UNFEST: SPECIAL EVENT - The Moonlandingz & Joeyfat
The Moonlandingz + Joeyfat
UNFEST AND THE FORUM PRESENTS:
THE MOONLANDINGZ
*JOEYFAT *
plus many more tba soon
A tale of a female fan stalking her favorite singer, Johnny Rocket, of her favorite band, the outer space rockabilly Moonlandingz, the ERC needed someone to play the band, so they brought in Saul Adamczewski and Lias Saoudi of Fat White Family to help out. They recorded an EP to go along with the album and then, buoyed by the experience, everyone involved decided to take it one step further and make the Moonlandingz a real live band. The resulting album, Interplanetary Class Classics, was released in early 2017 on Chimera Music. They toured the U.K. and Europe, then released the This Cities Undone EP late in the year. Their last shows of 2017 were billed as possibly their last ever, as the bandmembers resolved to return to their regular gigs. Their record label wasn’t ready to say goodbye, however, and in early 2018 released a deluxe edition of Interplanetary Class Classics that came with a second disc of remixes, demos, and stray tracks.
In 2025, they have returned with a new album, No Rocket Required.
No Rocket Required delivers brassy squawks, motorik convulsions and sinister soothing vocals from a righteous line-up of guest singers and ranters: Nadine Shah, Iggy Pop, Jessica Winter and Trainspotting actor Ewen Bremner. Plus, of course, there’s The Moonlandingz’ own front man, Johnny Rocket aka Lias Saoudi, who has the wobbly-horny voice of R Whites’ secret lemonade drinker on new single “Give Me More” and then becomes basically Kris Kristofferson of the Pennines in the middle of epic “Krack Drought Suite”, imparting gnomic sawdust saloon wisdom from a barstool in Huddersfield. Mostly though he’s the man we know from Fat White Family, with gravelly crooning (to especially great effect in “Roustabout”, his duet with Nadine Shah) and camp working men’s club singer. Is that him, too, right at the end of the album, with a shonky German accent and vocodered to delirium over some thumping fizzing Scooterish techno? I do hope so.
On utterly lovely and gently jazzy single “It’s Where I’m From”, Iggy Pop offers a tender solidarity to us all, an appeal for softness – ‘won’t someone put their arms around me, I cannot take the pain of those who’ve gone / I’d like to put your world behind me, but everywhere I look is where I’m from’ – with that guileless grandiose vulnerability that sits alongside latter-day Johnny Cash and Scott Walker.
So much is packed in to No Rocket Required, by Adrian Flanagan and Dean Honer and all their musical and beautiful collaborators, and somehow it is cosmic on a human scale, Carl Sagan admiring the hectic carpets in a vommy town-centre disco.
Line Up
The Moonlandingz
The thing known as Joeyfat began about twenty years ago in a place called Tunbridge Wells, in the darkest recesses of southern England.
The band spent the early '90s releasing music with a number of independent labels including the well-respected Fierce Panda and Love Train and toured with a variety of bands including Green Day, Ligament, China Drum, Scarfo and Jawbox, leaving a name for themselves wherever they went...
In early 1996 Joeyfat gave birth to Unlabel, by choosing to release their own material rather than signing with anyone else and the Un imprint has grown considerably since then and is run by two members of the band.
All in all, only a tiny amount of Joeyfat's early work was ever held down to vinyl before they went their separate ways in 1996 to pursue other projects, which included The Club Giants, Unhome and Cove.
Four years later along came 'The Unwilling Astronaut' CD on Unlabel, a 16 track collection of studio, live and session work spanning the years 1991-'96.
Joeyfat reformed and played a handful of live shows to promote this album in the summer of 2000. They have since remained together and have been playing gigs at a steady rate and releasing occasional tracks with people they like.
The 13 track album, entitled 'You Can Change People's Lives With Your Mouth / The House of the Fat' was released on CD and limited edition vinyl in July 2003 on Unlabel.
Also in July of 2003, Joeyfat recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1.
In April 2004 a split single with Part Chimp was released on Awkward Silence Records and a launch gig with both bands playing live was held in Tunbridge Wells. Joeyfat have continued to play live and cause chaos alongside bands as diverse as Bilge Pump, SMASH, Clearlake, Lords, Dartz, Art Brut, Trencher and Little Teeth
The Joeyfat project is constantly evolving and new material is being written and recorded at the present time.
