For PART ONE, go here: http://www.indelicates.com/2013/12/30/julia-indelicates-review-of-the-year-2013/
Much of the merchandise we made for Diseases of England was stuff we’d not tried to make before. We’ve been making our legendary Lyric books with footnotes and essays in them since our second album Songs For Swinging Lovers, but Diseases of England saw us sewing dolls and designing magazines and authoring DVDs, among other things, so it’s been a year of both shouting “Motherfucker!” at our respective sewing machines/ computers, but coming out of it with some entirely new skills. I am thankful for youtube tutorials: people of the youtube, you rock.
In May we released the video for ‘Not Alone’, a sparse, quiet, and simple video which lots of people seemed to like. It was track of the day on GIITTV and Joyzine and a bunch of others, and was viewed by people who had never heard of us thanks to the ever gracious and always kind Neil Gaiman sharing it (he has a wonderful new book out here, go see: http://amzn.to/1cAPBBS
At the tail end of May, having asked a few times on the internet to see if anyone wanted to do it, and had no takers, we released the video for ‘Dovahkiin’ (after the character in the Skyrim game). Simon spent a while learning how to make Machinima (which for those who don’t know is when you use hacks on, usually, the pc version of a game to make it do something more specific than you would otherwise be able to. For example have a massive fight or, in our case, have us perform as actual Skyrim characters). I fucking love this video. It’s totally different to any other we’ve ever done, took HOURS of fiddling, and has a man beating up a dragon with Simon’s guitar at the end. I also really like the bits where the main character just looks really depressed. Even though I appreciate it is in ‘computer pictures’ which some people just aren’t that familiar with, I genuinely think it communicates perfectly what is going on in the song. Plus there’s proper Joy in that song, one of my favourite things 🙂
In June, Simon was invited to speak on a panel at OrgCon2013 called “Lessons From Creative Citizens” at which he demonstrated all the things we’d made for the latest release, and said some very interesting things about what we do and how we do it. Also on the panel where author Diane Duane and musician Steve Lawson. It was a fascinating panel, go watch it.
Also in June we played a great show in Emma’s hometown of Oxford, where she was in charge of the advertising…
… and we put up the Video Nasty Trailer for the Diseases of England Special Edition DVD (which you can buy here: http://bit.ly/KfGPOQ )
We played a few Super Special Edition shows this year, one of which was in July in Dumfries in Scotland for Kieren Kerr. I think it fair to say I have never met men more able to drink than I have in Dumfries, Scotland. You’re all legends. Especially Dan Brun 😉 Here’s Kieren signing the contract after we’d sung some Spandau Ballet and Springsteen covers.
In August we fooled around with Vine (@simonindelicate and @juliaindelicate if you want to find our ridiculous vines on there) and we played one of our favourite ever shows with Martin White and his Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra. The thing about writing the music for songs is that if you’ve been doing it a long time you tend to write all the other parts in your head as well. Well we do anyway. This gig was like having the orchestra in my head come to life behind me. It was so SO good. Some of the songs from Diseases of England sounded so perfect with this backing that I forgot what I was doing. I actually managed to get through most of I Used To Sing without fucking it up, and it was so wonderful to hear the parts I’d scribbled out and Martin had fixed up actually WORKING. I think it’d be fair to say that the performance of ‘Class’ that we did at this gig was by far the most spectacular. When the brass came in at the end and Simon and I were spitting out our lines, it was MIGHTY. Watching the Orchestra then perform with both Mikey Georgeson and Martin himself was proper, proper magnificent. We’ve got to do it again. We’re going to next year, you should definitely, DEFINITELY not miss it…
