So I'm home from a head-spinning couple of weeks in China, but there's plenty going on here to keep me busy I'm about half-way through recording the new album, Secrets Nobody Keeps. Guitar tracks are mostly down (I'm not happy with them, but as a stereotypical 'tortured artist' I never am). My new songs, I am happy with. I think it’s my most personal and melodic stuff yet. Vocals next, then mixing starts, led by a super-talented producer called Whiskas, from right here in Leeds, West Yorkshire. I’m even on top of the album artwork: I’ve been painting while on the road in China.
We'll be launching the Pledge campaign next month, so that fans can get really involved, and there will be some awesome stuff available to Pledgers who pre-order the album.
In the meantime, I have a special one-off home-town UK gig (the full tour is in the Autumn) at Blackpool's Winter Gardens next week : http://on.fb.me/17R3wmD
And next month I’m heading over to South Africa for 3 nights in Cape Town, and 3 in Johannesburg : http://on.fb.me/ZDXjln
"So Jon, how was China?"
It was pretty crazy! When we arrived, we had a couple of days sight-seeing, and we trekked up the Great Wall, and visited The Forbidden CIty in Beijing. After that, it was a manic run of 10 gigs in 11 days, and we were traversing the country by bullet train - the first time I've toured by train - and in a tour party of seven people, which is also a first for me.
The trains are amazing, they are huge and fast and the stations are like airports. The tour party was wonderful, including our interpreter Lee, who is a student but she's also a wonderful guitarist, our roadie Li Yang who is a fan of English football and who foraged the local area near the venue every night to bring me dinner, which was always "Lee Yang Surprise!" and never the same twice! And CK Chen Liang, a great Chinese fingerstyle guitarist who was my support artist for the tour.
The weirdest thing about China is their relationship to western music and gigs. First, they don't really have a culture of having gigs as we know it. They have classical-style concerts, or they have huge rock/pop shows. But they don't have small rock clubs, or intimate acoustic gigs. Second, they don't know much western music. I was playing my cover of Chaka Khan's Ain't Nobody each night, and they all seemed to recognise it, but it took a couple of nights to realise nobody had ever heard the original version. They just knew my arrangement, from watching it on Youku (the Chinese Youtube equivalent.
One night I asked for requests, and they didn't really know what to do, and started asking questions instead, like what are my tattoos about or why don't I wear any shoes onstage. I explained what requests meant, and rather than any specific songs, someone shouted out "Rock and roll!" So I slammed on the overdrive pedal and launched into a semi-improvised version of Sunshine Of Your Love. People seemed to go pretty nuts for that, so I segued it into Purple Haze. Not a flicker of applause. I wondered why they liked Cream, but not Jimi Hendrix. Afterwards I realised they hadn't recognised the Cream song, they just liked the loud rock noise I was making. Even most of the Chinese musicians I met didn't recognise most of the classic rock riffs I tested on them.
But by far the strangest night was this one (this is my facebook status from the morning after):
"Insane night last night in Hang Zhou. During my set, the security staff were wondering around the audience (who were already even more quiet and timid than most Chinese audiences) with their walkie-talkies blaring out. I asked them to turn them down, but they were too ignorant or arrogant to care. After around 30 minutes, they pulled back a big black curtain in the room revealing the rest of the venue, which was a busy pool hall, which ruined the atmosphere even more. In a very un-Chinese act of rebellion, someone in the audience went and drew it closed again. A huge security dude pulled it back open.
So I got off the stage, gave him a special British death stare, and drew it closed myself. I went back on stage to resume playing, and there was no sound! My interpreter told me they wouldn't let me play any more! I was just stunned by this childishness. But anyway, they clearly didn't know how acoustic guitars work. :) I just played the rest of the gig unplugged. This transformed the audience, they were electrified by the intense intimacy of the totally acoustic, hold-your-breath-or-you'll-break-the-spell atmosphere. Together we had stood up to authority, and won! Now we could share jokes about their government, and I could tell them the story of my new song about the Wukan Uprising, which has been kept secret in China.
If all I achieve on this whole tour is bringing this one tiny moment of rebellion to this small crowd, then it was worth the trip. :)
P.S. The Chinese government doesn't bother banning Western music anymore, because it's not a threat. This is the most damning indictment of the modern music industry I can think of. If you make any kind of art, don't forget your responsibility to make it with meaning, intent and real, honest freedom."
