LEVELLERS OCTOBER NEWS 2

LEVELLERS present ‘Levelling The Land Live’ with special guests the wonder stuff, March 2011
Tour announced for March 2011! Levellers will be performing ‘Levelling The Land Live’ in its entirety for the very first time to mark the 20th anniversary of its original release. Featuring the hit singles One Way, 15 Years and Far From Home plus The Game, Liberty Song, Sell Out, Another Man’s Cause, Riverflow, Boatman and the incendiary Battle Of The Beanfield followed by an extended encore of live favourites. Support on all dates comes from special guests The Wonder Stuff. The tour is on sale at 9.00am on Friday 22 October.
MARCH 2011
Wednesday 9 March | Bristol o2 Academy | 0844 477 2000
Thursday 10 March | Leeds o2 Academy | 0844 477 2000
Friday 11 March | Glasgow Barrowland | 0844 499 9990
Saturday 12 March | Nottingham Rock City | 0845 413 4444
Sunday 13 March | Newcastle o2 Academy | 0844 477 2000
Tuesday 15 March | Southampton Guildhall | 023 8063 2601
Wednesday 16 March | Norwich UEA | 01603 508 050
Thursday 17 March | Birmingham o2 Academy | 0844 477 2000
Friday 18 March | Manchester Academy | 0161 832 1111
Saturday 19 March | LONDON o2 Brixton Academy | 0844 477 2000
Tickets Available from www.gigsandtours.com

LAST FEW TICKETS FOR ‘A WEAPON CALLED THE WORD’ TOUR & RE-ISSUE OUT NOW
There are now only a few tickets left for 6 out of the 18 shows on the Weapon Called The Word tour next month. 12 shows have now SOLD OUT so don’t leave it too long if you want to come to one of the last few dates. There are now only a few tickets left for Northampton , Edinburgh , Darlington, Sheffield , Bridgwater and Pontardawe.
Are YOU fighting withA Weapon Called The Word? Radical? Political? Local Activist? Community Worker? Maybe you or someone you know are part of a local pressure group protesting against plans for a new supermarket, have halted plans an airport from being built, are organising against the BNP, or even just raising funds for a local youth project. To coincide with their upcoming A Weapon Called The Word tour, Levellers have teamed up with Dunstan Bruce (Ex Chumbawumba) and will be interviewing grassroots activists of all types for a special online tour blogumentary. If you would like to be involved, are local to one of the towns that the tour is visiting and are available on the day of the gig to talk passionately about your cause, we want to hear from you. To get in touch, email tourblog@aweaponcalledtheword.com with your name, the town, your phone number and  a short piece about what you want to talk about and if you are chosen from all the entries we receive, we’ll be in touch!  
A Weapon Called The Word CD re-issue is OUT NOW - digitally remastered with 4 extra tracks and a 1991 tour video on DVD. The album is available from the usual outlets & the Levellers website shop

LEVELLERS NOVEMBER TOUR
Tue 9                      POOLE Mr Kyps ~ SOLD OUT
Wed 10                  BRIDPORT The Electric Palace  ~ SOLD OUT
Thur 11                  NORTHAMPTON Roadmender 0870 264 3333
Fri 12                      KENDAL Brewery Arts Centre ~ SOLD OUT
Sat 13                    EDINBURGH Liquid Rooms 0870 264 3333
Sun 14                   DARLINGTON Inside Out 08444 771 000  
Tue 16                   YORK The Duchess ~ SOLD OUT
Wed 17                  SHEFFIELD The Leadmill 0114 221 2828
Thur 18                  BRIDGWATER The Palace 0871 2200260
Fri 19                      PONTARDAWE Arts Centre 01792 863722
Sat 20                    FALMOUTH Princess Pavilion ~ SOLD OUT
Sun 21                   TAVISTOCK The Wharf ~ SOLD OUT
Tue 23                   COLCHESTER Arts Centre ~ SOLD OUT
Wed 24                  SOUTHEND Chinnerys ~ SOLD OUT
Thur 25                  PORTSMOUTH Wedgewood Rooms ~ SOLD OUT
Fri 26                      WREXHAM Central Station ~ SOLD OUT
Sat 27                    SHREWSBURY Theatre Severn ~ SOLD OUT
Sun 28                   STROUD Subscription Rooms ~ SOLD OUT
TICKETS ALSO AVAILABLE FROM GIGJUNKIE

We are pleased to announce that we’ve partnered with Gigjunkie.net for the forthcoming Weapon tour. They will be hosting the blogumentary footage that we will be filming each day, and providing updates and review coverage from the tour. The also have a competition for a pair of tickets to a gig of the winners choice – click here to enter

TICKETS ON SALE - OTF MEMBER DISCOUNT UNTIL 31ST DEC 2010
Tickets are on sale from Friday 1st Oct at last year’s prices but they will go up in price on the 01 January 2011 – mainly due to the increase in VAT. Thank you again to everyone who came to Beautiful Days 2010, it was a great weekend and we’ve been nominated for various awards (see below) so if you’ve got two minutes please vote for us!

