Borderline Music Shenanigans

Beirut and new Tono single.

2012-01-29T14:59:00.001+13:00

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of opening for Beirut with Tono and the Finance Company. It was amazing getting to perform at the beautiful Wellington Opera House, and the legendary Auckland Powerstation.

Initially I wasn't into Beirut's music, but they're absolute monsters live, and really delivered the songs beautifully.

Many thanks to Matt Crawley, who organised the whole thing.

A crappy photo I took on my camera. There's some decent photos of us on facebook.

Also in other news, Tono's released the first single, "Skinny Jeans" off the new album. Check it out here. I hope y'all like it.

Now that's a tour

2012-01-11T08:42:00.001+13:00

Check out the tour schedule for Alizarin Lizard. It's freakin' massive! Good work fellas!

The last dance.

2011-12-18T12:43:00.005+13:00

When I first moved to Auckland I initially had real trouble finding work, and as a result quickly became desperately broke. To cut a long story short, I ended up DJing at primary and intermediate school discos. I’ve been doing it ever since about May last year, and hopefully I’ve done my last one for quite a while.

Here are a few images and a video that should give an idea of what it was like.

A note from my boss, which he'd left for me in one of his CD wallets.

My view at the beginning of a disco.

DJing for a junior school. It's true that the music taste gets worse as they get older. I can actually get away with playing 60's rock n roll with young ones.

Even Santa likes to dance.

Mid disco at an intermediate school. Notice how light it is outside.

Oh lordy this is the weirdest job I've ever done.

Simon Comber Tour

2011-10-13T22:00:00.004+13:00

Admittedly a little late, but here are a few snaps from a wee mini-tour I went on drumming for Simon Comber last month. He'd just released his (really rather good) EP. You can check it out here.

Tabac, Auckland.

My view at The Bay Bar in Acacia Bay, Taupo. Bryan from Bitter FM put this one for us. He's a really top dude, and his station is fantastic.

Space Monster, Wanganui. This has to be one of the coolest DIY venues I've ever been to.

Clever boys

2011-08-28T18:43:00.002+12:00

T54 have to be one of my favourite NZ bands. They've just gone and released a video for their scorcher of a song "Julie K." They're on tour next week, and I'm definitely going to their Auckland show. While you're at it, buy their EP Drone Attacks - it was recorded by Dale Cotton, and it seriously rules.

Boom tang.

The Beast is unleashed

2011-08-03T18:54:00.005+12:00

I'm not sure totally when Proton Beast released the little mini EP, it might have been yesterday when Westley put the songs on bandcamp, or today, when I linked to it on Facebook. Either way, Proton Beast's debut digital mini-EP has been "released".

Readers, you probably don't even know what I'm babbling about, let me backtrack a little.

At the start of last year I'd just moved to a new city, was broke, and wasn't involved in any music. I posted an ad on gumtree mentioning I was a drummer keen to work on interesting musical projects, but was disappointed with the feedback I was getting. It seemed the only people making music in Auckland in early 2010 were pairs of bedroom guitarists wanting to get their "punk/funk/radiohead/red hot chilli peppers" project out gigging.

So I deleted the old ad and put uploaded a new one, basically telling those people to not bother contacting me, and quoted a bunch of wanky bands I was into. Only one person ever replied, Westley Holdsworth. He emailed me, mentioning that he too was a fan of Sunn O))) and Liars, and that we should meet up for a beer.

9 months, several gallons of homebrew, and a handful of trips to Spicy House later, David Good was recording our fancy new two-piece band at the University of Auckland studio. Not a bad facility overall: Nice room, reasonable mic selection, oddball digital desk, kinda crap monitors. Most importantly, free! Dave was pretty awesome for a dude new to recording, and was patient with our fluffing around.

Later I mixed the tracks at The Lab, with Tom Healy helping out. It was mixed entirely with hardware - no plugins were used at all. Tom was super helpful, both with showing me how to fly the Neve, giving great feedback, and bringing some pretty crazy ideas to the table.

So anyway, there you go, that's the guts of the band/mini-EP.

Brain dump over.

Roofing Specialists Auckland Ltd

2011-06-29T11:55:00.002+12:00

Okay so my flat had it's roof fixed by these guys a few weeks ago. Low and behold, about 3 days after they'd finished the job, my flat got burgled. The perpetrators only took our laptops, and it seemed like they knew exactly what they were looking for. When we went to the police, they said that it probably was the roofers, but there wasn't anything they could do about it.

This isn't the sort of stuff I really like posting on my blog, but for whatever reason, things I write on here come up near the top of the google search engine, and I don't want other people to get ripped off by these guys.

Which actually brings me to the real point of my post. What other tools are there out there on the net to name and shame these guys? They're not listed on google maps, so I can't write a review there (I don't think). However after checking out the NZ Companies website, I found the company is based at 199 Balmoral Road, Mount Eden, Auckland.

So yeah, any techie geeks out there know of any more good ways to get the word out?

Oh yeah, everyone out there, install Prey on your computer. It's an amazing (and free) anti-theft device.

Week darn’ sarf with Tono and the Finance Company

2011-05-03T23:18:00.003+12:00

A couple of weeks ago Tono and I flew down to Dunedin to get some pre-production done on his upcoming album and to play the Feastock after party. We had initially blocked this time off for recording the album, but unfortunately a number of factors got in the way over summertime, leaving the band in no shape to do the songs justice.

This turned out to be a blessing in disguise however. Tono, Bugs, Paul, myself, and sometimes Logan (aka The Edge) busted our guts through six tracks, to great success. I have to admit that while practicing in Bug’s freezing cold North East Valley garage made me feel somewhat sentimental of my old Dunedin days, it was in fact was pretty darn gruelling. We were playing for about 6-8 hours a day, racking our brains to get decent rhythm section arrangements for more than half an album. We got there in the end (I think!), so hopefully we should be sweet to record in July with Tex Houston.

The garage

On Saturday I had the pleasure of attending my first Feastock. For those not in the know, Feastock is an annual day-concert run out of the back of a flat in Pine Hill. Responsible for this revelation in DIY partying are Steve Marshall, Callum Hampton and his brother Logan. This is the third year Feastock has run, and the boys have got it running like clockwork. They resold all 500 tickets for the event, installed a massive stage, port-a-loos, and even had free buses to the after party down at refuel later on.

Look how many people!

The gig truly was a celebration of what it means to be young, into music, and living in Dunedin. I happily joined the gumboot-clad party-goers, spending the whole day listening to a pretty eclectic mix of bands, sipping from Darren’s rigger of Emersons, and catching up with old friends. Seriously, the only parties I could compare it to in terms of awesomeness and DIY-ness would be the ones run by Blink (of Camp A Low Hum fame).

Thundercub rule

Later in the evening I played with Tono and the Finance Company at the Feastock after party at Refuel. It was great to play a show with the Dunedin Finance Company – it’s a messier, louder, rowdier beast than the Auckland line-up, and I think we played the best we had in ages. Blasting a pumping live show was really good for the band’s confidence, and it was great to go out of Dunedin on such a high note.

Soulseller (rule)

All in all, a solid trip to Dunedin. Thanks to everyone who made my time so awesome. Peace!

The big H.C hits WT

2011-04-29T10:31:00.010+12:00

A wee while back I played with the Hannah Curwood band down in Wellington, along with Bond Street Bridge and Little Bark. I had mixed feelings about how the show was going to go, what with Tom Healy recently leaving the band, and not knowing anything at all about where we were playing, Meow.

Let's be honest here, Tom made a huge racket in the band. The guy's got more pedals in his rig than most bands use collectively. He'd been a part of the band since it's inception (I'm pretty sure), and it when I found out he was going, I had trouble imagining how the band would sound. Thankfully Sam Prebble and Rebecca Travaglia are monster musicians, and managed to somewhat make up for the loss of Tom.

Little Bark played support. Image courtesy Michael Edge-Perkins.

As to the venue, I actually had a really good experience at Meow. It's a cute cafe down a back alley off Victoria Street, with great bar staff, a reasonable sound system, and generally welcoming vibe. I'd liken the place to Wine Cellar in Auckland, but with a less dingy, dark feel. There were a few discrepancies regarding things like sound techs and promotion, which initially had us a bit concerned, but at the end of the day things got worked out with a minimum of tension.

Me, H.C, and Sam Prebble. Image courtesy Michael Edge-Perkins.

Damian, the dude that runs the place is perhaps a little bit wet behind the ears with promoting and running gigs, but he is enthusiastic, has his heart in the right place, and appears to be able to run the cafe/bar side of the business pretty well.

So yeah, despite the lack of Tom the band played really well, and thanks to that, plus some pretty epic partying I left Wellington feeling pretty sweet. If you wanna play a mellow show in Wellington, give Meow a spin.

Rebecca Travaglia. Image courtesy Michael Edge-Perkins.

One piece of advice to bar owners and managers

2010-12-21T12:19:00.006+13:00

Right so I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, so here's a rant!

