Tune of the Month in Mixmag!

Yay! Tune of the Month in Mixmag!

AND we got Record of the week on Dogsonacid.com (Although, looking now, it seems like its just a review up there now. Wierd. It was definitely the record of the week for a few days...)

Pity no other magazines reviewed it - despite us sending out shitloads of CDs to all the main music magazines, AND all the main Radio DJs (including all at Radio 1). Not a shred of support. Obviously there's plenty more exciting and original DnB out there at the moment... (?)

OMG I Looked ill!

ZOMG who's this sexy beast?!

Found this amoung the photos at www.rave.cz from the gig on Friday. I guess I didn't do a very good job of covering up the fact I had badass flu... :-(

Almost back to normal now, just getting my stuff together for the gigs this weekend in Newcastle and Norway. I'm dropping by on Grandma-B on the way to Newcastle for some Stottie cake...

John B Live Dates Update

Myspace was being buggy and not updating when I put new gigs in last week, but it seems to have sorted itself out, so here's a nice new diary. The USA tourdates in March & April are now fully booked in so that tour is done now. Nice to see I'm finally playing Ultra...

Still Ill...

Arg. It's now Sunday afternoon and I'm still f**ked.

Made it to the gig in Brno, Czech Republic on Friday, but man I was in a bad, way - I've pretty much lost my voice, and am just in the grip of mighty man-flu. Slept as long as I could in the Hotel, went straight to the gig and did my set then came back and tried to sleep again.

Think I managed to pull it off on stage, I don't know if they heard me when I tried to explain 'I AM Illllllllll' on the mic, but anyone close would have seen me coughing my guts up and having hardcore fever/sweats etc etc.

To add to the headaches, my broadband internet at home has been giving me grief since I switched companies, so I've been scrabbling around under desks unplugging cables all morning.

Urrrrrrrggggggg.

Hopefully I'll be a bit better 2moro...

I've got Man-Flu

Uggg.

Much improved today, but I've been literally bedridden since Tuesday. Rough. Just hardcore headaches, fever and the usual stuff. Anyway, I'm definitely on the mend, and should be fine for the gig in Brno tomorrow so no need to worry!

xxx

Ill-B

Diary of the Dead!

OMG just found out about this movie - I had NO idea it was in the pipeline, let alone about to come out...

Zombie Movies are an secret obsession of mine, and well, George Romero is the absolute GOD of the Genre. I can't wait to see it! Woooooharrr! I'm totally going to dress up as a zombie this time too.

Just had a look at the website and laughed my head off at all the "THIS LINK IS DEAD" bits. HAHAHAHAHA!

(Braaaaains)

Back from Poland

Just got back from a great gig in Poland last night, at Zanzibar in a small town near Krakowice. It was the promoter, DJ Teq's Birthday over there, so he'd set up a special night to large it in style, with yours truly... Totally RAMMED! They'd sold out all the tickets weeks ago, so it really was fab! Really cool venue, undergound, lots of arches and dark corners, the sort of place I imagine used to be a bomb shelter or something... 

Was genereally a good trip - had to fly mega early out of Gatwick which is a bit of a drag, but I had bags of time to chill before I was due to play so no big deal - had my pre gig relaxo-bath-with-ipod-80s-selection so was in a great mood before I went on - ended up playing about 2 1/2 hours, AND the wine was good! Hurrah! Respect to everyone that came down, it was a pleasure indeed. Oh, and sorry about my dodgy singing - was just doing 'Happy Birthday'. Yikes!

Anyway, back home now, got loads to do next week. The master reference CDs just came back from the new singles so I need to get on with organising the release dates/artwork and stuff. Also got some computer nerd stuff to do on one of the Macs, new HDs to install etc. I should have some cool photos from the gig last night too, my iPhone sucks in dark nightclubs, but there were a couple pro-photographers in there I can probably blag photos off to put up here...

(Edit - got a few pics already, they're up on my facebook page here)

Oh, and the new single, Mr. Freud seems to be doing well - someone told me its number 3 in the juno.co.uk d&b charts, so I'll go check up on that and let you know later...

Oh, by the way, I'm branching out into random Polish shops now too...

Oh, and here's a lovely photo of a Polish Coal mine for you:

A few photos from the last couple of weeks...

Our gang in Manchester. (No, not THAT kind of gang...)

With Chris, the promoter in Zurich. I gave a few of these 3D glasses out in the club. Gonna buy more on eBay this week...

