Steve Ignorant

I would really appreciate anyone who can help us out by spreading the word on this. Please re-post, link, whatever.

Singer urgently needed.  We are looking for a female singer to join The Last Supper tour.  Unfortunately Beki has decided that she cannot continue to tour with us due to family commitments.  We are absolutely gutted, but determined not to let this set-back get us down.  So we are currently seeking a strong female vocalist who is capable of joining our little family, and of representing the Crass material with the heart and spirt it deserves (particularly the material from Penis Envy).  She must be available for an immediate audition, plus rehearsals in London or Peterborough in January and February, and then for our USA/Canadian tour (3 weeks in March), Australia/NZ tour (3-4 weeks in April & May), possibly Japan or a few others during the summer, and our finale show in London late 2011.  Obviously a clean passport/record will be required for visas etc.   Interested parties should please submit the following to [email protected]: (1) one mp3 track featuring your vocals (2) short bio (3) photo (4) name, address, contact email & phone numbers (5) any links to extra music, info etc that you'd like us to consider.

Thanks

Steve

Testing 1-2-3. America, are you receiving?

Well after an enormous amount of planning and work by the folks behind the scenes, I am really pleased to announce that we will be taking The Last Supper tour to the USA and Canada next year.

2011
Thursday MARCH 10 New York, NY @ Santo's Party House
Friday MARCH 11 Montreal, QC @ Le National
Saturday MARCH 12 Toronto, ON @ The Opera House
Sunday MARCH 13 Chicago, IL @ Logan Square Auditorium
Wednesday MARCH 16 Seattle, WA @ Neumo's
Thursday MARCH 17 San Francisco, CA @ Slim's
Friday MARCH 18 Pomona, CA @ Fox Theater
Tuesday March 22 Austin, TX @ Emo's
Friday March 25 Baltimore, MD @ Sonar

Me and the band are really looking forward to this.  Being able to the play the Crass songs in places where Crass was never able to go will be an honour, and a huge amount of fun as well.  Hope to see some of you there.

Cheers

Steve

Tomorrow I'll be interviewed by Irish journalist Michael McCaughan at Tower in Dublin.  We'll be talking about my book, The Rest Is Propaganda, and anything else that Michael wants to ask.  Also there will be a Q&A after so please come along and ask me anything you like.  I'll be around afterwards for a chat and to sign books if anyone wants one!

Hope to see you there.

Oh yeah - and in case you didn't know, we're playing the Button Factory in Dublin on Friday night (26th) and Belfast Empire on Saturday night (27th).  We're really looking forward to it.

Cheers

Steve

Me & John Robb during the talk

We left Norfolk before 8 am in the morning and set off for London. As soon as we set off, clouds gathered and it started to rain. You know one of those days where you'd rather stay in bed and pretend the world doesn’t exist.

Our first stop was near New Market where Gordon lives. He kindly offered to look after the dog again. For Oscar (the dog) it has become a second home since The Last Supper Tour started. After a quick cup of tea we got back in the car, still raining and by now freezing cold. Great! Four hours later, after getting stuck in traffic and struggling to find a place to park, we arrived at Southern. By now I really wasn’t in a good mood and wondered why I ever had thought this was a good idea. Anyway I was here so I might as well get on with it.

Allison & Billie

From the moment I walked into Southern things changed. Dawn straight away popped out to get us fresh milk and biscuits. Allison was standing there with a big smile on her face and Billie (her dog) was jumping up and down from excitement. What a welcome, within minutes I forgot all about the horrible journey and was ready to get started. While Allison and I were catching up, time flew and before I knew it Roy arrived and we started the interview he asked to do for the new edit of his Day The Country Died dvd.

Me, John Robb, Allison and Jona mucking about

After the interview it was time to brave the cold and drive to Brick Lane for the book talk at Rough Trade. A manic journey through London followed before we finally arrived. I have to admit that at first I didn’t recognise it, so much had changed. John Robb was already there and we quickly went

next door to the pub so that I could have a drink while we discussed the upcoming interview. Rough Trade was a great place to have the book talk. You can buy a coffee and tea while you browse to your hearts content. Anyway I wasn’t there for the tea. I was a bit nervous before we got started, I know I am a twat. Luckily there were quite a few familiar faces. Steve Pottinger who I wrote the book with; Annie Anxiety who I hadn’t seen in ages; Sid and Zillah from Rubella Ballet who brought along lots of goodies.

Me, John Robb & Lauren in a small box

Thanks to John and everyone that turned up it became a great night. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was lovely to meet new people. Gemma, that was a great bomber jacket. Lee, it was great to see you again. I would like to say a big thank you to Allison for organising it, Damon for filming the whole interview, Sean and Phil from Rough Trade for inviting us and Simon at Forte for your help. After a quick drink, we got back in our freezing cold car to pick up the dog and drive home in the pitch black to Norfolk. Did I mind? No way! Was it worth it? Every minute of it!