On The Fiddle members are entitled to £5 discount on adult tickets to Beautiful Days Festival 2011 (maximum two per member) up until 31 December subject to availability. From www.levellers.co.uk only
We're a family music festival with five stages, site art, a huge children's area in the centre of the festival, comedy, theatre, family camping, licensed real ale bars from Otter Brewery & carefully selected food and craft stalls. We have no sponsorship and no branding. The festival will take place next year on 19 – 21 August 2011 at Escot Park in Devon .
Ticket prices for Beautiful Days 2011 (from 01 October until 31 December 2010 subject to availability):
Adult Weekend Camping Ticket £100 – OR   WITH DISCOUNT FOR OTF MEMBERS -
JOIN NOW TO GET YOUR DISCOUNT - AND MORE : )

10 to Under 16’s Weekend Camping Ticket £60
5 to Under 10’s Weekend Camping Ticket £30
Under 5’s Weekend Camping Ticket £5
Car routing/parking ticket £15.00
Campervan ticket £35.00
ALL TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE TO BUY  FROM WWW.LEVELLERS.CO.UK
www.seetickets.com & www.artistticket.com
PLEASE NOTE: All tickets are subject to booking fee. There are no day tickets available. The festival will not be held responsible for purchases from unofficial ticket outlets. Please read the terms and conditions of sale before purchasing tickets. Please make sure you buy children’s tickets for the age they will be at the time of the festival and not the age they are at the time of purchase. Children of ALL AGES count as part of the festivals capacity and must have a ticket. Under 16's must be accompanied by a ticket holding adults. VEHICLES: If you are planning to travel to the festival in a car then please purchase a car routing/parking ticket which will help us guide you on to the site and parked for the weekend. If you are travelling to the festival on a motorbike then you will need to also purchase a car parking ticket. Campervan tickets are for live-in vehicles only - we cannot accommodate caravans. The campervan field is a separate area with toilets and showers for live-in vehicles only.
Please look at the FAQs and Travel pages for more information about camping, travel and other general queries. Disabled access information is available www.beautifuldays.org/access - the festival has disabled camping, viewing platforms, disabled toilets and we offer free tickets for carers. Disabled festival goers can purchase parking and campervan tickets the same way as everyone else through official ticket outlets and then apply for access to the disabled parking and campervan areas.

VOTE FOR US! Beautiful Days has been shortlisted for 3 awards at the 2010 UK Festival Awards. Please vote for us here www.festivalawards.com. This final round of voting closes on the 27 October and the winners are announced on the 18 November. We're up for Best Family Festival, Grassroots Festival Award and Best Medium Sized Festival!

On The Fiddle members receive our fantastic new Levellers freebie - limited edition hand printed silk screen artwork of the Levelling The Land LP cover, numbered and signed by the artist, Levellers bass player Jeremy Cunningham.
Members will also get discount on Levellers merchandise in our website shop, a membership card and, if we have your email, monthly newsletters.
On The Fiddle members are entitled to discount on adult tickets to Beautiful Days Festival 2011 (maximum two per member) when bought by 31st December 2011
You can join OTF for £15 plus p&p on our website. www.levellers.co.uk

Visit the shop section of our website for loads of Levellers music, clothing & more.
Great new work shirt, window stickers, patches, Peace plane design long sleeved T-shirts for men and women in black and red, Chaos Theory Live CD, A weapon Called The Word T-shirts, Royal Albert Hall T-shirts, Beautiful Days festival shirts, a new wallet, children's shirts, a Zip-Up Hoodie, a hat and a bag large enough for a big laptop, a Levellers football scarf, fingerless gloves, Levellers leather belts with a solid silver chaos symbol clasp, latest album on CD and signed vinyl, also lots of older stuff
 www.levellers.co.uk