Crowd in Zurich

With MC Eksman in Manchester (he was on with Brockie after me)

New haircut - had to take some photos for my hairdresser - I may be a myspace photo hoebag type, but I usually have some reason for taking photos of myself... ;-)

Just waiting for Hayley to get back from the gym, then I'm off out for a run seeing as its nice and sunny out. I'm still trying to get back into being active and healthy in a new year/pre Miami crash diet stylee... 

Other than that I've got a To-Do list as long as my arm and Dad is supposed to be coming over later to help put up my tv aerial, and move my sky dish, put a quad LNB on it too so I can finally sort out Sky+, hopefully with a modded Sky+ box with a bigger HD in it. Anyway, won't go any more geek on you right now.

Am also hoping to do a new DnB Podcast this week, and I'll give you guys a sneak update on what's coming next on Beta, the new single(s) got mastered on Friday so things are ticking along now...

Till later ;-)

John B Tour Dates Update

Looking pretty busy over the next few months! As always, if you're a promoter wanting to book me for either my usual D&B stuff, or a special Electro/Techno set, then just get in touch with my agents and they can sort you out with all the details.

Tania @ UMC for Worldwide DJ Bookings

tania@umcmanagement.co.uk
www.umcmanagement.co.uk
AIM: TaniaUMC

North American DJ Bookings & Tours
Upfront Industries
www.upfrontdc.com
AIM: bobbyufi & yvonneufi

Or you can always just email me if you're not sure and I'll put you in touch with the right people...

MY NEW SINGLE - VINYL OUT TODAY!

I've just copied this in for you guys, from the entry on my webstore. My new single "Mr. Freud" came out today (vinyl only - the mp3 release is in 2 weeks on Feb 25th). So if you want one you can either get it direct from my webstore (we ship internationally) or from your usual vinyl shop. Hope you like it anyway - thanks for all the support!

---------------------------

THE NEW JOHN B SINGLE // OUT NOW!!

Vinyl Release Date: Feb 11th 2008

mp3 Release Date: Feb 25th 2008 (Here at beta-store.com, and all the other usual portals: itunes, beatport, trackitdown etc)

There's a few promos left too, we've cut the price of them down, so good if you're not bothered about the posh sleeve but still want the track...

This is John B's first solo single since last year's critically acclaimed electro drum & bass album Electrostep.

Mr. Freud has already had 160,000 plays on John Bs Myspace player, and is John B back at his best, fusing hard D&B beats with luxurious trancey strings, a heavy electrohouse-influencd B-line, and sleazy electroclash-style vocals & roboVocoders. It?s a dirty beast, a stand-out electrohouse-meets-D&B anthem, refreshingly different and another John B-designed genre-busting new direction for D&B.

Red Sky brings John back to the epic Trance & Bass style he pioneered with hits like Up all Night & Electrofreek! but with an updated production style for 2008. Shaz Sparks beautiful vocals compliment the fluid, euphoric trance textures. Grand piano & huge anthemic pads that Armin Van Buuren would be proud of are contrasted by a monstrous, grimey racecar reese bassline and heavy neurofunk groove, still smashing it in a DJ-friendly Drum&Bass framework.

John B "Mr. Freud" (BETA 019)



John B feat. Shaz Sparks "Red Sky" (BETA 019)

Zurich & Hamburg This Weekend!

Back in the land of the living now after a VERY long sleep last night... 

Both gigs this weekend were great, but the travelling was pretty lame - having to fly back to London and wait around for 7 hours instead of taking a direct flight from Zurich to Hamburg (of which there are loads) wasn't exactly the brightest idea in the universe (not my call) - but I managed to survive. I bribed my Dad to come and pick me up so I could go home and sleep for a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon, instead of sitting in Heathrow Airport for god knows how long - which was definitely a good move. Respect to Father Bee.

Friday night was the Hive Club in Zurich, I played there about a year ago, and it was even better this time - respect to Chris and everyone involved in getting me out there. And thanks for the wine - usually the stuff they have in clubs isn't really too tasty, but that stuff was ace! The new tracks all went down great too - I've been starting off with 'When the Time Comes', then mixing into 'Dancing in the Dark' and then the Glamour for Better remix. They all seem to be in the same key so it works out really well. Hurrah!

Good to see a few of my regular Swiss fans in the house, and hi to Mr. BTK all the way from Brazil, who was in town for a break on his Euro tour. I'm still playing his bootleg remix of 'Sunglasses at Night' so was cool to put a face to the AIM window!

Here's a couple of pics my man Joe Kneppeck emailed from the night:

Saturday was Hamburg, for Kings of the Jungle, a big event they do in Germany quite regularly - last time I was there they used a big Castle with outdoor areas and all sorts, mad! This year was a new venue called Huhnerposten, or something like that. Translated its something to do with Chickens. It did kind of feel like a squashed up chicken farm at times! But a good ravey one where the chickens were happy and had DnB to listen to...

