The It’s Jo and Danny Story 1999 – 2005
In early 1999 Danny and I were living in a basement flat in North London, we had both given up our jobs at indie labels – Cherry Red in Danny’s case and Ultimate Records in mine, to pursue our own music full time. This was either a very bold move or a very stupid move. It felt like the only thing for us to do to be honest. I know it must have looked like madness to our family and friends, we were the wrong side of 25, but we just had to go for it. Personally, I thought my life would be incomplete if I never signed a record deal.
I didn’t know then of course, but that wasn’t really what I craved. That realisation came as we started to make music that was getting better and better and was more and more satisfying and consuming. We did sign a record deal, but more of that later.
It took a few years of making music full-time to start making the sort of sound we were after. I don’t think we ever really knew what that was, but we did know we were getting closer all the time. We worked intently in various London rehearsal studios; Vauxhall, Holloway Road, Old Street and Camden. We played gigs – The Falcon, The Water Rats, The White Horse, The Garage, The Venue.
Under various guises we toured with and had some tracks produced by Lloyd Cole, had a Single of the Week in ‘Melody Maker‘ and had been played by John Peel and Steve Lamacq on Radio 1. Musically, the last band we had were getting very close. We were called J.D. & Bob. and we rehearsed at Fortress Studio in Shoreditch – the same place as The Beta Band.
Corinne Day took these photos of us, on a disposable camera, at the Shoreditch Electricity Showroom in December 1998.
The songs Danny and I were writing were getting better too. We wrote ’Love Expression’ and ’Repentant Song’, (later recorded for ’Lank Haired Girl To Bearded Boy’) at this time.
Here I am on stage with J.D. & Bob, at The Garage in London, late 1998. Photos by the great, Justin Thomas, who later took the cover shot for ’Lank Haired Girl To Bearded Boy’
Mathew Priest had joined our ranks. His band Dodgy were on hiatus and he very kindly agreed to help us out. He turned us around from sounding amateur to sounding amazing and projected our songs forward magnificently.
We recorded demos for Island Records. A week in their basement studios in St. Peter’s Square. We were so into the music. We recorded 8 tracks – five featuring Mathew on drums and three acoustic songs, recorded live, straight to DAT, with Sam, Sam the Bongo (Bubble) Man on percussion.
When this demo we recorded for Island didn’t get us a deal, we kind of fell apart.
The music we were making together was very special but we just weren’t strong enough as a band, to stand the rejection.
Danny and I holed up in our basement flat and started working with the Tascam 4-track tape recorder we had. No money. No band. A Boss Dr. Rhythm DR 55 drum machine, an old synth, our guitars and lots of ideas. We decided to call ourselves It’s Jo and Danny as a kind of ‘you and me against the world’ statement. The name got mixed feelings, but it forced us to dig deep musically.
1999
In the spring of 1999 we persuaded the wonderful Brian O’Shaughnessy at Bark Studio in East London, to let us record an album on credit. We had demoed everything on the 4 track and made notes on how we would produce it. We asked some friends and fellow musicians to help us play the instruments we couldn’t play.
Ali Byworth, previously in The Godfathers, on drums (‘Solar Plexus’) Martin Hoyland on electric guitar (‘Love Expression’) Martin was previously in the rock group, Pusherman and these days is in Welsh language folk, electronic band 9 Bach. Darren Berry on drums (‘Arkle’ and ‘Repentant Song’), Mathew Priest of Dodgy on drums (‘Love Expression’) Marc Jordan on trumpet (‘Love Expression’, ‘Arkle’ and ‘Pilgrim’s Prayer’).
We bought ours clothes from the second hand clothes shops on the Holloway Road and Camden Market. Once or twice if I had a bit of money, I’d get tee shirts or trainers from Slam City Skates in Covent Garden.
This was a most fulfilling and wonderful time for us. We were living and breathing the album. I couldn’t wait to get to the studio each day to carry on recording. It was all I was thinking about. Feeding ourselves was just something to do so we could keep going, sleeping just divided the recording sessions. I was nervous the studio would get destroyed over night and the recordings would be lost.