My advice to bar managers!

Let the bands who are performing at a gig in your bar to pick the music played on the sound system throughout the evening. This means half an hour before the first band performs, in-between acts, and for 15 minutes minimum at the end. Either that, or let them organise someone to DJ.

Why? It gives an evening out at a bar some kind of completeness and cohesiveness.

I've been thinking about this for awhile, after watching bar staff blunder their way through an evening putting on drastically uncomplimentary music, and ruining any sense of atmosphere the bands have tried to create.

The first example I recall was when I performed at the Dux de Lux in Queenstown about six months ago. For three hours before the gig, the bar staff rotated three NZ barbecue reggae albums, right until we played our first song. After we finished, the same three records were put on rotate. Not only was this torture for me personally, it was frustrating to see the bar use such poor judgement. Let me explain.

There are many, many bars in Queenstown, offering a wide variety of nightlife options. Gigs in Queenstown are usually free, and usually frequented by tourists who have never heard any NZ bands before. By playing this brain numbing music on repeat for hours on end, the crowd in the bar is likely to get somewhat disorientated when a band which sounds completely different takes to the stage live. The background music is also likely to drive off tourists sifting around looking for somewhere to drink who really don't like barbecue reggae (but might have liked something more interesting).

The second example of a similar stuff-up happened a couple of Wednesdays ago in Auckland. We were playing a midnight set at Hitch bar in Britomart. This establishment is trying to soak up some of the spill from the massively popular indie-dance club night which goes on next door at Flight Lounge, called "Teenage Kicks." It's so popular that the lane gets blocked, and punters can ending up cueing for quite awhile.

So it makes sense that Hitch bar hires indie bands to perform a shortish set around midnight, in order to try and pinch some of the punters from Flight Lounge. What doesn't make sense is that before we played bar staff were playing a weird mix of early 2000's backpacker hip-hop (think Jurassic 5 etc) and the Foo Fighters. Needless to say no-one was there when we started performing. Even worse after we played, back went on the Foo Fighters, driving off the twenty or so punters who came in to dance to us.

Does that make sense?

Nieghbors (sic)

2010-12-18T13:11:00.001+13:00

Hannah Curwood, One2One cafe

2010-11-25T22:50:00.007+13:00

On the 13th of December I played my first gig for Hannah Curwood at a wee cafe in Ponsonby called One2One.

Cafe gigs always feel a bit weird to me.

Firstly, I hate the feeling of resentment I get from customers who are trying to enjoy their food and drink while the band moves tables around, hauls gear, makes noise etc. I've also noticed that inbetween the time that the band sets up, and the actual gig time (which could be up to 4 hours), less people come into the cafe to eat and drink than normal, and I hate the accusatory glances from the cafe owners.

Then when it comes to the actual gig, the cafe is usually under-staffed, and can't keep up with drink orders. People tend to sit around awkwardly and cramped, and often don't really have anywhere to go if they decide they need a break from the music.

On the plus side, the volumes of these types of shows are usually pretty low, and there's no potential for a sound engineer to get in there and make things sound worse. Plus you can actually book one of these shows in Auckland a couple of months in advance!

The big 'HC' herself. Photo courtesy of Roel Wilson.

Anyway I had only had three practices with the band, but I thought we got through the set without embarrassing ourselves. I'm looking forward to "sinking my teeth" into the arrangements with the band in the future, as that's been an element of Hannah's live show I've been critical of in the past. So yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing how this project will go.

Breathtaking Recklessness And A Jet-Propelled Car

2010-09-29T13:44:00.006+13:00

In the mail the other month(!) I received this from Nick in London (from fulangchangandi):

It's a compilation of DIY noise/hardcore bands from London. Fulangchangandi's "Emergency" is the last track on the 15-strong track CD. Kinda cool. It was put out by the band Yokozuna.

I'm not sure how common this kind of thing is in the UK, and abroad, but in New Zealand you almost never hear of bands releasing compilations of their friends/peers music. Cool idea though!

Anyways we (the fulang) know the Yokozuna guys through the Rip This Joint! DIY community in London (who I've blogged about before). They're all really nice guys, and pretty unrelentingly DIY.

In fulangchangandi news, Nick, Stu G, and Matt are still playing around London, which is really awesome.

Okay gotta go.

Timothy Blackman

2010-08-18T13:15:00.005+12:00

My new PR "client" is Timothy Blackman. He's releasing his new record I've Never Lived on the 30th of August. So yep, I'm the guy ringing around the radio stations, newspapers, magazines, and all that stuff, in an effort to generate a "buzz" around his record.

A bonus of all this so far was getting to record drums on a track of Tim's, for Border Music's annual Christmas album. We did it at young recording hotshot David Parker's beautiful place out in West Auckland.

David Parker. This photo is going to end up on Classic Albums for sure.

Now he's already gone an blogged about the session, so I can just link it. Haha!

Weekend in The Lab

2010-07-02T15:02:00.006+12:00

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of working in The Lab, a studio in Mount Eden, with my good ol' pal Thom Healy. It was pretty freakin' cool.

Over the years I've known him, Thom has become a bit of a production wizard, and has started racking up some good projects with the likes of Simon Comber, Die! Die! Die!, and various others. He's also been beavering away on his own music, and got me to lay down some drums on some of his and some of Simon's tracks.

Thom relaxing with his favorite studio tipple.

I really enjoy playing drums over tracks that are basically finished. There's a nice level of pressure to get the track right, yet there's no distracting mistakes from other musicians to put me off playing properly. I'm also a total drum and studio geek, so it's an awesome opportunity try and get really bangin' drum tones.

"Did you put a Sony C37P on snare drum? You crazy crazy man. Let me buy you a beer."

On the Saturday I helped Thom record Popstrangers, an up-and-coming Auckland band. They were really nice fellas, and were really great players. Good songs too.

Popstrangers

In short The Lab is an awesome studio. It's got really great gear, and is a really nice space. It's bugger all to hire out compared to the other Auckland studios out there, yet is pretty much on par in terms of functionality - there's just no fancy leather couches or open minibars.

NZONAIR Funding Review

2010-06-24T23:44:00.005+12:00

Just a quick note for those who don't yet know...

NZ ON AIR are undertaking a full-scale review of their music funding operations. You can have your say here. If you've got an opinion about NZ ON AIR, make sure it's heard!

NZ ON AIR's music funding initiatives have been under scrutiny recently from the popular press. Here's a couple of articles which I enjoyed...

Vicki Anderson's article in The Press

Duncan Grieve's series of interviews with various NZ artists in Real Groove Magazine.

I personally feel that if the staff at NZ ON AIR wanted to keep their jobs long term, they should have conducted this review, and adjusted their operations while they had a Labour government controlling their funding. As it stands, they're going to be submitting a (most probably) scathing report of their performance to a National government, who will most likely take an axe to their operating budget, and heads will roll. Not very smart at all.

Tono releases "Tuesday Evening"

2010-06-03T09:52:00.006+12:00

I've been helping out my pal Tono by attempting to generate some press and radio interest for the release of his upcoming EP Fragile Thing.

Yesterday the track was sent to various programme directors and DJs around the country. You have no idea how many of these people have crappy email inboxes which can't handle emails larger than 10MB. Bloody useless.

But anyways, the kind folks at Radio One are featuring the track this week, and you can download it for FREE. Do it!

I got the album artwork yesterday... It looks awesome... Watch this space! In the meantime check out Tono's fancy new press photo!

One of the privileges of being on the dDub emailing list.

2010-04-20T21:47:00.007+12:00

So today I got sent an hilarious email from Derek Browne, lead singer in dDub, and one of the the head honcho's of the New Zealand "Barbecue Reggae" movement.

Derek Browne, lead singer from dDub

Usually the sorts of emails I get from these kind of people are the, "Come-watch-my-shitty-faux-reggae-band-play-at-a-pretentious-venue-where-you-don't-actually-live-for-a-ridiculous price" kind. To these I hit the "mark as spam button", and carry on with whatever I'm doing. However this email caught my eye - It seems this guy has joined some kind of weird cult, and is spreading the "word" through the dDub email list. It's all a bit strange and inappropriate really.

Anyway here's the email for your enjoyment. I'm going to hell right?

From: Derek Browne

Subject: HI guys - info on a course

Date: 20 April 2010 9:18:18 PM NZST

To: Derek Browne

Hi there guys

Derek here, from dDub.
I just wanted to check in, and let you know about an awesome course that I have done and am now helping facilitate. It's called Avatar.

Alongside pushing dDub, playing in the band etc, I've been learning some fantastic 'tools' through this course. The tools teach you how to operate in life with more clarity, fine tune how you want to experience life and how to live your life deliberately. It's a very cool way to learn about how you truly do create your own reality - in a grounded way. You learn how you are placing limits on yourself. You then learn how to get rid of these limitations and really get on with creating the life that you prefer.

