29.12.08 Jarvis to guest edit Radio 4's Today Programme on New Year's Eve
Jarvis has been named as one of the guest editors for this week's series of Today Programmes on Radio 4. Jarvis will be the editor for the 31 December show which goes out from 6am-9am. He's filmed a short trailer for the programme here in which he says he'll be covering topics such as: Are science and religion polar opposites? Is drinking an artform? Does a politician's sex life have any bearing on whether they can do their job or not? Does the fact that their personal lives come under so much scrutiny mean that we get more boring politicians? Finally, he'll be sharing his thoughts about how his recent visit to the arctic circle informed his view of the credit crunch.
23.10.08 Jarvis to Host 6Music Radio Show
BBC 6Music have emailed us to say that Jarvis will be presenting a live show on 6Music this Sunday from 15:30 to 17:30. He'll be standing in for Stephen Merchant and there'll be an MP3 download of the show available for the next seven days.
21.10.08 Drifting and Tilting
Jarvis is to form part of the line up of guest vocalists performing in a concert of Scott Walker songs. Drifting and Tilting - The Songs of Scott Walker runs at London's Barbican Centre from 13-15 November. The Barbican promise "A stunning cast of vocalists, musicians and dancers bring music from Scott Walker's seminal albums The Drift and Tilt to life in an extraordinary world-premiere production. This thrilling song-cycle will be set and designed for the Barbican Theatre stage, with music performed by a 42 piece string orchestra playing alongside Walker's band.
11.09.08 Jarvis On Tour
Tickets go on sale tomorrow morning for a five-date winter tour calling at Sheffield Academy (November 25), London Shepherds Bush Empire (26), Edinburgh Picture House (28), Manchester Academy (30) and Birmingham Academy (December 2). Tickets are available from the usual outlets including Ticketweb, Ticketmaster and See Tickets. See BBC News for more details.
15.07.08 Jarvis Talks to 6Music
[BBC 6Music] Jarvis spoke to 6Music after his Brighton Festival lecture about progress on his forthcoming LP. He told 6 Music that he'll be road testing new songs during his short US tour this week, and a follow up to his 2006 solo debut is on the horizon. "I have been working and I have been writing." He confessed, "I'm playing three shows in America in July where I'm gonna try a lot of new stuff out. I'll see if I survive that, then I'll try and get it recorded as soon as possible really. I probably won't get it out this year being realistic. But I'd like to get it out as soon as possible. But I'm afraid I will kill again. There will be another record."
As for the style of the new songs, it appears that Cocker is aiming for a heavier, more band orientated sound compared to his 2006 album Jarvis. "It's hard to say as it's not all done yet." He continued, "But I think it'll probably be louder than the last one. The thing was, I wrote that record over a period of time and enlisted the help of Steve [Mackey - bass] and Ross [Orton - drums] and Richard [Hawley - guitar] to help me record it. Then went out and played it, and luckily discovered that I had a band that could rock. That really made me think. I'd never really had that before. Pulp could be loud, but we didn't really rock... Well, maybe occasionally. So what I've tried to do with the new stuff, rather than me just sit there and wait for inspiration to come at some point - which takes ages - instead we've written stuff together. And it's kind a bit louder. It's probably something to do with some kind of midlife crisis as well, y'know? Rock while to still have the ability to do it before your bits start falling off." Jarvis' full US tour dates are: Pitchfork Music Festival, Union Park Chicago (19 July), Music Hall of Williamsburg Brooklyn (21) and Terminal 5 New York (22). Download the 6Music podcast here.
02.06.08 Jarvis Designs Edwyn Collins Sleeve
The NME and Heavenly Records report that Jarvis and 24 other artists are each designing one-off sleeves for Edwyn Collins' new 7" single, 'Home Again', due out on 23 June. Heavenly's site says that: "Rather than just put out a download and bore ourselves to tears, we decided to ask friends of ours and Edwyn's to customize the sleeves to 25 copies of the 7" release of the single. People like John Squire, Nicky Wire, Harry Hill, Jeremy Deller, Irvine Welsh, Pete Shelly, Samantha Morton, The Cribs, David Shrigley, Pete Fowler, Billy Childish, Jarvis Cocker (to name a few). On the 23rd of June, those personalized sleeves will be sealed in bags and put into shops with all the other copies of the single. You go and buy one, pot luck says you might get one with exclusive artwork in. All proceeds will be donated to Connect, a charity dedicated to support for stroke sufferers." The 7" is limited to 1,500 copies giving each buyer a 1 in 60 chance of bagging one of the customised copies. Heavenly have promised to list the stockists "in the next week or so".