Big up to Dirk and Sandra for looking after us - and hi to Rebecca & the Lufthansa stewardesses from our flight that came down too! (A free upgrade next time would be nice) ;-)

Had a good flight over there, it's dead fast to Hamburg because its right in the North West of Germany, so not very far at all. The line up was pretty big so there were a bunch of the other artists on my flight - ended up hanging out with Adam F and having a good chat on the way there and back too. Always good to catch up with other DJs, and see what's going on, it can be a bit wierd going solo all the time like a random weekendy businessman. Needed to get some info about picturediscs too, Adam & Fresh have been doing them for ages on their label BBK so it was useful to find out how it works out label-wise seeing as I'm planning on doing some coloured vinyl and picturediscs for the next few releases I'll be putting out on my label, Beta Recordings.

Haha, back to the weekendy businessman biznizz - which reminds me. Bizarrely, the last few weekends, all my flights seem to have been through Heathrow T2, and they all have gone out through the same gate. Which I think has been confusing the poor gate staff there. They keep noticing when I change my hair though, which is nice. I've been recognising the same people on some flights now too - there really is a secret world of the road (or air) warrior. Nice. I think.

Oh, and boo to Swiss Air for not having Tomato juice. I need that on my early flights home. And boo to Swiss and Lufthansa for not having white wine, and only having that wierd Sekt stuff. Neither White Wine, nor Champagne. JOHN B DOES NOT LIKE SEKT. BA all the way baybee, you can even choose what type of Wine you want usually. Come on LH, sort it out! ;-)

Gawd I sound obsessed by wine. I promise I'm not - its just one of those things...

I only took a few photos, but there were official photographer dudes there so I presume their photos will pop up eventually on the www.future-music.net forums pages...

Ravers in hamburg:

You can just see the British Coastline appearing in the distance there:

With Adam F on the plane:

Recent Press from Zurich (I think it's good!)

The Lovely promoters in Zurich hooked up a full page feature in Zuritripp, the main Zurich Entertainment Newspaper, and here it is. Unfortunately my German translation skills aren't quite good enough to translate it properly, but apparently they are saying nice things! Thanks!

Off to Europe, and back, then out again...

Hi there folks, just a quick update before I hit the road again. Had a reasonably fruitful week I guess, sorted out the Podcast feed once and for all (see previous post) and arranged the mastering for the next couple of singles (I'll save that info for next week for ya...) - and a bunch of other stuff I won't bore you with...

Went to Smokies again on Weds night with Hayley, Kimbob, Linus & Jean-Luc Picard. Was a good time - knew loads of people out so never-a-dull-moment. Tried to get Dan talking to girls but he kept freezing up, I'm gona have to give him some PUA stuff to read... Ahhh a project! Hah!

Hayley & Kimbob at Smokies:

I'm playing in Zurich tonight, and then @ Kings of the Jungle in Hamburg on Saturday - both will be great gigs so I'm looking forward to it, and playing all the new stuff of course - BUT the travelling is SO lame, again. Instead of a direct flight from Zurich to Hamburg tomorrow, of which there are at least 4 at suitable times, I'm being flown back to London, and then flying out again 7 hours later. Great. So I'll be knackkered, and not really have enough time to come home and back out again (but I'll try). Can't change my flights either - nowadays in the UK, changable flights are almost twice as much usually. Anyway, its annoying. I've just loaded up my iphone with episodes of American Dad, and South Park and I've got a Freud book I've been meaning to read so I can have intellectual conversations with Hayley. 'Make the best use of the time' says the little voice in my head.

If you see me on Sunday and I look a bit tired then you'll know why!

xxx

JB

Mini John Bees of the world - Part 1

Yes yes. We salute all John B fans that dress their kids up as me for Haloween! Or any other occasion. Quality! Good work on the eyeshadow fellah! Hahah!

Podcast page, BIG Updates!

Before I blab on - in case you haven't checked out my Podcasts and don't know what I'm on about then go check them out now! They're at thejohnbpodcast.blogspot.com

Basically, every now and then (hopefully weekly from now on) I record a mix in the studio, or live when I'm doing a gig, or put together a tour video from my travels and put it up online, for FREE, as a podcast. They're usually my Drum & Bass sets, but I do a monthly guest slot playing electrohouse/techno/progressive/electro stuff for my mate DJ Simon's Redux show which is also broadcast on XM satellite radio in the USA, so you get a bit of variety too...

If you subscribe with the iTunes RSS link, your iTunes will automatically download it whenever I put a new one up, but if you don't want to do that you can just download the mp3 off the site and do whatever with it... 

