Possibly my Favourite Quote

"When you have a song that becomes a part of people's lives, forever making memories, it's nothing sort of magic. It's the closest thing to immortatlity we'll ever know"

- Jon Bon Jovi

yojohnnycowpunk Video

You may recall a week or so ago I featured an interview with the creator behind yojohnnycowpunk; the album of which I contributed some drums to. Well, you lucky people can now hear one these songs, as its founder has created a video of the contributing musicians (including my good self) and some cool graphics.

The song is called Jewel of the Ocean. Enjoy!

New Artist Alert: Gemma Mewse

Photo Credit: John Patrick, London

Summer is finally upon us. The top's down on the car, the picnic blanket's out and people are relying on Radio 1 for a soundtrack to their summer. What'll the trend be this year? Do you yearn for the previous mockney-stylings of Kate Nash or Lily Allen? Or how about something similar, fresher, a true London diva? Enter Gemma Mewse, the South-London songstress who's infectious latest song 'Numpty' is currently stuck in my head.

Mewse has spent months "debuting her hard hitting, socially aware pop/rock songs" in and around London and, with her debut album planned for public consumption in the Autumn, is looking to get out on tour further afield. She's also signed up for the 2010 'Camden Crawl' Weekend thanks to her winning best new song at the ETAs. Phew, a busy girl. And definitely one to look out for.

Numpty, available to hear in full on her Myspace page, tells the tale of a cheating partner; "on your bike son, leave now, don't let the door hit you on your way-out", and gives a great flavour of her wicked voice and cheeky lyrics. It's a really funky acoustic-guitar driven track which showcases the versatility of Mewse's voice and I can hear its rousing chorus rising high above the fields of Pilton at the UK's prestiguious Glastonbury Festival (surely) next year.

You can catch Gemma on the road:

2 Jun 2010 - REGAL ROOM @THE DISTILLERS, London
17 Jun 2010 - THE LOUNGE, Bromley
2 Jul 2010 - WOODLANDS, Salisbury
7 Jul 2010 - THE HORN OF PLENTY, St Albans
8 Aug 2010 - SKYLARK SHOWGROUND, HELP FOR HEROES FESTIVAL, Cambridgeshire
10 Aug 2010 - RONNIE SCOTTS CLUB, London

Or visit her on her Myspace to hear the full-EP version of Numpty plus snippets of the other 3 tracks here.

Bon Jovi Inked Part 2 of 3 - Link Share

You can read part 2 of 3 of Glenn Osrin's Bon Jovi Inked article here. There are some more cool Jovi tats plus an excerpt of an interview between him and me about my Bon Jovi tattoo :)

Bon Jovi Inked: Link Share

Courtesy of Glenn Osrin from the National Examiner, my Bon Jovi tat has featured in his article entitled Bon Jovi Inked: Fans Show Their Colors With Tattos. You can see my tattoo, among others, in part 1 of 3 here and enjoy the archival articles; he's a great writer!

You can follow Bon Jovi Examiner Glenn on Twitter @ Wizardofosrin.

In other tattoo news for fans of the ink, on a personal note my sleeve is well underway and taking shape and will hopefully be finished soon!

Want to open for Bon Jovi at the o2?

Calling all UK bands, wanna open for Bon Jovi at the o2? Now's your chance!

Q&A with yojohnnycowpunk

Over two years ago now, I contributed to a friend's album, performing drums as a session musician on a handful of tracks. Finally the finished copy is in my hands; a really professional looking package as I excitedly peel back the plastic to reveal the physical representation of six years' of hard work from birth to now. I manged to gain an interview with the creator and artist behind yojohnnycowpunk, which you can enjoy below.

Knowing it's been a long time in the process, how long have you actually spent with this project and how does it feel to finally get it done?
Well, it must have taken me 6 years from thinking it would be a good idea to release an album to having 500 copies delivered to my house. I first met a chap called Tabla Tom and he recorded some of my guitar trax to a click. Unbelievable, I was so out of time. That was a long weekend! One thing recording work has done for me is it has taught me to play in time (although others might disagree with me)! It was a lot of work as I'm not in a band. The other people who appeared on the album were mates (such as your good self!) helping me out. I've had to do it all myself, working to pay for a sound engineer to record me, and to help me with the mixing. But I've loved it.

As a new artist, what are you doing to 'get yourself out there'?
To be honest, I enjoy making music far more than 'getting myself out there'. I have sold 29 c.d.'s, my mum bought 3! But you're right, I do need to do something, anything. It cost me a small fortune to get this done, so much so that I have started recording my next album by myself, on my Mac book using Logic 9. What an amazing tool (no, I'm not being smutty!). I have fallen in love with Audio manipulation! But back to your question, my answer would be; not-a-lot. Does anybody have any ideas what I could do?

Where do you take inspiration from when writing music?
Inspiration comes and finds me and gives of itself freely! Sometimes I'm not expecting it and it arrives, I could just be walking down the lane and I get a melody or a line of words....my latest line of words (which came when I was doing some housework) is...."if you ain't gonna do what you say you're gonna do, then you'd best to say nothing at all"....catchy? I was pissed off with someone at the time. But other times I get myself all ready for an idea; studio set-up, guitar in hand, pencil and paper at the ready and in it flows.

Yo JohnnyCowpunk is a great name! Where did that come from?
Its 'yojohnnycowpunk', all one word, no capitals although I sometimes forget and put a capital 'y' at the beginning and when I've woken up after drinking too much vin rouge I sometimes spell it joyohnnycowpunk, but I digress. I'm not sure where it came from, but I like it, I think it describes the music well.

Your album covers quite a mix of styles, was that important to you and why did you choose to do that?
Those were just the songs that got finished first. But I like many different kinds of music so maybe the cd reflects that too.

How do you feel about the music industry in general at the moment? Are you excited or anxious for its current state and future?
Whilst it is always good that people can make a decent wage doing what they enjoy doing, I know very little about that side of things so I have no opinion. What I do know is that music is there for peoples enjoyment, always has been, always will be. And that is a cause for celebration (make mine a double bartender!)


What does the future hold for yojohnnycowpunk?
Really get to grips with Logic 9, at least another 3 albums, the next's gonna be a bit more consistently bluesy rock, the one after that hardcore/ punky and the one after that headmashingly experimental! I'd like to get a band up and running too.

Finally, can you tell us a secret?
Yes, fave bands and artists: Career Suicide, Mastodon, JJ Cale, Sonic Youth, Charlie Parker, Alabama 3, Melt Banana, PRE, The Stooges and many more!



Thanks, it was a pleasure.