Speedway 105 Cafe – Cape Town – 31/01/09

Lightyears hit Cape Town!

The day is finally here – we’ve landed in South Africa! We arrived in Cape Town only a few hours ago but I’m already hooked on the place. It’s just incredible here – stunning weather, breathtaking surroundings and really welcoming people. Danny and I are still a bit groggy from the flight having engaged in something of an alcoholic face-off last night (Danny on JD & Coke, me on London Pride) in front of a film called “The Rocker” which, well, let’s just say you needn’t bother watching. Entertaining enough when you’re 50,000 feet in the air and a bit sozzled but otherwise missable.

Anyhow, we reached SA early this morning and the tour started on a high when we picked up our hire car. We’d booked a bottom-of-the-range 4-seater “Chico” (the kind of car driven around Slough town centre by boys in big trousers who think they’re P Diddy) because it was almost frighteningly cheap – but when we rocked up at Hertz this morning, the guy told us he was out of Chicos and instead was giving us the keys to a brand-new 8-seater Volkswagen Transporter! Our ride had OFFICIALLY been pimped!

Twenty minutes later and we were cruising down the freeway in the blazing sunshine, our new song “Johannesburg” playing on the van’s proper phat sound system. I realise it’s a little conceited to listen to one’s own music but I think in this case we had an excuse!  

Since we arrived we’ve already been booked for a couple more gigs over the coming days and have a meeting this evening with some media dudes who are gonna help us get some press whilst we’re here. The tour is well and truly in motion…

For now though, we’re off to the beach!

Chris Lightyear

“He Ain’t Heavy” – The Story Behind Johannesburg

At the tail end of last year, I wrote a song called “Johannesburg”.

Typically, the songs I write are based on my own life experiences, but this one was an exception. There was a news story on the BBC, last September I think, in which a British correspondent interviewed two brothers – neither of them any older than 15 years old – arriving in Johannesburg after a harrowing journey on foot from Zimbabwe.

Their parents had been murdered by government militia. Left on their own at such a young age, at first they had no idea which way to turn, but soon they heard people talking about Johannesburg. Everybody was saying that if you could find a way to get there, you’d be offered food and shelter. The two boys had nothing – literally, nothing – except the faint glimmer of hope provided by a city they knew not one thing about and had no conceivable way of reaching. So they did the only thing they could – they started walking.

By the time they reached the outskirts of the city and the BBC correspondent interviewed them, they had been walking continuously for many days and had been mugged and beaten on the way. Finding nothing of value on them, the muggers had taken their shoes. Against all odds, however, they had made it – weak, starved and emotionally drained – to the city of Johannesburg. 

Even though this story was obviously a million miles away from anything I’ve ever experienced, and told of hardship I couldn’t hope to understand, something about it struck a chord with me. I guess it reminded me of the inspiration behind the Hollies’ song “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”, which also happens to be one of my favourite songs of all time. Apparently “He Ain’t Heavy…” is based on a religious parable of sorts, in which a priest is walking along a dusty country road and sees two young man advancing towards him in the distance. As they get closer he realises that one man is badly injured and the other is carrying him on his back. Discovering that they have walked many miles in the intense heat without food, water or respite, the priest asks the carrier how he is able to withstand such a heavy burden. The man’s response became the title of that song.

Anyhow, I finished “Johannesburg” and we played it to a few people to test the water. We live with a guy who comes from Cape Town and, when he heard the track, he told us we had to find a way to get out to South Africa and make the song heard. So we did. 

And we leave today.

We’ll let you know how it goes!

Chris Lightyear

ps. you can get a free copy of “Johannesburg” by adding your e-mail address to the box on our homepage.

Download new LYs song “Johannesburg” – for free

Ahead of our upcoming tour to South Africa, we’ve just recorded a new song entitled “Johannesburg” – and it can be yours, right now, for free. 

All you need to do is sign up to The Lightyears mailing list and we’ll give you a copy of the song for nothing. Free music! It’s crazy-bonkers!

You can get your free copy by adding your email address to the box on the right.

