Great night at Northern Soul allnighter with DODGY in Wigan and new vinyl single

We wondered for moments, how wise it was to add a little diversion to promoting the new album by Dodgy, 'Stand Upright In A Cool Place' but on Saturday our Northern Soul all-nighter in Wigan hosted by Dodgy turned out to be a resounding success and suggested that in fact we aren't mad to have written and recorded our own 'northern soul' single. Thank you to everyone who came and danced...

As mentioned in the preview podcast, the idea came to us a few months ago after seeing how well our cover of  the late great Frank Wilson's 'Do I Love You (Indeed I do)'  was going down at the early Summer festivals.  So Dodgy set about writing and recording our own northern inspired single and had the idea of hosting our own northern soul all-nighter - all that was needed was an appropriate venue. Enter the ever diligent Wing Commander Berry, Dodgy's Northern attache who found The Rose Club which was formerly the Monaco Ballroom and what a find; sprung dance floor, balcony and indeed it had held a soul night in Wigan in the early 70's before the Casino opened it's doors.

It was a great to see a whole bunch of faces, old and new and good to hook up with Brian Cannon. We know Brian from our early days, he's got a bunch of Oasis artwork to his credit amongst a great portfolio and his current photographic project is called Northern Soul - A Photographic Journey , his new amazing photos and he brought his camera along on Saturday - we'll put a couple of his shots (of us ;-) up here.

We were aware from the beginning that we might produce varying reactions of the tribal variety, especially if we succeeded in pulling in some of the more devoted northern soul purists. A minority were not very keen at all,  you might even describe them as hostile but as the aim of the whole venture was to create something special and vibrant around music Dodgy love, so if a few were offended (hopefully for not too long a time) then so be it. We were front-line participants in the indie snob wars of the 1990's, so a bit of northern soul outrage wasn't going to derail us too much.

... and by the end of the night, as the talc cleared, it looked from where we were standing, that everyone was left with a smile on their face and a spring in their step with an overwhelmingly positive reaction, from the 45 Carat Soul Club and the Wigan Young Souls who agreed to host the night with us, to legendary DJ Pete Mitchell ( @petemitchelldj a regular down the Casino back in the day) who interviewed me for his Soul Time show on Absolute 60's. It should be up on his Mixcloud page here http://www.mixcloud.com/soultime/

One thing we knew was, that if Dodgy was going to release a northern soul single then in the spirit of the music, the main format we should release it on should be vinyl 7-inch. These days Dodgy don't have a record company to do all the practical work so it was an interesting adventure getting our recordings from the masters onto vinyl.
- CZECH REPUBLIC - EVESHAM - NEW YORK - WIGAN -

It seems that most vinyl now is manufactured in Czech Republic, so considering the songs were recorded in Vale Studios near Evesham in September, mastered in New York and arrived in Wigan via Eastern Europe just in time for the first date of the tour in Leicester, our little songs have had an International adventure to rival Phileas Fogg himself. No wonder they are so popular.

In fact interest in the single has been so phenomenal that in a couple of weeks it will also be available for download. Don't worry, we'll let you know when.

Quite a few years ago when I, drummer Math, was doing a series of Northern Soul shows for what was then the BBC radio station in London, GLR, called 'Where's Wigan? The Londoners Guide To Northern Soul' I had no idea that I would be part of our own Northern all-nighter... in Wigan! It was an ambitious project but there's a lot of interest in northern at the moment and a film currently in production called Northern Soul that promises to be both authentic and very good indeed. In fact as we mentioned before, the Wigan Young Souls who helped us host the night, are featured as young dancers in the film and boy, what dancing we were treated to on Saturday.
We tweeted during the night that you forget what an absolute visceral thrill it is to hear Northern Soul cranked up loud with a dance floor full of proper dancers, giving it plenty. We heard some incredible tunes that night also, some of them very rare, there were nearly tears when they played three of our fav tunes - Little Anthony and the Imperials - 'Better use Your Head', MVP - 'Turning My Heatbeat Up' and Darrell Banks - 'Open The Doors To Your Heart'. So once again, thanks to all the DJs on the night. But while we're on a thanking tip we have to heap a whole load of thanks on the Soul Queen, Vanessa Best from Ultrasound who joined us for the St Albans and Wigan date. She is simply incredible and we love playing with her. If you haven't yet checked out Ultrasound's brand new album, Play For Today then you absolutely must, it ranks as the best album this year ....next to Stand Upright In A Cool Place of course.

