Until the Dragon Comes

I wanted to post these in public...

One of the FanVan crew is a wonderful artist, and made these posters for us.


(Credit to shayasanya)

(Robbie's comment was that we had better art than they did. :-D)

And finally, when one of your favourite bands writes a song about your *unusual* local custom... Robbie will explain.



There's a good reason they brought wheel of cheese on tour, though they didn't actually roll it further than across the stage.

Bones in the Ocean is one of the Longest Johns earliest and most popular original songs, and it's a powerful one - with themes of survivors' guilt and suicidal thoughts. I linked it for Octenth but now the community project version has been released.



Over a thousand people joining together to sing, it's a wonderful thing. (And yes, I did get the nerve together to join in.)

Several years ago on a livestream someone told the Longest Johns that their music was 10/10 or as their text to speech put it - October 10th. So fans decided to celebrate Octenth and I wanted to share 10 of my favourite Johns videos, starting with yesterday's collab...

( Star of the County Down Ft Colm R. Mcguinness )

Once you know the in-joke, you can spot it in this very English video for an American folk song.

( Hog Eye Man )

This one is also from the US - when you have a sudden snowfall, it's a good time to film a winter song from the Great Lakes. Such powerful acapella harmonies.

( Cold Winds (Tom Kastle Cover) )

Of course you also have the wonderful original songs - a seriously fun one about the time you find yourself in a job you're really not qualified for.

( Hoist Up the Thing )

This is one of their very best. A powerful original song about death and survivor's guilt, they're currently working on a community version - look on thelongestjohns.com/communityprojects for how to join in.

( Bones in the Ocean Live | Made of Ale Sessions )

This one is recorded with their friends from El Pony Pisador, the Catalan shanty/folk group, singing the Stan Rogers Canadian classic. This was one of the first videos of theirs I saw, and I wanted to watch it over and over.

( The Northwest Passage )

For the last year or so, they've mixed fullout music videos with stripped down covers from their back garden studio, like this beautiful version.

( The Sound of Silence- Simon & Garfunkel Cover )

And videos recorded on location

( Byker Hill )

Christmas 2023 they were summoned at short notice to fill on the Jingle Jam charity livestream organised by Yogscast - yes, the ones that did Diggy Diggy Hole... They played for a couple of hours, and pushed the total up by about £40k, when they agreed to sing a new original from the album that came out this year. The music video for that is also great fun, but I think this version really shows their spontaneity and love for performing. (The Llandoger is a historic pub in their home city of Bristol.)

( The Llandoger | Jingle Jam 2023 Day 4 )

And an encore - another original, possibly my favourite. There's no official video for this one, but this was filmed at one of their US shows earlier in the year, when Adam Chance, of my other favourite band Home Free, stood in for Robbie, who was having visa issues.

!Flashing lights warning!

( Ashes - at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia )

Last weekend the Longest Johns did a set at the Shrewsbury Folk Festival, and the festival livestreamed most of the performances, and they are still up for now, so it's a great opportunity to see what they are all about.



It's back!

As you may have gathered from my entries of the last couple of years, most of my fannishness has been spent on the band Home Free, and more recently the Longest Johns. There's been a connection between them for a couple of years, with HF's Adam Chance being a big fan of TLJ's and inviting them to the HF concert in Birmingham last year.

But then about ten days ago, we had the news that one of the members of TLJ wasn't going to be able to start their US tour, due to visa issues, and that they'd asked Chance to fill in for him. As HF were having a few weeks of rest from touring, he jumped at the opportunity, and I've been loving the pictures and video of them touring together.



Robbie (the missing John) should have rejoined them for their show tonight in Nashville, and that'll be good as well - I've missed him - but it's been a fun week, for fans of both groups, and for Chance himself. Here's hoping they'll take the opportunity to make an official collab video somewhere along the way.

What I found when I signed into YouTube yesterday.



(How many people had one of those Fisher Price pull-along phones?)

Believe it or not, I do listen to music that isn't Home Free, and one recent enthusiasm, about 2 years after the sea shanty craze, is for the Longest Johns, a shanty and folk group from Bristol. I first heard of them from friends at the HF discord, and then realised Adam Chance was a fan (he proudly posted his, met after the concert, photo with them a month or so back). They do traditional and original songs, both serious and funny, with some great vocal harmony.