Apologies...

Just a note to let anyone in Russia know that I won't be appearing in Murmansk tonight.

I only found out on Tuesday night that my flights had still not been bought, and because it had been left so late, there weren't any of the good options left (ie I was left with LOOONG waits in Moscow or St. Petersberg, and the BA and BMI flights I would have wanted were sold out etc etc).

Anyway, my job is to go and DJ, not sift through loads of flight ticket options, the promoters & my agent should have sorted it out a long time ago (my agent thought they had) and although I'd love to play in Murmansk I'm not going to put myself through the hell of flying all the way there on a crappy Aeroflot OLDDDD cramped plane, and sit waiting in Moscow airport for 12812891821 becuase someone else fucked up and the only flights left are the shit ones...

We're talking to the organisers to get me there on another date, maybe in June. IF the flights are OK... I'll post the gig on my myspace gig listings when/if that happens.

Sorry to all the fans looking forward to the show tonight, but I won't be there... :-(

xxx

JB

New Podcast up!

Woohar!

The guys at Champion Sound in Leiden (Holland) recorded my set (with my permission!) when I played over there a couple of weeks ago - I've been through and podcasted it up and its now uploaded and ready to go!

If you're already subscribed to the iTunes podcast feed then you'll probably already have downloaded it automatically - if not, you can go to podcast.john-b.com to grab it now! Enjoy!

xxx

JB

Photos from St. Petersburg Last weekend...

Thanks to Mr. Oding for sending me the links! I've put all the good ones I could find up on my flickr here.

Here's a few:

As seen on the Autobahn to Frankfurt

We always seem to stop at this gas station on the way to Frankfurt Airport after I've done a gig in Mannheim... I've never had one of these mighty kebabs, but the chef sure makes them look like I'm missing out...

Played MS Connection in Mannheim on Wednesday again, for the e.Motion guys. Great as ever - really good crowd - everyone was out because there was a public holiday that weekend so no work on Thursday. Some VERY drunk people in there... Ahem Johann... Fell asleep in the booth next to me! hahahah! Big up to Thorsten for the Reisling and sorting out the Wienerschnitzel while I watched the football!

Watching Man U/Chelski UEFA Cup Final, waiting for room service! Yummm!

Oh yeah, did a really cool photo shoot before the gig too, proper professional in a studio bizniz, think you'll like the pics - so look out for them soon... They made me up like a Hindu God with many arms and stuff. Pretty bizarrro, but I think it'll turn out ace. Booyah!

St. Petersburg Last weekend

Had a pretty heavy one last weekend, or guess its kinda 2 weeks ago - been slacking on the blog... sorry folks...

Did St. Petersburg on Friday night for my mate Stas' Birthday - at a cool, smaller venue called 'Friday Club'. Was super hot in there, but a well up for it crowd so I had a laugh. The little vip backstage area was fun - they'd bought a GIANT bottle of Johnny Walker or some kind of whisky - it was SOOO big it came on a crane-like device to help tip it over to pour it. Mad. I managed to get some decent wine (South African Chenin Blanc is still smashing it) so was happy. Whisky is too strong for The B.

Stas with some random Birthday present...

Birthday Paparazzi...

Was pretty mashed though - there's not many direct flights from Heathrow to St. Petersburg, and with my routing needing to get me to Vienna the next day, the only itinerary that would work involved getting the 6am flight to Russia - so my body clock was totally f&*ked. Flew straight to Vienna the next day, although I gotta say, St. Petersburg airport is the slowest, most badly organised, beurocratically bogged down pile of shit airport I've ever had the displeasure of flying out of. 

Massive lines all over the place, first just to get to the check in area, you get your documents checked and bags scanned. The whole terminal entry area was made up of 4 or 5 HUGE lines just snaking randomly around the hall. No signs telling you which was which, no people helping or directing you. No announcements. And most of the passengers are Ryanair-types that haven't got a clue. They think T5 is bad? Lame. Anyway, I scoped it out and picked the shorter line and eventually made it in - flashed my nice card and got in the Business class line.

