The John Robins Vibemail - Issue #26

Current Mood: Excited Discomfort

Hello everyone! For a second time in a week I’m front and centre in the old inbox with my bag full of links and strict instructions. I do hope you are well?

Regular listeners to the show will be well aware, perhaps more aware than they’d like, of my (spooky) intimate bum procedure. I’m not going to burden you with yet more radio-friendly descriptions of my day to day experiences, nor am I going to suggest that pain is in any way a competition, but I will say that the last four weeks have been amongst the worst of my life. Things are on the turn, and progress is being made, pain has now turned to discomfort, for which I am grateful.

I have something to say about pain, how it changes us, how it forces us to change, and, perhaps, how in an instant reveals the futile mechanisms behind the trick we spend so much time playing on ourselves: that we are masterful and modern and cool and immortal. But that is for another time, I have Elis’ voice in my head saying “Keep it light John! Just give them the ticket links and chill out!”. So here we go!

Members Present

Postmaster Johnny “JR” Robins-Robins III

Present!

That Feels Significant - LIVE!

Tickets for the tour go on sale at 10am today (if all the venues have successfully pressed the right button). If anyone has not pressed the right button please resist the temptation to contact me on social media in ALL CAPS, because, alas, I do not have access to the button!

All links for tickets will be available from our merch site at 10am today

elisandjohnmerch.com

In the unlikely event that this link crumbles under the pressure of repeated clicking from the nations most relevant and sexy fanbase, then individual links are below. However there is also some cool new merch available from the above site should you want to display your solidarity with Stansbie to those you love this Christmas!

September

3rd Norwich Tickets

4th Bristol Tickets

6th Cardiff Tickets

11th Glasgow Tickets

12th Manchester Tickets

13th York Tickets

17th Cambridge Tickets

18th Sheffield Tickets

21st Leeds Tickets

24th Liverpool Tickets

25th Llandudno Tickets

27th Oxford Tickets

October

2nd Newcastle Tickets

3rd Edinburgh Tickets

8th Birmingham Tickets

9th Swansea Tickets

12th Brighton Tickets

15th London Tickets

16th Portsmouth Tickets

18th Reading Tickets

If you enjoy the design of our poster, or of our podcast imagery, or of The Moon Under Water for that matter, then check out the website of Jem Ward, our incredible graphic designer. He. Just. Gets. It.

We are so excited to perform for you! And, I daresay, interact with some of you as part of the kind of seat-of-the-pants riffing that you can only truly replicate in the live setting. We don’t tour together anywhere nearly as often as we would like, and, ever since we first set foot on stage together in 2016(?) to perform those early Robins Amongst The Pigeons shows, performing for you has been the highlight of our careers. So I hope you will forgive me the following plea…

At heart Elis and I are fans. We are obsessive fans of things - music, sport, writers, films etc. So we are enormously conscious of making the fan experience as simple, straightforward, fair and affordable as possible. We both know the desperation felt when announcements are made by our favourite artists and we know the head-banging panic that ensues when it feels like we might be missing out. Trust me when I say that I have pushed every tour promoter I have worked with to the limits of their patience by interrogating this process with a level of #FanFirstThinking they have never come across before, and hope never to come across again.

So, we are very aware that we are not playing every town and city in the UK. If there were the time, and, crucially, demand, then no doubt we would. We’re also aware that no process of making tickets available to large amounts of people in multiple venues at the same time is ever entirely equitable, smooth, or free of annoying fees. I do my absolute best to communicate timelines, links and general info in the most clear and accurate way. So it would be much appreciated if, on days when announcements are made, which trust me are incredibly stressful anyway, if people could think before sending narky, angry, critical or stressed DMs to Elis and me. We love your passion, it means the world to us, and we do really appreciate heads ups about genuine technical faults, which are relayed to people able to sort such things out. However, amongst the hundred or so panicked messages I received during the pre-sale on Wednesday, not one of the queries hadn’t been covered in the communications I had made here and on social media. So if you think something has gone wrong please do take a breath and re read the information in as chilled a vibe as you can muster. Waiting is almost always the best solution. If, however, “Cymru” is misspelled “Cmyru” on all promotional material do feel free to point that out in an orderly manner ;-)

That’s all in terms of pressing news. But I do have some far more talented people who’s work I have enjoyed and would like to take this opportunity to plug. So read on if you have a book, comedy, podcast or music-shaped hole in your life at the moment.