You know us, we like to make a fuss when we visit a new country and we’re particularly excited about the South African tour. The serendipity of having just written a new song named after the country’s capital seemed too good to ignore and so we knew we had to get into the studio and lay it down as soon as the trip was confirmed. 

Click here to read my blog about the story behind “Johannesburg”.

LYs to play to thousands in Cape Town

We’ve just got the finer details through about our upcoming gigs in Cape Town, South Africa – and it looks like we’ll be playing to a crowd of thousands!

We’re headlining at the after-parties for the Cape Town Tens Rugby Tournament and the organisers expect 2000+ people to turn up for the festivities.

The events are taking place at Hamilton RFC, South Africa’s oldest rugby club – situated, fittingly, in the shadow of Green Point Stadium, a brand new complex currently being built for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Full details can be found at the Cape Town Tens website.

Oh, and the team at CT Tens are very kindly putting us up in the magnificent Table Bay Hotel, which I’m personally very excited about. Table Bay Hotel is, unsurprisingly, in Table Bay – overlooked by the world-famous Table Mountain. Marvellous.

Things I Know About Rugby

So, here’s the news – we’re forsaking Blighty next week for eleven days in South Africa, where we’ll be headlining at the after-parties for the Cape Town Tens Rugby Tournament.

“But how,” I hear you cry, “have The Lightyears ended up performing at a rugby tournament?”. Well, evidently the good word is spreading and in fact we’ve been scheming about getting out to SA for some time now. Thing is, of course, that I know very little about rugby. Next to nothing, if I’m honest. How will I hold my own with the players? What on earth am I gonna do about my banter? Will I expose myself as an idiotic boob by failing to understand the principles of scrummage? (Which, by the way, sounds like a boiled vegetable to me. However, I digress.)

Let me give you an example. In football, successfully maneouvring the ball between the two white posts is known as a “goal”. This makes perfect sense to me. The word “goal” denotes an achievement, a success. In rugby, however, it seems to be called a “try”. How did that come about? I mean, apart from anything else, using “try” as a noun demonstrates a reckless disregard for English grammar. And what’s with all the backwards passing? Did you know you can only pass backwards in rugby? Extraordinary.    

I guess the root of my ignorance of the sport is that I never really connected with rugby at school. I just wasn’t built for it, you see. In fact, I downright feared it. Consider this – you come into school one morning, just like every other day, discreetly avoiding eye contact with the school bully, Chris Jennings (a guy who would sell his own grandmother for crack), lest you attract a pummeling. Everything’s proceeding as normal until PE class comes round and, against your will, better judgement and every instinct in your central nervous system, you are forced into participating in a sport that not only authorises but actively encourages the bullies to beat the crap out of you. Effectively this was legalised maiming. And nobody did anything about it. 

Our PE teacher was called Mr Blower. Ian Blower is, in fact, an extremely fine chap who I see now and again and, bizarrely, even features in the photo on the inside of the liner notes for the new album. This fact notwithstanding, when I was a shivering, pasty, knock-kneed thirteen year-old, the particular brand of masochism celebrated by Mr Blower and, indeed, PE teachers worldwide, seemed especially unfair to me. He used to stand there in twelve layers of clothing declaring “It’s not cold, you big girls’ blouses!”, whilst the blood drained slowly from my muscles and my tiny legs turned blue. 

I have only one vivid memory of playing rugby. Quite why this is, I don’t know. We must have done it on a fairly regular basis but it’s easily possible that the part of my brain responsible for recovering those memories perished in the intense cold we would weekly experience on the school battlefield. Sorry, pitch.

On this particular occasion it was snowing. I mean, really snowing. “Blizzard” would not be an overstatement. You couldn’t see much further than six feet in front of you, which meant that when Sid The Tank – a boy who was wider than he was tall and had the look of Cro-Magnon Man about him – came careering at you across the field, you didn’t know about it until it was too late. Now, a face-off between me and Sid was a little bit like a locomotive running over a cake. There could really only be one winner. 

