09-03-08 The launch night at The Newcastle Arts Centre was a great success and very
well supported, thanks to all who attended. The night included a viewing of the
Faith video from 1987 (click here to view) and also the showing of a montage of old
songs, photos and publicity clippings which we may make available on YouTube due
to the amount of positive comments that were fed back to us.
06-03-08 - The Honest Johns featured in the Culture section of todays Newcastle Journal.
Click here to read the full article.
10-02-08 The official launch of The Honest Johns new album Songwriters of the North
is confirmed for Saturday 8th March at the Newcastle Arts Centre. Tickets are priced
at £7 and can purchased from this site by clicking here or from the Newcastle Arts
Centre. Read comments received on the MySpace site from people who have already
purchased Songwriters of the North by clicking here.
27-11-2007 We get many great comments sent to the website and posted on the web and
we thank you very much for all the kind words. Here are a couple that we spotted
recently:
'Mark Lawson is an awesome talent. Clearly one of the most overlooked songwriters
of the North. Up there with Sting & Knopfler.'
And this talking about one of the tracks off our forthcoming album:
'Whenever I actually have a “longing” for a particular song or genre, I find myself
playing the same handful of songs by indie pop bands. These songs have become my
“definition” songs! One thing that all of these songs have in common is that I fell
in love with each and every one of them the very first time that I heard them, and
have never grown tired of them. Well, the point is, that I’ve recently come across
the first addition to my “definition songs list" (DSL) in quite some time, a demo
by The Honest Johns, called She Knows The Names Of Trees. Don’t miss out on an opportunity
to catch a listen to this song—I’m positive that you’ll love it.'
Fantastic. Keep them coming. You can download 'She knows the names of trees' at amazingtunes.com.
13-11-2007 Despite the disappointment of the cancelled launch event, the band were
back in the practice rooms this week to prepare for the forthcoming trip into the
recording studio. As Aidan said "good work was done on putting some of the song arrangements
under the microscope. The songs are tighter for it, and we can't wait to get in there
and get started." We'll be updating on plans for the session in due course, so keep
checking back here for info
26-10-2007 Due to circumstances beyond our control the launch event at the Laing
Art Gallery has been postponed until the new year. Thanks to everyone who contacted
the website for tickets. Details of the rearranged event will be released in the
near future.
27-09-2007 It was all change in the practice room again this week as the band auditioned
a potential keyboard player. Bringing in someone to add to the sound in this way
has been on the cards for a while. The session went well, with existing songs like
"Freight Train" and "Wonder Working Star" benefiting immediately. But as Mark pointed
out “a keyboard player gives us much more scope to try things when we are arranging
new material”. Watch this space for more developments
24-09-2007 The Honest Johns MySpace page goes from strength to strength - now with
over 1100 friends and plays for 'Freight Train', 'The Stalker Song', and 'Forget
Her' each topping the 3000 mark. If you haven't had a look yet go straight to www.myspace.com/thehonestjohns
and hear some tracks off our forth coming album 'Songwriters of the North' for free!
The next target for the MySpace page is to get more friends than Wedginald the Cheese
who currently has 1241 cheese loving friends. You can watch Wedginald maturing at
www.cheddarvision.tv and check out his MySpace page at www.myspace.com/cheddarvision.
Listening to the Honest Johns with a nice piece of cheese. What could be better?
20-09-2007 Due to a shortage of personnel (Jon and Paul had to be elsewhere) Rich,
Mark and Aidan had an "unplugged" practice this week. Most of the two hour slot was
spent on working through vocal parts on the material that the band will be performing
at the Laing. And according to Aid, the results were pretty impressive. "We've all
got quite dissimilar voices" he said "but blended together the end results are excellent.
And the three-part-harmonies on some of the new material were superb!" Reports that
the band will be doing a "B Sharps" by taking Barbershop to strange new places are
apparently wide of the mark however.
23-07-2007 Following a short period of absence Aidan Oswell has rejoined the band
as backing singer and percussionist. Aidan has been a major part of the band since
1986 so it was an easy decision all round for Aidan to return.
18-09-2007 The band met on Friday night at Aidan's local in the wilds of Northumberland.
Nice. We liked the pub so much (the only disaster being that we had to watch one
of England's most humiliating rugby defeats ever) that we decided we would like to
play there. Watch out for a mystery coach trip up the coast coming soon. Email the
website if you want to register interest. Meanwhile the official launch of the new
album 'Songwriters of the North' is imminent. We are in discussions with the Laing
Art Gallery to host the launch event. We'll be playing most of the album plus one
old song - 'Lick the Earth' and a couple of new songs - 'Try', 'Your Song is Goodbye
Lucille' and 'The Tuesday Night Guitar Club'. Remember you can already listen to
and download the album at Amazing Tunes
15-07-2007 We have started writing a series of Blogs will be posted here and on The
Honest Johns MySpace site. The first is available now and can be read here.
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