Avatar is a simple way to explore your own 'blueprint' or set of beliefs. You see how you're operating your life through these beliefs, and really understand why 'things' happen to you.
And you learn how to stop and change unhelpful patterns and things that just 'keep happening' - for good!.
That was the clincher for me with trying this course out - the fact that any positive change you make stays that way.

So - I now help take other people through the course.
I thought I'd email, let you know - see if anyone is interested in checking it out. It's a nine day course, which you can do as a whole, or divide into 3 sections. There are free intro's running in Auckland, where you get to have an experience of the tools and a glimpse into your own blueprint of beliefs. The courses run internationally, but there are two a year in Auckland - one coming up in two weeks! - on May 1st. So - I am spreading the word out there!

I know not everyone is into this kind of thing - but if you are, and enjoy a challenge, you can check it out online at.

http://www.avatarpacific.com/engels/whatmain.html
http://www.avatarpacific.com/engels/resultsmain.html

Email me back if you want to know more.
Cheers
Derek :-)

The Verlaines, Auckland & Hamilton

2010-04-02T09:32:00.010+13:00

I had the honour of doing sound for The Verlaines a few weeks ago in Auckland and Hamilton.

On the Friday night the gig was happening at the Montecristo Room, on Nelson Street, Auckland. From my perspective the venue was "average-to good". It's mid-sized venue (I guess you could cram about 400 people in there at a stretch), with a weird pole in the middle of the room (a la Arc Cafe), and the PA, while looking impressive, was pretty boxy overall.

The gig itself was actually pretty cool - Tono and the Finance Company were on point like usual, Simon Comber played beautifully, and the Verlaines were pretty bloody good considering the difficulty of their material. There's a pretty hilarious review of the show by Haley Beatson, and a review of her review by Graeme Downes which are both well worth reading.

Ow one last thing, Montecristo had probably the worst rider I've ever seen! 12 beer between 10 performers. Nice job losers!

The next day we played at Gravity bar in Hamilton. Hamilton, Hamilton, Hamilton, what a shithole! We had to spend $400 to hire half a PA, and there was a male strip show happening over the road that night. Fun times.

The Verlaines at Gravity

I also worked out that Gravity run by the same weirdos that run Altitude (guess which bar is upstairs). It's owned by this family, I can't remember any of their names apart from Leroy (the father). He's a fuckin' odd, grumpy prick, who I've had run-ins with before (in 2004 - fortunately he didn't recognize me!).

Anyway Leroy had his system all "custom wired" so that if it got too loud his bar staff could turn the system down from behind the bar, and all that kind of shit. Unfortunately it also meant that there a bunch of other problems symptomatic of their bad wiring, including -6dB on the left hand side of FOH. The room also chronically rattled at 40Hz which made my job even harder.

So yeah anyway the gig. It was attended by about 20 people, all of which seemed to be massive fans of the headliners. The Verlaines played really bloody well, it was a massive improvement from the night before, and I was loving it.

After the show (midnight) we noticed that Hamilton was changing as it got later. More and more trashy folk were crowding the streets, security had arrived at the bar, and the bartender (who is Leroy's daughter) had taken off her sweater, and was now wearing some horrible handkerchief+shoelaces bikini top number. The music which I'd put on after the gig (probably My Bloody Valentine) had been replaced by "Cotton Eyed Joe" by the Rednex. People started streaming in. We hasitly packed up and went back to the hotel.

Epic whisky drinking post-show.

Despite how weird and wrong the gig was, I should mention that the staff at Gravity were pretty nice to us (despite Leroy being a weirdo), and we were generously looked after, all considering.

Julian Temple Band Tour, Jan-Feb 2010

2010-02-25T13:15:00.000+13:00

As my computer crapped out on me a few days before going on tour, I wasn’t able to update my blog while on the road. Dumb. As a result, I’ll just do a quick recap on the 4 weeks I did touring doing live sound with the Julian Temple Band this summer.

The Julian Temple Band like to tour in a way that maximises enjoyment. This means plenty of stop-offs for surfing, bakery sampling, and boutique brewery tastings, along with the usual tour highlights of regular alcohol and drug abuse. I was in high heaven. While this sometimes was at the expensive of punctuality with showing up for soundchecks and other various music related tasks, the fellas in the band didn’t seem concerned, and as I was just the sound guy, I didn’t give a rats arse.

If you’ve ever seen the movie Sideways, you’ll get an idea of the general vibe and feeling of the tour.

Here are a few highlights…

- Eating the most delicious meal ever, and hanging out with the hilarious bar staff at The Powder Room in New Plymouth.

So. Delicious.

-Watching Billy T.K. at Parihaka. He was probably the only act I enjoyed at the festival, but holy shit did he make up for it. If you ever have the opportunity see this guy play, make sure you do. You won't regret it. He dubs himself "The Maori Jimi Hendrix."

An old press photo of Billy T.K.

- Having a 70 yr old gay man asking me if I had a “stiffy” outside the Lounge Bar in Carterton. Naturally all the locals in the bar knew the guy, didn't warn me about this character, and found the whole episode (which lasted longer than it should have) hilarious.

The lounge bar during daytime, sans creepy old men.

- Raglan. The owner Peter Coddington is a legend. Forget all the other Raglan venues, and stick to the Yot Club.

The Yot Club

- Tutakaka. One of the more beautiful parts of the country, on the east coast of Northland. We played at a bar/restaurant called Schnappa Rock. I've never witnessed the wealthy Northland locals/tourists combo in a live music situation before, which was a nice novelty. It was also the gig we had the smallest PA, and ironically one of the more pumping dance floors. The staff treated us brilliantly as well.

A beach near Tutukaka.

- Playing for a rich Aucklander’s 21^st at the Juice Bar in Parnell. It was fuckin’ weird. It reminded me of a cross between “My Super Sweet 16” and “The Hills”.

Canadia playing support at the Juice Bar.

- Having the please of playing The Mussel Inn in Golden Bay. The Mussel Inn is probably the best venue in the country, period. Beautiful site, great on-site brews, decent PA, amazing accommodation, and lovely people. It's no wonder they're booked out all this year, and a decent chunk of next year already.

One half of the brains behind the Mussel Inn, Andrew.

Paul playing awesome at the Mussel.

Some stink things that happened that I should mention...

- Running out of gas on the long drive from Carterton to Auckland... Thank fuck for Scott having an AA members card. Never go on tour without one fellas.

- Getting 2 guitars, and a bunch of PA equipment nicked out of our truck in Auckland. That really sucked.

- Having a gig cancelled on us 2 days beforehand. FYI The Marahau Park Café is no longer having gigs. It’s a bit of a long, stupid story, but ask me about it in person one day and I’ll give you the full drama of how the Julian Temple Band got slightly screwed over by them.

That aside I had a really awesome time, and I have to extend thanks to Jules, Paul, Scott, and Levi (aka Ferris Bueller) for having me. Cheers fellas!

The Night Before, The Night Before Christmas, Dunedin Style.

2010-01-07T09:44:00.011+13:00

On the 23rd of December, I did sound for a pretty big gig at Sammy's, in Dunedin, organised by the guys from Retrophonic Funk Machine (RFM). It was the first musical thing I had done since being back from the UK, and I was reminded of a few classic "quirks" of trying to play live in New Zealand.

The first quirk with live gigs in New Zealand is that quite often they don't happen in venues where gigs are held all the time, meaning that often lots of sound and light equipment needs to be hired in at great expense (usually to the musicians wanting to play). Strangely enough, this is half-true with Sammy's. Sammy's has gigs all the time, however their equipment is worn out, and kind of incomplete. To get the gig to run smoothly, RFM had to hire in a whole other PA system and lighting rig. Usually this would be extremely expensive, but this amazing dude called Iain Sweetman agreed to hire his gear, and his awesome services for stuff all cash. Still kinda sucks we couldn't use the house gear, but hey!

The second quirk is related to the first. Soundchecks, or anything related to the preperation of a gig, often run well off schedule, and way over time. Iain and myself were meant to be loading in at 12 noon, for a 2pm soundcheck. This is what we found when we arrived at 12.

The true nightmare before the night before the night before Christmas

Yep that's right. Sammy's was full of bouncy castles, and there were a bunch of little kids screaming around. We found out that it was going to be like this till 5pm! Argh! So Iain and I loaded in what we could, and rushed the soundcheck and everything else once the kids, and the bouncy castles were removed later on.

Anyways onto the positives. I was well impressed by the majority of the bands, and the awesome sense of community amongst them. It was also really great for me to see how far the bands that I knew well had come in a year, and a great opportunity for me to hear some new ones as well.

RFM

RFM busted out some pretty great collaborations with the support bands, highlights for me being the ones with The Something Quartet (who I hadn't seen before, and are awesome!), and The Julian Temple Band. If Sammy's was a bit better prepared, it would have been one of the better gigs I'd ever worked! Choice!

The Something Quartet, featuring RFM, Tono, and a boys choir.

