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Tim Keegan

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Tim Keegan

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Biography

Tim Keegan returns to the fray after a lengthy absence brought about by parenthood, mortgage repayments, death, illegal downloads, global financial collapse and a long period mourning the demise of his band (Departure Lounge).

The Long Game is a full band album produced by Tim Keegan and Bernd Rest, also featuring Ben Nicholls (The Full English, Kings of the South Seas), Chris Anderson (Crayola Lectern, Departure Lounge) Alex Eberhard and guest players including Robyn Hitchcock (guitar and backing vocals on Trouble Again).

The album was recorded at Church Road Studio, Hove, UK, engineered and mixed by Julian Tardo (Fujiya & Miyagi, Fear of Men).

The Long Game is the follow-­up to Keegan’s 2007 solo debut Foreign Domestic, Album of the Month in Magic Revue Pop Moderne (France) and Album of the Week in Les Inrockuptibles (France). “Quality songwriting -­‐ think vintage Lloyd Cole or The Go-­‐Betweens in their quieter moments." (Q Magazine, UK)

He explains, “My deeply unpleasant stepfather died suddenly in 2009, leaving my mother alone in the southwest of France with an enormous pile of debt thanks to a wildly ambitious and unrealisable business venture. As the only French-­‐speaking family member, I ended up working down there for three long years trying to sort out the mess. I promised myself that, as soon as I got out of that hell, I would reward myself by making another record. The Long Game is it.”

“I chose my favourites from the hefty backlog of unrecorded songs from various points over the last ten years, including three which I wrote just before the recording. I wanted a fresh, loose sound, so the band I put together only had one rehearsal before going into the studio. The album band comprises old friends Bernd and Chris, plus Ben (we met in our daughters’ pre-­‐school playground) and Alex (a great drummer introduced to me by Julian Tardo, whom I met at a party for the engagement of two people I didn’t know).

We recorded all the backing tracks, including most of the lead vocals, all together live in a day and a half. We took them away and added some overdubs, then went back in with Julian and mixed them all in a day. It wasn’t a big budget, long-­‐ winded affair, but I think it came out all the better for it.”

Tim Keegan is an internationally acclaimed singer and songwriter, who has spent a quarter of a century wandering the scenic back roads of the western world’s underground pop scene. Unmistakably English, but better known in France and the US, Keegan is a master craftsman of the thoughtful pop song. He cites his key influences as the holy trinity of Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and Leonard Cohen, but as much missed The Word magazine noted, “(Keegan) radiates a chipper Englishness that informs even the most doleful of these bitter-­‐sweet pop songs with a quiet optimism.”

Like most of us, he is an unashamed fan of the music he grew up loving: Elvis, Johnny Cash and Buddy Holly, REM and the Jazz Butcher, Nick Drake and Jonathan Richman.

In the UK Tim is perhaps best known as frontman of the acclaimed 4‐piece, Departure Lounge, folktronic pioneers and darlings of the fledgling Bella Union label in the early 2000's ("casebook studies in flawless songwriting", according to the NME, "some of the most wonderful, eclectic, optimistic pop music being created at the moment", said the Sunday Times, who made their debut Out Of Here Album of the Week).

DL’s Kid Loco-­‐produced follow-­‐up, Too Late to Die

Young, was hailed as "a top to bottom masterwork" by influential US music magazine, Magnet, and became BBC 6 Music's first ever Album of the Week.

Tim Keegan has been a regular accompanist of Robyn Hitchcock (appearing on several albums and in Jonathan Demme's Storefront Hitchcock film) and has worked with numerous others over the past 20-­‐odd years including Kid Loco, Josh Rouse, Tahiti 80, Saint Etienne and The Blue Aeroplanes, while living variously in the UK, Nashville and Paris.

He now lives with his wife and children in Worthing, a seaside town in West Sussex on England’s south coast, where he hosts a weekly live residency at a seafront bar, The Beach House.