Now that the new single from Dodgy is launched, we need to spread the word. It was great getting a play on Radio 2 from Dermot the other Saturday, so give it a listen and if you like what you hear feel free to email / text your favourite DJ and 6Music etc. to let them know Dodgy are very much alive and well.

The tour didn't end in Wigan though. This week Dodgy are looking forward to live dates on Weds (24th Oct) near MILTON KEYNES @ The Stables, Thursday (25th Oct) BRIGHTON @ The Haunt, Friday (26th) ROCHESTER @ The Royal Function Rooms (sounds grand) finishing up on Saturday (27th) in BURY ST. EDMUNDS at the APEX. That sounds like a tour to us and expect to see at least half of you at one of these or another.

Got your tickets for the Dodgy Xmas show in London yet on December 14th yet? better hurry
www.livenation.co.uk/event/332672/dodgy-the-dodgy-xmas-party-tickets

Frank Wilson RIP - Do we love you? - Indeed we do

Frank Wilson RIP

5Th Dec 1940 - 27 Sep 2012

Want to keep things positive but we were genuinely shocked when we started hearing rumours coming through yesterday that soul singer Frank Wilson had died.

Dodgy have spent the whole summer showcasing his classic song 'Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)' and have just been in the studio to record our version as one of the tracks on a new northern flavoured single - so yes we were shocked and saddened to hear that Frank had lost his battle with cancer #anotheronebitesthedust

The best short biography we could find was here at www.frankwilson.co.uk

and in his time Frank wrote and produced hit records for Brenda Holloway, Diana Ross & the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes,The Miracles, The Four Tops, Eddie Kendricks, and more.

The story goes that his own single “Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)" was set for release on the Motown subsidiary label 'Soul.' Supposedly 250 demo 45s were pressed, but by that time Frank decided he would rather focus on producing (or Berry Gordy made that decision!!) and had the demos trashed. Somehow at least two known copies survived, one of which fetched over £25,000 (aprox. $37,000) in May 2009 to a mystery buyer, some say it was Frank Wilson himself.

Because of the scarcity of the original single and the high quality of the music (it was one of the most popular records in the Northern Soul movement), it has been championed as one of the rarest and most valuable records in history.

Hopefully our version is a fitting tribute you can check it the full version included in our latest podcast at pcdodgy.blogspot.co.uk or HERE

FRANK WILSON RIP

New podcast from Dodgy with Northern soul flavour including full versions of TWO NEW RECORDINGS

This post comes as a special Podcast from Dodgy drummer Math Priest for your listening pleasure, including EXCLUSIVE first full plays of two NEW TRACKS from Dodgy - get listening and feedback is always appreciated.

Math introduces the two new recordings from Dodgy, part homage to Northern soul music, to be released in October as a limited edition 7-inch single.
There are details of the launch event in Wigan (where else?) at the Monaco Soul Club on Saturday October 20th - it's going to be a party.

The podcast details Dodgy's relationship with Northern Soul music; Math who has form in the genre/presenting, with the show 'Where's Wigan?' he presented and programmed for GLR radio in London.
This summer, amongst a full festival date sheet, Dodgy included a couple of scooter rallys and as well as playing 'The Snake' by Al Wilson, recorded by Dodgy as a b-side to the single 'Melodies Haunt You', thought it would be courteous to throw in other Northern covers including 'Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) by Frank Wilson.
Math and Andy Miller guitarist with Dodgy, also have a side project The Soulwinners with Vanessa Best from Ultrasound (who have their own fantastic new album out soon @Ultrasoundband ) and she contributes backing vocals on these new tracks.

The podcast includes Math's brief (but by no means definitive) background to Northern Soul and points out that that the Frank Wilson version of 'Do I Love You' on Motown is one of the most sought after Northern singles.

 We also big up a new British film Northern Soul ( @nsoulthefilm ), directed by photographer Elaine Constantine currently filming in the North West and the connection with Wigan Young Souls.

