***2024 – NEW SINGLE***

The Very Things GXL – Driver
Release date: 21st June 2024, on major digital platforms.

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Driver is the first new release from The Very Things’ marque for over 35 years.

From the forthcoming album, Mr Arc-Eye (under a cellophane sky), release date 26th July 2024, developed over the past ten years by principal ‘The Bushes Scream While My Daddy Prunes’ and ‘Motortown’ writer, RR Dallaway.

It features: original 80s teen drumming phenomenon ‘Disney Time’, Steven Burrows (guitar, bass), Tony Sherrard (bass) and Dallaway (vocals, guitar, keyboards and found sounds).

It contains: a commentary tower, supernatural powers, sprinklers, a noisy night in the boozer, red flags, burning trees and the all-powerful Driver.

It’s about 'coincidence, simultaneous events and questions about who is controlling lives'.

Facts

1. The Driver video cost £40 and about several trillion hours to make.

2. The track features a 1963 Fender Jaguar, reputedly once owned by the legendary Brian Wilson. Used nightly in Mr. Wilson’s Circus Show Band.

3. Disney’s legendary ‘backwards’ style of drumming can sometimes be mistaken for someone kicking a drumkit down the stairs. Nevertheless, he grew up in the same village as Mr. John Bonham of The Led Zeppelin Band. Coincidence?

4. WARNING: Driver contains sounds which may cause severe indigestion for those with delicate constitutions. AVOID CALORIFIC FOODSTUFFS UNTIL THE CONCLUSION OF THE RECORDING.

Who is it that pushes you along every day, putting you under pressure, making you anxious? Maybe it’s the seemingly all-powerful ‘Driver’, who seems to know everything that is happening in your life.

It’s race day and this is a snap-shot of various incidents all happening at the same time, set against the backdrop of the last race of the day. So what’s in store for the winner, and more importantly, what will happen to the runner-up?

Recorded initially as a spontaneous jam, the track developed to include a spikey clavinet and Animoog played on an iPad.

Driver is a reflection on being your own worst enemy, a reluctant competitor and trying to get by amid the random chaos of everyday life.

A bit of history

• Founded by RR Dallaway and The Shend (also founder members of The Cravats) in 1983.

• 2024 is the 40th anniversary of TVT’s ‘The Bushes Scream While My Daddy Prunes’ album.

• BBC Radio 1's John Peel favourites.

• Indie chart regulars.

• Radio 1 playlisted (This is Motortown, Let’s Go Out).

• Cult black and white video for Channel 4’s ‘The Tube’.

The Bushes Scream While My Daddy Prunes, indie hit of 1984, is still a frequently played favourite, with its themes of neurosis and control. The video, a much loved homage to 50s sci-fi films (reputedly the most expensive film made for Tyne-Tees TV’s ‘The Tube’ on Channel 4) still clocks up thousands of views online. “That’s The Very Things showing how to make a really crushing LP for less than many bands spend putting up their noses in a week.” John Peel, BBC Radio 1.

Motortown, the second album released in 1987, included indie hits ‘This Is Motortown’ and ‘Let’s Go Out’. ‘In a blaze of supercharged funk rhythms and twanging guitars arrives the sound ofMotortown, UK... The Very Things have forged an essential slice of indie funk’. Music Week.

RR Dallaway was co-founder of The Cravats, the DcL (DadaCravat Laboratories) and The Very Things. This album marks his first return to lead vocals since The Cravats and DcL Locomotive.

– Ends –

Notes for editors: For more information, contact Monica.

The GXL suffix may be a reference to trim levels offered by Ford Motors UK for its 1970s Mark IIICortina: Base L (Luxury), XL (Xtra Luxury) and top of the range GXL (Grand Xtra Luxury). Or may just indicate a new phase of operations. The ‘Bushes Scream’ album was badged ‘The Very Things DcL’.