The Julian Temple Band

Now that I've quit my job....

2009-12-11T16:43:00.003+13:00

I can post these astounding clips I found on the work media server. They both feature work from the same student, who will remain nameless. The pieces of "work" were submitted to the GCSE (5th form) examiners as his final pieces of assessment.

The first piece is his solo performance piece. The music you hear at the start is him playing an R&B track from his cellphone, into a microphone. Then you can hear him playing the drum kit over the top.

Drum Performance

The second is his composition piece. He can't claim any marks for the backing track, which was done by other member of staff, who is actually a pretty decent London dubstep producer. I believe he just found a rap track he liked, and told the guy, "make it sound like, sick, like dis one, like, innit!" or something to that effect. However he DID compose and perform the rap, which is, truly amazing. Enjoy.

Oh Baby

The Outsiders @ The Windmill

2009-11-30T03:35:00.008+13:00

A few months ago, Stu Young from The Outsiders asked me if I could organise them a gig in London for them. I put the feelers out around a bunch of promoters, and had a decent response. Because cash for them was a priority, I went for the venue which did the best deal: The Windmill (They’re one of the few venues in London which will let bands take the full amount on the door…).

So yeah they were joined by the Fulang, and a new band called “Spike The Punch,” which I understand features some of the members from NZ punk band Missing Teeth. The Fulang were comfortably the band that stuck out like a sore thumb, and some of the filthy old punks didn’t seem that impressed with our sound. Nevertheless a big bunch of our friends all came out to support The Outsiders, which was really awesome. They took a big risk coming over to Europe to tour, and I think it worked out pretty well for them. They played really well, and it was awesome seeing Stu and Niam again.

The Outsiders

In other (now old) fulang news, Anthony had to go home about a month ago, due to some pretty stink family reasons. Matt Brook did the decent thing and played bass for us at the show, after only two practices! He played really well, and I was well proud of him.

Matt stepping up to the plate

This guy taught me at university.

2009-10-04T05:36:00.002+13:00

Okay so Dr. Ian Chapman lectured me during my time at music school at the University of Otago.

Here's his new music video. Holy! What's up with Dunedin having glam scene all of a sudden?

And here's my newest favourite video courtesy of the world wide web. This guy didn't lecture thank god.

Gigs, gigs, gigs

2009-09-11T04:56:00.009+12:00

Okay so it's been awhile since I last blogged. Apologies.

Anyway the fulang have played a bunch of gigs in that time, some brilliant (Rip This Joint All-Dayer), some shit (Up All Night Music shows), some in-between.

I can't really be bothered talking about the shit nights we've played this time around, apart from explaining that our gig at Tommy Flynn's was a soul-less, non-cohesive, rip-off of a gig. It was run by Up All Night Music, a booking/"promo" company. Basically they just get a bunch of random bands together which sound nothing alike, are usually shit, and make them play at the same night. The bands get ripped off, and in turn, so do the audience. Doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway, onto a more positive note. We got the awesome opportunity to play at an all-dayer run by the Rip This Joint promoters. Rip This Joint are a collective of a few bands who put on nights at the Constitution in Camden. We played one of their nights a few months ago, and have been in touch with them ever since. They basically do the opposite of Up All Night et. all, which is put on great shows, with well thought out line-ups, with good bands, and not leave the audience or the bands feeling ripped off.

The all-dayer was at The Krankenhouse, a massive squat in Crouch End. The first half of the gig was outside, and the second half was moved inside. Mad props to Julie R. Kane (flickr.com/fstopqueen) for letting me post her photos.

The fulang opened the festival. We were hungover as fuck beforehand, and felt ace after playing. I love music.

One Man Team Dance played in-between the bands in various locations around the squat. BTW this shitty photo is from me.

Silent Front. These guys have been playing in London for years and seriously rule.

November Fleet. I hadn't heard these guys before but they were really bloody good.

Cherry But No Cake. These guys are the nicest guys in the "music industry" I've met in London. They also play in a pretty classic band.

SCUL HAZZARDs. These guys are probably my favourite grassroots band. They're from Australia, and sound like the Pixies crossed with Future Of The Left or something.

Another review

2009-07-29T03:39:00.003+12:00

Fulangchangandi got another favorable review today. Freakin' brilliant.

Check it.

Nothingatall dot net

Interviews and Reviews

2009-07-16T20:34:00.002+12:00

The fulang EP has been reviewed a couple of times online recently which is pretty cool.

Tasty Fanzine

Nostalgia For Infinity

About a month ago as well this chick Gabi interviewed me. She runs a radio show called "Toast On Fire" on FSK, an independent radio station in Hamburg. She'd come across our music on MySpace, and wanted to interview us. Pretty cool huh?

New career oppurtunity... Session guitarist!

2009-07-08T07:07:00.006+12:00

This is a little video of me playing in The Thorns. The band was part of an extra-curricular music project we did with neighboring primary schools in the area at my work. The kids all came together, did a bunch of workshops on songwriting and contemporary performance, culminating in writing and performing their own song. It's pretty cute.

If anyone who is related to these kids sees this video and has a problem, please get in touch with me on stu dot harwood at g mail dot com, and I'll take it down ASAP.

How to release an EP in 2009

2009-07-07T05:08:00.000+12:00

When releasing an EP, you need to get quite a few things in place, namely: A recording, a music medium, packaging, artwork, a press pack, distribution, and a release party. What follows is a description of how we went about releasing fulangchangandi’s debut EP to “the masses.”

The recording: I’ve already covered this one in the below blog, but the long and short of it was we got our friends to do it for free/cheap.

Music medium: After weighing up the options in front of us (CD, Super Audio CD, vinyl, usb sticks, wax cylinders, cassette tapes, laser disc), Fulangchangandi opted for the CD-R medium. We were so cheap we didn’t even bother getting printable ones. Yep, it was a pack of dirty old CD-Rs from a supermarket. I made Stu G write on them with a marker pen.

Packaging: While drunk one night, we were talking about how shit the jewel case is (the normal CD case you find everywhere). So we came up with the fulang-sandwich, or alternatively, the fulangchangand-rye. Utilizing two pieces of supermarket loaf, a clear plastic CD slip, and some clingfilm, it is a pioneer in packaging technology.

Photos by Otman Gusbi

Artwork:

Great minds at work: Creating our branded sandwiches. Photos by Jenna Todd.

Press Pack: Well you need a photo, and a little blurb.

fulangchangandi

“A wave of emotion swept over a crowd gathered at Eisenhower Auditorium last night. At one moment, members of the crowd could be seen shouting in laughter. Minutes later, tears were pouring out of their eyes. The event that moved the crowd to such animation was a speech made by fulangchangandi, the founder and President of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of the Ridiculous. Fulang attracted an audience which filled three-fourths of the floor seating in the auditorium. His speech was titled "Is Jesus a Tory or a Socialist?" and Fulang, who is also a Professor of Ridiculousness at Some College, St. David's, Liverpool, said the answer to the question his speech and book title pose is, "Jesus is neither a Tory nor a Socialist - I'm not even sure he would vote in this election."”

fulangchangandi

50% Northern England/50% Southern Hemisphere.

The press photo. Design by Stuart Gardham

Distribution: Ah, um, ahhhh, you can download it at www.last.fm, Or download higher quality mp3s at mediafire.com, Or if you come to a show you might get lucky and get a fulangchangand-rye in the face.

Release party: Now this is one thing we kind of did right. Well, not really… We got to play at really awesome noise rock night, and we threw a few sandwiches around. But anyway we played at a “Rip This Joint” night, at this fantastic venue in Camden called The Constitution. The pub is a pretty normal local bar, with a fantastic outside area right by the canal. Downstairs is a really small little room with a bar that is sometimes used as a venue. This is probably my favourite place to play in London so far, and is definitely the best venue I’ve watched bands at. It’s just so full of energy! The crowd it often literally face to face with the bands the venue is so small! It also helps that the guys who run the “Rip This Joint” book really wicked touring bands.

I think Otman took this one

Scul Hazzards. This was actually at a different night, but shows how close the audience is to the bands.

Shapes and retarded London promoters

2009-06-01T10:11:00.009+12:00

Okay so I'll be nice before I turn nasty.

The fulang probably played their tightest ever gig a month or so ago, at a venue in Kingston (in south west London - fucking ages away). Said venue is called Fighting Cocks, and is actually pretty cool. It's got a lovely, standard-shaped room, with a decent wee PA, nice bar staff, a great sound engineer (forgot her name, except that Stu G had a semi crush on her, har har), and good beer. It was the first gig we played where we got to perform with bands that were on the same noisy, abrasive wavelength as us, and it was just a week after we recorded our EP. Brilliant.

The two bands I got to see before having to catch the ridiculously expensive train ride home (5 quid!) were Shapes, and Gin Panic. Gin Panic were pretty cool, but Shapes were just plain ridiculous in a live context! They're exceptionally loud, energetic, inventive, and very very math-rock. They hail from Birmingham, and are really nice guys. About halfway through their set I realised I'd actually done sound for them at the Windmill in Brixton, which was a nice surprise. Anyways, check 'em out. You won't regret it.