I remember lying face down on the cold ground, not certain how many of my fragile little bones had been shattered by the impact, reflecting that I hadn’t even had the ball in the first place. Luckily rugby is, by reputation, a sport played by gentlemen, and so I imagine these kind of underhand tactics are peculiar to one’s school days and the dog-eat-dog world of hormonal teenage boys.  

These days, as it happens, I rather enjoy watching a game of international rugby in the pub of a Saturday afternoon (let’s face it, it’s the only sport that the English are actually any good at) and am keen to learn more. So this tour may turn out to be educational as well as recreational.

Oh, and whilst I’m on the subject of sport, what’s up with cricket?!? Bill Bryson, a hero of mine, once commented that you should never trust a sport where the participants break for mealtimes. Quite. On tour, Tony and George derive hours of pleasure from forcing me to listen to cricket on the radio. “Oooooh,” they coo gleefully as we speed down the M1 to some gig or other, “the five-day test match is on. Pukka.”

Five days? FIVE DAYS?! Wars have been over quicker than that*. You know, I think if they took all the standing around, staring at the sky, scratching one’s crotch etc out of cricket and just kept the bits where the players actually moved around, the games would last about 15 minutes.

Mind you, what do I know? I still think a “googly” is an internet search engine…

Chris Lightyear

*this is no exaggeration – in December 1939, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco joined with the Axis Army in war against the French. Just one day after the declaration, the Axis conquered Algiers and the French surrendered. The following day the peace treaty was signed. And all this in the amount of time it takes cricketers to decide how many sugars to have in their tea.

Lightyears to tour to South Africa

Get ready for the latest instalment in our grand plan to conquer the world – next week we are leaving British soil for Cape Town, South Africa.

We’ve been booked to headline at the Cape Town Tens Rugby Tournament on 7 and 8 February and we’re mighty excited about it.

Click here to read the Cape Town Tens’ article on the band. 

This is our first trip to SA and also represents the fourth continent ticked off our To-Do list – Europe, Asia, North America and Africa down, just South America, Australasia and Antarctica still to go. You can read up on our global adventures thus far by visiting my Tour Diary page.

We’re heading off next Thursday for a few days on the beach before the “work” side of things kicks in, so we’ll be sure to keep in touch with you guys whenever we can with news of our various adventures. Whilst we’re out there promoting our own songs we’ll be throwing some old favourites into the mix too for singalong value and so we’re taking little Johnny Owens along with us to fill in on bass duties. Even Danny Lightyear, our mohican-ed soundman, will be leaving the confines of Watlington, Oxfordshire, and beasting up Cape Town like there’s no tomorrow.

Watch this space for news from SA!

nb. LYs trivia moment – we make reference to a South African friend of ours in the first verse of Emily: “Oh, today I got a man from SA – he’s got a lot to learn and I’ve got plenty to say”. In fact we’ll be hooking up with him in Cape Town. That’s poetry for ya.

The Lightyears’ Family Tree

Today, to mark the release of our new album London, England, I thought I’d attempt the impossible – to figure out where the heck it is that The Lightyears come from. 

People always ask musicians “Who are your influences?”, and musicians tend to answer with long, protracted diatribes about rare Frank Zappa B-sides and unreleased Captain Beefheart LPs that leave normal people reeling.

From now on then, when people ask me that question, I can simply refer them to this article.

Essentially I’m talking about a musical family tree. Who are our musical forefathers, our rock ancestors, our guitar-strumming, key-bashing, stick-wielding predecessors? 

To answer this question, we must begin at the beginning… 

It is 1994. Everybody’s dressed in inexplicably baggy t-shirts and careering round the playground bellowing Harry Enfield catchphrases at each other. I am still struggling to crack the mysterious phenomenon of the Magic Eye picture (“No, I can’t see a bloody dolphin in there! What do you mean look through it?”) and Les Dennis is still considered entertaining. Most importantly, soft-rock overlords Bon Jovi have taken George and I by the scruff of our tiny, grubby necks and, charmingly, have inspired us to start our own band.