When I heard the 8 minute opening track ‘Solar Plexus’ back through the big speakers for the fist time, I thought I was going to burst. Ali Byworth on drums, Danny on bass, me on acoustic, synth and the electric guitar that comes in mid-way through. Someone had left a Les Paul at the studio and I borrowed it to play on this track – sounded awesome!
The album was released on our own Double Snazzy label in September 1999.
We did everything ourselves, Danny used his Cherry Red skills to organise the artwork and production. I did the press, using the experience I had gained at Ultimate Records.
We got a 4 star review in ‘Q’ magazine and we were on a roll.
The album started to get noticed. We were contacted by Hall or Nothing press officers to ask if they could handle the PR for us. They looked after Oasis and the Beta Band among many other artists. They also handled the PR for the Reading Festival and were a pretty legendary PR company. We said ‘yes’ and the album got re released, with Hall or Nothing now on board. The wonderful reviews continued to get written, it was a very exciting time for us. After all those years of trying, of getting close only to get pinged back again it seemed we were at last getting the attention we both knew this album deserved.
‘Lank Haired Girl To Bearded Boy’ on Spotify
‘Lank Haired Girl To Bearded Boy’ album reviews:
‘A defining record’ NME 8/10
‘Heartfelt vocals and swathes of Vini Reilly-style guitar.’ Mojo 4 stars
‘Ferocious joie de verve’ Q 4 stars
‘Spellbinding’ The Times 4 stars
‘Loaded with sprit’ The Observer
‘Folk to feed your soul’ i.D. Magazine
‘Beautiful’ The Daily Telegraph
‘Spritualized fronted by Carol King’ The Face
‘a carefree fusion of Ancient and modern’ Uncut
We got a plugger involved called Alan James – he had heard people talking about the album and ‘phoned me to say he’d like to work it for us. A few days later, he called again, saying we should listen to Jo Whiley’s lunch-time show on Radio 1 that day. What a buzz that was. ‘My producer and I have been arguing all morning about which track to play, as we could choose any of them’ ‘If you buy one album all year, make sure it’s this one’. She read the reviews out. It felt so good to hear her complimenting our music like that!
Jo Whiley played tracks from ’Lank Haired Girl To Bearded Boy’ three days in a row on her day-time Radio 1 show. Baring in mind this was an album released completely independently, on our own label, this was pretty incredible stuff.
2000
We played a gig at The Water Rats in Kings Cross in early February and it was mobbed – both with our own, new fans and A&R people who’d come along to check us out. Danny and I had put a band together to play this show. Neil Haydock, the guitarist from Ultimate band, Submarine, Ali Byworth who played on ‘Solar Plexus‘ on the album on drums, Marc Jordan who was also on the album on trumpet and a dj called Xavi, Ali had introduced us to, on decks. Xavi‘s job was to recreate what I had done in the studio, live.
We had some European press in that night too – the album had started to pick up some great reviews in Italy. We made it to the cover of Italian music magazine ‘Il Mucchio Selvaggio’. The photo was taken at The Water Rats gig and I am seven months pregnant!
At this point in the story, Danny and I left London, where we had lived for a decade, and moved to the mountains of Wales. R.C.A. Records had been at the Water Rats and offered us a deal. Oh, and I had a baby boy. So life changed a fair bit quite quickly for us.
We had recorded 4 new tracks just before we left London. We wanted to release them as an EP, but R.C.A. advised us against, saying we should have ’Love Expression’ as the lead track. We made a video for it in our converted barn in the Brecon Beacons. I would have been very curious how the e.p. that we wanted to release would have done as it was four brand new tracks. Instead, we made ‘Love Expression’, from the album, the lead track and used three of the four new songs to complete the e.p..
It did ok though.
The ‘Playing For Kicks‘ e.p. was single of the week on the Virgin Radio Breakfast Show with Pete and Geoff.