Shapes being awesome. Again apologies for the lazy camera phone pic.

Okay so onto the nasty stuff. If your lucky enough to be my friend on Facebook, you would have got a quasi-spam email from me asking you to click "attending" on a fulangchangandi Facebook event page thing, even if there was ABSOLUTELY no chance of actually attending for reals. Let me explain....

Okay so ages ago Nick booked us a gig at a venue called The Tower Tavern. None of us had ever heard of it, but hey it was a gig, and we needed the experience. Anyway I was the designated soundcheck/backline organiser in the band for that gig, so about a week before we were meant to play, I took a deep breath, and prepared myself to talk to "industry" people. To those in the know, it's usually best either get drunk, self-harm, or worse before dealing with these types of people.

So after half an hour of intense self abusive in front of my mirror, I checked The Tower Tavern MySpace to see what time the gig was listed as starting. Noticing that no bands were listed as playing the night we were booked in, I emailed Malcolm Griff, their "booker":

Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:53:30 +0100
Subject: gig 24th April
From: stu.harwood@gmail.com
To: mgg010@hotmail.com

Hey there, It's Stu here from fulangchangandi. I was wondering if you had the names of the other bands playing on our gig on Friday the 24th of April, for our promo purposes. I couldn't find them on the myspace. Please let me know,

Cheers

Stu

I received a really long, cut and paste email which included this:

You are required to bring your loyal fanbase/following to the gig - EACH MEMBER OF THE BAND TO SEND OUT INVITES & FLYERS FOR THIS GIG. * You are required to email this contract to ALL other members of your band. Do not do other conflicting gigs near to date to deplete fan base following, as bands should be bringing 15 -25+ people - fan base/following to the gig. Flyers to be emailed IN ADVANCE to your fan-base. Send flyers to each member of your act. (see attached) NOTE : You are also asked to create a Facebook entry invite to this gig, and to email personal invites to this gig (pref. with the gig flyers attached) + send to your fanbase - ie; EACH member of your band to invite people to this gig. Please can you then send us a link to this, so we can check (confirmed guests) ?

I didn't really read this email properly, and emailed him back:
Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:42:00 +0100 Subject: Re: gig 24th April From: stu.harwood@gmail.com To: mgg010@hotmail.com Yep I read that weeks ago and have actioned it. All I was asking was who else is playing at this gig, as I cannot find the information anywhere. Thanks Stu

He replied:

On 21 Apr 2009, at 15:38, Malcolm Griff wrote:

please can you send us link to your Facebook invite as we cannot find your band on the Facebook search. regards, MGriff

A Facebook event page? Of course I didn't read a cut and paste email - it's usually a bunch of crap about not breaking gear, bringing people to the venue... I admit though, my bad.. But seriously, not communicating to me properly, and not advertising the gig on MySpace, because I didn't have a Facebook page? Anyway I quickly created a Facebook event page, and hung around on Facebook chat getting people to RSVP to the event. After I'd gotten about 10 people to click "attending," I emailed Malcolm the link.

I still haven't heard anything back from him since. However two days before the gig was meant to happen, I emailed him this:

Subject: Re: gig 24th April
From: stu.harwood@gmail.com
To: mgg010@hotmail.com

Hey there Malcolm,

Given that I haven't heard from you regarding the facebook link, and that we're not listed on your myspace as playing on the 24th of April, I can only assume we're not performing at The Tower Tavern on the 24th of April. Fulangchangandi will not be showing up to perform tomorrow.

I regret that we have to do this, and I do take some responsibility for not posting you our facebook event page until Tuesday night this week. I hope this hasn't soured relationships between fulangchangandi, it's respective members, and yourself and the bar management. I look forward to dealing with you again, and hopefully it will be more successful next time!

Cheers Stu

The next day (the day before said gig), a get this text from another guy (I've long forgotten his name), basically saying "Hey there, when can you make soundcheck tomorrow?" I replied
"I emailed yesterday and pulled out of the gig."
Immediately I receive a call from the same number. It turns out to be the "chief" band booker, asking why we weren't playing. I explained the situation, and he was pretty understanding and apologetic about the situation, and his colleague's ineptitude. He said the gig was still on offer, but by this stage I was sick of the whole thing and declined.

Phew!

Fulangchangandi Recording, SAE Dalston, 11th-12 of April, 2009

2009-05-01T08:19:00.005+12:00

Over Easter fulangchangandi I recorded a 4 track EP at the SAE (School of Audio Engineering) studios in Dalston. This was facilitated by Hugh Harlow, a mate of mine from back in Dunedin, who now works at SAE as a lecturer. Hugh and I go back quite a way; He’s done sound for bands that I’ve played in for years, and we actually worked together for a while at ReFuel doing live sound before he moved to Auckland. Hugh also brought along one of his top students, Matteo Manni to help out which was pretty cool.

Hugh infront of the Neve Genesys

Anyway Hugh needed more experience recording bands on the fancy new equipment at SAE, and he offered me some free recording time so he could clock up his hours on the equipment. This sounded pretty good to me and the guys at the fulang, so we made a plan, and rocked up to the studio on the Saturday. We hired a bunch of backline and other equipment from a company called FX Rentals, who delivered it to our door on.

Anthony and Stu G having "quiet time"

It was really awesome being recorded by Hugh. For a start, he’s an awesome, chilled out guy. Secondly it’s such a relief to be able to do musicy things with people who know you, have heard you play before, and understand how you like to work. We ended up recording 4 tracks completely in just one day! Brilliant!

"Yeah, can you make my drums sound like Lars Ulrich?"

So after recording we sent the tracks to Dale Cotton, a pretty famous sound engineer from Dunedin. I just realised blogger doesn't let you post up sound files so I can't upload anything to here. I don't really wanna stick them up on myspace or last.fm yet, but if anyone can think of a spot I could put them up then let me know! Either that or I can email 'em to yas.

Anthony being all moustachey

Nick likes boxing

Two bland gigs with the fulang

2009-04-15T03:43:00.005+12:00

Hope & Anchor, Highbury, Monday 30 March

Two weeks ago we (fulangchangandi) played at the Hope & Anchor in Highbury. It was the first in a series of gigs we booked for March/April which were designed specifically to get us used to playing with each other, in the low pressure enviroment of London's mid-week, small venue, shit gig circuit. I'd already been to the Hope & Anchor to watch ex-pat band El Schlong play, so I wasn't particularly surprised by our experiences there; H&A are booked by Bugbear Bookings, the same company that books the Dublin Castle. In my experience they're great at booking often shit, completely uncomplimentary bands. However while the stage at the Dublin Castle is actually nice to play on, H&A's is cramped, nasty sounding and generally unpleasant. The other bands were so bad myself, Anthony, and a few other derelicts spent the rest of the evening in the nearby park drinking cheap beer.

The fulang playing/faux-practicing at the Hope & Anchor

The Miller, Borough, Thursday 8 April

Basically the same scenario as above, however it wasn't booked by Bugbear. Didn't stop the other bands being terrible hard-rock bands though. However the sound was a bit better, and the staff there were much nicer than the crappy old H&A. It was also the end of the working week for me so I got absolutely slaughtered.

The next blog will be much more interesting, I promise!

Sam Huxley @ Dublin Castle on shitty Wednesday night

2009-04-07T04:48:00.004+12:00

On Wednesday the 18th of March the Sam Huxley band played at The Dublin Castle in Camden. We’d played this venue a couple of months ago (our very first gig infact), and it was pretty good. This time it was a bit crap.

It all started about 2 weeks beforehand when the bands started emailing around about gear. While I wasn’t contributing to the email conversations, I was forwarded most of them from my bandmates. Basically it turned out that no one in the bands had any gear (ourselves included), and if they did have gear, they couldn’t get it to the venue due to temporal and/or financial restraints. Scenes of Nudity (yep that was their name) wanted to hire a bunch of gear, but we didn’t, and neither did the Jonny Cola and the A Grades. We could get enough gear for the bands for free, but it meant that there wouldn’t really be enough time for soundchecks. Naturally we didn’t give a crap about this, though Scenes of Nudity really really wanted to soundcheck, and hire gear. These details were circulated again and again over group emails, with Scenes of Nudity not really reading anyone else’s messages and getting frustrated with everyone’s lack of interest in hiring gear and soundchecking.

By the time it came to the gig, I showed up, the house drum kit was being set up, I asked one of the other bands if I could borrow their snare drum, Anthony’s bass was plugged into a DI onstage, the late-arriving but free guitar amp was borrowed. Cost for Sam Huxley to perform = £0. As we were playing last (and therefore traditionally soundchecking first) and the other bands didn’t have much of a clue what was going on, we enjoyed a nice long soundcheck.