In August we also released the video for ‘Everything Is Just Disgusting’, featuring every band member as a puppet (I made the puppets, it was funny as hell. Both Julia and Emma puppet are so far the rudest when they’re at home. Always swearing and knocking things over). We had a lot of fun with Al Guitarist and Stuart of Turtle Canyon, and Andy and Jen and Oscar at the Watershed in Milton Keynes filming all the sadness followed by all the rocking out. My favourite part of this, though you can’t tell, is when I was the head of Emma puppet, and Emma was the arms. Then we played the drums. I got pulled all over the shop. I bet that happens all the time on the Muppets 😉
In late August/ early September we started recording our new PODCAST. We’ve had LOADS of people on already, and lots of mental and deep and silly and philosophical and scientific stuff has been covered. Want to listen? Go to http://www.indelicates.com/jukebox/ or search on iTunes or Stitcher. Want to be on it? @juliaindelicate on twitter
In late September we decided to release four extra tracks as PART IV of Diseases of England, a DLC if you will, with loads of demos and extras as well. It looked like this (I’m a PRINCESS, yeah?) and you can get it here: http://corpor.at/A360
In November we were lucky enough to support Art Brut at The Village Underground with their new line-up and our new line-up! It was an ace show, with proper lush sound, everyone who played was brilliant, and we had PROPS…
In late October Simon wrote a very interesting essay defending democracy. If you haven’t already, you should read it, it does a great job of making clear some of the basic principles of western democracy… Don’t have a fight with us about it though, we can’t be bothered with that 🙂 http://www.indelicates.com/democ.html
In November I SOLD GOBBLES HAND PUPPETS EVERYWHERE. My merchandising and music buddy Paul Stapleton, of Pog, and the BN1 Game, and me sold things every weekend leading up to christmas. If I wasn’t sewing puppets, I was working Nights and finishing puppets, then going home, sleeping, waking up and sewing more puppets. IT WAS AMAZING, I AM SO TIRED! If you want to participate in my hard labour, you can purchase these super cute ever enchanting naughty little friends here: http://is.gd/gobblepuppet
Here is a photo of Paul before we both switch on our APPRENTICE style sales patter.
Want to hear our Cultural Review of the year with Lydia Snodin and Tom Wylie? It has all the things we consumed in it, and is AUDIBLE… http://indelicates.com/jukebox
NEXT YEAR WE WILL… Play with Martins Orchestra again, be developing a new musical, making a new toy, and learning how to make a WHOLE BUNCH OF NEW STUFF. Simon’s been making ice cream. I don’t think we can post it just yet, but have no doubt, I’m sure we will find a way 😉
The Credits of our lives for 2013: People who have been on things, been with us, worked with us, and generally been positive influences in our lives this year ARE (in no particular order)… Keith Totp, Ed East, Sergey Mareyno, Laurence Owen, Max Saidi, Al Clayton, Danni Read (for marrying Al Guitarist, hooray!), Nathan Thomas, Nathan Haymer, Martin Whaley, Hannah Donovan, Kate Benjamin, Sarah Mears, Robert Chatley, Paul Winkler, Penny Clayton, Graham Clayton, Martin White, Alex Beitzke, Mark Jones, Emma ‘Cwps’ Cooper, Mikey Breyer, Les Carter, Fran Graham, David Barnett, Charley Stone, Peter Murrells, Ed Barnes, Dave Hughes, Austen Jux-Chandler, Jonny Solway, Joie Mikitson, Alexander Velky, Ed Van Beinum, Nick Long, Campbell Edinborough, Lydia Snodin, Caroline Hatwell, Paul Stones, Ros Barber, Lily Rae, Paul Stapleton, Emma Lewis, Nick Kos, Adie Nunn, Mikey Georgeson, Foz Questionmark, Philip Jeays, Michael Parker, Tom Wylie, Chris Hodges, Jon Seagrave, Arec Koundarjian, Andy, Jen, and Oscar WatershedMK, Kieren Kerr, Jamie Woods, Mary Hampton, Sam @ Raconteur Magazine, Stuart Laws, Eddie Argos, Akira The Don, Sara Passmore, Grahm Eberhardt, Joel Durham Jnr, Jordan D. White, Btwothree, Maria Schurr, Neil Gaiman.
Thank you for a wonderfully busy year full of stuff 🙂
Lots of Love, Julia Indelicate X
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