The podcast includes the first play of a new song written and recorded by Dodgy influenced by Northern under the working title 'Wagon Wheel' - WARNING: That title might change but we like it for now ;-)

Listen to Math's podcast, spread the word and RSS (however that spreads) and see you in Wigan on October 20th, tickets are going fast
Podcast MP3 link
www.dodgyology.com

Dodgy Done Summer

Well folks, we made it.

A Summer diary packed as full as any Summer we've ever had. If you saw Dodgy and enjoyed us then thank you for coming down, if you didn't then I hope you get to see us soon as we're playing as well as we've ever played, and we played EVERYWHERE. (OK, not Glasgow, but we will soon). It certainly felt like we were following the Olympic torch around Britain at one point.

 We played our last festival of the summer last weekend at Off The Tracks in Donnington and then  finished things off with a storming show at one of the UK's largest scooter rallies at Mersea Island in deepest, darkest Essex. It has been a great Summer for Dodgy, and with only a short pause for breath we get back on the road to keep spreading the word about Stand Upright In A Cool Place, the new album by Dodgy with a short Scottish jaunt, a tour in October to coincide with our Northern Soul single, a Wigan all-nighter and a big Christmas bash in London to round off the year.

We are already missing that festival stage though, so if we get a call from Festival No.6 asking us to pop along and play the new album, we won't take much persuading - if they can pull that off it looks like a great event.

There was an article in The Guardian at the beginning of the summer with the headline "The great British musical festival washout" you can read it HERE

it focuses amongst other things, on how the British weather and the fact that Glastonbury didn't happen this year had caused many festivals to cancel and get poor turnouts. The weather factor is obvious but for the life of me I just don't get the Glastonbury one; other festivals complain when Glastonbury happens that they take all the ticket buyers.... and then blame them when they have a year off for not getting people in the 'festival mood'. Uh?? You know, imagine if there was a god and one day the world woke up and there was no Macdonalds - can you imagine all the other burger producers and sellers being up in arms? - "Oh no, with no Macdonalds on every street corner, how are WE going to get people into the burger mood ourselves?" The answer is make a fantastic burger with plenty of exciting fresh trimmings and make sure you market it properly and to the right audience, maybe?

Well Dodgy were certainly in the festival mood this year and we didn't need Glasto for that (we are happy to wait until next year for that). Encouraged by the great response to the release of our new album Stand Upright In A Cool Place, we made a conscious decision that summer 2012 we were going to get out on the festie circuit, cementing the fact that Dodgy are back - with all the trimmings and no chaff - rain or no rain, Olympics or no Olympics.
To add to the challenge, where ever possible, we added a smaller club gig before each festival weekend as a warm up. Of course playing so regularly we didn't really need to warm up every time but we wanted to get to a few of the UK corners we hadn't been for a while and in fact some of those nights were as memorable as the festivals themselves.

We kicked it all off way back at the start of May with a low key, acoustic performance at Dumbfest, not a massive festival as such but had a great night and pleased that the overall event raised over £4,500 for the Teenage Cancer Trust charity. Lakefest near Tewksbury next where we bumped into the band @MissingAndy for the first time this Summer (we played with them at Brentwood in July also) who went down an absolute storm plus we also encountered the mighty @ChesneyHawkes. Here's a boy that doesn't think twice about breaking all the rules. When you play a festival set, it's always a good trick to throw in the odd cover to get the crowd going but old Chesners took that idea and fucking RAN. He started with Summer of 69 and Oasis and didn't stop with the 'Best of Absolute Radio' playlist till he reached his 'one and only' hit at the end. We were impressed with the boy's shear gall. Good on him really as the crowd went bananas. And we had to follow him.

As June arrived we helped Portsmouth, ahem, celebrate the Queen's Jubilee at the Historic Dockyard which was all lovely until the heavens decided to empty ALL of Portsmouth's quota of rain for the year in one 20 minute burst. Still, we had a good time with @TheQuill AKA Mark Morriss who was on before us and we managed to get a version of Grassman in with the phenomenal Vanessa Best from @Ultrasoundband guesting on vocals. It wouldn't be the last time we had a night with these two sparkling characters this Summer.

Dodgy memory: On our very first tour with Dodgy, as no one really knew who we were, we sent the tour dates to the NME, that's it, just the dates and then invited any promoters or music fans to suggest or promote the gig on that night. It turned out to be a winner (we still have friends from those dates) and ended up playing a mod rally, a festival, a working men's club and someones garden - the variety of offers we got this summer reminded of those days.

