The Band of Holy Joy

Johnny Brown Singing with the Band of Holy Joy

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THE BAND OF HOLY JOY BIOGRAPHY

The band was formed in 1984, by Johny Brown in New Cross, South London. Early experiments revolved around cheap junk shop instrumentation and rudimentary electronics. After two self-issued cassettes, they signed to South London indie label Flim Flam for a string of singles and two 1987 albums; More Tales From The City and the live LP When Stars Come Out To Play.

The band reached a commercial and critical peak after signing to Rough Trade, with Manic, Magic, Majestic in 1989, and Positively Spooked in 1990, supported by a tour of the U.S.S.R. The label was forced into receivership in 1991 following cash flow problems and eventual bankruptcy. The band re-emerged in 1992 as Holy Joy, with the album Tracksuit Vendetta. They split up in 1993 and Brown moved into freelance journalism, playwriting and production.

Band of Holy Joy reformed in 2002 and released an album Love Never Fails. After a number of live dates, the band became inactive between 2003, and 2006, pursuing other musical projects. In May 2007, the band began playing live again. October 2007 saw the release of Leaves That Fall in Spring, a best-of released on the Cherry Red label.

In 2008, after playing nine warm-up dates in and around London during April, May and June, the band set off to the US for the first time in their 24-year history and embarked on a successful tour of New York City. Punklore, a six-track CD was released and initially only available at the New York gigs.

In 2009, the band started to explore theatrical and multimedia based performances. As their alter ego Radio Joy, they performed two song plays Troubled Sleep and Invocation to WilliamTroubled Sleep was a fictional account of Sid and Nancy‘s last days at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. It played out over several nights in the Shunt Theatre Lounge in London and Star and Shadow Cinema in Newcastle.  Invocation to William was performed at The University of London Institute in Paris at the event celebrating the 50th anniversary of William S. Burroughs‘ Naked Lunch, ‘Lunch @ 50’. The songs from this show were released as a mini-album CD A Lucky Thief in a Careless World on the band’s own Radio Joy label. In October 2009, they were invited to play The Wire magazine’s ‘Into the Vortex’ festival, followed by a series of shows in Athens, Greece, later that year.

Paramour, the band’s eleventh album was released on 8 June 2010 and featured eight songs that had evolved from the song play Troubled Sleep.

In 2011, the band embarked on another tour of Greece, playing in the cities of Athens, Thessaloniki, and Larissa. They made their first appearance at Glastonbury Festival and performed their third song play Beuys Will Be Beuys in London and Thessaloniki. A CD release titled How To Kill A Butterfly was released on 28 October 2011 on Exotic Pylon Records.

On 15 March 2012, a CD release entitled The North Is Another Land was released on German independent record label Moloko Plus.

On 28 January 2013, a double cassette and digital download titled City of Tales: Volume 1 & 2 was released on Exotic Pylon Records. Volume 1 contains previously unreleased material from 1985 found by former band member Brett Turnbull, restored and accompanied by a second volume of recordings from 2012. This was followed up in 2014 with Easy Listening which was released on Exotic Pylon Records with an accompanying UK tour.

Their album The Land of Holy Joy was released through Stereogram Recordings on 21 September 2015.

In 2017, the band release an EP on 10″ vinyl entitled Brutalism Begins at Home followed by an album, Funambulist We Love You on vinyl and CD. Both were put out by Tiny Global Productions.

Band of Holy Joy host their own radio show, Bad Punk, on Resonance FM every Friday from 10 pm until 11 pm.

 

WHAT DID I DO WITH THE BAND OF HOLY JOY?

Johny Brown contacted me in February 2022 as he was looking for a drummer for his new album.

I had previously met Johny brown a number of times through our close friend Richard Strange. They have both known and worked with each other for many years. Richard and I had recently supported The Band of Holy Joy at their gig in Camden at the Powerhaus.

I spent about a week learning the songs and we recorded all 10 songs in a day at Bark Studios in Black Horse Road, London.

FATED BEAUTIFUL MISTAKES

The band’s latest album Fated Beautiful Mistakes is has been released by Tiny Global Productions and is available in-stores everywhere from June 2nd.

