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...to all the US frosties for tomorrow.

Have a lovely time you lucky lot, us Brits are still stuck at work in the howling wind and pissing rain.  :cry:  :lol:

But don't worry about us. Have a great time, eat decadent food and do some serious hugging on my behalf.  

Jx

Hello chaps and ladychaps,

Just wanted to say a planet sized thank you to everybody who came down and saw our little shows. We had the best time ever. Each gig was unique for various reasons and as usual we laughed like baboons throughout. Immense thanks must go also to Nellie, Keith, Andy, Dena, Tinyfish, Magenta, Bat, Ralph, Eleanor and Mrs Ralph for being so brilliant and helpful and indulgent. If there's anybody I've missed out, it's not intentional, honest. I've just driven back from Wiltshire through 30 kinds of weather after 5 hours kip so I'm not as sharp as I could be.

Thanks also to Peter Gabriel obviously. He's still in the back of my car with his lippy on, bless him.

And isn't The Globe a lovely venue?

Lastly, I'd like to say that the Vocoder is alive and well, it was the MIDI cable that had died. 23 years of using MIDI and I've never had a cable failure. Then it happens when I'm onstage, go figure... :lol:

Anyways, HUGE thanks again. T'was you people who made those gigs so enjoyable, we just buggered about.

Jem xx

Just to say tickets for this gig are now available via

https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk/buy_ ... d=10008785

And support is from the acoustically splendid David Brown

http://www.myspace.com/davidbrownchilversgrove

hope to see you there and ithangew

Right, it's all confirmed, official and good to go!

John Mitchell, Jem Godfrey, Nathan King (with commentary from Andy Edwards) will be performing 3 dates under the banner of "An Esoteric Evening With..." performing reworked, acoustic and downright different versions of songs from Kino, Frost, It Bites, The Urbane and others over 3 nights in November.

Thursday 5th November - The Rainbow, 160 High St, Deritend, Birmingham (Support - TBC)
http://www.therainbowpub.com

Saturday 7th November - The Peel, 160 Cambridge Road, Kingston, Surrey (Support -  Tinyfish)
http://peelmuzik.webeden.co.uk/

Sunday November 8th - The Globe, 125 Albany Road, Roath, Cardiff, (Support - Acoustic Magenta)
http://www.theglobecardiff.com/

These will be the only shows in 2009 and possibly ever so come see us and sing along for what will be 3 unique nights in prog history. There might also be some surprise guests joining us here and there. TIckets are on sale now.

Tell the world!

 

Last night I dreamt my Wife's mother's house in Kilburn wobbled so much, it fell down. And then Christopher Eccleston sat on my lap. Shortly after that he and I and a nameless, faceless petite girl started a band. And I nearly bought a 4 octave grand piano for £10,000.

I think I need a holiday.

Hurrah!


I've finished mixing the live album. The CD version will be 9 tracks coming in at 77 minutes and 55 seconds. The DVD will contain the whole gig bar No Me No You which I sang like a tosser and doesn't deserve to ever be heard again and Pocket Sun which I'm leaving off to teach it a lesson. The Space/Time portal story will forever be imprisoned on the fROStFEST CD that we released earlier in the year so if you desire to hear it, you can still buy it from the website for a fiver. I think there's only a few left now too so don't say I didn't warn you or nuffink.

Sadly, due to time constraints, 1976 and the other tracks I had planned to include will now have to be left for a future release. I've run out of time basically if I want to get this thing out before Xmas. Sorry about that. They will live again another day, fret not.

And so, with TPE finally done and dusted, I shall now turn my attentions to preparations for the Esoteric Evening gigs. There'll be an announcement about a second gig in Birmingham shortly.

Pip pip!

Jx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfJ7lIBz ... rofilepage
 

This was an interview that never got published earlier this year with questions written by my brother. We're now working on a Godfrey vs Godfrey interview. In the meantime...