This review from ‘The Face’ is great.
James Le Bon directed this.
Signing to the major label meant that we could keep the band that had played Water Rats gig together and start to properly play live.
That summer we played Glastonbury, T In The Park, Reading, Leeds and a few other festivals. This is a shot from the stage at Glastonbury, and just after we had played.
There was a short UK It’s Jo and Danny tour with support from Tom McRae in October 2000, with dates in Brighton, Leeds, Glasgow, Bristol and London. In Leeds, Danny and I bought middle zip leather jackets from a vintage clothes shop, his was grey, mine was purple. They were ace, we looked great wearing them at the same.
We recorded a session for Radio 1 in Wales at Rockfield Studios a few weeks earlier and had a limited amount of 7″ singles pressed up with the session tracks on. We gave the 7″s out at the gigs. An acoustic version of ‘Solar Plexus‘ and a new song, ‘The Vibe Remains The Same‘. I didn’t grab myself a copy, so don’t have one!
Ali, our drummer had to leave the tour half way through as his wife had gone into labour and our old friend, Matt Priest from Dodgy joined us.
We had tee shirts made – two types, ‘bearded boy‘ and ‘lank haired girl‘. This is my brother Sam in his bearded boy one, the sketches were by me.
We had a gig in Amsterdam on 4 November, as part of the Crossing Borders Festival – a multi-venue festival, we played the Melkwegwe on the same bill as Emmylou Harris. Other bands playing were, Coldplay, The Go-Betweens, Low, Goldfrapp and The Magnetic Fields.
Danny and I went over ahead of the gig and were interviewed for Dutch tv at the Amstel Hotel in a room where Tina Turner had stayed – it was bit odd, they encouraged us to have a pillow fight jumping up and down on the bed – fortunately I haven’t been able to find any footage on line!
We played this gig as a 3 piece – Ali joined us later and we played music in the streets at night – also filmed by the tv station. Danny’s brother Vince had flown over for the gig and stumbled upon us getting filmed, as he walked around with his friend Jill. It was amusing to wave at him as I sang. We had a couple of cups of tea before heading over to the venue to actually play the concert. Again quite strange, with the audience sitting down but we did ok. We were then picked up and driven to a radio station, where we were interviewed and played a live session.
The European press were loving ’Lank Haired Girl…’ and we were booked to play the celebrated Les Inrocks Festival in Paris (organised by Jean Daniel Beauvallet, the editor of the iconic French music magazine, Les Inrockuptibles, who had also put our band Bluetrain on in Tours, Northern France in 1987).
Danny and I were flown over a day ahead of the gig to do some interviews for the French press, which had been organised by our record company there. We took our baby, now six months old, Spike with us. We were met at the airport in a private car (driver holding a sign ‘Jo and Danny‘) a female press officer was also there and she chatted to us as we drove through Paris, updating us of the day ahead and the fact that our album, ‘Lank Haired Girl…‘ was going down very well.
There was a large guest list for our concert the next night and she was excited. We were taken to a cool bar, down a cobbled street off the beaten track, where a series of journalists asked us intelligent questions. I ordered a brandy, playing up to a rock and roll image a bit. After the interviews, we went to Sony / BMG‘s (our label in France) office where we met various people and had a photoshoot on their roof. There was a massive black and white picture of us, Death In Vegas and other artists on the walls. After all this, we were dropped back at the hotel, with Spike to settle in for the night. We were in a great mood.
The rest of the crew were due to join us the next day to play the gig.
However, we were called early in the morning by our tour manager to let us know that Xavi, the dj, had over slept and missed the ferry. He had been playing at a club the night before – I had been nervous about this and asked him to assure us he would be ok to make the travel arrangements and he said he would.