Early Band Of Holy Joy material existed between the cut-up side of proto-industrial music and proponents of a more romantic musical language.

A great leap in polish led to a deal with Rough Trade and several albums which flirted with the mainstream, but when these releases failed to take off as hoped, lost years on smaller labels and self-released projects followed, until the renewed urgency of 2016’s Brutalism Begins At Home EP and increasingly majestic albums on which saw Johny Brown’s lyricism enter a new phase.

The common thread through the band’s four decades of recordings is the foundational warmth and humanity of Brown’s words. Their earliest recordings seemed garnered from street-level observations of neighbourhood people and sights. By the time of near-hit “Tactless”, their songs – whatever their underlying impulses – had become immediate enough to overcome the mystery of a line like “Do you remember the swan that was shot in the park?”

Over each of their last three albums – Funambulist We Love You, Neon Primitives and Dreams Take Flight – Band Of Holy Joy has bettered itself, and may now have reached their apex, Fated Beautiful Mistakes.

We live in a time of justifiable gloom and awkward uncertainty. So it may appear cavalier to claim this album sounds revelatory in that context, but Band Of Holy Joy’s strength rests in their ability to capture a wider societal feeling. One listen to the escapist fantasy of “Our Flighty Season In The Dirty Sun” and its slightly-haunted ending speaks volumes beyond most of what passes for music in 2023. It’s just one of many perfect moments on this album.

Album Videos

Album Reviews

Narc Magazine

Louder Than War

From 2017’s Funambulist We Love You to 2021’s Dreams Take Flight  via 2019’s Neon Primitives, the Band of Holy Joy have created a stunning body of work, matched by few… and this new album seems to reach a Bowie-like peak, says Ged Babey.

Band of Holy Joy albums get increasingly difficult to write about because they are so out on their own that if you describe them in the florid, gushing torrents of verbiage they merit, then the uninitiated may be put off….

Just mentioning Bowie in the same breath means people’s expectations are high…

David Bowie is still very dead –  sings Johny on one song. City People resembles Heroes in its construction

Fated Beautiful Mistakes does have a blackstar feel about it – Without the finality I hope and pray. It does have more of an overall feeling of contentment though, but an undertow of melancholy.

Reading back through the reviews of the previous three albums – to avoid unnecessary repetition I am struck by how Gus and I, get carried along on the evangelical quest and questioning nature of Browns artistic crusade of self-enlightenment.

Johnys ‘unique’ distinctive vocal style is maybe what has stopped the Band of Holy Joy crossing the cult/mainstream divide. You could say, unkindly, that ‘He can’t carry a tune in a bucket’ but he can hold our heart in his hands and inspire us to believe that there is hope and goodness and beauty in the world, if we only keep looking; in nature, art and the right people. He has soul and his voice is so loaded with it, it does ‘wobble’ a bit.

The opening track sounds musically like the Associates (minus Billy, plus Johny). Lighthouse Keeper asks for a guiding light. God? A goddesses? or a faith in ones inner self or fate itself?

We live in a time of justifiable gloom and awkward uncertainty. So it may appear cavalier to claim this album sounds revelatory in that context, but Band Of Holy Joy’s strength rests in their ability to capture a wider societal feeling. One listen to the escapist fantasy of “Our Flighty Season In The Dirty Sun” and its slightly-haunted ending speaks volumes beyond most of what passes for music in 2023. It’s just one of many perfect moments on this album.

New York Romantic has a chorus to die for ‘Everyone loves to love, Oh to always love and be loved’ and Terry Edwards excels himself on sax. The whole band gel beautifully backing up Johnys poetry – James Stephen Finn proves himself to be one of the UK’s very best guitar-players in terms of providing beautiful, perfect accompaniment to the words and feel of the songs. Lyrical, passionate playing which reaches it’s apex on Full Bloom of Roses.

A Citadel of Crooked Soul includes this, about the desire to ‘live in a yard/Where I can play my battered guitar/Loudly in the sun/ And take psychedelics in my own time/And live for passions of the heart..’   As a young punk I would have scoffed at such a hippy-ish sentiment, but not now.