1.   What made you want to become a musician?

I remember seeing Brian Eno on Top Of The Pops, he was painted silver I think, wearing a long shiny metallic cape and sporting a very high domed forehead into which nestled very long white blonde hair. He was playing a machine I now know to be a Minimoog. Only he wasn't playing the keyboard, he was just twiddling the knobs in a very menacing fashion. I clearly remember thinking, "That's for me!"

2.   Why did you choose keyboards as an instrument?

See question 1.

3.   What advantages and disadvantages does the instrument have?

Advantages – You can control a studio with one. By default, the keyboard was the instrument of choice when MIDI was developed and from there has gone on to be the de facto musical data input device of computer based music systems.

Disadvantages – The keyboard is not a very sexy instrument to play. It rather looks like one is ironing onstage.

4.   Do you think it's hard to describe your own music and if so, why?

No, not really. I think my music is largely based on the time-honoured modus operandi of "Throw enough shit at the wall and some of it will stick". In that way, I can say that my music is shit, but sticky. Certainly in the case of my 4 number 1 records.

5.   How has your writing changed over the years?

The better I got in bed, the more relaxed my songwriting got.
 
6.   Why did you choose the name Frost*   

I have to say that normally, this question would earn you minus brownie points as it's so dull. Next you'll be asking me whether that not being financially reliant on Frost* allows me greater creative freedom for the band.

7.   Your 'day job' is that of a writer and producer. Do you think that not being financially reliant on Frost* allows you greater creative freedom for the band?

Definitely, although one should never write songs "for the fans" anyway. But with the safety net of another income stream, I can take a few more risks and not worry about album sales tanking. The third album is going to be very different for example and I'm sure we're going to lose about 50% of our fanbase. Plus I want to give the next album away free.

8.   When in the studio, is it important that everything is worked out in advance or do you often leave things to chance?

It's a curious mixture of planning and improvisation. I'll write the frameworks of the songs and then fuck about until something interesting happens. It's the same with the other guys in the band, in the case of John Mitchell's guitar parts for our album "Experiments In Mass Appeal", he basically hadn't heard very much of the new stuff before he showed up to record.  A lot of what you hear on the album from him was recorded in the first few takes. Capturing that spontaneity was very important and I think made the final product more exciting to listen to as a result. Similarly, some of my vocals on the album are from the original guide vocals. The second verse of "Wonderland" was entirely improvised and if you listen to the end of "Saline", there's a counter point melody that's actually gobbledegook. It's the guide vocal from the demo and I never got around to actually writing lyrics for it. I think it's goes something like, "And I feel the indedofee love intime. And I fee the invendolee love intime". Nobody's mentioned it yet, so I think I got away with it. Till now obviously...

9.   Once an album or a song is completed, do you find it hard to let go?

Initially yes, it's like the aftermath of sex. One doesn't want to pull out just yet does one?

10.   If you had a chance to go back and re-record one of your songs, which would it be and why?

I'd make Milliontown about 5 minutes shorter. There's a fair bit of padding going on.

11.   Are you a words or a music person?

Music. This might sound offensive, but words are just vowel sounds to give the melody something to hang off. All the better if they mean something though. It's like that classic story of the lyricist that goes to the toilet during a concert. At the urinals, the man next to him starts whistling a song he wrote the lyrics for. "Excuse me", he says to the bloke, "I hope you don't mind me telling you, but I wrote the words to that song". The other guy fixes him with a steely eye and says, "I wasn't whistling the fucking words'.

12.   What kind of traits do you think go up to make a good musician or songwriter?

An ability to be told repeatedly that your music is shit. Normally by some coked up teenager in an A+R office.

13.   Are you an equipment junkie?

Sadly, yes. I should get a dog. At least I could eat it when I got bored of it.

14.   Has the development of music technology over the years influenced your writing in any way?

Definitely. ProTools is really my instrument now. I couldn't do what I do on 2 inch tape.

15.   What image do you think your music conveys to the public?

That I should get out more.