St. Petersburg Airport dumbass massive lines


Then waited another 30 mins in the Passport checking line. Kids crying etc etc. Got to the Business lounge to grab some free food... Rough. Funny crackers, and get this, cheese - just those slices you get wrapped individually in plastic wrap to put on your burger or whatever. T5 wins again! Then when they announce its boarding time the lady says I have to just push into the line (yes theres ANOTHER one) for another security scan - which is literally taking up the whole departures area. I'm like 'fuck that - you're taking me there' (politely) so I made the Business class lounge lady escort me to the front of the line so I wouldn't get lynched by the angry Saga Holidays ppl and drunk Rusky business men! Anyway it worked and I lived happily ever after, but man, Russian Airports are really sucking for me at the moment - apart from maybe Moscow - they've sorted out DME recently.

I digress.

Vienna was cool too - I played at the Zoo Club - I think I've played there in the past but forgotten what it looked like. Oh yeah I do remember - they said it used to be a Gypsy owned place where they did massive weddings, and like the last time it was used for that there were about 40 knife-related injuries over the 2 day event! Hah! Ravers are more peaceful... They showed me photos of all the illegal modifications that had been done to the building before it got turned into the club - the Gypsy guys had built some massive kitchen - totally dangerous and fire hazard stylee against regulations with this huge Pig Roaster Spit Roast thing and all sorts. Bizarre.

Oh God and the Vienna hotel room. Man. I actually changed my flight so I could just get out of there and not even try to sleep - got the FIRST flight back to London. The Hotel Mercure in Vienna FYI. I think they gave me the last room in the hotel cos I was probably the last person to arrive that day (some big AIDS charity concert on in town) and man, that was blatently the WORST room I've ever been in in Europe, if not the world. Supposed to be a 4 star hotel, and this room was way smaller than my little room when I was a student. On the top floor, with a sloping roof, little single bed, and literally no room to swing a cat - and SOOOO hot. It was a pretty humid day, but only May so obviously not that bad, but I guess all the heat was just rising up the building and hitting John B in the room! Even though it was on the 7th floor, when you opened the window to get air in it was super loud from the road, next to the Railway station, and the fan for the room literally had no place to sit - and the cable wasnt long enough to get it near the window to blow the air in. Nightmare. So yeah, sucked. I wrote them a letter telling them to turn that room into a stock cupboard or something! 

Hotel Mercure Vienna - supposidely 4 Star room. Hot like a sauna baybeee.

I'm still looking for decent photos from those 2 gigs so if any of you lot have em, chuck them over in an email ya?!

F*ckspresso

My Krups has bitten the dust. (Its not just mice that die in my house now).

Been on a wild goose chase of customer service phone calls, but its been sorted out and John Lewis are replacing it for me apparently. I still have to go without my fabulous espressos for another week though! :-( 

If you see me tweaking out around the Costa at Heathrow about 5am tomorrow, you'll know why...

I'm off to St. Petersburg for a gig on Friday, then Vienna on Saturday, so looking forward to that - got some great new tracks to play out this week, and a prototype version of a new track I've ALLLLLmost finished, so listen out for that one!

See ya there!

xxx

JB

Wednesday in Londinium

Not much to mention here apart from I had a cool time in London last night. Went up to meet Hayley then went to the Sanderson Hotel's 'Long Bar' for the first time in ages, and had forgotten how PIMP it was. Drunk £8.50 glasses of Sancerre for far too long to be economical, but had a really amazing time - lovely, comfortable surroundings and ace social biznizz. 

Hayley on a posh couch.

King Andy

My good mates Colm, Jack and Andy came down for a bit, then we went on to Swerve at the End (respect to Sarah for getting us in!). Had to leave early to catch the 130 train back home, which was a shame, I had to miss half of Blame's set and totally missed Fabio. Saw Shy FX down there and had a quick chat, but had to leave so we spent our limited time there just chilling in the corner where it was a bit quieter and you could chat without yelling. I missed the Sancerre though... :-(

Oh hahah and the train ride home was entertaining. Witnessed a very strange love triangle/domestic situation between some gay guys, or guy guy and lodger with some history, who had been out separately but come back on the same train, with different partners, and one was wearing the other guys necklace, which he pulled off him, and then just kept coming back in a very theatrical dramatic way and having words. Passed the time indeed. I had a mighty feast of random ethnic sandwiches from the 7-11 to eat while it all kicked off too. Funtimes!

