piano

Sell-out at Westminster Library

Thanks to everyone who came down to Westminster Library on Saturday night for our Book & Album Preview – we played one of our favourite ever gigs, to a capacity crowd, in a truly unusual and exciting venue.

I’ve written a piece on the event in my Lightyears blog, and we also covered the show with a photographer and cameraman. We’ll be releasing new media as and when it’s available, so watch this space.

It was pretty thrilling for us to unleash extracts from the book and songs from the new album for the first time, and we’d be interested to know what people thought. Connect with us via our Twitter and Facebook accounts or, if you’re from the old school, just post us your crayon / dried pasta interpretations of the gig, and we’ll be happy.

New free download at Project LYs

Back in July we launched Project Lightyears, a multimedia micro-site designed to spread the word about the band far and wide across this good green earth.

Since then, with your help, we’ve racked up over 70,000 views. Thanks everyone! This also means that a new target has been unlocked, and we’ve decided to give away a preview recording of One Way Or The Other, which was one of the first tracks to come out of our writing sessions for the new album. We recorded the song live on the banks of Lake Grasmere in Cumbria back in September, using a basic set-up powered by a car battery (surprising a few ramblers in the process), and in fact some of you will already have seen the video on YouTube.

We wanted you to be able to take the song away and listen to it, so we’ve extracted the audio and made it available for free download at Project LYs. And if N-Dubz make urban pop, then we’re definitely spearheading a movement in hardcore rural music – because if you listen carefully to this track, you can actually hear the lake in the background. John Craven would fill his pants.

Our ultimate aim with Project Lightyears is to reach 10 million views, and while this is still some way off, word is spreading to far-flung corners of the earth and momentum is gathering (you may remember that our videos are particularly popular in Turkey, and in fact during the last thirty days we’ve had one lone viewer in Guadeloupe – if you’re that person and you’re reading this, make yourself known to me and I’ll write you a song… no joke). Thanks again for all your support!

Watch the video for One Way Or The Other below – or download the track for free by visiting Project Lightyears.

Piano-led bands of the world… unite!

Those original geek-chic piano rockers Ben Folds Five have reformed and released a new album.

This is exciting news for me, and if you haven’t heard of Ben Folds Five but you’re a fan of The Lightyears then it’s probably rather exciting news for you too – because it means I’m introducing you to a band you’re really going to like (try this track to start you off – “Philosophy” from their eponymous debut album, live on Jools Holland).

I’d been playing piano for nearly ten years when I was introduced to Ben Folds Five by our school-days drummer Alan Oldfield (the first in our worryingly long line of herbivore drummers). At that point, everything changed. Suddenly playing the piano wasn’t about respectfully tinkling the ivories and staring wanly off into the distance anymore – it was about kicking the living shit out of it. I started bouncing around and smashing the keys with my fists and, at gigs, developed a habit of leaping onto my piano from a great height at moments of musical climax.

For a long time I basically just wanted The Lightyears to be Ben Folds Five. This is generally how being in a band works – kids get into music, learn an instrument and then assemble a group of their mates in an attempt to exactly replicate their favourite bands. In truth, Ben Folds Five were one of the few influences that we agreed on in the early days (Tony’s long-time love of Cream didn’t mix so well with mine and George’s Bon Jovi obsession), which is probably why we ended up sounding a bit like them.

Anyhow, I was kicking around the internet the other day and discovered this rare and untouched live recording from an early Lightyears gig at the 12 Bar Club, circa 2004. The 12 Bar Club features prominently in my Lightyears novel, Mockstars, and was a favourite haunt of ours for some years. This track, “Don’t Do It At The Hollywood”, particularly struck me because it’s clear I was very much caught in the clutches of my ‘wishing I was Ben Folds’ stage. It’s pretty scrappy but a lot of fun, and features former LYs member Tom Mansfield on the bass guitar.

New live video published

We’ve just published the third and final video from our recent ‘Live At Lake Grasmere’ sessions. Click here to check it out on YouTube, or scroll down to the bottom of this news story.

The song, ‘Embrace Of Many’, is another brand-new track intended for inclusion on our new album. It’s a song about feeling isolated whilst also being surrounded by crowds of people.

The video was recorded, along with ‘I Won’t Wait Forever‘ and ‘One Way Or The Other‘, on the banks of Lake Grasmere in Cumbria (northern England) while we were waiting to go onstage on Saturday 1 September. We powered the camera with a car battery, and absolutely everything is performed live.

In the YouTube notes you’ll find the lyrics and chords, just in case there are any budding musicians out there who fancy giving it a go!