The line up had changed a little since the Water Rats gig, we no longer had Neil or Marc playing with us and had adopted the use of ADATS to try and keep the sound full, with the drum machines and synths recorded onto them. It was now myself and Danny, Ali and Xavi. There wasn’t much for Xavi to do to be honest but he looked great. The 8 minute, mainly instrumental, album opener, ‘Solar Plexus‘ had a bit from the Johnny Cash album, ‘Live at Folsom Prison‘ the bit that goes, ‘We have an announcement here…’. We had picked up a few vinyl albums from a second hand record shop on the Essex Road in Islington before we went into the studio and I played bits and ‘scratched’ bits through a delay pedal, on top of a few of the tracks.
The tour manager asked if we should pay for Xavi to fly over to join us. We didn’t have an actual manager who would have taken care of details like this, and we were really annoyed with Xavi. Looking back, I made a big mistake because I said ‘No, we can play without him’. I thought I could show the roadie how to play the Johnny Cash album and the other bits that Xavi did during the set.
When the van arrived it was clear Ali was pissed off with us. The fact that we were already in Paris, in his eyes, having our egos massaged and not flying his mate Xavi over, had set him against us. In our naivety we hadn’t considered this. There was a bad atmosphere.
The label took us all out for supper and then we headed back to play the gig. I showed the roadie what part of the records to play. As I looked at him standing there not really knowing what to do and looking uncool, I realised maybe this wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be, and it hadn’t been a good idea. Plus, we didn’t have a guitar tech for the gig now as he was on stage with us.
The gig started, I looked up at the guest list area in the balcony bar, full of all the Parisian music biz glitterati, looking down at us. We started with ‘Solar Plexus’ and for a few minutes we sounded great, I thought all would be fine but then Ali messed up on drums and we went downhill from there, I had tuning issues with my guitars, the ADATS went wrong – the set was awful. I could see the people who had been watching us disappear from view as they gave up and headed to the bar. It’s a terrible feeling to be out of control on stage, musicians performing badly. The stuff of nightmares actually. We hadn’t rehearsed enough. I love rehearsing, I will gladly spend hours doing so. Before we signed the deal, when we were J.D. & Bob we used to stay for 8 hours a day playing and replaying songs. You get beyond being just ‘tight’ and are able to enter the zone where you play and sing without thinking about it, time within time, right in the centre of the music. But ironically, since we signed we weren’t able to. About a month before Paris, in preparation for the European dates, and trying to work out how best to capture the drum machines and electronic bits of the album, Danny and I had driven all the way from Wales, dropped Spike with my parents in Surrey and headed up to the Holloway Road Studios in London to rehearse with Ali.
Ali lived in London and we needed to practice working with the ADATS. (Danny and I had recently gone back into Bark Studio in Walthamstow, East London, where we had recorded ‘Lank Haired Girl..’ and put lots of the drum machines and synths onto ADATS, the idea being we would play along to these, with Ali on drums and Xavi on the decks to capture our full sound). Ali didn’t show and wasn’t picking up his ‘phone. To say it was frustrating is a huge under statement. We didn’t have time to get another band together though so carried on.
We were a few years too early to work with laptops and our A&R men – Ben and Andy had suggested working with ADATS. We bought one in a flight case and it was very heavy and unwieldy.
When we finished the set in Paris, we knew this chapter was over. The lady from the label, who had been so keen and excited only a few hours before couldn’t look us in the eye.
Danny and I went back to our hotel where there was a baby sitter with Spike and went to bed for a sleepless night. We weren’t due to leave until late the next day, so we wandered the Paris streets for hours, with Spike in his pushchair talking and talking about what to do. We came to the discission we had to sack Ali and Xavi as soon as we got back to London, there really was no other choice.
This poster is from that fateful night. ’Les Inrocks’, the fantastic French music magazine that organised – see Coldplay, Sigor Ros, St. Germain and Phoenix all playing on the same bill as us.
However, at this time, Richard Griffiths, the managing director of RCA, (who had signed us) and Harry Magee the Head of BMG Europe– two of our biggest fans – both got fired (they later started Modest Management where they would represent One Direction). This left us exposed. We had no manager and after the Paris gig, we were very much flavour of last month. The new M.D. didn’t like us or our music at all.
