Transgressive Hot Summer Tour 2008
Monday 14th July 2008 @ Thekla, Bristol
With Support From: Esser, So So Modern

It’s a grey, windy, July afternoon and I’m out on top-deck of the Old Profanity with Jeremy Warmsley; the showpiece name on the Transgressive Hot Summer Tour 2008 and co-host of ‘Welcome To Our TV Show’, a monthly podcast where bands are invited round to play sessions in Casa de Warmsley. Trying to make myself heard over car alarms and seagulls, conversation moves to the last time Jeremy played Bristol at Dot to Dot Festival:
That was so much fun! We played to a room that was totally packed which was really exciting. There was a really nice vibe; people were really interested and listening. We were on after Slow Club and the day before was Johnny Flynn and Noah and The Whale; it was kind of all the new-folk crowd.

‘New-folk’; is that the genre you would bracket yourselves under?
Well, the real, official name is Team Acousto-Pop! That got enough irony in it to make it clear to anyone who’s got any sense that genres are just bullshit.

There’s all these names being banded around at the moment like new-folk, alt-folk, anti-folk…
I don’t honestly believe that me and Johnny Flynn have anything in common other than both our first names begin with a J. We both sing songs but the way we go about doing it is completely different; I love his music but I don’t think we share much else.

Even so, there is a similar style in there within the new-folk banner which people recognise.
Yes but, I mean it’s not our place to say whether Johnny and Slow Club are doing the same kind of thing but even then there’s still a massive gulf between them. Not as wide as the gulf between Johnny and Metallica, obviously, but…

Sure but from an outside perspective, people will obviously make that connection.
That’s fine, they can do what they want but as long as I’m still allowed to say; ‘well, actually, no we’re not’.
Yeah – well that’s what it’s all about!
Exactly!

Well, for now if we can call it new-folk…
Team Acousto-Pop!
…sorry, Team Acousto-Pop, there seems to be this new appetite for it: Around the country people are really starting to fall in love with it. For example Johnny Flynn’s album’s doing really well, Laura Marling’s doing really well…Where do you think this new appetite has come from?
You know what; Johnny’s been singing his songs for 6 or 7 seven years, same with me, same with Slow Club and the rest. It’s not that we’ve all suddenly started doing it at the same time because we all heard Patrick Wolf’s second album and were like; ‘Oh yeah! We’ve got to start doing this!’- It’s just that suddenly people have got really interested.

That’s what I mean; where do you think that appetite’s come from?
Um, backlashes I guess, probably; backlash to the kind of Libertinesy, urchin thing, the scragamuffin scene and the new-rave scene…
Scragamuffin scene??
…That’s what I call the Libertines, Enemy, kind of scene. I’d say it’s probably partly that and partly…well, if my record label were here, they would say something like: ‘People are bored with all this shallow music; they want something with really substance, something with heart behind it’. But I’m not going to say that because I’d just sound really cynical.

Although you see yourself in a way as quite apart from people like Johnny Flynn, but with your podcast ‘Welcome To Our TV Show’, aren’t you showcasing the genre of Team Acousto-Pop? How do you see the role of the show in it all?
The first 5 episodes that have gone up have concentrated mostly on that kind of music, for the simple reason that A: a lot of my friends make that kind of music which is how I know them and how I got them on the show and B: it’s produced in a living room and hence there are certain limits on it.

So you’d like to branch out more?
Well there are 2 episodes we haven’t shown yet; one of the acts on them are a punk band called Jay Reatard who are quite unlike anything we’ve ever had on the show before and another one of the bands are an experimental string quartet who are influenced by like Steve Reich and weird, experimental, free jazz.

How did the TV show start?
Well it’s co-produced by myself and my girlfriend, Fay Buzzard. We just wanted a project that we could work on together because we enjoy spending time with each other for some reason, and this just made sense because my friends and I could play music in my living room and she could film it and spend countless hours of her free time editing it. It was just all our skills coming together. We kind of did it for a laugh, wanting to have a party and have all our friends round and then it was just so much fun and so easy and so good that we carried on doing it and it seems to be going all right!

How do you work out which bands play each show?
The vast majority of the bands we have on me and Fay know personally and we try to get artists for each show that complement each other; that’s complement, not compliment each other - “Hey, you’re amazing!” - “Hey you’re amazing too!”

Where’s the TV show going? Can we expect it to branch out? Like last month we saw an interview in Julia’s bedroom; are we going to see the Warmsley kitchen or move into the garden?
We don’t have a garden – we live on the third floor! But I don’t want to give too much away; we’ve got some really special things planned actually. There are a lot of obvious ways it could go – let’s just say Nipple Lady will be making a few journeys! Wait and see, we’ve got some really good show coming up.

Cool! Most importantly – who’s Dan of Dan’s Fact?
Dan’s just Dan! He’s a friend of ours who knows a lot of facts! He used to be the fact checker on QI for BBC. He’s moved into comedy now; he runs a comedy website called Comedy Box. It’s pretty cool.

Can you give me an interesting fact about Jeremy Warmsley?
Well let me give you an interesting fact about Dan…(long pause)…when he was 8 years old, his parents and Emmy The Great’s parents wanted them to get married.

My favourite current interesting fact is how scientists have proven that the rate your beard grows is directly related to how much you think about sex! Because when you think about sex, it releases testosterone and endorphins which in-turn enhances hair growth!
So if you think about sex a lot, you’re beardy? It’s not just down to that though right, there are a few other factors involved as well?! Ha - I like that. That’s pretty interesting. I like a good fact. One of my favourite books is The Book Of Things That You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know. Fact packed!
And with that Jeremy goes off to prepare for his headline show tonight.

It’s unfortunate but that night, several of the acts on the billing have been forced to cancel. This misfortune combined with the gig being on a cold, Monday evening at a time when all of Bristol’s student’s are home for summer means the Transgressive Hot Summer Tour 2008 gets a very thin turn out indeed. Jeff’s here though to keep everyone perky!

The first band onstage are Esser; a really interesting pop tripod from London who fuse indie, reggae and classic pop on tracks like Lets Work It Out but also have a tendency to flip straight into brutal, biting bass-lines like on I Love You. The charismatic singer is great fun (even if his head of hair does look like that of a cress doll) and he eagerly informs the thin crowd that you can buy an Esser t-shirt with his face on it at the merch stand. They leave the stage decent applause and some of the loudest feedback rumblings I’ve ever heard.

Second up we are treated to crunchy techno from Kiwi’s So So Modern. These furious beats fuelled by a bloody, techno pulse sound like The Mars Volta with robot limbs; it’s the sort of thrashy, very, very fast and very, very loud hysteria that sees Big Jeff in his element - if we’re lucky is the sort of thing emo will sound like in 20 years.

Jeremy Warmsley makes his way onstage in a Christmas themed, silk shirt and treats us all to a frivolous fun evening, even if the crowd is ashamedly thin. Big Jeff strikes a lonely figure dancing at the front but those who are there experience chilled, fun, and unashamed pop-folk (or indeed Team Acousto-Pop) tracks dipped in delicate indie harmonies and superb pop subtleties like Dancing With The Enemy and Take Care. Temptation, the standout track of the night is half of Jeremy’s new single and is played with such fury and ecstasy it sparks a conga on the balcony!

www.jeremywarmsley.com
www.myspace.com/welcometoourtvshow

Matthew Whittle www.matthewwhittleblog.blogspot.com

Welcome To Our TV Show - Episode 5, Part 1

Welcome To Our TV Show - Episdoe 5, Part 2