Another highlight from June was being invited to play at Windsor Race track, it was Ladies Day. Can't say too much about that except that as we were being fed as much free wine and lasagne as we wanted, with our feet up watching the races (and the ladies) from our own box above the race track, I think we all glimpsed a little bit of what heaven might be like.

We mentioned in a previous blog, we had tickets to go and see The Stone Roses in Heaton Park on July 1st but we got an invite to play for The Eden Sessions which we couldn't refuse. Happily there were no regrets, it was a fantastic day, a highlight of the Summer in fact as we played to a capacity crowd in front of a lemon grove in the Mediterranean Biodome.

 JULY arrived and we had been slightly overwhelmed by the advance Twittering from @NibleyFestival who's hard promotion work paid off and they got an early sell-out, such a shame the rain came so heavy that weekend and we had to abandon set but Nibley still stands out as one of the best and friendliest UK festivals, please invite us back ;-)
Great to see and play alongside ASH and our old friends @mileshuntTWS and Erica at Guilfest and we ended July with the fantastic @CampBestival and @KendalCalling - two brilliantly organised, stand-out festivals for us. Kendal  Calling was especially great as we bumped into the @shedseven boys who are always up for a laugh. Dodgy had so much positive feedback from all the shows and we appreciate everyone who gave such an enthusiastic response to the new songs as well as the selection from our back catalogue. Raggedstone Hill went down especially well at Kendal, you loved it.

In August, it was nice to get our own direct connection to The 2012 Olympics, which was no surprise as we are known for our athletic physiques. The last time Dodgy played in Hyde Park it was from the back of a lorry at Speakers Corner and the band got arrested, this time we were invited to play as part of an event organised by Absolute Radio and BT. We weren't quite prepared for the size of the stage/event/audience but the sun shone and as the screen parted after showing a LIVE Gold Medal from the velodrome cycling, it was lovely to see a sea of smiling faces, about 25,000 of them, thank you all who came to that one. We had our own close up sniff of gold medals back stage as well.

A few festivals became casualties in August but we did have a great time playing out the back of a kebab van at Newquay Boardmasters festival. If you're sixteen and you wanna go somewhere to get drunk - this is place for you.

Then on to our second annual bash at the Four Crosses in Shrewsbury where we were reunited with Mark Morris, Vanessa and all the Shrewsbury nutters and what a splendid night it was. Looks like it may well turn into our own little Dodgy Fest - watch this space.
From there we travelled the half hour to Weston Park for the first of our V Festival appearances. V festival features a selection of artists across the pop spectrum and as August also marked the return of X-Factor to our TV screens, we'd like to offer a piece of evidence that perhaps the judges can spot talent when they rub shoulders with it. We give you Mathew and @officialtulisa

...and we finally got to see The Stone Roses. First we thought we would miss them as they were on the different day to us but we got to open the festival at the midlands site and then headed off to Chelmsford arriving just in time to catch them and we are so glad to say that they didn't disappoint. It was quite an emotional night as The Roses have always been such an important band to us from hearing Made of Stone on the Gary Crowley show on GLR in 1989 via the 'King Monkey' episode and playing with them at Pilton Fayre in 1995 and to finally see them in such good form with the original line up at V -so it was good 'closure' for us, as the Americans call it.

So that's the 'Dodgy Do Summer' tour over with, we're going to try to recharge the old batteries in time for our next event - Dodgy Do Shetland (and Aberdeen and Kinloss) on Sep 20/21/22.

Then it's the BIG night in Wigan where we get to launch our Northern Soul 7", believe me folks, this new song from Dodgy is an absolute belter, one of the best we've written. It goes by the working title of WagonWheel. Can't wait for you to hear it.

We have also tried an experiment and pull together a lot more first hand material on Dodgy at festivals this summer via Storify with a lot more video and photos etc. You can check out the results HERE - let us know what you think

Storify - Dodgy - A summer of festivals 2012

Take care folks and stay in touch

New DODGY Blogger + HOT NEWS

Ladies,

May I introduce Chappers, she is a great writer and will be an occasional blogger for Dodgy. She also doubles up as band security, a connoisseur of exotic liqueurs and the sharpest tongue in Crewe.