We still went into the studio back in Brecon where we lived, to record the follow up to ‘Lank Haired Girl To Bearded Boy‘ though. There was a studio, right at the top of Pen Y Fan mountains, called Twin Peaks, run by Adam and Adele. We were now bandless and asked if they could recommend any drummers. They suggested a guy called Chris Hall. Chris is a brilliant bloke and a great drummer, his style was quite rocky, quite different to the vibe we had. I got my Fender Jaguar out and dusted off my distortion pedals to give it a go though.
This is a clip of us during the sessions for our second album, ‘Thugs Lounge‘.
2001
During recording the album we played a gig in London, at Dingwalls, with Chris on drums. We got a great review in the N.M.E..
‘Don’t be fooled, for this beat-folk duo’s unassuming exterior belies a fierce eclecticism….Contemporary, yet reassuringly timeless at the same time.’
(Click on the ticket to see the full live review. Thanks to Eamonn Walsh who posted the ticket to my Facebook page)
We were lonely and directionless during these recordings, they are not my favourite and it was an unhappy time for us. We were being pushed in different directions by the label and still without management, plus we had a young baby and were without friends in our new Welsh home. We also lost some close family members, making everything really hard. When the album, ‘Thugs Lounge‘ was finished, people at RCA stopped returning our calls, one grown man even jumped into the lift to avoid talking to us when we went to London for a meeting. Previously we had been a priority act – people were tripping over themselves to tell us how amazing we were. Such a change was confusing and depressing. I tried to call the plugger at the label to see what the campaign would be, the reception was difficult on my phone in the mountains, so I had to go into the garden to talk to her. She said ‘I think there’s a misunderstanding Jo, don’t you know? You’ve been dropped.’ I had to go into the converted barn, where we lived and tell Danny.
We based the sleeve for ‘Thugs Lounge‘ on ‘Veedon Fleece‘ by Van Morrison (‘Lank Haired Girl…‘ was based on Bob Dylan ‘Bringing It All Back Home‘). The stately home in the background is Penpont in the Brecon Beacons where we would soon attempt to stage the first Green Man Festival.
A few months later, the album still got released, a small press campaign had been organised before we were dropped and it got a few great reviews, including 4 stars in ’The Times’. (And a howler in ‘The Guardian’ ouch, that hurt.)
It was very tricky having to go to London to rehearse, we were desperate to get a local band together so we could really get into it. Someone gave me John Parish‘s number – he was based in Bristol, only an hour away, so I gave him a call. He was very helpful and suggested a female drummer called Tammy and a young guitarist called Ben. We also got Gary Aylesbook the trumpet player from the Super Furry Animals live band and we got together at Geoff Barrow from Portishead‘s studio. We still used the ADATS and things were sounding really good.
There were no adverts for ‘Thugs Lounge‘ and no one plugging it, but R.C.A. honoured the tour support we were promised and we played a few live dates to promote the album. I really liked this new band; we had a wonderful night in Dublin, our friend Johnny Mathews had started to help us out and came with us to Ireland. We also had our film maker friend Jason come along and he showed short films rather than have a support band. The cruelty of being without a deal when we had just worked out how to play live stung. I was also pregnant again. We didn’t tell the band though.
We played The West End Centre in Aldershot, where Danny and I used to run The Buzz Club.
On stage at the West End Centre.
On stage before we played at the Ashton Court Festival in Bristol. We met a guy called Steve Earl, he was a mate of Johnny’s and he managed a street artist called Banksy and ran a d.j. mail out company in Bristol.
We played the lovely 150 capacity Cube Cinema in Bristol and the Notting Hill Arts Centre in London, Jason projecting the films on the white walls
After these dates, with no money left for touring, that was it for this live band. Danny and I went home to Brecon and worked out what to do next. We had been bought quite a lot of studio equipment by R.C.A. so we set about learning how to use it, and started to write and demo a new album.