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Play Audio

15 followers

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Biography

Tim Keegan returns to the fray after a lengthy absence brought about by parenthood, mortgage repayments, death, illegal downloads, global financial collapse and a long period mourning the demise of his band (Departure Lounge).

The Long Game is a full band album produced by Tim Keegan and Bernd Rest, also featuring Ben Nicholls (The Full English, Kings of the South Seas), Chris Anderson (Crayola Lectern, Departure Lounge) Alex Eberhard and guest players including Robyn Hitchcock (guitar and backing vocals on Trouble Again).

The album was recorded at Church Road Studio, Hove, UK, engineered and mixed by Julian Tardo (Fujiya & Miyagi, Fear of Men).

The Long Game is the follow-­up to Keegan’s 2007 solo debut Foreign Domestic, Album of the Month in Magic Revue Pop Moderne (France) and Album of the Week in Les Inrockuptibles (France). “Quality songwriting -­‐ think vintage Lloyd Cole or The Go-­‐Betweens in their quieter moments." (Q Magazine, UK)

He explains, “My deeply unpleasant stepfather died suddenly in 2009, leaving my mother alone in the southwest of France with an enormous pile of debt thanks to a wildly ambitious and unrealisable business venture. As the only French-­‐speaking family member, I ended up working down there for three long years trying to sort out the mess. I promised myself that, as soon as I got out of that hell, I would reward myself by making another record. The Long Game is it.”

“I chose my favourites from the hefty backlog of unrecorded songs from various points over the last ten years, including three which I wrote just before the recording. I wanted a fresh, loose sound, so the band I put together only had one rehearsal before going into the studio. The album band comprises old friends Bernd and Chris, plus Ben (we met in our daughters’ pre-­‐school playground) and Alex (a great drummer introduced to me by Julian Tardo, whom I met at a party for the engagement of two people I didn’t know).

We recorded all the backing tracks, including most of the lead vocals, all together live in a day and a half. We took them away and added some overdubs, then went back in with Julian and mixed them all in a day. It wasn’t a big budget, long-­‐ winded affair, but I think it came out all the better for it.”

Tim Keegan is an internationally acclaimed singer and songwriter, who has spent a quarter of a century wandering the scenic back roads of the western world’s underground pop scene. Unmistakably English, but better known in France and the US, Keegan is a master craftsman of the thoughtful pop song. He cites his key influences as the holy trinity of Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and Leonard Cohen, but as much missed The Word magazine noted, “(Keegan) radiates a chipper Englishness that informs even the most doleful of these bitter-­‐sweet pop songs with a quiet optimism.”

Like most of us, he is an unashamed fan of the music he grew up loving: Elvis, Johnny Cash and Buddy Holly, REM and the Jazz Butcher, Nick Drake and Jonathan Richman.

In the UK Tim is perhaps best known as frontman of the acclaimed 4‐piece, Departure Lounge, folktronic pioneers and darlings of the fledgling Bella Union label in the early 2000's ("casebook studies in flawless songwriting", according to the NME, "some of the most wonderful, eclectic, optimistic pop music being created at the moment", said the Sunday Times, who made their debut Out Of Here Album of the Week).

DL’s Kid Loco-­‐produced follow-­‐up, Too Late to Die

Young, was hailed as "a top to bottom masterwork" by influential US music magazine, Magnet, and became BBC 6 Music's first ever Album of the Week.

Tim Keegan has been a regular accompanist of Robyn Hitchcock (appearing on several albums and in Jonathan Demme's Storefront Hitchcock film) and has worked with numerous others over the past 20-­‐odd years including Kid Loco, Josh Rouse, Tahiti 80, Saint Etienne and The Blue Aeroplanes, while living variously in the UK, Nashville and Paris.

He now lives with his wife and children in Worthing, a seaside town in West Sussex on England’s south coast, where he hosts a weekly live residency at a seafront bar, The Beach House.

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