Jarvis Cocker - "Jarvis" Era (Sold Out US Tour!)

[oscillations.]

The Pulp frontman's debut solo effort will finally see a US release via a Rough Trade North American Licensing Deal on April 3rd.

From a few weeks ago:
NME

Jarvis album gets US release date
It includes a bonus video
24.Jan.07 6:04pm
The debut solo album from Jarvis Cocker is set to be released in the US in April.

The Stateside version of 'Jarvis', out April 3, will include the video for his current UK single 'Don't Let Him Waste Your Time'.

Released in the UK in November, the US release of the album will see Cocker perform live at the Coachella Festival in California alongside newly reformed Rage Against The Machine and Crowded House.

In addition to the Coachella performance, Cocker is in the midst of confirming headlining shows in several major US cities.

--By our New York staff.

Those US dates are the following:
It's a small list of cities, but the Pulp frontman should be in high demand on these solo dates.

04-23 New York, NY - Webster Hall
04-27 Indio, CA - Empire Polo Field (Coachella)
04-28 San Francisco, CA - Fillmore
04-30 Seattle, WA - Showbox
05-01 Vancouver, British Columbia - Commodore


^ I am happy to confirm I will be at the NYC show. This is like a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

Meanwhile, "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time" is kind of a UK & European hit. The video is terrific:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1oMtwmTaNQ

(The version he wrote for Nancy is great, too.)

Not surprisingly, Jarvis has enjoyed universal acclaim.
www.metacritic.com/music/artists/cockerjarvis/jarvis

It's definitely one of the best albums of the past 6 months. I didn't include it on my 2006 Best Of list merely because I had an inkling it would see a stateside release in the not-too-distant future. Hopefully, we will soon be able to say the same thing about the Long Blondes' LP.

[banet2001]

It is nice to see that Jarvis will finally have a US rlease date.

"'Don't Let Him Waste Your Time'" is a great song. Hopefully it will get some airplay in the US.

[joker]

As a big Pulp fan, I had to give this a chance when it came out, and I'm glad I did! It's cool that it'll be released in the US too.

[juhn]

I love "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time"!!

[oscillations.]

I wonder if "(Cunts Are Still) Running The World" should be released here first. That was the first leak last summer, actually. It's such a spectacular song.

[joker]

Jarvis Covers Talking Heads, Black Sabbath

Mr. Cocker was the closing act at the Shockwaves NME Awards Show at the Astoria in London Saturday night, where he treated the crowd to Jarvis tunes and some choice covers. He scoffed at a "Common People" request ("this band are not Pulp"), but doing Ozzy and Byrne was consolation enough. Watch 'em now, before Viacom claims proprietary ownership of Talking Heads covers. The quality's not great, but the audio is good enough to sing along to. And you can make out Jarvis's sweet moves to "Paranoid."

Vids here: www.stereogum.com/archives/004644.html

[joker]

www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003554120

March 06, 2007, 10:05 ET
Michael D. Ayers, N.Y.

Former Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker will release his first solo album, "Jarvis," April 3 in North America via Rough Trade. The set features contributions from former Pulp bandmates Steve Mackey and Richard Hawley and was recorded in roughly 13 days in Sheffield, England. The vocals were then tracked in Paris.

"I didn't plan it that way," Cocker tells Billboard.com of the quick pace of the studio sessions. "The thing was, it took about three years to write it. Not that I was working on it 24 hours a day. But, I started on it pretty soon after I moved to Paris. I had to do a lot up front, and it was quite easy to record. I showed the chords to the guys, and we got it down as quickly as possible. Besides, being in the studio for long periods of time starts to become unhealthy. You smoke too much."

Cocker says that his approach for "Jarvis" was a departure from writing and recording in his Pulp days. "With Pulp records, a lot of times I'd be writing lyrics at the last minute," he explains. "I did some songs for [the] 'Harry Potter' [films] and we recorded them live. And it was much more fun that way. On several cuts, the first or second take was the best. When people know the song too well, sometimes it takes the life out of it in a weird way."

"Jarvis" was released internationally in November 2006, and Cocker admits he was "a bit nervous" around its release. "Solo is solo and I couldn't blame anyone else if they didn't like it," he laments. "I was a bit worried of using the same people in Pulp. Maybe it wasn't different enough, but I think people saw that it was."

Of late, Cocker has kept busy with side projects, most notably contributing lyrics on the forthcoming Charlotte Gainsbourg album, "5:55," as well as penning two songs on the recent Air album, "Pocket Symphony."

Cocker is slated to return stateside for a short string of shows in late April, including two nights at New York's Webster Hall and a visit to the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif.