Overall it was the tour was an amazing experience I'll remember for the rest of my life. I hope I get to return to China before too long, it's an amazing country full of wonderful people, and it feels like a place where making an emotional connection with a room full of strangers is a truly rare and special event.
Here's all the photos from the tour:
Thanks for reading, more news (especially album, Pledge and UK tour stuff) VERY soon.
Jon
x
We'll be launching the Pledge campaign next month, so that fans can get really involved, and there will be some awesome stuff available to Pledgers who pre-order the album.
In the meantime, I have a special one-off home-town UK gig (the full tour is in the Autumn) at Blackpool's Winter Gardens next week : http://on.fb.me/17R3wmD
And next month I’m heading over to South Africa for 3 nights in Cape Town, and 3 in Johannesburg : http://on.fb.me/ZDXjln
"So Jon, how was China?"
It was pretty crazy! When we arrived, we had a couple of days sight-seeing, and we trekked up the Great Wall, and visited The Forbidden CIty in Beijing. After that, it was a manic run of 10 gigs in 11 days, and we were traversing the country by bullet train - the first time I've toured by train - and in a tour party of seven people, which is also a first for me.
The trains are amazing, they are huge and fast and the stations are like airports. The tour party was wonderful, including our interpreter Lee, who is a student but she's also a wonderful guitarist, our roadie Li Yang who is a fan of English football and who foraged the local area near the venue every night to bring me dinner, which was always "Lee Yang Surprise!" and never the same twice! And CK Chen Liang, a great Chinese fingerstyle guitarist who was my support artist for the tour.
The weirdest thing about China is their relationship to western music and gigs. First, they don't really have a culture of having gigs as we know it. They have classical-style concerts, or they have huge rock/pop shows. But they don't have small rock clubs, or intimate acoustic gigs. Second, they don't know much western music. I was playing my cover of Chaka Khan's Ain't Nobody each night, and they all seemed to recognise it, but it took a couple of nights to realise nobody had ever heard the original version. They just knew my arrangement, from watching it on Youku (the Chinese Youtube equivalent.
One night I asked for requests, and they didn't really know what to do, and started asking questions instead, like what are my tattoos about or why don't I wear any shoes onstage. I explained what requests meant, and rather than any specific songs, someone shouted out "Rock and roll!" So I slammed on the overdrive pedal and launched into a semi-improvised version of Sunshine Of Your Love. People seemed to go pretty nuts for that, so I segued it into Purple Haze. Not a flicker of applause. I wondered why they liked Cream, but not Jimi Hendrix. Afterwards I realised they hadn't recognised the Cream song, they just liked the loud rock noise I was making. Even most of the Chinese musicians I met didn't recognise most of the classic rock riffs I tested on them.
But by far the strangest night was this one (this is my facebook status from the morning after):
"Insane night last night in Hang Zhou. During my set, the security staff were wondering around the audience (who were already even more quiet and timid than most Chinese audiences) with their walkie-talkies blaring out. I asked them to turn them down, but they were too ignorant or arrogant to care. After around 30 minutes, they pulled back a big black curtain in the room revealing the rest of the venue, which was a busy pool hall, which ruined the atmosphere even more. In a very un-Chinese act of rebellion, someone in the audience went and drew it closed again. A huge security dude pulled it back open.
So I got off the stage, gave him a special British death stare, and drew it closed myself. I went back on stage to resume playing, and there was no sound! My interpreter told me they wouldn't let me play any more! I was just stunned by this childishness. But anyway, they clearly didn't know how acoustic guitars work. :) I just played the rest of the gig unplugged. This transformed the audience, they were electrified by the intense intimacy of the totally acoustic, hold-your-breath-or-you'll-break-the-spell atmosphere. Together we had stood up to authority, and won! Now we could share jokes about their government, and I could tell them the story of my new song about the Wukan Uprising, which has been kept secret in China.
If all I achieve on this whole tour is bringing this one tiny moment of rebellion to this small crowd, then it was worth the trip. :)
P.S. The Chinese government doesn't bother banning Western music anymore, because it's not a threat. This is the most damning indictment of the modern music industry I can think of. If you make any kind of art, don't forget your responsibility to make it with meaning, intent and real, honest freedom."
Overall it was the tour was an amazing experience I'll remember for the rest of my life. I hope I get to return to China before too long, it's an amazing country full of wonderful people, and it feels like a place where making an emotional connection with a room full of strangers is a truly rare and special event.
Here's all the photos from the tour:
Thanks for reading, more news (especially album, Pledge and UK tour stuff) VERY soon.
Jon
x