The Mighty Garden!

The mighty Garden of Beee-den is finished pretty much. Got my man Shaun to landscape it last summer, but I had one last border that we didn't do anything to, so last weekend I went and got all gardenery and dug it up, put fertilizer and manure in and planted a gazillion Patunias and Bizzie Lizzies. Then put 6 huge bags of forest bark all over the top to stop the 'orrible weeds coming back. MIGHTY! 

Went to Homobase this week too and bought a fab parasol to go on my table. THE MIGHTY PLAN IS COMPLETE.

Oh and check out the cool Beta Recordings lazer etched tile my friend Uli from Germany arranged and sent over for my birthday last year. Cool beans!

So yes, I plan to conduct lots of business in the garden, with wi-fi over the summer. And have BBQs for people in bikinis.

Leiden recording....

Wooo. Just got the mp3s in from last weeks gig in Holland, they recorded the set and it came out pretty well... I'm gona whack a few jingles on it on Monday and then up as a new podcast so keep your eyes peeled! Or ears ;-) Turns out I played the same first few tracks as I did on the last live set I recorded, so you'll have to forgive me - but it goes pretty leftfield after a while - I played a lot more electroey than normal.

Took these photos while backstage. It smelled funny down there. Backstage was basically UNDER the stage. The walls were pretty. ;-)

John B @ Pirate Station, Samara May 2008 Photos

John B @ MTL Arena in Samara, for the Pirate Station Party. Photos taken from:

www.club-guide.ru/photo/210.html

www.samara-night.ru/report/event.641.p.2 .html

The whole set is up on my flickr page here:

Here's a few highlights...

More Samara pics

By the river..

Radio Record Studios

Bizarro Press Conference

Building that looks like a knob.

Distracting the DJ in Russia. Part 1.

Pirate Station Party in Samara last week!!

So, Ok this was 2 weeks ago, but I was waiting to get all the professional photos together to show u the MIGHTYness of the gig! 

Last Thursday I flew over to Samara, in Russia - never been to the city before but I was told its one of the top 5 cities in size, and was number 2 for a while, after the war or something... Anyway, it was a great trip! Getting there was a mission, the only way to get there on a 'safe' airline is Lufthansa, so I left here about 5pm, flew to Frankfurt, then on to Samara - took about 8 hours all in, and you arrive at 5am local time - so it's pretty disorienting - and OH how I love Russian passport control in small airports! Thank God I got to the front of the queue fast so I was through super fast. Alas Mr. Limewax got stuck at the back so we had to wait for him anyway. I watched a couple of classic episodes of Seinfeld on the iphone in the back of the SUV outside - that place was freaky. SO many wierd people hanging around, and just behaving wierdly. Although this is coming from a guy with MY hair and wairing a gold jacket and the only one speaking English...

Was cool to catch up with Limewax - I hadn't hung out with him since a big party we both played at in Estonia a couple of years ago, that bizzarely got shut down because of a bomb-scare. The promoters and the people looking after us were really nice - took us for really good sushi (check out my huge Unagi roll thing below) took us to check out the river (everyone was out sunbathing and carrying massive jugs of beer you can just buy from the local brewery there) and then we zoomed over to the Radio Record studios to do an hours kinda interview show. I got in trouble for saying PIZDETZ on the radio! hahaha! Was fun though. Wierd though - one of the other DJs was chilling out eating cold pizza and drinking whisky out of plastic cups - at 4pm. We joined in.

