(Notes from the M6)
Cyber Droogs, Surfing Drudes and Clucking Quaaludes,

Mayday celebrations from the road to y’all. We’re over halfway through this new tour and this is the first time I’ve had a chance to sit for an Address Drudion. Starting up in Whitehaven and the far west Cumbrian coast, it was amazing to sit in the tour bus and hear ourselves saying things like: “Oh look, some sheep!” But it really has come to this, and the smell of the burning permeated our nostrils the entire time we were up there. Huge thanks to Thighpaulsandra, who joined us on the Swansea show with his ARP 2600 and Kurzweil synthesizers. Thype played on “Born to Breed”, “By the Light of the Silbury Moon”, “Jellypop Perky Jean” and “Pristeen.” And what South Glamour! Surely only Thighpaulsandra could have managed a costume change within the space of four songs.

I finally got to play Aberystwyth, where I was based for so much of my research for The Modern Antiquarian, and the Newcastle show saw the first performance of my Ambient Metal project L.A.M.F. As I tell everyone on the tour, we may not be the best Ambient Metal band, but we sure are the first! 

Now L.A.M.F. has been throwing up lots of questions: Am I on the new album? Where was I at the Newcastle L.A.M.F. performance? Is it a Brain Donor project? Well, I’ll tell y’all me dears. The L.A.M.F. project is my excuse to create a necessary shamanic artform known as AMBIENT METAL. When Ambient music is getting you nowhere and sending you to sleep instead of providing the shamanic flight which you yearn for, you need an amphetamine pessary up the psychic jacksie and this album is designed to do it. I’ve described it as 77-minutes of Glambient Top-end, which means that it’s chock full of obvious metallica but invariably without drums. L.A.M.F. is a floating group with seven members. Most of the music and all the direction is mine, but the different configurations of the group appear to be based around the duos of myself and Thighpaulsandra, and myself and Doggen, except in the case of track 3 of the LP, which is played by Christophe F. and his Universal Panzies cohort the Boy Fried. The version of L.A.M.F. which played support at the Newcastle Opera House was this last configuration playing their long piece “The Neolithic Goddess.”

Many of you following the tour have been asking what the music is that I’ve been playing before each show. Well, this time I’ve been playing different stuff every night, so here’s a list of all the stuff played so far:

WHITEHAVEN: The Boredoms’ new album (can’t remember the title)
SHEFFIELD: The Boredoms’ new album
NEWCASTLE: Brain Donor – She’s Gotta Have It (22.00 minute track from LP)
WIDNES: (Turkish Psychedelia) 3‑Hurel, Erkin Koray, Baris Manco
HANLEY: Walter Wegmuller & the Cosmic Jokers – Tarot
MANCHESTER: Acid Mothers Temple – Troubadours from Another Heavenly World
HALIFAX: Simply Saucer – Cyborgs Revisited
COLCHESTER: Acid Mothers Temple – Absolutely Freak Out
KING’S LYNN: Karuna Khyal – Alomoni 1985
SWANSEA: Magickal Power Mako – Music From Heaven
ABERYSTWYTH: Taj Mahal Travellers – Live Stockholm 71
BILSTON: Walter Wegmuller & the Cosmic Jokers – Tarot
MORECOMBE: Taj Mahal Travellers – Live Stockholm 71

I’ll update ya with the rest of the show music next month when I’ve had a chance to come down from this prolonged strange trip. Needless to say but say it I will, thanks to everyone who’s come to the shows so far.

Brain Donor’s second single GET OFF YOUR PRETTY FACE will be released in June, in a fluorescent pink package with foiled lettering. The guys at Impresario Records dig it even more than the first one, which is excellent news. By the way, the LP has been brought forward to mid-July so it doesn’t get in the way of Doggen and Kevlar going off with Spiritualized. The record’s now gonna be called LOVE PEACE & FUCK, and is a massively Odinist celebration of the mysterious female.

Other news worth mentioning – the British Museum dates have been set for October 4th and 5th of this year. I’ll clue you in further after this tour period. The South Bank Centre has asked if I would put another CORNUCOPEA together for sometime early next year. Don’t hold your breath, but we’re combing the world for hard-tackling shamanic metallica to bring you to.

Love on ya,

JULIAN (No. 1, Yatesbury)