Author: joannajacobsmusic

By day Joanna is a hairstylist but by night she is a singer,songwritter, guitarist and producer. Joanna’s music is Rock n Roll inspired with a splash of surf punk. Her love of black and white movies, 50’s and 60’s fashion and pop mixed with late 70’s punk combined all influence her music style. After growing up in South West London and spending her youth hanging out in Camden, going to gigs and playing music in a few bands Joanna moved to Brighton to live by the sea side. Along the way she completed a degree in music production and performance while working part time and partying. Meeting other like mined people in Brighton Joanna played in a couple of bands before deciding to start working on her solo project. Performing live by her side is her brilliant band consisting of a bass player and drummer.

Lady Luck

December 2018 – March 2019

Since releasing “Leopard spots & Polkadots” last year I’ve been a fairly busy bee, mostly trying to promote the e.p and its been full of up’s and downs. Trying to get people just to listen to it has been hard and I’m no way near my end goal but I still feel like I’m getting somewhere, its slow but steady and thats ok because I’m very hopeful and excited.

So highlights to date so far include performing at The Green Door store in Brighton for my debut show in December, I was very nervous on the day as I hadn’t really performed in about 5 years since playing with my old band The Yuckerflats or being at University. Even though at first I was going to turn the oppurtunity down as I was given just a weeks notice, I’m so pleased I got up there and did it. I was really supported by my friends who came and the other bands and especially by my partner Ross who performed with me. The performance wasn’t perfect but I can live with that and it’s given me the confidence to do more and desire to keep doing all of this.

Over the last few months I’ve also had some of my songs played on a couple of internet radio shows, including “The Rocky Rhino Show” https://www.mixcloud.com/rockyrhinoshow/the-rocky-rhino-show-with-rockabilly-rhino-week-58/?fbclid=IwAR20ipYsfGH9rQXgj6_Rg-iotkYlyZ1DBuZVlm3xvveEtP1MH7ztAmMSlwk “The Brighton World Radio Show” https://www.mixcloud.com/BrightonWorldRadioShow/brighton-world-radio-show-with-donald-shier-13-feb-2019/?fbclid=IwAR1S718qKIfLIztP3CtB_HrpGqDCljdKc0Zj74WVpZ7rrVUiFn3p6XLI-zM and “The Paul Groovy Radio Show” https://www.facebook.com/paulgroovyshow/ .

As well as radio plays I’ve had quite a lot of support and reviews/features from local Brighton Zine “Plugged In Brighton” https://www.facebook.com/PluggedInBrighton/ which comes out monthly for free at Vinyl Revolution on Dukes Street. It’s a great read if you’re looking for new local music or gig reviews.

A strong collection of songs from an emerging talent. One to keep an eye on.

Plugged in Brighton, Issue 11.

As well as all the publicity the last couple of months, I released two new videos incuding one live performance from my kitchen and the official music video for my instrumental single ” George, Baby!” Both are on my You Tube channel so if you haven’t seen them already give them a look.

George, Baby!

After performing my first gig just me on guitar, Ross on bass and all my songs made into backing tracks and played through a loop pedal was a success I decided to put together an actual band to play live. Fast forward 3 months I now have recruited a drummer (Ant) and Keyboard/synth player (tash) and we are playing our next show on 26th April at The Pipeline in Brighton.

So thats a lil look into what’s been going on but stay tuned because new music is coming soon, you might even get to hear some at the next show.

Leopard Spots & Polkadots

What lead me to this point

“The world is my Oyster but I’m running out of time!”

Cross My Heart – Joanna Jacobs

Music has always been the main love and passion in my live however in the last few years peforming and writting has been very far from my mind, at one point I found even trying to play guitar or write a song so difficult it ended with me in tears so I would give up. Looking back on that time now makes me realise I was so upset and frustrated because it means the world to me, music is everything.

Flash forward to 2017 I decided enough was enough, I needed to create something even if no one else ever listened to it apart from me. Bubba Jo was born out of the crazy big mouth filter on snapchat with the high pitched voice, the hillbilly character I had invented would be the front for my new novelty music project which inculded such songs as “Shake my Hand” and “Lady Business” each song lasts only over 30 seconds but it was all I needed to make me think what the hell am I doing? I need to do music, I have to do music! https://bubbajo.bandcamp.com/releases  

So I got the songwritting bug back and had got back into using Logic but now I had the issue of what kind of style of music was I going to make. I kinda fell into writting stuff using alot of electronic sounds and midi synths against very heavy distored guitar riffs, I was loving it, it felt so good to be making music again. Some of the early stuff I was making had a 80’s goth pop, cure/ siouxsie vibe. Then for a while I just stopped again, you know how it is? Life just gets in the way, trying to find a balance can be hard working full time, trying to have a social life and personal issues.

Some more time went by it was 2018 and Deja vu struck, I was wastitng time. So I cut down my hours at work and really made my self a promise to use the extra day I gained to not sit in my Pj’s and watch netflix all day but focus.

Playing my guitar more and more, really honing in on my own style of playing, just natrually progressed into the sound of my E.P. “Rock n Roll with a splash of Surf Punk” But It took time, and theres lots of other songs that I wrote for the e.p that I love and feel proud of but didn’t match the vibe and it took servral variations of the e.p till I found the right one. Some of the songs that were intened for the E.P were almost to personal and emotional, I want this E.P to sound fun and exciting. You never know maybe they will be on the next one.

Thanks for reading what lead me to this point, stay tuned for a breakdown of the songs on the E.P in my next post.

Listen, Follow and Save Leopard Spots & Polkadots on Spotify now