Some of the lovely folks who came along.

Thanks

Steve

We couldn't have chosen a better venue for the last gig of our set of European dates. One of the few gigs Crass did outside the UK was at the Vera in 1980, and Petr who runs the venue was there! The Vera is really special - they treat you like royalty.  We had a lovely meal of Dutch Chinese food (I know I go on about food a lot, but on tour, it's something you really look forward to - a nice hot meal really makes the day).  They have a lovely "band hotel" upstairs which is just gorgeous, and they served us a huge breakfast at 7am the next morning before we set off.

Now we just have to hope a few people turn up to the gig....

Bob is amused by the "ex-Crass plays Crass" banner at the Vera.

Allison tried to figure out how to get into the venue.

It's a very important part of the tour manager's job, that is.

Check out the hand-screened posters that Vera made for our gig.  Not many venues bother with that sort of stuff anymore, it's lovely to see.

Gizz can play guitar and sing at the same time!

Very skilled that boy.

Me getting shouty.

Bob at work, with Beki looking over his shoulder.

One Allison took from the lighting desk during "Big Man"

We didn't need to worry - look at all the great people who turned up!

The crowd at the Vera were just as lovely as the staff.

Bob, Beki & Gizz during the encore - Shaved Women.

Thanks again to everyone at Vera for looking after us, and everyone who came out to make the last night special.  We were really tired, but as soon as we hit the stage, you woke us up!  We couldn't have asked for a better way to finish off the European leg of The Last Supper.

Cheers

Steve

The nice folks at Rough Trade shops have asked me come down and do a talk about my book.  I'll be interviewed and then answer any questions from the audience, and I'll hang around afterwards to sign books and chat.   I hope some of you can come down and keep me company.

Rough Trade East is located at:  Dray Walk, Truman Brewery, 91 Brick Lane London E1 6QL

The talk starts at 6pm and will finish around 7pm.

Rough Trade shop event info

Facebook event info

Loading in using the gear lift at Loppen. Adam the sound guy is at the top helping us. He did a fantastic job for us - thanks Adam.

Spike had a special drum head made for his kit for The Last Supper

More Copenhagen pictures - see full post.

We didn't do such a good job of getting these posted while we were on tour, but here they are now.

Loading in at Hafenklang

Getting into Hamburg was quite a surprise for a few of us who have been there before but not for years.  Allison didn't recognise the whole area down by the docks where Hafenklang is located.  It's all been developed - a bit like Canary Wharf or something - lots of expensive flats, shops and offices.  In the middle of it Hafenklang still stands though - bloody amazing they managed to keep the venue on the same site despite everything.  I think they basically just built a whole new building around it.

And away we go

The stage at Hafenklang is only a few inches above the rest of the venue and I reckon you might call it "intimate".

Spike working hard

The crowd in Hamburg were one of the wildest on the tour.

This is why we did the tour. Those beautiful faces at the end of the night.

More smiling faces.

Pardon my finger there in the photo.

Thanks to everyone who rammed into the Hafenklang that night to have The Last Supper with us.  Also thanks to Daniel and everyone at the venue for treating us so well.  They served us an excellent home-cooked meal which is always appreciated by the band and crew.

More European posts coming soon.

Thanks. Steve.

Back again with some news from the European tour.  We've been having a real laugh.  The Last Supper band are great and I couldn't have done this without Gizz, Spike, Bob, Beki, Jona & Allison and Spot.  Despite the fact we are working on an average of 4 hours sleep a night, we still manage to get to the venues on time and have a giggle along the way.  Every night has been really different and it's been great to take the Crass songs to places where Crass never managed to go.

Lodz 21st October

I've always loved Poland because you're guaranteed a good night out.  Crass never made it here but I've been over with other bands. This lot certainly showed us a proper good time.

Ta-da!

Spike our drummer  took this one from behind his kit at the end of the show.

After the show I like to work out in my personal gym.

(Okay, not really - this exercise bike was in the bathroom of our hotel!)

Bob

Bob looks all pensive in this shot taken by Allison as we arrived in Lodz.

Thanks also due to Krzy who promoted the show and really looked after us.

Cheers.

Steve

Berlin was a top night.  The venue was a beautiful old music hall type place, and the promoter Franco really looked after us.  We had an amazing sound guy called George who was an old Crass fan and he did a fantastic job making us sound good.  Thanks also to Christian who did the lights and helped Allison make the visuals really special.  But most of all, thanks to the amazing crowd who came down to celebrate with us.  THANK YOU, BERLIN!

The crazy crowd in Berlin. They seemed to be able to sing all these songs without our help.

Me just about to kick off.

Gizz giving the guitar a bit of welly during Systematic Death.

Beki getting ready before the show. What the shirt says is true.

Allison snapped me writing the set list and caught herself in the mirror as well.