While we were soundchecking, Scenes of Nudity’s hired equipment arrived, which we ignored, and continued working away on our stage levels. By this stage we worked out that front woman from Scenes of Nudity was pretty unfriendly – I figured she was holding some kind of grudge about the previous few weeks email scenario.

So anyway Scenes of Nudity hit the stage first up. All of a sudden the previous two weeks emails made sense. They were shit. They’d obviously never really been onstage much, or ever had any kind of constructive criticism, as they were really fuckin loose, had cringingly bad songs, and looked like plonkers onstage. After doing the polite watching-the-other-bands-on-the-same-bill as you thing for a couple of songs, I felt too uncomfortable and had to leave.

Scenes of Nudity. Apologies for the camera phone photos.

Jonny Cola and the A Grades were a definite step up from Scenes of Nudity, but it’s easy to say that when the bar was previously set so low. They were an average new wave/goth band, with a front man who really liked to get into the overdone theatrical front man feeling lots of pain/his lyrics kind of thing. It was at least vaguely entertaining and interesting, though I must confess I was still in a semi state of shock from Scenes of Nudity.

Jonny Cola and the A Grades

When we got onstage, we played a bit averagely; It was late and Sam’s borrowed guitar amp blew out in the middle of a song. It was a solid state Fender Champ or something similar – bloody useless. Thankfully the frontwoman from Scenes of Nudity lent us her hired amp, and we could carry on the set. While it was really awesome of her to lend us her hired amp, I still found the whole thing kind of funny - especially when we still didn’t offer her any money for it.
Ah what cheap fuckers we are.

Sam Huxley @ Cross Kings

2009-03-09T07:30:00.010+13:00

Two Saturdays ago the Sam Huxley band played our second gig in the Treehouse charity/competition series. I thought it was going to be a really crap gig because: A - it was a competition, B - it was at a venue I'd never heard of in a crappy part of London (a seedy part of King's Cross), an C - the band had only rehearsed once since our last show a month (was it two months?) ago at the Dublin Castle.

As it turned out, it was a pretty fun gig. Cross Kings is actually a cool little intimate venue, with a good little sound system and an easy going sound person (can't remember the dude's name at all). Everybody Be Cool were on the bill (who we'd made friends with at our first show) and their drummer Marcus kindly lent me his snare drum (again!). They played really well, and while it's not quite the type of music I'd usually listen to, they do do it with an understated slickness that I appreciate.

Everybody Be Cool

We surprisingly played really well given our total lack of practice. It helps when everyone onstage is kind of taking the piss out of the gig and just having a good time. People in the crowd actually seemed to enjoy it as well which was good. It's funny at gigs how your mood can shift so quickly from before to after playing. Before the gig I was pessimistic, after our set I felt quite good about the whole thing.

Huxley and co.

All the other bands were shit, apart from the show-stealers Jail. According to their Myspace, "Jail are a psychedelic shouty indie-punk band who combine the insane wisdom of Syd Barrett and Mark E Smith with the pop sensibilities of Blur and Pulp and the onstage lunacy of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band." I didn't think they had anything to do with Blur or Pulp personally, instead I thought they sounded like a Joy Division/Velvet Underground tribute band on a fringe comedy circuit. They were AMAZING. Imagine a bunch of 40 yr old ex-herion addicts playing awesome music fronted by a ridiculous character who spends most of his time off-stage rubbing himself against members of the audience. Their song "Circle Line" (about a particularly shit tube line in London) was a definite highlight.

Jon Leone from Jail "working the crowd"

Sam and myself watching Jail in wonderment

Anyway after all the music the judges announced us as the winners of the competition for the night. While I appreciated the complement, I still don't know what that means, and I kinda wish Jail won. They totally had the best crowd response, and played definitely the most original, inspiring music of the evening.

As a last note, thanks heaps to Sami for letting me use her photos for this blog. They're fuckin' wicked, and a million times better than I ever manage.

2nd London Gig: fulangchangandi @ The Good Ship, Kilburn

2009-02-21T04:38:00.007+13:00

fulangchangandi

So on Wednesday night I had my first gig with post-rock/noise (though Matt reckons "instrumental rock") band fulangchangandi. I met Stuart Gardenham and Nick Peel through Gumtree.com, a London-based online classifieds directory. Gumtree is also a good place to look for flats, bar work, random stereo equipment, and all the rest - though there's heaps of scammers, prostitutes etc, as can be expected for a site of this nature based in a massive city like London. Anthony from The Tweeks also plays in this band as well, which makes making the band sound half-way tight easier.

Canyons rockin' it

Anyway so yeah onto the gig. Nick (the "brains" behind the operation) basically set out to book us a few low-profile, low pressure gigs to get us into the swing of playing together live. As far as these types of gigs go, The Good Ship in Kilburn isn't a bad one. It's got a reasonable PA + sound engineer, decent beer (despite they actually sell VB by the bottle. You can imagine my pleasure at putting on a faux Auzzie accent and loudly demanding "a bottle of the green death." Anyway I digress), a house drum kit, and a pretty good atmosphere. On the minus side it's way the fuck out in Kilburn, which is about an hour from anywhere worth living (haha Matt), and the stage is in a weird "orchestra pit" style setup that wigged me out and does funny things to the sound.

At the gig only one other band was any good (apart from us of course!). The other two were plain embarrassingly bad. Emphatica were a really shit punk rock band, and Only Until played a very misguided attempt at instrumental post-rock. Pony. However Canyons were a pretty interesting "textural" noise rock band. At least put it this way, I like them enough that I'd probably go watch a gig of theirs if it was in the weekend, they were playing close to my flat, and it wasn't expensive. So yeah, pretty good.

Anthony and I doing what we do best

First London Performance!

2009-01-20T12:14:00.010+13:00

So on Sunday I played my first gig in London, at a The Dublin Castle, a wicked venue in Camden. Me and Anthony (from The Tweeks) were backing Sam Huxley, a songwriter originally from Birmingham.

The poster for my "big gig"

The gig (which I did not book) was advertised as a fundraiser for a charity called "Treehouse," who I believe work with autistic kids. It was also run as a "band competition." More on that later.

Whenever I told anyone at work or whatever that I was playing at the Dublin Castle, they were all quick to tell me that it was a particularly iconic London venue, plenty of massive British bands had cut their teeth there etc etc. I'll be honest - it's a great venue. It's got a small-medium sized live room, a good sound system, nice staff, and plenty of amazing posters on the wall of ubiquitous English bands who had played there in the past (Madness, Amy Winehouse, The Specials etc etc).

However I do really doubt that these guys were playing "charity band competitions" in their hayday. Now I haven't played at a band competition since I was 21, but nothing has really changed: Mismatched lineups, weird vibes between the bands, and drunk judges. This particular competition's judge was the A&R man who signed Blur. Sounds impressive - it's not really. Basically this dude got on the mic after each band played, spouted off 2-3 minutes of rubbish which got progressively less comprehensible as the night wore on. By the end of the gig he was shitfaced, and I swear taking a piss for the majority of the last band's set (who in the end won).

I personally didn't give a shit about the whole competition thing, I was just stoked to be (finally) playing in London. It definately wasn't the ideal situation, but it's a start. Hopefully The Tweeks will be over shortly!

"Missing Andy" soundchecking. This self-described Urban/Indie/Punk group ended up taking out the competiton. They all had matching mohawks.

I'm not sure if I should take this photo down, but it is of a certain songwriter I play with hooking up with his workmate. Thanks to Anthony for such great photography.

My job in Camden

2008-12-25T23:30:00.007+13:00

So I started a job at this school a couple of weeks ago, in the role of Performing Art’s Technician. It was actually the first job I applied for when I first arrived in England two months ago, though I only got asked in for an interview four weeks later.

Basically my job entails maintaining the equipment in the drama and music departments, and providing technical support for either class or school production. They can employ someone like me (and another person who does a similar job in the fine arts department) because the school is an “Art College” under the national education framework. It therefore gets extra funding for equipment and support staff for its art departments.

Onto the school itself. People had warned me about London public schools, saying they are rife with gang-related violence, and the classrooms really unruly. As far as I can tell so far only the latter in true, with the teachers spending most of their time trying to keep the kids on task. So far I haven’t witnessed any stabbings though – Though I did help one kid out the other day record a rap over a “grime” track where the main hook was “This is not a child’s game.” Coming from a 14 year old I found that kinda cute. One odd thing about the school though is that only 25% of the students are girls. This is apparently due to a high percentage of girls-only schools in the area.

Anyways enough of my stupid fun-facts. Here’s some photos.

The front reception area.

Ahhhh England

There's a staff smoking area. This school officially rules!

SXSW

2008-12-03T09:52:00.004+13:00

Okay so I got an email the other day from the South by Southwest organisers informing us that our application to showcase at the 2009 SXSW music festival was successful. Naturally I was totally stoked. We'd applied to SXSW before, and been denied, so this felt pretty good.