Dodgy - M.A.N

......................

Hello,

Despite internet rumours to the contrary, Math has NOT dyed his beard orange, as a tribute to Bradley Wiggins' lovely gingery mutton chops. I can confirm this, as he was limbering up earlier at Dodgy HQ, for the band's very own Olympic event.

Nigel, being fairly athletically built anyway, was on hand to demonstrate the correct way to wear the newly delivered Team GB Lycra, that the boys are required to wear at the Friday's gig at HYDE PARK!! I know!! HYDE PARK!! Andy is exempt from the Lycra though, having already burnt a hole in the front of his. Tut.

BT London Live 2012 at Hyde Park is a massive FREE London event. The band will not only be sharing the stage with the likes of Amy McDonald and Cast, but our favourite ivory-tickler and synth-botherer, Richard Payne has created a special Olympmix version of "What Became of You". Go to www.dodgyology.com and get your lugholes round his brilliant mixing skills.

Word. *complicated 'street' hand gesture*

Scunthorpe Silhouettes VERY kindly invited Dodgy to play at their scooter rally this coming Saturday. Now the lads LOVE a rally, so they're going straight from the Big Smoke and off up to North Lincolnshire. I had to Google this if I'm honest. I always thought Scunthorpe was in Yorkshire! Ah well, maybe they've moved it. Anyway, this will be a brilliant night for scooterists and music fans alike. Its one of a couple of scooter rallies we're at this year. There's something about the heady mix of two-stroke and talcum powder, that gets the lads going, so prepare for some rare sounds and a hint of Northern Soul in the set...

From sunny Scunny, we're on to Sheffield, for the brilliant Sheftival music and sports event. We'll be performing at the Don Valley Bowl on Sunday with the likes of the Lightning Seeds, Marcus Collins, Mischa B and The Crookes. A bit of something for almost everyone (except Nige who wanted Sham 69 to be there), and DODGY are due on at 7:30pm. Hurry for tickets, there's still a few available from www.sheftival.com

REALLY important bit now. Can I have a drum roll? *drum roll* Good.

There are STILL a few tickets left for the Dodgy fan event in Shrewsbury. Its at the Four Crosses Hotel on 17th August and it promises to be a truly monster night out for Dodgy fans. We know of people coming from all the UK for this, and we're hoping to hear from a few international friends too...

But, that's not all! We have also arranged for the gig to be preceded by Priesty's Pretty 'Ard Pop Quiz, giving you the opportunity to show off your musical knowledge! Good eh? Not enough? Blimey, tough crowd.

Well how about if we throw in a solo set from our beloved MARK MORRISS of the Bluetones too?!? YES, now we've got you! It's going to be brilliant, all of us here at Dodgy HQ have had this in our drinking diaries for months. Book a hotel, book a babysitter, book a hang over, just be there!! :)

For all details of Dodgy gigs and festival appearances, get yourselves to www.dodgyology.com. The ticket links are there, venue details are up, and also if you're North of the border or planning a wee trip, check out details of Dodgy's World Tour of Scotland this September. The lads will be stopping off to play in Aberdeen and Forres on the Moray coast, as well as the re-scheduled Shetland gig!

That's if for now gang. More Dodgy details next week...

Take very good care of you and yours, we'll see you down the front!!

Chappers x

New single from Dodgy 'Only A Heartbeat' all the background and bonus tracks

Hey folks,

So Dodgy have a new single out this week. You may have heard it a couple of times on Radio 2 in between JLS and Gary Barlow.

The new single from Dodgy is the song 'Only A Heartbeat'.
If you've seen us live this year or if you have the album, Stand Upright In A Cool Place (if not it's only a heartbeat/click away @ amazon.co.uk) then you'll know the song, though not this version. It has been rejigged for the radio (...ahem) for us by the Texan hero, known as Matt Pence who mixed the album for us as well as great albums by John Grant and Midlake.

You also may know the song as it accompanied the incredible short film made with Dodgy by the super talented Kris Thompson. So powerful is this film that not only has it been known to make children inconsolable for half an hour (yeah, nice one Kris!) but the homeless charity Crisis used it to promote their campaign No One Turned Away, which achieved an, up until then elusive, feature in The Sun newspaper.