Robins Recommends…

Despite being laid up for the past four weeks I’ve not taken the opportunity to get through the entire canon of English literature as I had planned. However, I am really enjoying Rebecca Watson’s most recent novel I Will Crash. The way she has physically laid out the text enables her to communicate the experience of an interior monologue in such an interesting way, and not just what an interior monologue sounds like, but what it feels like and how it interacts with the conversations we are having out loud. Just as in her previous novel Little Scratch, every so often you stumble in reading, need to re-read a sentence, work out what way round it goes, often realising that the sentences work differently depending on which way round you read them, very much like thoughts. Reading I Will Crash is like thinking. It’s no small feat to represent the experience of human thought in new way, so do check it out. One of her great talents is to do this without making the story impenetrable or complex. It’s an absolute ripsnorter! And I recommend both books without reservation.

Another book I’ve enjoyed is Octavia Bright’s This Ragged Grace, a memoir about recovery from alcoholism which I found incredibly helpful. It gets to grips with the spiritual, philosophical and psychological changes entirely necessary in order to make life without alcohol more bearable than life with alcohol. These changes are not easy, they are hard fought, often incredibly uncomfortable and can take a great deal of time. In fact, some of the most profound moments of understanding come to Octavia after some years of sobriety, which, as someone who still tussles with thoughts of drinking over two years since my last, I found both reassuring and blessedly hopeful. It would make a super double bill with The Outrun, Amy Liptrot’s beautiful and overwhelming memoir of her own recovery. You may have seen the film version recently.

I’m indebted to Octavia Bright for introducing me to the life and work of Simone Weil and the imposing Gravity and Grace which I have only just started but am underlining like mad which is a very good sign. Through it I am learning to “embrace the void”, which I am finding far more effective than ignoring it, avoiding it or swearing at it.

The Body Keeps The Score is a book I have mentioned on the podcast a few times. If trauma is your thing then it is life-changing stuff. However a hefty trigger warning for pretty much everything you can imagine, it is very full on in places. However the insight into the impact emotional trauma has on the brain and body is absolutely incredible.

The dear Lou Sanders is on tour as discussed. I spoke to her on the phone today and WE HAD A RIGHT GIGGLE. I’d love nothing more than to include her personal number so that you too could share the enjoyment of her wit, wisdom and kindness. However after taking legal advice I will simply provide you with a link to tickets for her show No Kissing In The Bingo Hall!

I recently saw Cassandra Jenkins at Earth in Hackney and despite my bum baulking at the seat-free seating arrangement there, hearing songs from her new album My Light, My Destroyer and An Overview On Phenomenal Nature was really special. ‘Michelangelo’ and ‘Crosshairs’ from the latter are amongst my most played songs of the last two years.

The Lovely Robin has a new monthly podcast called The Allender Calendar (Link on Apple Podcasts here). In it, he interviews a different artist about their work, process and interests. It’s so rewarding to hear people talk about being creative without feeling the weight of some hulking commercial juggernaut behind the conversation. The Lovely Robin is as insightful, sensitive and generous on air as he is in life. I’d also recommend the book The Voice In My Ear which Robin discusses with its author Frances Leviston in the second episode. It’s a brilliant novel (or is it a collection of short stories?! Listen to find out!) which centres around a variety of characters all called Claire. She explores scenarios where communication between people is difficult, fragmented, impossible or bizarre. Well worth reading I say. It would make a great double bill with My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley, which is the best book I’ve read (and re read) in years. It’s a subtle, brutal and superbly observed exploration of a woman’s inability to communicate with her mother. And does beg the question I’m sure a lot of us ask when talking to our parents “Why can I never say what I actually mean?!…And do I even want to?!”

Other than that it’s mainly been cryptic crosswords, Keith Jarrett and tortuous bowel movements. Check out After The Fall, ‘Hourglass Part 2’ and Belonging for some truly transcendent experiences. (These are Keith Jarrett albums, not bowel movements).

LOVE YOU FOREVER WITH ALL MY HEART

BYE