16.   How long does it usually take to make an album and is it an easy process?

It's the songwriting that's the killer. I kind of accrete songs off my Dictaphone and then plug the gaps by a long and painful process of playing things over and over again. I should imagine it's easier to grow a lifesize replica of Martin Orford out of Marjoram.

17.   Do you consider yourself a fan of progressive music?

Not really.

18.   Concept albums; a wonderful art form or a musical dead end?

I think they're wonderful. A Grand Don't Come For Free is probably the best concept album of this century so far.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Grand_Do ... e_for_Free

Blinded By The Lights is a truly chilling, but brilliant bit of song writing.

19.   Do you prefer working in the studio or performing live?

Studio. Everytime. I'm a paid up member of the Jeff Lynne/Kate Bush party when it comes to the studio/stage debate.

20.   Do you rate yourself as a good performer on stage?

I think I'm ok. If only I wasn't doing so much bloody ironing...

21.   Do you improvise at all on stage?

We have worked sections in yes. But as with anything that you do repeatedly, it ends up being as written as the written stuff.

22.   Do you believe it's important to have some formal training in an instrument to write and play good music?

I'm unsure to be honest. I think a formal training can be a very positive thing. Equally, a non formal training can also be very creative. It depends what you think about following rules.

23.   How important is it to have a sense of humour in your line of work?

Not very. Clearly I'm a genius and it's your problem in how you deal with that.

24.   Do you collaborate with other musicians and is it important for you to do so?

Yes and no. With Frost, it's mainly a geographical reason that we don't write more together. We all live about 200 miles away from each other and we've all got better things to do of a weekend than sit on the bloody motorway for hours on end en route to each other's houses to write yet another 15 minute long song about a Dragon and a poxy Wizard with a chip on his shoulder about Dragons. I write the songs so that they can go to Sainsbury's.

25.   Are you a competitive person?

I'd love to say no, but. No. Yes.

26.   How involved are you with the business element of making music?

Very. You have to be in this day and age. Nothing makes me more depressed than when a joyous afternoon of mucking about with tape loops ends up costing you £500 in lawyers fees to have it released. It's like an STD - A moment's pleasure punctuated by a very sore cock and an embarrassing trip to the doctor. Nobody wins.

27.   Do you feel it's possible to survive as a musician in the current musical climate where free peer to peer downloading is now the accepted norm?

I think evolution is the key. It's not enough now to just be a good musician, you have to be a good salesman, multimedia savvy, good at marketing, prepared to diversify and adapt. It's not for the good of my health that I own and run a jingle company based in W1, write, produce or mix pop songs, write for Sound On Sound, have a prog rock band, write a blog and am learning Dreamweaver as well as Final Cut Pro. I'd much rather sit in a bubble car, drink beer and look at pictures of Michelle Ryan.

28.   How would you define the word "success" in terms of your own music?

If I know that it's good. Sometime I write stuff that I know is cutting corners. With Experiments In Mass Appeal, I know that I didn't cut a single corner. That makes me happy.

29.   What are your plans for the future?

To start saying no to everything.

30.   Finally, which do you prefer, ducks or horses?

Horses.

31.   If you chose a horse, why not a duck?

Duck rhymes with Fuck. And that's just rude. Duck also rhymes with Truck, but that's just so utilitarian.

32.   Ducks are nice...

Underneath a layer of Hoisin sauce, in a pancake with some spring onions, you will encounter no argument from me about that, sir.

of sorts...  Although you lovely lot know what's going on, I suddenly thought that the wider world might not be aware of quite so much. So -

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuse ... =508540778

 

Happy to say, I've just contributed a couple of keyboard solos to the excellent sounding new album by Big Big Train. The track is called The Underfall Yard which is also the title track and is nipping at the toes of 23+ minutes long. I got a chance to really cut loose in a way I don't think I've done before, I used pretty much every controller available on the V-Synth using a sound I programmed especially and I'm really pleased with the end results. It's not often I get to have a good old thrash in 11/8!   The track also features a rather immense solo from that Cumbrian scamp Francis Dunnery, so although we never met, we do end up sharing a song together which is rather nice.