The artist says that a reformation of Pulp, who ceased activity following 2002's acclaimed "We Love Life," is "not out of the question. I mean, we all get along. No one has died of a drug overdose. But it’s not something that we’re planning. And no one has driven up with a van full of cash yet."

[joker]

This guy has a high opinion of Jarvis:

www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/pop_playground/jaccuse-jarvis-cocker.htm

Here’s a visualization exercise for you. Try and picture a world where people, for some reason, really, really cared about that blonde chick from Baby D. Not just cared about her, but treated her as a figurehead of her genre, taking the words that she regularly said as gospel; broadcasting, printing, and analysing them over every print zine, blog, and radio show. And all this has had a really bad impact on the blonde chick from Baby D. She’s become arrogant, bloated from her own fame. The words she says in interviews are utter rubbish, an embarrassing mix of pining for a time when she was relevant and an ill-advised, undeserved attempt at positioning herself as the gatekeeper and judge for all new dance acts to pass through. Imagined that? Well, you’re probably thinking, “But Baby D haven’t had a hit or been remotely relevant for over a decade, and there’s no hope of them making a non-humiliating comeback. Why on earth should I give a flying fuck about them, her, or her stupid opinions? Why are people insisting on listening to what that blonde chick from Baby D has to say?”

In all fairness, you can’t really compare Baby D vocalist Dorothy Fearnon to Jarvis Cocker. Baby D were a much more successful band than Pulp, earning a number-one hit and more top five singles. Look, Jarvis Cocker is an utter fucking embarrassment to music and himself. Up until maybe six months ago, the most pathetic man in the industry was frontman of 1980s synth-cabaret act Dollar, David van Day. Van Day was a man convinced of his act’s place in the firmament of British music even when his career had slipped to the point where he was working in a waffle stall on Brighton beach. He then compounded matters by going on tour under the name Bucks Fizz, despite never having been in the former Eurovision winners. Cocker’s performance over the past year makes Van Day look like the very model of dignity.

When Pulp’s career spluttered to an ugly end in the early 2000s, they meant absolutely nothing. Hits, their “best of” compilation, charted at a majestic #71 in November 2002, during what is traditionally the peak time of the year for compilation albums sales. To put things in perspective, at the time of writing this article the last band to have an album chart high of #71 were those über-successful modern-day behemoths of the zeitgeist, 36 Crazyfists. If Pulp had continued their career to this point, they would be just about worthy of a support slot for Kittie.

But you can argue this isn’t about Pulp, it’s about Cocker. Fair enough. Cocker’s debut solo album, modestly entitled Jarvis only managed to get to #37, three places ahead of All Saints’ Studio 1, a positioning so poor as to get them dropped from their label. And they didn’t even have the benefit of an extensive billboard and TV advertising campaign that Cocker did.

It’s hard to know what the worst thing about Cocker is. The man was named “special guest editor” for an issue of Observer Music Monthly a few months back. He used the issue to a) plug incessantly and give positive reviews to a no-hoper band a friend of his was in b) give himself a positive review c) conduct a “roundtable discussion” on the future of music. Now, that sounds pretty interesting, right? Musicians always got a lot of shit to talk about. Get them around the table, pour a few glasses of Jacob’s Creek Chardonnay down their throat, and you’ve got yourself a pretty interesting article right there. At least you can be guaranteed no hidden agendas from an article like this. Let’s see who was sitting around the table:

Jarvis Cocker (signed to Rough Trade)
Antony Hegarty (signed to Rough Trade)
Beth Orton (signed to Rough Trade Management)
Anthony Genn (signed to Rough Trade Management)
Mary Margaret O’Hara and Nick Cave (the two main acts featured on the, at the time, just released Rough Trade: Singer Songwriter Volume 1 compilation)
Paul Morley (was already in the office and didn’t ask for expenses to go to the interview site)

So Jarvis Cocker turned what’s meant to be a music magazine, perhaps the last remaining critical medium where people are supposed to express honest opinions, and turned it into an extended advertising brochure for himself, his friends, and more disturbingly, the company that pays his wages.

Jarvis Cocker is a whore. Not a whore for money (but he’s that as well), but a whore for attention. Take a look at his appearance at the Brit Awards. He was there to give an award to Britpop revivalists, the thalidomide children developed from the deposits he and his peers left back at the sperm bank back in ’96, the Fratellis. You can probably think of many words to describe The Fratellis. Jarvis chose “ice-cool indie rock.” I’m sorry, are you a 30-year-veteran of recording music or the listings writer for Croydon Free Advertiser? To make matters exponentially worse, he did this while doing an impression of Jimmy Saville and then took part in a hilarious skit with the Fratellis themselves where one of them mooned him, à la his brief moment of fame a decade back. To get any reaction, he has to go back to the one trick he tried to run away from all this years ago. Jarvis Cocker is the “I Didn’t Do It” Kid of indie rock.