When we were ready, we put the last of our R.C.A. money into the next album and went back in the studio to record it. Steve Earl kind of managed us for a few months. The main thing that came from that was the fact he leant us his camera and we took the cover of the album we were recording, ‘But We Have The Music’ with it. Banksy was getting very big and he lost interest in us.
We mainly recorded at Rockfield Studio (where we had previously recorded our Welsh Radio 1 session and of course ’Bohemian Rhapsody’ one of the many greats was also recorded there). We had a really good time, with Brian O’Shaughnessy (who we had recorded ‘Lank Haired Girl…’ with) back in the engineer’s seat. We stayed at the studio.
Brecon, where we lived, wasn’t too far away and family came and helped with the baby, so we could focus on the music. The studio had given us a cheaper rate if we did the cooking ourselves, so when other musicians joined us, we made supper and ate together.
Damon Reece, who had been the drummer in Echo and The Bunnymen and Spritualized drums on the album. He played on Spiritualized’s classic album ’Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space’.
We had Lee Goodall from Van Morrison’s band on flute. Gary Aylesbrook who played in our live band played on a few tracks here too. Finally, a fabulous rapper from Cardiff called Nayton The Watcha and Jackie and Joan, two fiddle players from Edinburgh, came along at various points to join us in the recording.
And so we made ’But We Have The Music’ (from the Leonard Cohen line ‘We are ugly, but we have the music’, yes we were smarting at getting dropped). We did some tracks at Monnow Valley, just down the road from Rockfield and finished recording it back at Bark in East London. We wrote to Ali, met up and asked if he would drum on a couple of tracks. He did and we made up, post the horror of Paris and our musical fall out.
2002
Our daugher Tex was born in January.
Spike‘s first sight of his new baby sister.
We put the finishing touches to the album.
We knew the time wasn’t right to release ‘But We Have The Music‘ though. The world was getting into The Strokes and The White Stripes so we bided our time. While we waited and raised our two gorgeous children, we hit upon the idea of starting our own festival.
2003
We timed the release of ’But We Have The Music‘ to coincide with the first Green Man Festival, in August 2003. We thought the fact we were starting our own festival would add interest to the release. It worked.
The album did get great reviews. The Sunday Times made it their Album of the Week.
The album came out at the same time as the festival took place. We played the first ever Green Man as a 6 piece band. We very quickly rehearsed with some of the musicians just before we went on. The UK tour Danny and I had just played, was just the two of us with a laptop.
I found this torn piece of paper with the tour dates on….
It was a pretty lonely tour to be honest – so this performance, at our own festival, felt amazing!
Here we are on the ’main stage’ (there was no stage) with the snazzy Green Man back-drop. August 25th 2003. The band are – Mathew Priest on drums, Richard King on guitar, Gary Aylesbrook on trumpet and Lee Goodall on saxophone. We had no time to rehearse, basically just went for it – we take a little while to warm up, but from the moment Mathew joins us, about two minutes in, things take off. The reaction was wonderful.
This review got it about right! ’Billboard Magazine’ in America.
’Let It Happen’ directed by Jason Glenister.
We had these stickers made for the ’But We Have The Music’ cd sleeves.
This is ’It Should Have Been Me’ with Damon Reece on drums – lyrically capturing the frustration we had gone through, getting dropped.
2004
The album got released on Victor Records in Japan….
…and in Spain on I*M Records. We went over to Madrid and were interviewed on national radio. ‘The Spanish John Peel’ we were told. We also got filmed for Spanish tv. Again, we had our two very young children with us and we were working on the 2004 Green Man.
and Kontext Records in Germany.
Just after the 2004 Green Man, we went over to Germany to play a few dates that Dirk, who ran Kontext Records, had arranged. It was still just Danny and myself with a lap top and a couple of guitars. This time though, we were joined by Jason Glenister who had directed the ‘Let Happen’ video for us. Jason projected films he had made over the top of us while we played.
