concrete basement and negotiated the mysteries of online check-in for a flight to Germany, where he played some solo shows and joined up with Paul Wallfisch, Thomas Truax and Markus Maria Jansen for concerts in Hamburg and Dortmund under the spurious "supergroup" handle of The Almost Has Beens. It's all been most enjoyable.
We have plans for one or two UK appearances later in the year.
What we are now looking for is engagements for Pat and Max, performing as a duo, in Germany, Belgium, France and the USA.
Now, a word of warning is in order here. We really are seeking only professional, paid gigs in venues where people come to listen to music, rather than rock out and riot or, indeed, spend the evening enjoying a nice chat with their friends. Whereas a band can compete with a noisy room, two ageing nutters on stools are best enjoyed in a somewhat more…uh…sedate environment.
It's easy to be tempted into trying to do a DIY job of putting on your favourite band in your local venue. "How hard can it be?" is the seductive question. The cruel answer is: "Harder than you think."
It's not just a question of paying two old lunatics for sitting around playing songs. We have to pay our travel expenses and we need some sort of vaguely civilised accommodation. (We are, to be honest, getting a bit too old and fragile for kipping on our friends' floors!) We need fed and watered too, and we need some razor wire to keep Fishy safe from the enraged "smoke-free" fundamentalists.
While we have, over the years, occasionally enjoyed brilliant DIY nights organised by fans in their local bar, the truth is that the live music game can be very hard these days and we don't want to see people who like us losing money. So while we are in no way "against" DIY gigs, we do urge that you make sure that you know exactly what you're doing. Do feel free to e-mail us if you have any questions.
Our main hope is that one or two of you lovely people out there will actually have connections to a club or a promoter who might be interested in putting us on and that you might be able to point us in their direction, or, indeed, point them in ours.
If you want to make some enquiries, send us a message at www.facebook.com/jazz.butcher.official or e-mail us at tundraducks[at]-remove-btinternet.com
All suggestions gratefully received, folks.
Best regards,
Pat & Max
Thu Mar 21 10:52:16 PDT 2013
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