His interviews mine the same tired seam. Half of the time it’s him trying to run away from his past—a recent interview with The Trip Wire seeing him claim of “Britpop” that he “hated that term and never considered Pulp to be a part of that.” This would be the same Jarvis Cocker of the same Pulp who were the feature attraction of the TV show Britpop Now, alongside Menswe@r and Marion. Seemingly Cocker never thought to mention his antipathy towards the movement when there was money to be made out of it, but now that it’s a dead genre, it’s open season.

He’s at his worst when he’s playing judge, jury, and executioner for every contemporary indie act, especially when his tastes range to praising the Fratellis and hanging out with the Gossip and CSS in what appears to be a PR ploy copied from when David Cameron spent the afternoon with Rhymefest. Cocker on fellow douchebag Johnny Borrell: “Reading an interview with Razorlight is just like reading The Economist.” Cocker would of course know all about reading The Economist, being as he is the star of adverts for such friendly indie, ethically operated, consumer orientated companies as British Telecom and Natwest. This is the guy who sang “Fuck the morals, does it make any money?” The fact that Cocker can then turn round and accuse any band whatsoever of being careerist is a level of rank hypocrisy that I don’t think has ever been achieved by a pop star before.

Cocker has one direct descendant in indie today: Preston from the Ordinary Boys. A man who’s only in a band because he wants, needs to get his face on the television in any way he can. Preston prostituted himself out to reality TV, Cocker turned up on Stars In Their Eyes. Preston throws his toys out of the pram when panel show hosts don’t pander to his whims; Cocker has a similarly over-inflated view of his own importance, intelligence, and levels of respect. When Preston’s career started entering the dumpster, he suddenly found himself a celebrity girlfriend to get himself in the papers; Cocker similarly reacts to each new low his popularity sinks to by finding some way of grabbing those column inches by whatever means necessary. And we don’t need either of them around. At all.

“Cunts are still running the world” went the lyrics to the lead single off his stillborn last album. Presumably there weren’t any mirrors in the room when he wrote that.

By: Dom Passantino
Published on: 2007-03-09

[oscillations.]

Stylus is really angry lately.

[busyboy]

Jarvis Wants YOU to Open His North American Shows

Do you have what it takes to set the scene for the former frontman of Pulp? Can you hold a candle to his indomitable swagger and infectiously wry sense of humor?

Shit no-- but you can still have fun opening for the guy. That's right, Mr. Jarvis Cocker is looking to the common people of the United States and Canada to provide support at some shows on his all-too-brief upcoming North American tour.

As Jarvis wrote on his Jarvspace yesterday, "I'll keep this quite short: we are playing in North America soon & need support bands for New York (2 shows), San Francisco, Seattle & Vancouver - do you think you could help?" Jarvis stressed that he wants local bands for each gig, and that links to music and such would be extremely helpful. Drop a note to Jarvspace to apply.

In related news, Jarvis curates the Meltdown festival, taking place across several venues at London's Southbank Centre from June 16-24. A populist through and through, Jarvis has also called upon his MySpace buds to suggest Meltdown-worthy acts. You know what to do.

Jarvis' self-titled solo debut finally crashes U.S. shores April 3 via Rough Trade. Catch him in select North American cities this spring.

Jarvis cocksure:

04-22 New York, NY - Webster Hall *
04-23 New York, NY - Webster Hall *
04-27 Indio, CA - Empire Polo Field (Coachella)
04-28 San Francisco, CA - Fillmore *
04-30 Seattle, WA - Showbox *
05-01 Vancouver, British Columbia - Commodore *
07-13-14 Barcelona, Spain - Parc del Fòrum (Summercase Festival)

* with YOU

www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/42009-jarvis-wants-you-to-open-his-north-american-shows

[oscillations.]

NYC is sold out. :(
It's okay though: I have a 12 page report due around that time & 5 finals to study for.
Sorry, Jarvis, I can't let you "waste my time".

[busyboy]

Very long interview with Jarvis

www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/41648-interview-jarvis-cocker

[oscillations.]

out today!

[busyboy]

Independent chart 04/21/2007:

34 COCKER*JARVIS JARVIS 3,212 3,433

I guess he's nowhere near the Top 200. Sad...

[oscillations.]

Actually, had he sold even 800 or so more copies, he'd have made it.

No matter.
I have the album now & I really like it.
(too bad "c**ts" didn't make the US version).