BBT's new singer is a bit of a revelation too and the whole thing is shaping up to be, IMO, their best work to date. I can't wait to hear the whole thing. BBT have a wonderful Englishness about them and they do things very much their own way which I deeply admire. They're prog's best kept secret and now I can count myself as a contributor to their history. I'm dead proud of that.

The album will be released on the 15th of December. Keep an eye out for it at their website //http://www.bigbigtrain.com

http://shop.ebay.co.uk/merchant/thunder ... ZQQ_ipgZ25

Catchy little URL there. Bid if you can or would like to. Proceeds will be going towards finishing off The Philadelphia Experiment.

Happy bidding and thank you in advance.

Jem

PS. Monstrous thanks to Nellie for setting it up for me. xx  

Sorry for the dreadful Subject title, but I couldn't resist it.

Just to say Wakeman played the title track from EIMA on his Planet Rock show last week and apparently was glowing about it afterward so that's jolly good and muchos thankos to him for that.

We're about to launch the great "Great Frost Woolworths Bargain Bin Extravaganza!". Everything must go!! And I really mean that.

To assist in a speedy clearout, every single thing we have for sale will now be at a single fixed price of £5 : This includes the remaining DT tour CD's (45 minutes of us at RoSFest), all t-shirts, beanies etc...everything will be available for £5 inc P+P until it runs out. Whereupon I shall take the box and give it to my young son who will promptly turn it into a robot and chase his sister about until she cries, prompting me to intervene and deploy Cadbury's Chocolate Finger calming/bribery solutions...

Some of the bigger items will have £1 P+P attached, but that will clearly be indicated at the time.

More details of what's left in stock will be available just as soon as I can get this stuff to Nellie who will be kindly and bravely taking care of getting this stuff out to you. Hopefully within a week we should be up, running and ready to take your orders either via post, Paypal or via the webshop. There are some bizarre rarities in there too such as our Frosterisk backdrop, EIMA promo discs that I signed, some ProTools backups, my mastering listening copy of EIMA that came back from Turan Audio prior to duplication and various other Frost curios that might be of interest to collectors or cunning eBayers. Anyway, it's all yours for a fiver if you want it.  

This fine item will be available shortly in the shop. Along with a clear out sale of the remaining items in stock.

More details v soon.

Ta
J

I'm getting a stye in my right eye. It hurts and it's irritating. Anybody know of a homeopathic version of "f*ck off!!" I can administer to it?

Righto, after these DT gigs, there's a good chance I'm going to be switching to a laptop rig.

The current plan is to use Mainstage with Live 8 for any sequencing that needs doing. I'm gonna get a couple of Lacie Firewire 800 320gb drives (@7200rpm) for streaming samples and whatnot and control it with this Novation 61SL MKII that's sat here in front of me.

My laptop is a MacBook Pro (not the new new ones) Dual Core Intel 2.5gHz Processor with 4GB of RAM. And I'll be running it all out of an Apogee Duet.

My question is this - has anybody here run a similar rig for gigs and is there anything doused in impediment that I need to know before I get my credit card out? Latency, patch changes etc...?

Molto ta!

Jx

What-ho Frosties, a few items of parish news, most of which is largely bad I'm afraid...

First off, Vice Admiral Jowitt is leaving our shores to pastures new. He's been super busy setting up his new business this year and having to play bass and tour manage Frost*, IQ and generally be a prog rock god in addition to his commitments to his new venture has taken it's toll on the poor thing so he needs to go and sit in a darkened room with a hot compress and a copy of Tatler until further notice. He's brought a country ton of goodness, enthusiasm and order to Frost* over the years and I, we, them and me want to say a big thank you to him and wish him extremely well for the future.

A Mr J Jowitt, 24, of Stourbridge writes –

"Blimey, has it been over three years?! I'm as proud as Punch to have been involved in Frost*, but it's time to move on to other things.  As well as my new business in real life, which is taking up a lot of my time at the moment, I've been talking about doing something myself for  
ages - it's high time I did it.  Or else how am I ever going to get back to RoSFest next year..? Thanks to Jem, John, Dec Andy and everyone involved in the band for a great ride, and I look forward to see where the band goes next.  Anywhere it blooming well wants to, I reckon.

