THE JUST JOANS
We've got indiepop darlings The Just Joans down from Scotland for a rare full band show. Rumour has it there's a new record slowly coming together, but don't let that put you off, they'll play the old ones you like too...
The Just Joans were formed in Glasgow in 2005 by songwriter David Pope. Naming the band after Daily Record agony aunt Joan Burnie’s ‘Just Joan’ column, work immediately began on a number of lo-fi tracks dealing with love, rejection and everyday angst. These would eventually emerge as The Just Joans’ debut album, Last Tango In Motherwell. Released in 2006 on tape cassette to a small number of friends, one – Chris Gilmour – was so taken with the collection that he set up his own label, Ivan Lendil Music, specifically to circulate a CD version to a wider audience.
As he advanced from singing sad songs in his bedroom to singing sad songs live, David recruited Chris Elkin as a guitarist. Shortly after, he would add younger sister Katie Pope as a vocalist, alongside bassist Fraser Ford – with all four remaining in the band to this day. Their presence helped to build a reputation on the indiepop scene, and, in 2007, The Just Joans joined WeePOP! Records. During their eight years with the DIY label, they released a series of handmade EPs including Hey Boy...You’re Oh So Sensitive and Love and Other Hideous Accidents. The band also revisited their first LP, rerecording it, reordering it, and retitling it as Buckfast Bottles In The Rain.
Some much-loved band members have come and gone in the time since, not least Doog Cameron, who personified the manner in which The Just Joans tread a fine line between the heartfelt and the dangerous. However, it is the more recent additions, Jason Sweeney on drums and multi-instrumentalist Arion Xenos, that have helped elevate the band to a new level - both in terms of the studio and the stage. Completing the journey from shambling two-piece to accomplished sextet, the band continue to win fans with their mischievous lyrics and tender melodies. Embracing Scottish culture at every turn, the band were perhaps best described by Is This Music as ‘the missing link between The Magnetic Fields and The Proclaimers.’
Since moving to Fika Recordings, The Just Joans have released a variety of singles and, in 2017, You Might Be Smiling Now..., their first new LP in a decade. Much acclaimed in the music press, Highway Queens thought it to be ‘the perfect Glasgow kiss’ while Uncut identified the record as the point at which ‘Stephin Merritt lies down with The Vaselines.’
The band’s new album, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of The Just Joans, was released in January 2020.
WITCHING WAVES
We’re delighted to have Witching Waves back to play for us, following the release of their fourth album Streams and Waterways on Specialist Subject records in December.
A blistering advancement of the knife-sharp hooks and urgently efficient post-punk structures that they’ve spent over a decade refining since their formation in 2011, the band’s fourth album – and second on Specialist Subject - emerges from a period of flux for the band’s chief songwriting partnership of Emma Wigham (drums/vocals) and Mark Jasper (guitar/vocals).
“Streams and Waterways is about the struggle of looking at the clock, realising it’s actually going pretty damn fast and knowing that really you have no control over anything” Jasper confirms. Perhaps that explains the way that opener The Valley doesn’t even introduce itself before careering into a full-throttled, three-minute scuzzy rager that would approach the descriptor anthemic had it not been kicked and scuffed along the way; it’s maybe why the wiry, ferocious Choice You Make feels like a charge into a storm despite the uncertainty of what you might find. It’s perhaps why even when Witching Waves allow themselves respite on the pared down Open A Hole, there’s a churning anxiety that lies below the acoustic guitar and harmonising vocals: in many ways musically and thematically Witching Waves are relinquishing the control that’s always been a fixture of their music – with all the thrilling and nervous fallout that comes from that.
NATHY SG
Nathy SG is led by Nathan Stephens-Griffin, a founding member of Onsind, drummer in Fortitude Valley, and a member of DIY punk legends. Martha.
Tickets from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings, including cheaper 3 day passes (Jan 11-13), and reduced price tickets for those on no or low-wages (no questions asked).