News Update: March 1999
Recording:
More and more work has been carried out on the Tull album with a period of some 10 days late in February being devoted to drum, bass and keyboard overdubs, as well as the recording of two more backing tracks.
Martin was on holiday, skiing in the Austrian Alps and almost failed to return in the evacuation airlift following the horrendous snowfall and avalanches which tragically killed some 30+ people in the same valley. To make up for lost time, he has completed some guitar solos and rhythm tracks during the period since Doane returned to LA. He is working this week on some ideas for an instrumental/spoken lyric piece for possible inclusion.
Concerts:
Concert tour dates are being continually added for the USA as well as Italy.
Various offers come in each week for one-off festival dates in Europe and the USA but make no economic sense unless they tie in with already confirmed shows. But thanks anyway to all the promoters who kindly offer these dates to us: maybe next time, mmmm? Watch this site for more confirmed concerts in the next few weeks. Apologies to those who spotted a couple of little errors in the UK dates listing, which have now been corrected.
Support Acts:
I know that many of you express a great interest in the choice of “openers” on Tull tours and it might be a good time to mention the criteria involved in the decision-making.
Some tours, like the up-coming dates in Europe, are discussed with the various promoters to ascertain whether, in principle, we should work with a local support act (cheaper and more as a short musical introduction, say, 35 minutes), or a “name” touring band playing aset of around one hour. The latter must be capable of adding, in the opinion of the promoter, enough new ticket sales to at least cover, after the additional production expenses, the fee which is paid to them. For a band of any stature to tour these days, it will cost around $10,000 minimum per show and even that could be difficult with crew, bus, truck, backline equipment etc. The problem is that the promoters rarely agree on what would be suitable touring support act for us to work with, since band “X” may be popular in West Germany but mean nothing in the Eastern part of the country, or in the Czech Republic. Band “Y”, on the other hand, might do well everywhere but be simply too expensive or just not interested. So, the solution is to mix and match, with some tours having a name band support and others involving local acts for each or, perhaps, just a few geographically linked concerts. There are a couple of good support acts which I feel sure you will enjoy, planned for the USA in the late summer, but more of that to be detailed later. If you have any great ideas, let us know by e-mail to this site.
New Record Company?
EMI/Chrysalis will continue to release our back catalogue and distribute throughout the world. As regard the new Tull album and my already recorded solo record: in our search to find a company in the vein of the Chrysalis of old (and in its hey day), we have reduced the choice to six record companies, three in the USA and three in Europe, who have all made attractive offers and are extremely keen to represent the band. The final discussions will soon take place and deals will be settled upon in the next few weeks.
New Releases:
We should have the records out, I hope simultaneously, at the end of August/beginning of September –and yes, I do mean 1999……
A live compilation album with some new live performances will be scheduled for next year together with a “Acoustic Tull” compilation. Or so the current thinking goes.
The Web Site:
By now, this site should be starting to appear on various search engines. A “Jethro Tull” search should show us listed as the “official Jethro Tull site, run by the band themselves…” But if you are already reading this……
We will have more goodies in the way of audio files to come and more swag (merchandise) on offer when this year’s new designs are completed in the next few weeks, prior to touring. And I have the lyrics to 32 new songs, all neatly typed up and laid out, sitting a mere hard disk away, ready to eat up a few more precious pages when the time is right.
I should like to thank all those nice people who have communicated their approval of this site and expressed their thoughts to the webmeister, Andrew K. Giddings of the Becks Beer endorsement. After all, this enormous effort is for you and if you don’t much like it, it would be a bit of a waste of time. I would really like to think that, with a little more practice, we can build the BEST and most hands-on rock band site on the internet, and one which will act as a continually updated source for information on all things to do with
J-Tull, with or without the dot com!
E-mail to us at j-tull.com
We have to sort out the service for easily responding to your messages, but for now, be absolutely assured that I personally read EVERY e-mail so far sent to me. But from the hundreds which have arrived, I am able to reply to only a few due to the time it takes. I know you will understand this, and the good folks who do actually get a brief reply will testify to the fact that I make all reasonable effort.
Please keep your messages short and don’t tell me what a great guy I am: I’m more interested in what a wonderful person you happen to be. The compliments are very nice, and gratefully received, but you honour me sufficiently by taking the trouble to write. Honest.
For the time being, you can get me also at “real tull @aol.com” where I can reply without cutting and pasting and fighting with the AOL protocol for making life difficult. I actually quite like AOL and would recommend it to almost anyone, but they do seem to rather like to keep things in the family, so to speak. Understandable if you are a industry giant on a mission to control and dominate.
If there is a subject on which you would like to have my thoughts and see featured on this site, or some special creative suggestion you would like to make, then do not hesitate to let me or Andy know. We may well bin it, but there again you might find yourself getting a mention — “Thanks to Joe and Marcia Grimble for that fabulous and riveting idea which has transformed universe-as-we-know-it and brought enlightenment to truffle-hunters everywhere……”
Oh well, back to work.
Ian Anderson
March 1999