As you'll see from the other pictures, the gig was HUUUUWARGEEEE. 3k people in there, with just me and Limewax headlining. Total RockStar bizniz. They did a special intro for us, kinda Manumission style - with dancers and all sorts, along with a custom made intro track, all Orchestral, choirs and mad lazers and fireworks going off. I thought that was gona be it, and then while I was playing they rolled out loads of models/strippers in bikinis, totally jiggling right in front of me on the catwalk - then they come off, then the A-team come on, TOPLESS. Nice. Rather distracting though, I had to concentrate on what I was doing and stare at the boobies less - and had to fight back to get the attention back from the ravers!! All the ravers had gone from taking photos of me and raving, to staring hypnotically at the boobies! So I put on my track 'Russian Girls', grabbed the radio mic and went out and joined them and did it as some kinda hybrid live PA. And got a semi-lap-dance into the bargain. Gotta be my wierdest/greatest Djing experience so far...

OH. And they had Hardy's Crest Chardonnay, one of my staples at home, so I was well happy. THat probably had something to do with the impromptu Kanye West moment....

Ok I sound like a twat. Here's the photos. Enjoy the building that looks like a penis. ;-)

Deadmau5 no. 5!?

Arg. Or maybe (sq)eeek.

The John B loft has claimed another furry casualty, always a solemn occasion... One mighty mouse seemed to have got away last week - the trap snapped, but no mouse - so respect to the mighty batchelor mouse - living to eat more cheese etc - but alas, another one wasn't so lucky. 

RIP flat rigomortis Deadmau5 no. 5. I wish I could find out where they were coming in so I can just block it off. :-(

[Oh, and thanks to Hayley for putting them in the bin - she wanted me to give her props for fearless deadmau5 handling...]

Haircut 100

Respect to the mighty Johnny Schiell and Chelsea for doing my hair before the gig in Russia a couple of weeks ago. Sorted out my non-blonde roots a treat - AND made me look like a robot in the process. Quality...

Ray Mill Island bizniz

Went to the river last week for a quick bit of peace and quiet. Nice blossoms about. Canadian Geese are monsters though, bread stealer greedy things... 

GLAMOUR 001 PROMO // GLAMOUR FOR BETTER "ARCHETECHS OF DISCOTECH" (JOHN B REMIX)

Just put a few promos up on the beta webstore of the new single - my remix of Glamour for better... Click here to go grab one!

Here's the blurb and an audio clip:

GLAMOUR 001 (1 Sided Vinyl)

Release Date: 9 June 2008

We have a limited supply of white label advance release promos here...

A : GLAMOUR FOR BETTER - Architechs Of Discotech (JOHN B REMIX)



Biog info // Press Photos etc // www.john-b.com
NEW! John Bs Blog // http://blog.john-b.com
NEW! John Bs Podcast // http://podcast.john-b.com
John B on Myspace // www.myspace.com/johnbbeta
GFB site // www.glamourforbetter.com
GFB Myspace // www.myspace.com/glamourforbetter
Ear Candy Site // www.earcandymusicuk.com

If you haven't come across John B in one of his many musical guises over the past decade, where have you been? This British superproducer has gone on to become one of the most eclectic and unique individuals working within electronic music today. Consistently escaping categorization, John's genre-defying catalogue spans the worlds of Electro, Trance and Drum & Bass, and a few other spaces across the bpm spectrum.

His latest release "Red Sky/Mr. Freud" topped the Beatport DnB charts (& numerous others) & was Mixmag single of the month A unique sound from a real maverick. He's touring the world constantly (just check myspace.com/johnbbeta and you'll see what we mean) and simultaneously running his Beta Recordings & Nu Electro Labels, and writing new material for his next album.

Glamour for Better are currently the number 2 band in the official Myspace Electro Chart and top ten in both the indie and alternative charts, receiving in excess of 5000 plays a day.

Architechs of Discotech is the first single to be taken from the album. The video for Architechs of Discotech has been a firm fixture on MTV since November and featured in the MTV/NME chart as a 'hot new one' alongside Foals and Babyshambles.

What you have here is a HUGE John B Epic D&B remix, with the electro-indie-rock power of Glamour for Better, mashed up with electrohouse bassline energy, massive main room trance synth breakdown and a mighty buildup into a beast of a Drum&Bass crossover anthem...