Oh, and a big thank you and goodbye too from The Lovely Deb.  There is no truth in the rumour that we're running off together, honest..."

Obviously this puts a dampener on the DVD I was planning so for the time being, that idea is has been put in a box marked "To Do", but it will happen at some point, it's too good an idea (in my humble opinion) for it not to see the light of day.

Replacing JJ for the 2 UK Dream Theater shows will be the lithe and finely detailed Mr Nathan King, son of the 80's pop band King who had a number 2 hit in 1985 with "Love and Pride".

Some of you will know Nathan from his role as stunt double for Lee Pomeroy in It Bites of late so I'm sure you'll join me in throwing welcoming biscuits at him at the earliest opportunity and also join me in welcoming back Andy Edwards into our moist live crevice. It'll be good to have him back.

The other bit of bad news is that we've had to cancel our planned appearances with Dream Theater in Lisbon and Munich. Partly down to tour manager issues (i.e. we haven't got one any more and I haven't got time to start being one) and also because Alex Thomas (our replacement TBE for these 2 shows) is very busy with Squarepusher commitments and preparations for Glastonbury throughout June. Add that to my already fairly intense work commitments also in June and it was becoming clear that meaningful rehearsals and effective gig co-ordination were not going to be possible. Andy can't do the shows, Nick D'Virigilo can, but he lives 6,000 miles away and flying him all that way to play for 40 minutes seemed a little impractical not to mention cost prohibitive. I couldn't face teaching a fourth drummer how to play the set and so it seemed the writing was on the wall.

I do sincerely and truly apologise to any Frosties that were planning on coming to see us and for the short notice of this cancellation. I'm gutted we won't be able to make it out to play for you and that I won't get to see Lisbon or Munich after all.

Obviously Dream Theater will still be appearing and the gigs will still be going ahead without us.

On a more positive note, the live album recorded at RoSFest is now finished and sounding jolly good so that should be out in the next couple of months, record companies permitting.

Well that's all for now, I'm very sorry I couldn't be the bearer of better news, but we seem due for our yearly dose of misfortune once again.

Take care out there.

Jxx

Well, the live album is about 50% finished and sounding jolly good I must say considering it's my first attempt at a live album. There's about 1 hour 45 of material -

Intro
Hyperventilate
The Forget You Song
Falling Down
EIMA
Black Light Machine
Milliontown
Saline
No Me No You
Snowman
The Other Me
Pocket Sun
Wonderland
Dear Dead Days

Obviously only so much of this will fit on a CD so there'll be a limited edition CD for sale at the Dream Theater gigs much like we did with Spock's last year that will have the tracks that don't get on the main live album plus hopefully a couple of other goodies if there's time.

The main CD will also have a 45 minute Frost report on an accompanying DVD. There'll also be 4, possibly 5 extra Frost B-sides like The Forget You Song, 1976, New World and so on and will be available from Inside Out and all the usual places.

So all in all, it should be a properly Frosty summer!

Night all.

I just wanted to say thank you (you know who yo are ) for my Lion wot I got last night at the Tinyfish gig. I let him loose in the garden last night and he's already taken the peacock out which is a marvelous bonus. That's Sunday lunch sorted then.  

It was nice to see a few Frosterisks in the crowd too and to see Twang, the clan of Pedro, Mike, Nellie and the others.

And it was also nice to find out that Frost* has brought 2 people together. They met on the forum and now have seen each others bottoms. It's fantastic stuff and I'm glad we could be of service. Here's to continued loveliness for you both.  

Jxx

Anybody in America got one they can lend me for next Thursday Friday and Saturday?

RoSFest can't find one apparently and the set rather depends on having one.

There'll be money, some quality hanging out time and eternal gratitude in it for you, natch.

Yours hopefully,

Jx