Here’s some great footage of us on stage in Berlin playing ‘Kiss My Shadow’. Jason’s films were complimented by Michael Nyman, who came backstage afterwards.
Jason took these shots of myself and Danny on stage in Hamburg.
When we returned from the German dates we were exhausted. The Green Man Festival had really started to take-over our lives. Our children were still very young, but we were so motivated, we pushed through. It was an absolute magnet; organising the next festival.
2005
We played a gig at the I.C.A. in London, still using the laptop but really missed working with other musicians.
Here’s a flier designed by Jon Clee.
We had also started writing what was to become ’The Quickening’, the fourth It’s Jo and Danny album.
Musically we were very isolated. We had to travel to London or Bristol to rehearse with a band, which was very hard to organise.
After the 2004 Green Man we knew what to do though.
Our friend Tom, who ran the record shop in Hay-on-Wye first played us the cd by Daimh. We loved it instantly and so booked them for the festival.
I’ve never seen the power of music more magnificently then I did on that evening at the Green Man 2004. As people walked past the main stage tent where they were playing, they were drawn to the music and came in. The tent filled and filled. Everyone was dancing, the atmosphere was euphoric. People kept coming up to Danny and I and thanking us. I was in tears throughout their set. It really was incredible.
Anyway…..we had the cheek to ask Daimh if they would be on our next album. Thankfully they said ‘yes’. We recorded back at Bark in Walthamstow with Brian O’Shaughnessy and flew the guys down from Inverness on an Easy Jet flight.
We hadn’t ever rehearsed with Diamh and they had never heard our music. In fact, it turned out they thought they were coming down to record their own music for a Green Man compilation album and were very surprised when I got my guitar out!
We worked incredibly hard over the next few days, playing our songs and recording. It was great but also very tiring. We all went for an Indian meal in Stoke Newington when we were done and had a brilliant night.
The album was far from finished though. We had also asked our old band-mate from the Surrey days, Rudy Carroll to play some guitar and piano. Which he did beautifully.
The final part of the brew was a percussionist from East London called Des Morgan.
We decided not to have any electronica on this record, no trickery, just straight music. We mixed the musicians around across the tracks though.
The night Danny, Brian and myself finished the album, I unwound so much through the relief of completing the project, that I laughed hysterically, unable to stop, freaking Danny and Brian out slightly. It had been so hard to write, organise and record this record, but we had done it and we were very proud of the results.
We took the cover photo in Richmond, with our dear friend Justin Thomas on camera duty again. Justin took the ’Lank Haired Girl…’ album cover and fantastic shots of our previous band, J.D. & Bob at The Garage. He had only brought a huge lens with him by mistake. We had to sit under the tree, miles away and stay in touch by ‘phone. People wondered what on earth we were doing!
We tried the idea of releasing our new album to coincide with the Green Man again, to get maximum exposure.
But if we thought the Green Man had taken over our lives in 2004, 2005 took things to a whole new level.
Here’s ’In Spite Of Love’ from ’The Quickening’.
The album got some wonderful reviews. Including this 4 star one, written by Peter Paphides in ’The Times’.
We played the festival that year but with no time to rehearse, we weren’t great. We had members of Daimh, Rudy and Des join us on stage, but it was all very ramshackle.
The festival got a 5 star review from ’The Times’, which featured the most God-awful photo of me singing. The Green Man was so off the scale in terms of taking over our lives by then, my hair was all crazy looking and my face is pure stress personified. (It was also one of the most incredible weekends of my life, Green Man that year).
After that festival we were meant to play some dates in Spain but we were in no condition to do so. We had to cancel them which in effect got us dropped by our Spanish label.
We did manage to play a short UK tour. We asked Mathew Priest and Rudy Carroll if they would complete the live band with Danny and myself. Although there wasn’t really much energy left for It’s Jo and Danny at this point, this was however, the start of our next musical venture – The Yellow Moon Band.
Spotify:
Indie Through The Looking Glass 