Nowhere else will you find a song where ‘the slapstick turd’ is rhymed with ‘sense of the absurd’.

I’m not going to break down and analyse and try to explain every song, because they are just so personal and odd at times that they are ‘open to interpretation’, yet at the same time, you can’t help feel they are about specific events in Johnys life and artistic and romantic adventures and endeavours.

The album though is an ensemble piece: Mark Beazley’s bass, Andy Gallop’s drums, Pete Smith’s organ and Basia Bartz’s strings all play a vital part.

Fated Beautiful Mistakes is an album that everyone should hear and hopefully take to their heart.  Songs that make you feel less alone. More optimistic and free to grasp hope and love where and when you can, while you can.

Buy from BANDCAMP or  Various other Outlets 

ONLINE EVENT on Sunday 11 June 2023 7pm at Band Of Holy Joy YouTube Channela live broadcast featuring all 11 films made for each of the songs from our new album as well as footage from our recent exhibition at Gallery 46.

All words Ged Babey – PR content and lyrics in italics

International Times 

SLIPPING THROUGH SOULS

 

On FATED BEAUTIFUL MISTAKES – the new album by The Band of Holy Joy (Tiny Global 2023)

A stuttering violin ushers us into a stately piano as LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER’S
Melodic refrain claims the heart. To start The Band of Holy Joy’s new album,
A collection of soul-shots and heart-shots; each picture framing the name

Of love’s claim through song art. Singer Johny Brown croons uncertainty’s
Blue as cheeks redden against separation’s cold and the light of his lover
Signalling to him from the dark. The music strengthens and swells,

Like all waves, washing us clean to make classics as the heart’s lonely
Lighthouse calls for the stain of love’s sea to leave marks. You can see
The deep night and wand-stirred clouds, mixed and velvet,

And follow the guiding light of all lovers as this holy band play and preach
About the religion within and of how you can be lost at sea in the city
And a man who can ‘never find the right words to say’ lets love teach.

James Stephen Finn’s guitar paints a scene with it’s string-led sprinkled spillage
In NEW YORK ROMANTIC  in which a ‘gorgeous cascade of pavement hearts
That form a cavalcade’ sees Brown find images from the walls and special calls

Of this city, from ‘phlegm, spleen and matter..to becoming the very star
Of his (own) time. ‘ This is glorious 80s pop, full of shoegaze shimmer,
And something reminiscent of any anthems star-sparked climb; a song

To be sung as you angel up the aesthetic of both place and person,
Chalking ‘a pretty heart on dirty pavement/while shaking my cane’
Top Hat tipping to Astaire, Reed and Warhol, as well as any and all

Holy hipsters that emerge through the mouth from Brown’s mind.
Mark Beazley’s bass and Andy  Gallop’s drums coalesce as they do
On each song and record. From chord to crescendo everything within

Is heart-judged. As Pete Smith’s organ and Basia Bartz’s strings soar
And Terry Edwards’ sax slides through the structure to make the sounds
Which aspire and inspire too. Dark lines smudge. A CITADEL OF

CROOKED SOUL charges in from the mist of mournful chords to insistence
As the Songspeiler wants to  ‘live in a yard/Where I can play my battered
guitar/Loudly in the sun/ And take psychedelics in my own time/And live

for passions of the heart..’ It’s a call as well as an image of freedom
In which the crooked soul as creative is Messianic, almost. An emblem
For an age which wants to be both streamed and then streamlined,

Dared by a dreamer who would rouse a prior time in his toast.
The music points the way home to some private cathedral;
A citadel for the denied who are fighting to ‘dance in this monsoon’

Of a world too soon sold and solved for the mainstream apart from
The mysteries Brown uncovers as they ‘play out under the moon.’
MERSEY FERRY ON RIVER THAMES is a synth-siren call over Finn’s

Guitar picking, with fiddle sailing on musical breeze and bright note.
While OUR FLIGHTY SEASON IN THE DIRTY SUN is swagger and swoon
As sax singing. ‘Don’t go far/Strange as you are’ says the lyric,

Containing as it does so all of the secret joys true love wrote.
There is sway through the sax, just as there is swing and Sinatra,
A jauntiness almost as waters separate from mistakes,

Which fated or not, remain both beautiful and transgressive
As around the ear the air changes because of the choice
This band makes. Thanks to Brian O Shaughnessy’s spotlit production,

Feet-tapping, we’re free to blur the murk which surrounds us.
As ‘magic stars’ mark this path the Band of Holy Joy send us skywards,
While crossing streams, rivers, oceans to get to the place the heart quakes.

