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AAA Music | 28 March 2024

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Johnny Daukes Unveils Album Details

| On 18, Oct 2011

Johnny Daukes’s new record, A False Parade, is his best yet. Emotional yet controlled, electric guitar-led with acoustic warmth, it combines intelligence and anger with wit and poetry. It’s what you would expect from the man behind critically-acclaimed acts such as All Our Good Friends and Fin, as once again Johnny brings a fierce intellectual examination to songs from his soul.

“I didn’t really set out with any specific aims and objectives with these songs,” says Johnny, “You walk about and scraps of tunes and lyrics present themselves, it’s only later you realise what half of them are actually about.”

Daukes’ spare time for walking about is, it must be said, somewhat limited. As well as recording A False Parade, he’s also completed his first feature film, the extraordinary Acts of Godfrey, starring Simon Callow and Harry Enfield. This unique piece of cinema was written by Johnny wholly in verse, has its premiere as part of the Raindance Film Festival on September the 30th and goes on general release in the UK from late January 2012.

“I write music and film concurrently,” says Johnny. “Whilst I’m writing I’ll break off and pick up a guitar and there’s little delineation in my mind or workspace between either area. If one thought process is getting stuck then I can move to the other and maintain some kind of creative momentum.” As well as writing and directing Acts of Godfrey, Johnny also composed the magical and emotionally complex score.

It’s this versatility which enables him to range across a wide variety of topics on A False Parade, from The Emperor’s Old Clothes, which is not nice about religion, to Shoot You Down, which has a look at America through crossed fingers, to songs like Anthem (For Wasted Youth) and The Virus, which are as personal as personal gets.

Perhaps that’s why – despite working well under different names in the past – this is the first of Daukes’ records to be credited to ‘Johnny Daukes.’ Part of the reason for this is that – well, you know, it’s his name – but also because these songs, regardless of their breadth – are personal. With Daukes, this time it’s always personal, but listening to the fury in Anthem – ‘Your reverence for plain untruth. You sold, created wasted youth. Made all that should have seemed so right, so wrong’ – suggests that these songs needed to be released under their maker’s proper name.

Assisted by the genius of Kevin Armstrong (David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Sinead O’Connor) on guitar and the brilliance of Christine and Vashti on additional vocals, Johnny creates a tight, focused sound, which contains the emotional force of these songs like a pressure cooker contains an imminent explosion.

 

Johnny Daukes plays The Bowery, London on Wednesday 16th November 2011 – Tickets Here

 

“A False Parade really is an extraordinary record and you really should hear it, now.” David Quantick
http://www.johnnnydaukes.com http://www.daukes.com http://www.actsofgodfrey.com