A recent history of the Jets.

Hello hello...the picture above is a list of the ten songs that we've been working on for the last month or so.All of them are at slightly different stages, some are fragmentary ideas that might leap to life in the studio with the right synths and sounds around them, others are alot more complete, sounding very close to the versions that you'll eventually hear.All of these however, have a kind of lyrical tightness, they all seem to be saying something, slightly different from eachother, but cohesively, like they all belong to a large extended family....Elizabeth is definately the old grandma of this family, being the first song of the new wave that we wrote (in an airport in spain.....after a very heated discussion about what are songs needed to start saying...) it also sets a kind of theme for all the other 10 songs, each of them about people in some form or other (people we know, we knew, we wished we'd known.) The black sheep of this family has to be "metal soul", its the closest we've ever come to writing a glam-rock song, in the style of Marc Bolan, or aladdin sane era Bowie.Its covered in hand claps, and sharp falsetto backing vocals, its also very hard to really know what this ones about, what do you make of "six of us on the heath, wearing nothing underneath, he likes her and she likes me..."? someone suggested it might ellude to the nudist parties that occur on hampstead heath, i wouldn't know.Anyway, it all seems to be going to plan, the last week we made 4 songs in five days (a mystery jet record, seeing as zootime and on my feet took about 6months to make), and we are exactly a third of our way towards the musical dream thats been recurring in our heads for so long....having 30 songs written.Why such a tall task?? well we want to make the best album possible, and also have loads to spare, so we can wittle together some limited edition EP's, with songs that noone would have heard.Another private ambition is for us to be able to play new songs every time we play live, keep it exciting for everyone, and bring in an element of the unexpected to our gigs. I've put up a very raw demo of elizabeth on our myspace page, its close to how we play it live, but there's some different synth parts in it, and some rather chaotic guitar, i think the main thing we wanted to capture with this is just a really good feel....also, please please please listen to it with headphones, i just heard it through my computer and i felt very embarrassed.turn it up loud too...

Here are some photos of us rehearsing,(very poor quality i'm afraid) in our new gaff,well it isn't really ours but it does feel very homely thanks to the friendly family of eastenders who run the place, they also have a huge bull dog that looks like it eats a baby everyday, and you can tell when its been sniffing round your rehearsal room as it leaves a trial of slobber every where it goes.




































I thought i'd give you all a download of a song i've been obsessing over recently, its a song called No Hay Igual (don't know what the title means...its spanish though) and its on nelly furtado's new record.The rythms and the vocals are incredible.Its really well put together too, all the components fit like a puzzle and everything seems to be treated equally in it, like the drums are as important as the vocals...which i think is a really interesting approach to making music.so many songs seem to be about one thing,i.e. the words, or the strength of the melody, but in this song, nelly takes a back seat and uses her voice as a part, a mere puzzle piece with which to make up the song.enjoy.Get the rest of her album too (Loose) it is brilliant, i know its very easy to overlook it as a mass marketed piece of corporate pop, made in Los Angeles with a 100grand a track producers, but that doesn't stop it being amazing...i think its the best thing i've heard for a about 3months( not including late of the pier) and has definately influenced a handfull of the 10strong batch of new songs. Does this mean we are going to make a hip hop record, replace guitars with mcp beats, and hire in timbaland.....YES.(well...no, i'd never put down a guitar, and i know erol's got enough ridim in his blood to out beat any LA producers)

I hope this finds you all well, let us know what you're thinking about nelly and "elizabeth",
lots of love,
william.X