George and I bonded over a mutual love of Bon Jovi. Mainly I think George encouraged this to distract me from Pantera and I, in turn, did so to distract him from Chris De Burgh. In hindsight, I think we can probably both agree that this was a very smart move.

Elsewhere, in Reigate, Surrey, Tony is diligently studying old Cream LPs and dreaming of one day smoking a cigar with Ginger Baker. Stoically anti-fashion, he spurns the bands everyone else is into and in doing so paves the way for a lifetime of shameless contrariness.

When the two worlds collide and The Lightyears (née Satellite) are formed, cheesey-nice-boy hair-rock goes head-to-head with pretentious prog-rock in a terrible battle for supremacy.

The resulting war of musical prejudices plays out something like this:

(Disclaimer 1: Rock Genealogy is not an exact science. I may have taken a few liberties here.) 

(Disclaimer 2: our biggest single collective inspiration is probably The Beatles but I haven’t included them in the tree on account of the fact that bands citing the Fab Four as an influence is a bit like a chef saying he’s influenced by salt and pepper.)

Bugger. Just realised I missed out Blur. And The Small Faces.

Well, it’ll have to do for now. To avoid unnecessary debate, this diagram is not designed to be chronologically accurate – it simply traces the course of our tastes in music. If you’re particularly anal you may enjoy some of the logical segues – take Ben Folds Five into Jerry Lee Lewis, for example, or Counting Crows into Death Cab For Cutie – and I hope that, by the same token, you will ignore some of the absurd non-sequiturs (nobody goes direct from Funkadelic to Dodgy, I mean that’s just silly. Problem is, drawing all those little lines took ages and, well, it’s not like I don’t have other important stuff to do).

Speaking of which, my tax return is staring at me from across the room like a dreadful paper Sauron. “I seeeeeee you…”, it’s saying. Yeah whatever. You’re not the boss of me, Tax Return. 

Later kids!

Chris Lightyear

First reviews of “London, England”

The first reviews of the new album are beginning to trickle in from various sources.

Irish national music magazine State gave it four out of five stars, proclaiming that “in a world of passing fashion, fake credibility and media hype, The Lightyears are able to stand out for all the right reasons”.

Click here to read State’s review of London, England.

Following the publicity in State, the Dublin-based radio station Phantom FM reviewed the album on air on Friday afternoon. Phil Udell described the band as “Babyshambles without the drugs – and with better manners”.

Click here to listen to Phantom FM’s review of London, England.

The all-powerful blogging scene is also beginning to pick up on the release and early reviews have recently come in from the Canada-based blog BestInBritishMusic and dualling indie critics Monkton Vs Plankton.

“London, England is a great upbeat album – and a surefire way to beat those winter blues…” BESTINBRITISHMUSIC, CANADA

Click here to read BestInBritishMusic’s review of London, England.

“2009 has been generous to us so far, with great new albums from Animal Collective and Franz Ferdinand. London, England is further proof that this might just be the year that keeps on giving…” MONKTON VS PLANKTON

Click here to read Monkton Vs Plankton’s review of London, England.

LYs offer fans free money! No catch!

Our new album London, England is now available to buy from our online shop, priced £5 (click here to visit the shop page and buy your copy) – but for those craving the digital option, the album will become available to download from iTunes, Napster, eMusic and various other online outlets in the coming weeks. In the meantime, outside of www.TheLightyears.com the album will be available exclusively from independent download store and social networking site Amie Street. 

If you’re not already an account holder at Amie Street, then boy do we have a treat for you – $5 (that’s £3.38) of free store credit, no questions asked, for Lightyears fans (courtesy of Amie Street and Fanbridge)*.

That’s right, we’re just chucking money around as if it were confetti (which it may as well be in the current economic climate). 

Click here to join Amie Street and receive $5 of free store credit. 

For all those unfamiliar with the Amie Street system, newly uploaded tracks start free and increase in price as demand for them rises. A little bit like Wall Street. Only without all the back-stabbing and Armani suits.

* don’t worry – you don’t have to be based in the USA to use the site!

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