And so ends Side One in this bright return to the album. As CIRCUS FOLK
Join us, at the start of Side Two we are set for ‘the slapstick turd’ and
‘sense of the absurd’  to define us, as we regale in love’s laughter

Made by untamed hearts once they’ve met. The music is strident.
It moves. It is carnival and soul-chorus, as well as the perfect companion
For the pity and pith in Brown’s words. Which one hears once more

In CITY PEOPLE which has a touch of Bowie’s Heroes. The pulse
And the purpose of an anthem for all fills the air. As lovers cojoin
And the chance to connect calms the tempest of loneliness, vision

And the desire to kiss, carve and care. One can hear everything
In the purity BOHJ has perfected. Within Inga Tillere’s art and images
And across all their music, as both beauty and ugliness stir

The soul-soup we sup to see both sides of existence,
From the appropriation of ‘shimmering style’ to the pissing
Ón every shred of meaning you ever had,’ man’s myth blurs.

And woman’s too, as well as transgender, for this sauce is resourceful;
A Warlock’s brew to be sure, powering all and disarming fools
In an instant as we ‘revert to our cynical sport’ played on pitches

Erected behind every door.  AN INSTAGRAM MOON is sax spun
And then chiming Lotus Eaters style language. Brown philoso-spies
On an age which rather see a picture of the moon than it’s surface,

Or who see themselves as the planets around which orbits form.
It is song as sage, seeking an age which discovers instead of
Disclosing the shallowness after substance which the rest of us

Duly mourn. THE CURVE OF THE BAY is bright stars, synthed
From the edge of the water; a snapshot of transcendence which lifts
The eye, ear and heart. While THE FULL BLOOM OF ROSES extends

Its near whistling synth line into warnings that if we are not
Careful the meaning we share will be lost. In which love is the flame,
Firing from earth, felt in flowers and where dreams drawn

In notebooks become both design and desire for the demands
Of love and truth’s cost. BABYLON FAREWELL sounds so sweet
But here is Brown’s blackest lyric. As he ‘leaves this bad city

And moves back to Hell.’ Sick of fairytales for the so called sacred days
We’re all sharing, this song ends the album with two of the Band
Of Holy Joy’s greatest strengths, the sheer mastery of the magic

Within music masking and the song spells of its singer
Whose powerful words grant thought length. For here is anger
And loss, rancour and rhyme, freedom, fire. The mistakes we make

Send us higher, away from the earth into dream. Which is where
Beauty begins. Only a band this holy can help us, for as we transpire
Truth transports, love is scheme. This albums slips through your soul

And gifts it new colour. If that’s a mistake, then embrace it.
We should stumble on still. Mistakes gleam.

Louder Than War – Best Albums of 2023 So Far…

Band Of Holy Joy: Fated Beautiful Mistakes (Tiny Global)

Band of Holy Joy albums get increasingly difficult to write about because they are so out on their own that if you describe them in the florid, gushing torrents of verbiage they merit, then the uninitiated may be put off…I’m not going to break down and analyse and try to explain every song, because they are just so personal and odd at times that they are ‘open to interpretation’, yet at the same time, you can’t help feel they are about specific events in Johnys life and artistic and romantic adventures and endeavours. The album though is an ensemble piece: Mark Beazley’s bass, Andy Gallop’s drums, Pete Smith’s organ and Basia Bartz’s strings all play a vital part. James Stephen Finn proves himself to be one of the UK’s very best guitar-players…  Fated Beautiful Mistakes is an album that everyone should hear and hopefully take to their heart.  Songs that make you feel less alone. More optimistic and free to grasp hope and love where and when you can, while you can.

MOJO MAGAZINE

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