Anywayyyyyyy - the whole cool idea is you get lots of nice new FREE DJ mixes from me, and random videos to watch on your ipod, or just the computer...

I've just been doing some behind-the-scenes stuff with my main Podcast Page - hopefully you won't notice, but basically, it's so that more episodes show up on the RSS feed, so if anyone new subscribes to the RSS feed in iTunes they see the last 25 episodes, as opposed to the last 5 or even less, or whatever rubbish my last blog host was doing...

If you're already subscribed you might spot a few older ones pop up, but it won't change anything so no need to fret or do anything different, it should all be automatic. 

The new Podcast feed comes from theJohnBPodcast.blogspot.com which is also a lot tidier looking.

If you want to see the iTunes page with the podcast info, where you would subscribe to it then click on this: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=203423959

Enjoy!

Yet ANOTHER haircut

My genius hairdresser Johnny rang last night saying he urgently needed to get some portfolio photos done for an Ad so I nipped over there this afternoon and got my lines done and some hardcore GHD straightening bizniz. Will take some pics tonight, but you can see the work in progress here... Finally I actually have my hair recently coloured AND fresh tramlines cut in - I never seem to get them done close together enough that it looks properly finished. Hurrah.

Video: John B in Siberia (Part 2)

Edited this last night, not technically Siberia, it was Vyborg, much further west, almost on the border with Finland. 

What you don't see is the part near the end where the driver spotted a HUGE pile up on the motorway ahead of us, and literally did a U-Turn on the motorway, and drove the wrong way down the hard shoulder, and OVERTOOK a truck that was trying to reverse down it too, on the way. I was S***ting myself too much to get the camera out at that point, shame really - but INSANE. At least it got me to the airport on time and I'm here to tell the tale...

You can also subsribe to the itunes podcast feed here, so your itunes automatically downloads new podcasts whenever I put them up (HOT new D&B studio mix coming next week), or just go to the RSS feed page and download them individually, all formatted nice for your ipod already...

A few photos from Linz

Thanks to Martin from Resident Magazine for sending these over. There's a few more about I'll hook up on here later...

Posing, for a change...

Where's JB?! My god I totally look like Wally/Waldo...

Yes, by watching many episodes of heroes you can assimilate mind melting powers...

Dunno what I was doing here...

Short Circuit

Decided to watch the classic 80s movie "Short Circuit" with Hayley last night and she was SO not into it I had to turn it off half way through. Who doesn't love Johnny 5?!

She didn't like "Coming to America" either. I've told her if she doesn't like "Trading Places" I'm dumping her... ;-)

Thankfully Teen Wolf was an acceptable replacement...

When The Time Comes...

I'm feeling generous today, so here's a clip of the track I did last week, entitled: "When The Time Comes..." 

For the studio g33ks reading: The idea was to make something VERY simple, with only a few core sounds, and generate the highs & lows with subtle automation on the fx sends on the main synth sound, keeping that mainly very 'wet', while the drums are contrastingly clean and tight. In the build ups I really ramp up the fx sends but then totally zero out all the busses at the end to make the sound kinda implode before the drums come back in and everyting drops. Even though the core of them are 808/909 drums there's loads of behind the scenes stuff to beef them up in the mix - generally straight up non-distorted 808 drums don't sound phat enough in a DnB scenario, as much as I love them, so there's other sounds layered up to make it work. Had some fun little FX I made with an FM synth for the stereo perc too. Anywayyyyy.

I opened both sets with it this weekend, in Manchester and Linz and it went OFF! Let me know what you think in the comments section...

(Click the 'play' arrow to listen...)

My little Aeroplane yesterday

I quite like these ones - cosy inside, but the seats are really narrow. They gave me a milka chocolate bar for free though. Nice.

Respect to the Mighty Father Bee

For Picking me up from the airport every weekend. And I only have to pay him in Norden Farm vouchers & real ale. Quality.

Mr. Freud finished stock is in!

Woohar! Just had an email from my distributors that they've had the finished copies of the next single, (Mr. Freud/Red Sky) in! Can't wait to see them! 

This means the official release date of Feb 11th for the vinyl will be ON, so get out there and grab one next week! It'll be up on mp3 at beatport, trackitdown, and of course the beta mp3 store 2 weeks later...

Here's what it looks like:

This weekend...