24.05.08 Jarvis' Brighton Lecture
Jarvis delivered a two and a quarter hour lecture on the function of lyrics in popular song as part of the Brighton Festival last night. His central argument was that lyrics don't matter very much: "they're an optional extra like a sunroof or a patio, but when music and lyrics work together they're better than the sum of their parts". To illustrate his various arguments he delighted the crowd with acoustic performances of 'Babies', 'Shakespeare Rock' (Jarvis' first attempt at lyric/song writing from 1978) and Leonard Cohen's 'Tonight Will Be Fine'. Update: Read the full report here.
23.05.08 Jarvis & Richard
The NME reports that Jarvis joined Richard Hawley on stage at Richard's Royal Albert Hall show last Tuesday night. They played 'Happy New Year' - a song they co-wrote at the end of the 1990s. Although the song is unreleased, Richard used the music for his track Naked In Pitsmoor from his debut LP in 2001.
26.04.08 New Jarvis LP in 2008?
Jarvis has told the NME that he plans to release his next LP later this year (so that's perhaps the surest sign yet that it won't be released until 2009...). He told them that he'd written two new songs - 'Girls Like It Too' and 'The Usual' - and hoped to have enough material to record his follow-up LP soon: "I've got vague ideas," he said of the forthcoming LP. "I'd like to do another [album] before the end of the year." He also explained that 'Girls Like It Too' was about how females enjoy sex as well as men. "Which boys sometimes forget".
09.04.08 Jarvis on Song: Saying The Unsayable
The NME report that Jarvis will be delivering a specially commissioned lecture at the Brighton Festival on 23 May. Sadly all the tickets have now been snapped up, but it's worth checking in with the Brighton Dome box office for returns. The event publicity promises an event that'll be worth flogging your grandmother for: "In this exclusive Brighton Festival lecture, Jarvis Cocker explores the function of the lyric in popular song. Armed with audio and video excerpts and some finely tuned PowerPoint skills, Jarvis starts from the contrary position that 'song lyrics don't really matter'! From here he embarks on a celebration of his craft, putting his own lyrics under the microscope alongside firm favourites from Leonard Cohen and Pete Doherty to Hot Chocolate and Amy Winehouse. Including an in-depth analysis of Richard Berry's notorious rock 'n' roll anthem Louie Louie."
12.03.08 Jarvis' Latin American Tour
The NME reports that Jarvis played two new songs on the first night of his Latin American tour. One of the new songs was titled 'Girls Like It Too'. He explained to last night's Buenos Aires audience: "'Chabon' means 'man' and 'mina' is a girl, yeah? Well, sometimes the chabon doesn't understand the mina. The chabon wants the mina. The chabon chases the mina. Unfortunately the chabon - during the chasing - has drunk about three bottles of wine. So if the chabon caught the mina nothing would really happen, or if it happened it certainly wouldn't last very long, and that's the subject of this song."
He rounded off his second Mexico show last Saturday night with a cover of Jimi Hendrix's 'Hey Joe'. Clearly a favourite of his, this was one of the many videos he played on ABC Australia's Rage show last June.
Jarvis' brief tour stopped off at Mexico (Monterrey Havana on March 6 and Mexico City Mx Beat Soundfest Festival at Centro Dinamico Pegaso on March 8), Argentina (La Trastienda Club, Buenos Aires on March 11 & 12) and wraps up in Chile (Santiago Teatro Caupolican on March 15).
14.01.08 Zine Scene
Jarvis kicks off a two-part documentary on the history of fanzines on Radio 4 tomorrow (11:30-12:00). According to the Radio 4 blurb: "Jarvis Cocker explores the history of fanzines, small publications designed and produced by devotees of popular phenomena. With the help of fanzine makers, collectors and experts, including Roger Sabin, Teal Triggs, Jon Savage and John Robb, Jarvis discovers the origin of fanzines in science fiction, long before the explosion of home-made fanzines during the punk rock days of the late 1970s." The second part will be transmitted a week later on 22 January.
23.10.08 Jarvis to Host 6Music Radio Show
