I did not realize until now that of course there’s other people on tumblr who like The Longest Johns.
Anyway, they’re my current special interest, that and shanties in general.
And I kinda feel like I need to explain why?
Well, here you see Jonathan ‘JD’ Darley, Andy Yates, Dave Robinson and Robbie Sattin. They’re a sea shanty/work song focused folk band from Bristol, and they are genuinely incredibly normal men. But in a way that you rarely see, in terms of just pure kindness. They stream almost every day on twitch, where you’ll see this instantly, but something so simple as their discord shows their kindness so well. Pronouns in names, PluralKit, will happily help people learn instruments and chit chat with anyone about anything.
The community feels like a community, less than a fandom. I try to be aware of parasocial relationships, but these relationships just become social? I’ve had long conversations with Andy about heavy metal where we just sent songs back and forth and I’ve memed with Dave and JD. I know them as well as I know anyone in the community, and vice versa.
Add on top of all of this that they’re singing lovely songs beautifully, and write amazing songs. They don’t really hide that most shanties come from problematic places, but they also think it’d be sad if they disappeared, so they give them a rinse of most of the sexism and racism, making them more palatable.
In general, the community and experience of getting into these guys and the things they do reminds me of early days Critical Role (which Dave watch religiously btw).
I think it says a lot that one of the main reasons I really wanna see them live is so I can sing along, alongside other members of the community, but they haven’t done a gig in about a year because COVID, so they haven’t gotten to tour at all with their new album, which is really sad. They’ve grown a ton in the last year, I only just discovered them in october, and they’ve gained 50k subs in that time, but even with that they’re still not at 200k, so proportionally to most bands they’re tiny.
Anyway, they stream videogames, mostly Sea of Thieves where they sing shanties, but if that isn’t your thing they do full concerts on youtube once a month. At the moment it’s remote singing for Dave and Robbie, where only Andy and JD can sing together because they live together, but it’s still good, those two have voices that go really well together.
Anyway, even with spotify, merch sale, youtube and twitch they are barely scrapping by because they’re 4 people where this is their only job, so if you like their stuff, consider dropping by? Even a view can do a lot when it comes to youtube.
Also one of their fellow members of their twitch channel is Sam Darley, JD’s brother, and he’s a great dude too. He will rant about how shit Cyberpunk 2077 is, and how great Outer Wilds is. He also has a cat who will invade stream. Shout out to Joey the cat.