Hear Dodgy talk about 'Only A Heartbeat' in the clip below - thanks again to Kris

OK, so imagine that this new single release from Dodgy was an actual 7" single, well flip the single over and lets talk about the 'B sides'.

Besides being the centre forward with Dodgy, Nigel also works with kids with special educational needs in his native Worcestershire, shows them how to express themselves through writing songs, something he finds incredibly rewarding and indeed his experiences with these kids fed into his own songwriting and made Stand Upright In A Cool Place the album it is.

In one such school he works with, Pitcheroak School in Redditch, he and the kids hit upon the idea of writing a song for the school, so they wrote the lyrics together and Nigel recorded them singing it. Dodgy then worked on adding bits a few days later at Vale Studios near Evesham and 'Pitcheroak' is the finished song.

All proceeds from this song will be channelled back into further arts projects at the school.

Hear'Pitcheroak' and see the making of the song in the clip below:

When the Dodgy entered Vale Studios back in April, we had a plan to work on a couple of brand new Dodgy songs for the B sides, a couple of belters they are as well, but they were blown off course.
Firstly when Nigel came in with the bare bones of the Pitcheroak tune, which understandably took precedence, but also with the news that Dodgy paragon, Levon Helm from The Band was gravely ill. So the boys hit upon the idea of covering a Band tune, to send some love from the UK over to New York. We decided upon Long Black Veil (not strictly a Band tune, but one they made their own) and when we emerged from the live room after finally nailing our version, we were met with the news that Levon had gone.

"It was a bit freaky" Mathew said "I mean, if we were twats we'd say that the spirit of Levon was guiding us. But we're not. Well, not this time"

You can download all three songs from iTunes - just click the iTunes logo below

Catch the the phenomenal Dodgy show live this Summer www.dodgyology.com/

Watch this space for news of two very special shows happening later this year, one with a Northern twist, one involving tinsel.

Take good care now

M.A.N.

Only A Heartbeat - new single from Dodgy and short film

DODGY – ONLY A HEARTBEAT (released June 11)

 “A second chance will never come
   Keeping on ‘til you’re done
   Don’t waste a moment of a single day...”

When it came to helping put together some words for the release of our new single - something they refer to in the industry as a Press Release (you see, we can impart some of our superior knowledge and experience and be educational here as well) we were struggling ourselves and are indebted to the journalist Terry Staunton for taking on the task and summing it up with the following, on the button, words:
----------------
The sentiments of Only A Heartbeat, the new single from Dodgy, strike a universal chord. It’s a powerfully emotional song about loss and, perhaps more importantly, healing, speaking directly to a hurt all of us have faced, or will face at some point in our lives.

Oftentimes, a blow can throw us off balance, leaving us grasping for the words to try and make sense of what’s happened. Articulacy evades us, as we struggle to process our thoughts and find a way to move forward, and Dodgy’s Nigel Clark was no different – until music guided him towards, if not total understanding, at least a kind of acceptance, a glimmer of light in the darkness.

   “In June 2008 my older brother died, totally out of the blue,” he says.
   “I felt really lost; if I was a turtle, it felt like I’d lost my shell, I’d lost my shelter.
     But I got to thinking about when my heart stops, I’ll be with him again."

   “I was walking round my studio, which I do quite a lot, just pacing, and the words kept
    coming into  my head:
   ‘Feeling, knowing, you’re only a heartbeat away.’
    It was very simple, but very cathartic.”

Already a firm favourite in the group’s live set, Dodgy have heard stories from fans of how Only A Heartbeat has helped them deal with losses of their own, the song’s reassuring lyrics and tender melody offering genuine comfort.

In common with many tracks on the critically acclaimed album Stand Upright In A Cool Place, it addresses big themes with maturity and intelligence, clear hallmarks of the older, wiser 21st century Dodgy. It’s been 16 years since the release of their previous album, back in the heady ‘90s when the band delivered a seemingly endless procession of memorable tunes we took to our hearts (Good Enough, Staying Out For The Summer, So Let Me Go Far, If You’re Thinking Of Me, Found You, Melodies Haunt You, the list goes on...).