Just got back from Heathrow a couple of hours ago - had a pretty heavy weekend, but a good one. I'm only on 4 hours sleep right now, was in Linz (Austria) last night, and flew back via Frankfurt, with a pretty mega early start. I woke up at 830am Austrian time to my iphone blasting out A-Ha 'Take On Me' - my current ploy to start my day off as painlessly as possible, and put me into a positive state. I developed an almost reverse pavlovian response to my old nokia built in alarm tone thing, some lovely happy pan pipes tune, that now is just the sound of pure evil to me, so I can only hope having A-Ha as my ring tone doesn't destroy my Norwegian pop Love. If it does I'll just have to switch it to some Merzbow or something... ;-)

Manchester on Friday night turned out to be great, despite the monster 3.5 hr drive up there, then back home an hour later. Everyone was calling me up saying the snow was terrible and we'd get stranded and the world would end etc etc, AND Hayley suddenly got ill half way up there (we contemplated leaving her on the M40 services until the way back, but were nice and kept her. Hah!) so things didn't look good - but respect to the mighty Steve and the Banana Fiesta we made it in time, had a great set and really cool response at the club (Jabez Clegg I think) and made it back in one piece. Steve thanks Pro Plus for their assistance. Oh, and the wikkid Benga essential mix that was on the radio on the way back too...

OH, and gotta say respect to the mighty Leicester Kru for showing up yet again - and commiserations to Mr. Longa on getting chucked out (again!) but waiting outside in the snow anyway. True Soldiers. WHERE'S THE CHESTERFIELD KRU?! THE LEICESTER KRU ARE PULLING AHEAD!

Did my usual Heathrow trundling on Saturday afternoon, Frankfurt managed not to lose my bag en route, and I had a rather nice glass of reisling by gate B2. The lady surveying people's flying habits ignored me and got a confused japanese man to do it instead. I like doing those things and telling them honestly, yes, I do in fact fly about 150 times a year, and no, I don't buy duty free. Not sure if I'm proud of that or not though...

Painted my nails in the hotel in Linz, always a mistake as I don't leave enough time, so the 2 coats of posh chanel got squished again - but it's not like anyone notices... My purple stuff was flaking bigtime, and black is more manly. About as manly as nail polish on a man can be. Had a great gig, played all the new stuff and they loved it. Opened with 'When the Time Comes' & "Dancing in the Dark' again (realised they're in the same key so mix really well. Quality. Was nice to play 2 hours as opposed to the UK-style 1 hr rush in Manchester on Friday, but man it was SUPERHOT in there. I took a photo of my hair and smudged make-up to post up here, but looking at its horrificness today have since deleted it, so tough... An amazing gig though, and really nice people involved and in the crowd - it's totally electric when everyone is on the same vibe and genuinely partying together like that. Sounds cliched I know, but BOH. Mighty indeed.

Did a couple of video interviews before I played too, I've found one here at partyreporter.at
where I look particularly FaT, so presumably will on the other one too... It was for Resident Magazine so I guess it'll eventually show up on their site at some point, those guys were filming a bit while I was playing so it should turn up pretty good...

Today's just been travelling, airport sandwiches and espresso, and trying to find somewhere to sit in Frankfurt Airport, which is easier said than done. Watched about 4 episodes of the Mighty Boosh on my iPhone which did save me indeed. Resisted the free wine in favour of Tomato Juice too. 

Oh, haha, just remembered-  as I was sat there on the secret bench with the other road-warrior-businessmen-types that had also hunted it down, a couple of random Russian fans ran up and totally freaked out wanting to take photos with me - total rockstar moment, that puzzled the businessmen. I had a conversation with them that literally was just "pizdetz!" - "ahhh, hahaha, PIZDETZ!". (Some Russian swear word/exclamation I still don't fully know the translation of, but its supposed to be really cool... Try it next time you meet someone Russian, I guarantee they'll crack up). Then I went back to watching The Mighty Boosh on my phone. 

Planning on watching some Dexter Series 2 later, digesting my Pizza Hut Meat Feast, then sorting out what I'm doing with all the new tracks and sending them off for mastering in the morning... 

Oh, also been send some MORE photos from the Kiev gig a couple of weeks ago, you can see them here.

At Knutsford Services near Manchester - last time I was there I was probably 10 years old visiting my Grannie! 


On the way back from Manchester, Hayley, no longer ill, awaiting the many wonderous pastry delights of BP.

Another bad photo taken in a club on a cameraphone... Linz. Very Hot. And Smoky!

Heathrow. Terminal 2. Gate 8. The gate agent recognised my hair from last week...

The luxury of the hotel ibis in Linz... That bed was dead comfy actually, I think it was one of those memory foam ones. Or maybe just accidentally ace.

M6/M40. LOOK AT ALL THE TERRIBLE SNOW EVERYBODY! 

As usual you can see all the random iphone camera photos I took on my .mac gallery page here.