However now the band is faced with the mammoth task of trying to raise enough money for plane tickets, accommodation, and visas for the US. Adding to our problems is fact that half of the band still resides in Dunedin, New Zealand, while the other half are in London.

Now I've always been the (often foolish and overly confident) optimist in the band. I personally think we can pull this one off, but I think the others have very real concerns about how the hell we're going to raise this cash. The only other band from Dunedin to have actually managed to go in the last 10 years or so has been Die!Die!Die! and I think they had managed to tie it into their existing touring commitments in the US.

So yeah, anyone got any good ideas? HELP!

The Windmill, Brixton

2008-12-01T12:07:00.005+13:00

So I’ve started working part time at a live music venue down in Brixton called The Windmill. It’s awesome. It’s pretty small (capacity would have to be 100-150), run by Irish people, has a reasonable PA (EV acoustics), and appears to be the preferred small south London venue for up-and coming touring bands. Tim, the promoter is really enthusiastic, clued up, and friendly which makes things easy. So far I’ve done sound there 3 times, and 2 nights have been dominated by really awesome American bands. I love doing sound for well-toured bands; they’re really easy to make sound good, are easy going when faced with poor foldback/other technical issues, and generally make good music which is actually enjoyable to listen to.

Smoke or Fire. Notice how the British are actually moshing/dancing/enjoying themselves. Crazy.

Okay so the first night of American bands I did featured a Fat Wreck Chords band called Smoke or Fire, a relatively straight-ahead California-style punk band headlining, and they were supported by a bizarre powerpop/Americana/punk band from Florida called Fake Problems. I wasn’t so much into Smoke or Fire’s music (I definitely would have loved them when I was 16 however), but they really were awesome at what they did, were really friendly, and were really easy to make sound good. Fake Problems however I really did enjoy, though probably mostly because I spent most of the time trying to work out where the hell they were coming from. The guys were all really baby-faced and twee looking, but would flip from playing post-hardcore stuff to country, and back to pop punk. It was pretty weird, but they were really tight, really nice guys, and definitely had enough of an “x-factor” for my liking. Unfortunately the stuff they’ve got posted on their myspace doesn’t really give much of an impression of what they’re actually like live.

My view from the mixing desk: Fake Problems

The next night I had the pleasure of doing sound for a guy called PW Long, the songwriter from ex 90s grunge band MULE. This guy was ridiculous. It was an awesome mix of growly, moody Americana – mixing blues, country, and folk. Though please don’t get the wrong impression, this was not the usual brown vest wearing, airy-fairy cheesy folk artist. This was a guy who’d played in touring “grunge” bands in the early 90’s who’d just gotten angrier. He certainly played his beaten up old strat at levels that would have probably more suited a band situation than solo in a small, and admittedly that night, basically empty venue. However it worked, I got my jollies, got paid, and had an awesome time.

Truancy

2008-11-13T03:49:00.005+13:00

So yeah I haven't written in awhile. This is because pretty much I want this to be a blog about the stuff I'm upto musically, and at this stage finding my feet in a new city means that making music has weaned off. It's difficult to make music in a big city when your running around trying to get an income and a place to live sorted out!!

Anyways I've been to a few gigs since I've been here - I've seen Lawrence Arabia two time, both of which were awesome. Last night Anthony and myself were the only people in the club (The Old Blue Last) getting overly exciting about seeing him and his band play - I think us singing along to "The Kinds Of Feelings That Happen On Summer Beaches" at the top of our lungs made both the audience and the band uncomfortable. Haha.

I went to Hot Chip at the Brixton Academy on Friday which was pretty amazing. The venue itself is ridiculous, it's purpose-built for pop music, has a sloping floor so you can always see, sounds amazing, and is really well organised. I hadn't listened to heaps of Hot Chip before going to the concert, but they put on a pretty decent show. It seemed to me that they were a little out of their depth with the occasion, but the crowd seemed pretty into it.

Uh that's enough, I'm hungover.

Fuck you Air New Zealand!

2008-10-28T07:17:00.009+13:00

Okay so today I went to go vote in the upcoming NZ elections. I trundled down to the New Zealand Consulate near Piccadilly Circus with a couple of old-school Dunedin friends, Liz Sherrif and Danny Vincent O. We saw a few “trad” London sights on the way.

So once in the building we had a bit of chuckle listening to all the other plonker NZ accents (of which I myself am also guilty of possessing), and went ahead and voted.

Afterwards I inquired at the desk if I could fill up my water bottle from their cooler. The ladies behind the desk politely informed me that they didn't have a cooler, and suggested that I ask nicely at the neighboring Air New Zealand office for usage of theirs. So I ambled up the stairs to their office, walked through the doors, and coyly asked whether I could fill up my water bottle.
“Are you an Air New Zealand customer?” the travel agent loudly asked in some kind of northern European accent.
“Uh, no,” I sheepishly replied, somewhat in shock.
“Then no, no you can't,” he shouted, wildly gesturing that I should get out. So I left, angry and humiliated, all the while regretting not saying things like “well you're not a New Zealander, so fuck you!” among others.

I was so fucked off at being treated like some kind of hobo from the street, the kind that walks into offices asking for a light, or at least a few paperclips.

Anyways I instructed Liz and Danny to leave the building, then I walked up to the glass office windows, and took a photo of the cunt. Yea! And now your on the internet arsehole. Fuck you and your stupid NZ airline. The food's shit, and the airhostesses are dowdy.

I've said my piece, now I can carry on spreading my CV like a pornstar's seed all over the information superhighway.

Booo!

First UK music "industry" experience. Haha laughworthy

2008-10-24T05:42:00.008+13:00

Okay so since I've moved to London I hadn''t really done anything music related apart from going to odd show (I saw Die!Die!Die! the first night I arrived - they were amazing) until today. I don't have my drumkit with me, so I haven't been able to play, and anyways I've been so busy getting set up that I've barely thought about it.

Me and Matt at Die!Die!Die!

So it appears that due to a few unfortunate logistical problems back home, neither Chris nor Logan will over in the UK till next year. So I figured I'd try and play drums with a few different bands and stuff, in an effort to keep my chops up, and meet some musicians. See over here it's difficult to practice a drum kit, unless you teach the kit, or have a good job, because space is at such a premium - preventing me right now from having a kit at home, and rehearsal studios are expensive (around 5-10 pounds per hour).

So this brings me to my first experience with auditioning for an artist over here. Crystal Whatsername (not posting her real name yet because it's a new city and I don't want to loose my thumbs - though if you want a link to her music just message me and I'll gladly give it to you) advertised needing a drummer on the ukmusicjobs website. I sent her a message, and a rehearsal was jacked up for today, at 3pm near Westbourne Park.

Before the audition, I downloaded the two tracks off her myspace which she wanted to learn. I was pretty put off by the cringeworthy lyrics, and the tasteless rhythm section arrangements, but thought "fuck it, I might as well get used to auditioning with people I don't really want to play with first." I organised a drum practice room in Shepherd's Bush, and took the underground. On the tube I worked out the song arrangements, ready for me to rehearse at the studio.

So at 2:55 when I finally found my way to the place where my audition was meant to happen, I got a text saying, "Sorry we gave you the wrong address."
"Thanks," I grumbled to myself. Anyway I legged it to the new location, Westbourne Rehearsal Studios in Bayswater, and met the Crystal and her bassist, who I've forgotten the name of.

First impressions weren't good when Chrystal introduced herself, asked where I was from, and then mentioned that she new Eric Watson. "Cool," I cringed. At this point the bassist started ranting about how he was friends with the guys from Killing Joke. I tried not to listen.
"Why don't you two jam for a bit," she encouraged, and her boy the bassist (who was sporting a Gibson Firebird - perhaps not the best bass for an acoustic singer/songwriter project) started trashing around playing a bunch of heavy basslines which I attempted to play along with. This guy really overplays, and is pretty bloody loose. I fucking hate loose bass players - I've only ever played with decent tight players for so long now it was a real shock to have to play with this plonker who thought he was the shit, but was really pretty bad.

Where the whole hilarious affair occurred

Anyway after we "jammed" Crystal joined us and we played the two songs she wanted me to play. Afterwards while I was being invited to come back for a second audition I was doing my best holding myself together by looking at the floor, and avoiding eye contact with Crystal, and plonker. I quickly left, thinking "fuck this."

London lesson #1: Don't bother audition for anything that you've not listened to at least 3 times.

RAP and The Tweeks yo!

2008-10-12T17:20:00.002+13:00

If I said that yes, The Tweeks had a change of format, with me on the “one and twos,” Logan MC'ing, and Chris and Anthony as dual hype men, I'd be lying. However if was to mention that we unexpected got $800 something dollars, I wouldn't be lying. Fuckin' sweet aye? Let me explain.