After such a long lay-off, there was bound to be questions as to whether Dodgy could recapture the magic of old, whether the muse was still there, whether they still had the instinctive knack of crafting joyously persuasive music that made us want to dance, sing, everything. The answer to all those questions is a resounding yes.

They’re still deftly fashioning the pop thrills of yore, but the bulging scrapbook of enthusiastic thumbs-up reviews for Stand Upright... are a testament to the fact that the new songs of greater depth and substance, of richer meaning, have been embraced by all who hear them, and that Dodgy have returned to the spotlight just when we needed them the most.   

In that respect, the opening line of Only A Heartbeat isn’t entirely accurate. A second chance has come for Dodgy, and they’re determined not to waste a single note of it.
-------------------------

There, we couldn't have said it better ourselves Terry. Well, we couldn't....

The exciting, young film-maker, Kris Thompson was first brought to our attention when he took some amazing footage of the riots in Ealing (just put Ealing into You Tube, it's the first video). We decided to ask him to produce the series of short films we made about the songs on the new album.
Here's one of the interviews; for the track 'Raggedstone Hill'

At one of our live shows with Dodgy, Kris was moved by the fact that people were coming up to Nigel afterwards, asking for the lyrics to Only A Heartbeat to help them over recent loss - so much so that he wanted to make a short film to accompany the song.
Interpret the song how he sees it, as all good film makers should

The resulting film is quite remarkable. We knew he was good, but not this good.

The film was having a dramatic effect on the few people we showed it to, and we realised that it was a different creature altogether to a pop video, so that's when we started talking to homeless charity Crisis. they saw the potential and were very keen to come on board and use the message of the film to draw attention to the vital work they do and especially their No One Turned Away campaign.

Chief Executive of Crisis, Leslie Morphy, said: “Sadly, what happens in the video is all too true for an increasing number of people as rough sleeping is on the rise. We would like to thank the members of Dodgy for supporting our No One Turned Away campaign calling for a real safety net so that no one needs to face the horror of sleeping rough.”

Dodgy have worked with Crisis before so when Kris Thompson pitched this story, we felt it would work for Only A Heartbeat. Homelessness is the most visible sign that some of the most vulnerable in our society are being let down. And there seems a tendency at the moment to vilify these people, "they’ve failed, they’ve done it to themselves" – therefore it’s okay for us to ignore them or even worse despise them and hurt them.  These individuals aren’t different from us, they are us - except something’s happened, there’s been a crisis – in the case of the man in the film, a bereavement. It’s estimated at least 70% of homeless people have mental health problems, they need care and they need respect. Mainly due to the economic downturn, rough sleeping rose by 23% last year. Society is about protecting everyone within and this includes the most vulnerable. Homeless charities like Crisis and St Mungos are seeing a rise in the number of people on the streets… and that’s just not acceptable in the 21st Century"

This being the week of the Cannes film festival we saw no reason why they should have all the red carpets so we are going to have our own ONLINE PREMIERE of the Kris Thompson film to accompany 'Only A Heatbeat' this THURSDAY evening MAY 24th at 9pm, followed by a short Q&A on Twitter and the Dodgy Facebook page with the film-maker and some members of the band. Please comment on Twitter using #OnlyAHeartbeat

 www.dodgyology.com/        www.onlyaheartbeat.com      www.facebook.com/dodgyuk




CHECK OUT this trailer for the Kris Thompson film

Crisis is the national charity for single homeless people dedicated to ending homelessness by delivering life-changing services and campaigning for change. The charity’s award winning education, training and employment centres offer practical and creative workshops to over 3,000 homeless people a year in an inspiring environment together with formal learning opportunities that lead to qualifications and finding work. Sign up to be a Crisis campaigner and join the fight to end homelessness http://bit.ly/LlHD02?

Finally, if you would be happy to use social media to support Crisis, it would be great if you could tweet about the No One Turned Away campaign or post something on Facebook. Feel free to write your own, but an example tweet about the campaign would be: ‘Urgent: Write to the Housing Minister to tell him no one should be forced to sleep rough #nooneturnedaway @crisis_uk http://bit.ly/JwhLen’

To contact Crisis www.crisis.org.uk/

To contact Dodgy email us @ info(at)dodgyology.com

Dodgy will be playing live this Friday May 25th at the Corn Exchange in Hertford. Come along.