FAQ!

I love ‘Your Woman’ *BUT* what is it about??? Are you a man/woman/transsexual?

Ummmm…well, that’s a toughie. When I wrote it, I was trying to write a pop song that had more than one perspective. Although it’s written in the first person the character behind that viewpoint isn’t necessarily what the casual listener would expect. I’d been reading a lot of Wilhelm Reich and Andrea Dworkin and they both influenced the lyrics in different ways. Yes, I’m a geek.

So, these are *some* of the things it’s about:

  • Being a member of an orthodox Trotskyist / Marxist movement (as I was for three years in the 80s).
  • Being a straight guy in love with a lesbian (ditto).
  • Being a gay guy in love with a straight man (not tried this one yet).
  • Being a straight girl in love with a lying, two-timing, fake-ass Marxist.
  • The hypocrisy that results when love and lust get mixed up with highbrow ideals 🙂

    • The last time I checked I was male. But as for gender….that’s another kettle of fish 🙂

    Hey – are you GAY?

    Well, not so far 😉 But I don’t actually believe that humans are bi, hetero *or* homosexual.

    We’re just sexual. We’re very like our horny cousin, the bonobo.

    So that means that I’m very *pro* gay rights because I consider freedom of sexual expression to be a basic human right.

    Who directed the video? Who are those gorgeous actors in it? Where was it filmed?

    The video was directed by Mark Adcock, I only know the name of one actress, Chloe Treend. And, yep, I had chats with Mark about the aesthetic, we were both reading the same kind of stuff at the time! 🙂 The video was filmed around Derby, UK, my hometown.

    Mark also directed the video for ‘Undressed,’ which was shot at Marble Arch in London.

    When are you going to tour?

    White Town is just me, Jyoti.

    I *do* want to play live but I currently have no live incarnation.

    Plus… how do I do it? Watching a fat bloke prod a synth and peer at a laptop isn’t exactly high drama, is it?

    I have plans this year (2005) to play live again so watch this space!

    UPDATE!

    Yep, White Town played in Sweden in 2005. Details here!

    Also Finland & Sweden in ’06 and then Sweden in ’07. As you can tell, I love playing in Scandinavia!

    UPDATE 2013 ~ Well, I’m gigging pretty regularly now and played Paris this year, New York Popfest last year, Athens, Thessaloniki… I love it! 🙂

    Where is that sample from? Is it from Star Wars?

    No. I’m a big fan of 20s’ and 30s’ pop music.

    Years ago, I saw an English TV series called ‘Pennies From Heaven’ written by Dennis Potter.

    On the soundtrack CD set from that series was a song called ‘My Woman’ which was recorded in 1932 by Lew Stone and The Monseigneur Band. The trumpet riff I sampled was played by Nat Gonella.

    I would recommend *anyone* who likes pop muisc to search out 20s and 30s compilations. It was all downhill from there! 🙂

    What are the chords for ‘Your Woman?’

    The verse and chorus is:

    Gm – Eb – Cm – F

    The “well I guess what they say is true bit” goes:

    F# – F – Eb – Eb
    F# – F – Eb – F

    And that’s all it is! I don’t know why the tabs I’ve found over-complicate it all so much. 🙂

    Where are you from? Why are you called White Town?

    Two reasons:

    1. I’m Indian. I was born there and we emigrated to Britain when I was three years old, in 1969

    I chose the name of the band to represent some of the experiences I had as a kid, growing up brown in predominantly white towns. As you may imagine, it wasn’t exactly a barrel of laughs.

    2. I was also alluding to this bit of history:

    Around the forts the first signs of segregation were already apparent – the European and Indian communities lived in separate settlements with very distinct characters. In the case of Fort St. George, Madras, the main fortifications surrounded the warehouses and other military buildings, and the so-called ‘white town’ had another ring of fortification separating it from the ‘black town’.
    (Source: IndiaNest)

    What gear did you use to record ‘Your Woman?’

    The gear I used was all pretty old and most of it was secondhand. The total value was just over £2000 (in 1997). This was it:

    * Tascam 688 Midistudio (8-tracks on cassette)
    * Atari 520STFM running Sequencer One (free prog off the front of ST Format magazine)
    * Emax II (Akais – yeuchh)
    * Casio CZ101 (cost 50 pounds)
    * Roland JX3P
    * Casio VL-1
    * Crappy old electric guitar.

    That was also pretty much all I used for the whole of the album, although I did get enough money in early ’97 to move to a digital 8-track (DA38) and get a beautiful Yamaha O2R mixer (swoon).

    My “studio” for ‘Women In Technology’ was my spare bedroom which was approximately 9 feet square. With squeaky floorboards which you can hear on some of the vocal tracks 🙂

    What gear do you use now?

    I use:

    *Dual-processor Apple Mac G5 (2GHz, 2gig RAM)
    *Logic Pro 7.1
    *MOTU 24 I/O converters (three of these)

    After serious issues with Logic Pro’s appalling MIDI timing and the fact that Apple don’t give a crap about professional musicians, I’ve gone back to hardware. Bye bye computer recording!

    From January ’06, I’ve been using:

    * Yamaha AW2400
    * Elektron Monomachine (currently, the best synth in the world)
    * Elektron Machindrum (ditto for drum machines)

    Plus various mics, synths, guitars etc.

    UPDATE – APRIL 2019!
    I’m now using the super awesome Studio One 4 and I’ll probably be buying a PC again soon after 22+ years being an Apple user. Been waiting too damn long for that Mac Pro, Apple!

    How do you feel about being a one-hit wonder?

    Better than being a no-hit wonder!