Actual band news edition
New single, tour support, new dates, an in-store tour, some writing
Some actual band news this week! (which I think might be the intended primary purpose of this medium, whoops.)
Bloom and Fade
New track out today. It’s called Bloom and Fade. Have a listen. I wrote about this tune in the first substack on songwriting so I won’t repeat myself. This is what Tom said as per the press release:
When we were listening back to it in the studio, I remember saying out loud that this is the favourite song we’d ever made, like it was the song we’d always been trying to write. It does feel quintessentially Lung, a culmination of everything we’ve worked on.
Thomas James Sharkett, 2024
Here’s the Bloom and Fade press photo, taken just before I reveal my lizard self beneath the human suit. (Marieke Macklon)
PEM and ABS
We announced this week that our support for the UK tour will be PEM. Which is, for want of a better phrase, fucking great. We get sent a lot of bands and artists in the run up to the tour and then band, booking agent and mgmt decide who we might extend an invitation to. When PEM came through I actually couldn’t stop listening to the EP. The vocals are gorgeous and the honesty and vulnerable power of how she navigates through grief and love is very overwhelmingly good. I listened to it 3 times straight through back to back. Dead excited to see it live.
I have mentioned Anna B Savage previously in these pages and also when I did a playlist selection for Birthday Cake for Breakfast. Tom and I really wanted to ask Anna to play with us for the Manchester show but weren’t sure if it’d even be possible because it felt like the billing would be upside down. But we asked anyway and somehow it’s fucking happened. I love Anna’s music so much. I love watching her perform. It reminds me why I do it. It makes me want to do it more. It is a rare pleasure, luxury, honour to have her play with us. Her music makes me cry and her friendship is important to me and I’m scared to send her poetry because she’s really clever. Tour dates here.
New dates!
And you’ll notice some new dates have been added to that list:
In-store tour
Something a little different. Tom and I will be heading out on a cute tour together at the following shops on the following dates. It’s stripped back, just two friends playing their songs. We were working out last night how the hell we’re going to make Lung cosy, it seems to working. I think you just turn up to these! Come see us play man. Get it in the diary.
Here are those dates in a non classy format:
19th October - Leeds - Jumbo Records 20th October - Huddersfield - Vinyl Tap 21st October - London - Rough Trade East 22nd October - Oxford - Truck Records 23rd October - Brighton - Resident
Classy artworks, as always, by Dr.Me Studio
A story with bad words in it
I’ve just been on a meditation retreat, hence my (literal) silence last week. I won’t go into the details here but I’m either a husk or have shed my husk. Only time will tell.
You’re not allowed to read or write, or even look at people, but I had accidentally packed a notebook (naughty.) I didn’t write anything relating to my journey or my struggles or my paññā (don’t worry) but I did speed write the start of this story about a self-hating Brexiteer stamp collector somewhere in rural England. Sorry for the egregious swearing, I blame the emergent sankharas. In the spirit of a vulnerability I wish to maintain in these pages, I’ve replicated it word for word:
Bob was walking down the hill as fast as his little fucking legs could carry him. He needed to get to the postbox for 1 or he’d miss the pick up. Nigel was always so fucking prompt. He daren’t check his watch. He checked his watch. Shitting fuck, 12.56.
Past the hedges, between a gap in the stone wall he could see the post box on the other side of the field. And there was Nigel’s red van. Cunt. He attempted a jog that to an observer wouldn’t have appeared any faster than his walk. The chest out, side to side jockeying of an overweight middle-aged man who existed in constant mist of vague pain. Did he still count as middle aged? He’d have to live to 112. He wheezed.
He was going to call out but knew there was little point as Nigel would take a cunt’s delight in appearing dreadfully sorry while tapping an absent watch. The Royal Mail of course depended upon the prompt dispatch of the Cherry Blossom Lane post box, with it’s two universal credit slips and Happy Birthday Grandson! card (football, trophy.)
A sweat had developed on his brow and lip. He spat and covered his shoulder and some of his leg in stringy dribble. He was panting like a moose as Nigel pulled up to the postbox. Fuck it. ‘Nigel! Nige mate!’ Nigel didn’t turn. He must have heard him the lanky pillock.
He wasn’t more than 50 metres away. ‘Nigel!’ He bent his head forward like a moose and attempted a gallop.
When he next looked up it was to see the red van pulling away into the country lane ahead. It started to rain.
‘Oh fucking cunt it’ said Bob.
Some relief
At the back of the retreat centre was a pleasant little woodland. To keep myself from going entirely mental I started trying to recall The Lake of Innisfree by Yeats in its entirety. I know how that sounds, but honestly it’s true.
The focus you develop in the spiritual prison is such that I was able to drag the whole gorgeous thing word by word from where it lay in my mind-depths. Spoken out loud (even out loud on the inside), it’s like a kind of like a magic spell. I’ll post it here in full, which hopefully will operate as a balm after whatever the fuck that story was.
The Lake of Innisfree I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
Cultural bits
Not many cultural bits because I’ve been easing my way back into the world of things. So just a couple of song offers.
‘What Comes After Certainty’ by Bill Callahan. Note the first line. It’s true, isn’t it?
‘All of This is Chance’ by Lisa O’Neill. Sometimes when I'm not sure about how to word a social media post on the band instagram I’ll listen to a song like this, by an artist like this: ‘Ahhhh yes, silly me, that’s what music is’
We were back in the studio last Friday for something that is top secret and every bit as interesting as top secret things so often are. Will share in due course.
Enjoy the new tune, look after yourself, spread a little metta.
Lots of love
Joe x