Download the new Lightyears app

Today we are launching our very own app, which means you can now enjoy Lightyears music, video, photos and news direct from your mobile device.

That’s right – after years of expensive research and experimentation, scientists have found a way to shrink down piano-led pop bands to such a diminutive size, they’ll fit in your pocket. Best of all, it’s completely free.

To add the app to your smartphone or iPad, follow this link from your mobile device (if you’re on a computer you’ll be prompted to scan the QR code. Do contact us if any of this baffles you).

There’s even a Fan Wall where you can let us know what you think of the app, good or bad. Although we prefer bad. Nasty if at all possible.

LYs to headline Westminster Reference Library

We’re very excited to announce that we’ll be returning to the London stage on Saturday 9 February next year to headline at Westminster Reference Library. We’ll be presenting extracts from my Lightyears novel ‘Mockstars’, as well as songs from our new album, for one night only in an intimate setting.

This is your chance to get a sneak preview of the material we’ve been writing this year, and experience the fusion of words and live music in this exciting, offbeat venue.

*TICKETS ARE NOW ON SALE* at the frighteningly reasonable price of £4.50 (plus 50p booking fee). Click here to buy yours – and we’ll look forward to seeing you there!

Full details on the GIGS page.

God bless the internet (and Gangnam Style)

Korean internet sensation PSY has just reached 1 billion views on his YouTube channel.

This is pretty astonishing, especially when you consider that neither One Direction, Nicki Minaj nor Adele have yet reached this milestone. Here you have a man who, until last summer, was known only in his native South Korea – a country hardly renowned for its pop exports – and recorded his global smash hit Gangnam Style as a bit of a joke for inclusion on his sixth studio album.

Gangnam Style is now the second most viewed video IN HISTORY – behind (you guessed it) Justin Bieber’s Baby. In honour of this, Bieber and PSY have now confirmed they will be working together on a single sometime in the future.

How wonderfully, gloriously silly.

This, I believe, is what the internet was invented for. To make ridiculous things like this happen, things that could never have occurred without our new-found global connectivity (not to mention propensity for deifying pointless weirdness on the web).

The Lightyears have played in South Korea a number of times, and we’ve developed a strange fondness for the place. To be honest I can’t remember whether or not we’ve ever been to the Gangnam district upon which the song is based, but a quick Wikipedia search tells me it has both a Kimchi and a Handbag Museum. So there you go. We’ll have to go hang out there if we ever return.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and perfect the horse-riding dance for our next gig.

Click here to see The Lightyears’ South Korean tour photos

ps. Type the letter ‘g’ into Google – you’ll find that the sixth most popular suggestion for any search beginning with this letter is ‘gangnam style’. WOW.

pps. If you’re not familiar with Gangnam Style yet, then I’d suggest you keep it that way, if only because it’ll give you something to talk about at parties when you become the last human alive who hasn’t seen it (probably sometime tomorrow).

All my life… watching America

We’ve toured to America numerous times, and having been based mainly on the East Coast have spent a great deal of time with Barack Obama’s supporters and campaigners (in fact, we were in the US just a few months before he was originally elected in 2008). And so, at the risking of confusing music with politics or being in any way partisan… WOO-HOO!! Congratulations America – you made the right decision.

It’s been a rough ol’ road for rockstar Obama. In a way I think one of the biggest challenges he faces is that his nation is experiencing something of an identity crisis at the moment. Traditionally the USA has always been about optimism, triumph, and prosperity, but with stories of evictions and bankruptcy dominating the news, suddenly the American Dream would appear to be showing substantial cracks. That said, as a nation Americans are hardy of spirit and indomitably patriotic, and however things pan out, I’d say that’s unlikely to change.

I’ve always had a problem with the prevalence in Britain of ‘America bashing’ – the assumption that because we speak the same language it’s somehow okay to make offensive, sweeping generalisations. Over here in Blighty we generally have a low tolerance for racism, but it is for some unfathomable reason still socially acceptable to say ‘all Yanks are fat and stupid’, which I think is completely appalling – especially given that my experience on The Lightyears’ US tours is that Americans are amongst the warmest, smartest and most welcoming people on earth.

Whatever happens in the next four years, I firmly believe the USA – and therefore the world – is in far, far safer hands under Obama than it would have been under Romney. It ain’t gonna be easy, but then I guess that must be why they call it the hardest job in the world…

– Click here to see The Lightyears’ American Tour Photo Album
– Click here to read my 2009 USA Tour Diary
– Click here to see The Lightyears playing live at Milkboy in Ardmore, Pennsylvania (or watch it below)

Keepin’ it real with Dry The River…

Last week, Johnny LY and I went to see Dry The River at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. We’ve been lucky enough to catch this band at the two high points of their career – last year at the Scala, and now this date at SBE (both of which represented at the time their biggest headline shows to date) – and they were nothing short of stunning.

As we were watching DTR start their set, my housemate Neil asked me ‘Who’s the best band you’ve ever seen live?’ and I honestly struggled to think of an act more accomplished than Dry The River. Their history is an interesting one, the members’ past musical ventures representing a discordant mix of troubadour folk and hardcore post-punk. The result is a band who understand dynamics perfectly, right through from exquisite quiet to devastating loud. And their voices…? Well, in The Lightyears we’re a band who work hard at – and pride ourselves on – quality vocal harmonies, but I have to say I felt my cage rattled by this lot. Their vocals are just out of this world.

Possibly the most striking point of the evening was DTR’s encore, when they left the stage, headed out into the centre of the floor and performed their heartbreaking track Shaker Hymns completely unplugged, embraced in a sea of people and lit by the lamps from camera phones. I’ve seen this kind of thing done a couple of times now (apparently Ed Sheeran‘s a big advocate) and, while it’s no longer especially original, the impact on the audience is always huge, and I think this tells us a lot about the direction the industry is heading in. Almost every performance we see is magnified and boosted and amplified by a million valves and speakers and diodes; mainstream recordings are polished and cajoled and manipulated until they are no longer representative of ‘real’ music – and in an environment such as this, the simple fact of a few talented musicians performing without the veneer of electricity can seem (in fact, is) quite magical.

Here’s a video shot by someone lucky enough to be right in the heart of the action: