A tale of Fotomoto...

Mike Eardley is a public transport information specialist living in and working from Stoke-on-Trent.
His travels on business take him all over the UK and Ireland.
He is also a writer, with a published historical novel (June 2004) to his credit, and he runs several websites.
Eardley Family name history – Eardleys Everywhere!
www.m-j-eardley.co.uk

The Novel!
Letter from Poitou

Audley Publications – designed to give assistance to writers on how to self-publish
Audley Publications

Audley Music – promotes Fotomoto, Peakz, Juanita Family and a few others. It also does the same as Audley Publications but for musicians, encouraging the do it yourself approach.

Audley Music on Myspace.com
www.myspace.com/audleymusic

email mike@audleymusic.co.uk

07718 540131


Fotomoto, John Peel, and a dimly-lit bedroom in Stoke-on-Trent…

I first heard of Fotomoto through one of those random chances which seem to so influence our lives, kicking us off down an unexpected path.

My younger brother Richard had been living in North Wales for quite a few years, and I knew he had taught himself guitar in solitary flats and hotel rooms whilst earning a living as a chef in a string of establishments.

I even had some demo tapes he had made with a band appealingly called “The Scabbs”.

Through the North Wales musical set Richard hooked up with a band called Melys, and he played bass guitar with them. Melys had already enjoyed quite a bit of success with radio play and appearances on S4C. Their big triumph came at Christmas 2000 when they beat little know bands such as the White Stripes and Strokes to win John Peel’s legendary Festive Fifty with their single “Chinese Whispers”.

I was very impressed with this, having been a life-long fan and admirer of Peel since seeing him at the Hollywood (Staffordshire!) Festival, in summer 1970. I started listening again to J.P.’s late night midweek shows as a result, in the hope of catching some reference to Melys.

One evening John played a track by Fotomoto and commented that the band were looking for feedback and gave their email address. I emailed them and that started an email/internet dialogue which turned into much more!
My dabbling with the internet and web sites had extended to setting up a family name history research site, mostly for the benefit of American relatives, but also to keep abreast of the technology for my rent-paying job.

I offered Fotomoto some space on my isp and they leapt at the chance, as they were keen to be better known in the West and free webspace was hard for them to come by. They designed the site and I set it up, along with an email group for interested fans.

The first two albums, the eponymous Fotomoto and Fotomoto2 were manufactured by me burning individual copies in my bedroom late at night, usually after a hard day’s work. They were mailed all over the world – UK, Ireland, , Mexico, Germany…such is the power of the Internet, Mr. Peel’s reputation and recommendation, and word of mouth.

Moscow record label Snegin produced their third album, “suranov, a?” but only made a limited run. It sold well, it sold out, and after that it was back to making copies one by one for the fans who knew where to look.

In June 2004 a long-cherished ambition was fulfilled. Fotomoto had been invited to do one of the most prestigious things in the musical world – a John Peel session at Maida Vale in London.

They endured bureaucracy, lack of ready cash, and a forty-hour coach trip from Kiev to London to make that dream come true.

The session was a triumph, with John Peel raving over their sound. I even got a mention!

I had the privilege of meeting Fotomoto in London, albeit briefly, as I happened to be there on business the day before they left.

We met at the ‘Head of Steam’ at Euston for about an hour while I waited for my train back to Stoke. Their spoken English was somehow worse than the pidgin emails they sent, but we got along and parted with many hugs and good wishes.

Rock journalist Matthew Collin took up the story. He had been fascinated by Eastern European rock for years and was intrigued by the tale of Fotomoto’s determination to play in the West. Matthew went to Ukraine to interview the band and it coincided with the Orange revolution in that country.

Music was mixing with politics and it was heady!

The resulting article in the Observer created a huge surge of renewed public interest in the band. John Peel’s untimely death added a frisson of tragedy to the whole issue.

Email and hits to the website went wild. Everybody wanted a copy of “suranov, a?”, the album Snegin had dropped. Following the Observer article I was interviewed by local fanzine editors and radio.

“How does a guy in Stoke get involved with a band in the Ukraine, and more column inches of interview in the Observer than John Peel..?”

I had the great honour of meeting John Peel a couple of times.
The first was the awesome live session played by Melys in 2001 on the night Liverpool won the UEFA cup. Richard blagged me an invite and John spoke to me because I was the only other guy in Maida Vale approaching his age…”

Naturally he was euphoric about the win, and threw his record list to the floor, commanding Melys to ‘just keep playing’. I was introduced as ‘the man who looks after Fotomoto’ and I felt proud of that. I have a much cherished photo of John, Rich and me – John is clutching a glass of celebratory red!

By now I had a standing invitation to visit live sessions at Maida Vale if I happened to be in London on business. I tried very hard to ensure my meetings were on a Tuesday. Bosses, if you’re reading, please forgive!

Fotomoto also had a standing invitation to do another session, but this was not realized till December 2005.

The world had not forgotten John Peel, but it had moved on. Radio Ones’s OneMusic now occupied Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights from 2300-0100 GMT.

Huw Stephens took up the cudgels for Fotomoto. I was invited to an early live session with Gryff Rhys of Super Furry Animals and went armed with the back catalogue of cd’s as J.P.’s originals were probably languishing with thousands of others at Peel Acres.

A date was agreed to record the session and this was December 7th 2005. Fotomoto also played the Progress Festival in Ghent, Belgium on the way to London. They also performed a live set at the Spitz club in the East End.

Once again I was fortunate enough to be in London the day after, though nursing a hangover from the company’s bash the previous night!

We met in Oxford Street, bustling with Christmas shoppers and sightseers watching the last red London Routemaster buses on route 159.

Try explaining to Ukrainians whose English is rudimentary, the intricacies of the extremely British eccentrics who are bus spotters. It certainly made my headache worse!

We got some great photos in Hyde Park, and parted sadly to await the broadcast, which went out on January 17th 2006.

The new songs, designed for live performance rather than studio recording or album, were brilliant.

Once again the internet switchboards lit up, buzzing with interest and delight. We can only look forward to the band’s new work coming out on cd – even if it means making every one with devotion, late at night, in a dimly lit bedroom in Stoke-on-Trent.