[busyboy]

^ Hey, have you secretly got access to the numbers? LOL...

Since it's a "good" week for sales I imagined the #200 must have sold 5k or more leaving him much behind than he'd have been in the usual slumpy week, but I might be wrong. We'll see when Solitaire post the figures.

[oscillations.]

oh nevermind..."Cunts" IS on the album, after the 25 minute silence that follows "Quantum Theory". I hate hidden tracks.

[oscillations.]

I wish I had known so I could have publicized it, but he was just on Letterman!

I caught the last minute of it...excellent performance of "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time".

He looked so deliciously condescending.

[busyboy]

Cocker attacks talent show winners

Britpop star Jarvis Cocker has lashed out at today's pop music and TV talent shows.

The ex-Pulp star, who had a string of hit singles and two number one albums in the Nineties, said pop had become "industrialised".

Cocker, 43, said contestants on shows such as The X Factor and Pop Idol only got through if their voices betrayed "zero personality".

The Britpop star also told the Radio Times magazine he regretted how much attention he got after his infamous Brits protest at Michael Jackson.

Cocker, who recently released his first solo album, said of TV talent shows: "They never pick people with great voices. They pick people who show off how many notes they can fit into a 10-second period.

"A great voice expresses something and gives you some idea of the personality behind the voice. There's zero personality in the voices of any of the people who sing on these shows."

The Sheffield-born Common People star added: "It saddens me because I love pop music and these shows prove that it's become an industrialised process. I hate that. The kind of pop I was brought up on is over.

"The pop charts used to be where everything happened. Now the most interesting stuff is happening outside in the independent music sector."

Cocker said he regretted the publicity which followed his stage invasion of the Brits in 1996 in protest at the King of Pop's "Christ-like" performance.

He said: "I got too much publicity. There is an obsession with celebrity in our society, but I think people are starting to realise that it really isn't very nice."

[busyboy]

Jarvis reunites with father

Jarvis Cocker has been speaking about the recent reunion with his father, almost 40 years since he last saw him.

The former Pulp star travelled to Australia with his sister Saskia for the "difficult" meeting with his estranged dad, who left the family home when he was seven-years-old.

Speaking about the experience, Jarvis commented: "If this happened on a TV show we'd all have been in floods of tears and declaring how much we loved each other.

"But although we are biologically related it was like meeting someone I didn't know. We didn't have a parent-child relationship."

He also admitted that his father, Mack, was not as he'd expected: "I had built up a picture of the man I thought he would be but then I faced the reality. It was difficult."

Jarvis Cocker curates this year's Meltdown Festival in London, which takes place between June 16-23.

[busyboy]

Jarvis' "Fat Children" Single Due in July
Ain't nothin' hotter than a fat kid in summertime

Childhood obesity; it's an epidemic. And perhaps none has suffered more at the hands of precocious pudge than Jarvis Cocker-- well, apart from the kids, I guess. I mean, he claims "fat children took my life."

Much like ODB before him, though, Jarvis is for the kids, and, far from ignoring this ballooning problem, he's raising awareness. He'll issue two vinyl singles for propulsive Jarvis cut "Fat Children" July 16 on the Rough Trade label. The 7" version comes with "Loss Adjuster"-- a track heretofore represented by excerpts on Jarvis-- while the bigger version, fittingly enough, gets an "Extra-Large mix" from Pulp bassist Steve Mackey.

No need to worry about Jarvis packing on the pounds this summer; he's got himself quite a workout routine, including a run-in-place at quite a few of the bigger Euro fests. He'll set off his regimen this weekend, as he brings new meaning to the tired phrase "madcap eclecticism" (and, apparently, "The Pyramid of Pachyderms") at his own magisterial Meltdown Festival.

"Fat Children" 7":

A: Fat Children (album version)
B: Loss Adjuster

"Fat Children" 12":

A: Fat Kidz (Steve Mackey's "Let Them Eat Acid" Extra-large Mix)
B: Fat Children (album version)

Jarvis in person:

06-23 London, England - Royal Festival Hall (Meltdown Festival)
07-13 Madrid, Spain - Boadilla del Monte (Summercase Festival)
07-14 Barcelona, Spain - Parc del Forum (Summercase Festival)
07-15 Suffolk, England - Henham Park (Latitude Festival)
08-18 Chemlsford, England - V Festival
08-19 Stafford, England - V Festival
08-25 Paris, France - Rock en Seine Festival
08-31 Argyll, Scotland - Connect Music Festival
09-01 Stradbally, Ireland - Electric Picnic Festival

MP3: Jarvis Cocker: Don't Let Him Waste Your Time [from the Jarvis LP]