Extra album notes from bassist Jeremy Cunningham - April 2010.
1. World Freakshow
Alan had this title kicking around for ages. I loved it and was constantly badgering him to write the song but he never got round to it. So I nicked the title and wrote some words to go with it. At that time the Berlin Wall was coming down, Pol Pot was chased out of Cambodia and it was becoming “cool” to be environmentally aware when previously all green issues were mercilessly ridiculed. The world was becoming smaller thanks to computer technology but in late 1989, when we wrote the song, all of these things appeared to merge into one confusing and apocalyptic vision. Changing times...”Freakshow” wrote itself!
2. Carry Me
Mark came into rehearsals one day with the song pretty much done. A friend of Jon’s called Matthew played harmonica originally before Alan joined the group. The song is about the different paths that friends can end up on and the bonds between those people. “Carry Me” took ages to record as Charlie and myself couldn’t get the finer points of the songs “swing” time. As we were attempting to record the whole album live there was plenty of tension around the “take 52” mark!
3. Outside/Inside
We wrote this in a little village hall in Dorset. I wrote most of the words, with Alan contributing some of the lines too. We used to watch floods of commuters and be grateful it wasn’t us! So we came up with this urban love song about a couple caught up in the rat race and looking for a way out.
4. Together All The Way
This was the last song we wrote for “Weapon” and again Mark arrived with most of the elements already completed.  We gave the tune an ambitious arrangement and like “Carry Me” nerves were getting raw as the takes rolled on and on. Alan was freaking out about a mandolin solo, although he had written it, and eventually walked out of the studio for a week to chill out. The band carried on recording and when Alan finally came back we got the song almost at once.
5. Barrel Of The Gun
I wrote the lyrics for this song after seeing three alleged IRA members being shot to death on Gibraltar while apparently trying to plant a car bomb. The suspects were shot in the back as they ran away. I wasn’t the only person watching this on UK TV – the incident sparked a major inquiry at the time (1988). So our song tells that story, with a subtext that violence is never the answer to anything. This version is acoustic with producer, Phil Tennant, playing guitar and Mark singing. The usual full band version is in the BBC session “bonus” tracks.
6. Three Friends
Mark had written this one before we started the band. The song is way ahead of its time in terms of global awareness and climate change, the song charters the decline and industrial destruction of our planet. The Three Friends of the title are the Earth, Sun and Moon – the latter two watching as the former is being poisoned by its own inhabitants.  The backwards speech at the start of the track is Jon quoting “Be encouraged, all ye friends of freedom, and writers in its defense! The times are auspicious. Your labours have not been in vain. Tremble all ye oppressors of the world! Take warning all ye supporters of slavish governments and slavish hierarchies. You cannot hold the world in darkness. Struggle no longer against increasing light and liberality. Restore to mankind their rights; and consent to the correction of abuses, before they and you are destroyed together” which was taken from the English Dissenting preacher Richard Price. 

7. I Have No Answers
This was written at the same time as “Outside/Inside”  in a little village hall just outside of Chard in Dorset. We were lodging with old friends – punks and travellers, listening to The Subhumans a lot. “I Have No Answers” was an attempt to sum up the Levellers ideology in 3 minutes! The misery of Thatcher’s Britain and the general apathy of too many broken people. It’s a rallying call for the DIY ethic.
8. No Change
The clue is in the title! It’s almost a folk answer to the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. Mark arranged the final version taking the best bits of a couple of his previous songs. As usual Jon wrote the tune. I was listening in the control room as he and Mark recorded this version straight to tape. Sent shivers up my spine. A proper moment!
9. Blind Faith
 This track went through more incarnations than any other on the abum. Mark had parts of it written just before we set off on a gruelling club and uni tour in autumn ’89. Alan & Jon jammed out the main tune in dressing rooms all around the country. The final arrangement was only reached in the days immediately before we went to record the album. It is one of the very few songs that the band arranged whilst on tour.
10. The Ballad Of Robbie Jones
Alan wrote this track before he was in the group. It is a melancholy song about a friend of his who went off to fight Argentina over the Falkland Isles in 1982. It was always an acoustic song and was actually recorded after one of our many late night visits to the local boozer. The band and studio crew all joined in ‘playing’ whatever they had to hand.
11. England My Home
This was one of the first songs that we wrote together as a band. It was always the opening track for our early live shows too. As soon as I heard Jon play his fiddle part I knew that this track was going to be special. It’s an example of breaking musical rules; the verses are louder than the choruses and instead of building to the climax it fades out toward the end. It’s all about a love of the country but a hatred of nationalism, green fields and tower blocks.
12. What You Know
This is the first song that Mark and I ever wrote together – angry lyrics examining modern neurosis and the feeling of alienation in your own back yard set to an almost traditional folk backing. The fiddle and mandolin tune in the middle is an old Blue Mountain reel called “June Apple”, or rather Jon’s take on it. He had also learned to play tin whistle and Mark the banjo for the final play-out. “What You Know” was usually our live closer and the hardest of all to record without the usual chaos of audience participation. But, eventually, after much arguing with the producer it came together quite quickly.

Levellers PO Box 29, Winkleigh, EX19 8WE
EMAIL: otf@levellers.co.uk