So in 2007 I came across the RAP (Recording Artists and Producers) fund section of PPNZ's (Phonographic Performances NZ Limited) website. It mentioned something about getting paid royalties for your music recordings being played on radio and TV, so I signed us up. And when I say signed us up, I actually mean, I half completed the process online, and failed to send in our signed hard copys of the agreement. I guess that part of the process was a needless formality, cos we still got all this extra cash. Fuckin brilliant. So if your a recording artist, get off your arse, sign yourself up for the fund, and in about a year and a half, you'll get some sweet cash. Brilliant.

Yesterday I finished mixing The Biff Merchant's album. The making of this record was perhaps the smoothest, fastest, most satisfying experience I've ever had in my time as a sound recordist/mixer. I mixed the record in 5 straight days, with very little interruption, and because we hadn't cheaped out on good recording gear, it sounds fuckin' sweet, with virtually no “fixing in the mix” carryon. I think that's the way I'm going to make records from now on – clearing 2/3 weeks out of my schedule, and trying to finish the whole thing from start to finish in one go. Not only is this better for workflow, it also results in a more focused, cohesive sounding product. Bloody brilliant. Thanks to the boys for making it such a smooth, and creatively satisfying process.

Also yesterday The Greatest Rock n Roll Band HAY MAN! had their last Dunedin show at The Backstage. Thanks to The Mentalists, Molly van Dijk, The Biff Merchants, The Julian Temple Band, and Left or Right for providing such great support. Also thanks heaps to Tom Bell for Logan Hampton for the sound and lights. It sounded and looked amazing.

No blog for two weeks! WTF??

2008-10-03T20:32:00.008+13:00

Yep see that slightly, disappointed, faux-staunched out look I'm giving the camera? I like to imagine that that is what you, the readers, feel about my blogosphere truancy. It also sums up my feelings of our gig in Queenstown a few weeks ago. It was pretty shit really - the tourist season had finished a few days beforehand, and we played to an audience of 10. Including the bar staff.

However The Tweeks are a seasoned touring machine. We know how to deal with these types of scenarios. Basically that involves smoking pot and drinking at various times before and after our set. Below is the aftermath.

The following week I had my final lessons teaching the drumkit to high school students. To those out there who don't know me very well - this is how I pay my bills. I can't really be bothered going on about it, but hey check out what I found in the John McGlashan staff room. Telling isn't it?

Next on my list of carryon was The Tweeks' last NZ gig. It was pretty awesome to see that many people out giving us a send off - thanks to all you peeps that came - it was a pretty special night for me.. I'm not too sure how the actual music ended up sounding (there were a few wrong'uns) but hey I had a pretty sweet time playing. Thanks heaps to Tono Tonnon, David Good, Andy Biff, Sunset Cinema, Sharkbait (omg fav new Dunedin band!), and the Slur-Tones.

The very next day I ended up running around setting up for The Biff Merchants' recording session. The Biffs and myself have been planning this for almost 6 months, and it's awesome that the project is underway. On the Saturday, in my sorry state, we set up an ad hoc studio in Sammys. Holy shit that place is messy - really filthy. We found a box of 7" singles of Bon Jovi's "Bad Medicine" lying around in the kitchen. WTF?

I mean fuck I can't really complain - Sam, the business owner let us run loose in Dunedin's coolest mid-large size venue for 5 days - free! Pretty cool huh?

Here's some shots.

The Biff Merchants, caught in headlights - haha

"Stu, are you using a Digi 002 Protools interface, connected to a Digimax ADAT converter and an Apogee Rosetta 200 via S/PDIF, with preamps from JLM, Hamptone, Great River, and Buzz Audio?"
"Yes, cool aye?"

"Stu, I really like your microphone choices, I feel like they really bring out the character of our instruments, while being practical to our 'all at once' recording situation."
"Ow thanks guys!"

The weekend: 10 hours sleep total. Nice job dumbass

2008-09-18T12:35:00.006+12:00

Okay so last weekend was rediculous. The Tweeks played support for OdESSA at Backstage, I did sound and DJed for the Biff Merchants gig the next night, while inbetween doing 20 hours in the studio with Graeme Downes for the new Verlaines shiz. I got about 10 hours sleep on Friday and Saturday night combined, and have myself a serious dose of tinitus by the end of it. Yep Stuart, your going to make it past 50, sure!

Anyways let me "break it down" for all you folks back home. The Tweeks played a loose, sarcastic, yet generally up-beat set on Friday night. Logan and Chris have really hit their stride with the crowd interaction thing (something we've been terrible at in the past), and is a real highlight for me to witness from behind the drumkit.

OdESSA followed, and played amazingly as always. They really are one the country's great live bands, and they're really nice guys to boot. They have two things holding them back in my view: A lack of general direction "career" wise (stop laughing), and an inability to get there live energy captured on record.

Both of these things are probably some of the hardest things to do however, but the things that in my view really get my music phallus hard when done properly. The guys in OdESSA all seem to hold down reasonably steady jobs, and have steady girlfriends, and don't really seem to communicate all that much about future plans and stuff, so haven't managed to tour OZ or elsewhere apart from NZ. And the thing is they'd clean up overseas, they're so good live.

The capturing the "live" feel thing is another difficult thing to do... I think that perhaps there choice of producer, Aidan Mills, has something to do with this. Aidan is an incredible sound engineer (especially live), but I think he failed on finding an appropriate way to capture the bands live energy. The first record has some killer songs, but sounds a bit flat. The second record has some awful songs which should have been culled, a few good ones, a little bit better production, and a little bit better live energy, but still aspects sound a bit dull - the vocals probably mostly... Also there choice of artwork (one of the emo/punk tattooists, can't think of them right now) baffled me somewhat.

Anyways I won't won't go into the Verlaines recording too much - apart from to say I met Stephen Small, the guy who plays the keyboards with Graeme when he performs acousticly, and sometimes with the Verlaines. He is an incredible piano and keyboard player, and was a pleasure to meet and record. He also plays keyboards in a band called Autozamm.

Right, onto my rant. Readers out there may know I'm not the greatest fan of Autozamm. However, know that I know that a really awesome guy plays in the band, that I have a friendly relationship with, I'm probably not going to go around slagging them off as much, because I respect the guy in the band. This got me thinking, that as the most of the reviews and stuff are done in Auckland, the reviewers probably know people in most of the Auckland bands they review, and therefore don't critique them as harshly as they would of bands where they don't know anyone (i.e. bands from Dunedin). It's so much easier to really dig into a band in which you don't know anyone.

Thoughts?

Anywaysss onto the Biff Merchants' "Pants Optional, Pass the Parcel" party. I did sound for the Biff's and Emergency + Phone which was fine, but the highlight for me was naturally DJing my favourite music inbetween sets and after the gig, with my pants off, and wearing my Dad's fishing hat. Man I'm cool.

Robbie obviously wasn't feeling the music

Methven and Wellington

2008-09-05T20:03:00.011+12:00

Methven

Okay the next day we played the Blue Pub in Methven. It was a pretty standard night at the Blue for us. Logan, Chris, and Anthony got pretty shitfaced (Logan the most, Anthony the least) pretty early in the evening, and we played like total crap. Fortunately the crowd was even drunker than them and didn't seem to notice. Hell the crowd even seemed to kinda like it.

Now playing a long set of A sides, B sides, and covers isn't a highlight for these kinds of gigs, but playing on the same bill as a band made up of 30yr old Christians* certainly is. The band in question were called The Exchange, and they were actually booked in for the Friday night before we were. I think Luke was a little dubious about the quality of The Exchange and happily booked us as well.

As to the music, let's just have a good giggle aye? If different types of music was like the different kinds of sweets at the Willowbank dairy, The Exchanges would have been a 50c “Parachute” mixture, with a covering of Creed sauce. It was pretty bad and funny at the same time. You know the kind of bad funny when you can bear to watch the band for about half a song, then you think “fuck I actually can't stand this, this is shit.”

The Exchange. Raise "The Goat" motherfucker!

Anyways after the gig I was getting drunk and high (and the rest of the Tweeks were getting drunker and high), and the Exchange came upstairs to hang out. It was pretty funny watching them smoke and not knowing really how to use a cone and stuff. Ahhhhh I could go on about it but I won't.

Anyways the next day we had to get up kinda early and drive to the shitchurch airport, for our flight to Wellington. Logan was really hungover and really didn't look too well in the back of the van. The dude doesn't drink that often so when he does he has a tenancy to go overboard, which is kinda ironic cos he really can't handle his alcohol**. Anyways we managed to get into shitchurch airport, and onto to the plane no worries – which is a first for us – The Tweeks in the past are very prone to having their flights delayed. It really fucken sucks.

Wellington

We were picked up by our mate Chloe Lewis (from KOTAC) and got straight into Welli, enjoyed some curry, did a good interview with a dude (can't remember his name sorry – it was for the Late, Late Breakfast though) at Active, and got to the Mighty Mighty for setup and soundcheck.

Mighty Mighty is a fuckin great place to play. The people that run that bar, Matthew (forgotten his last name) the bar manager, Richard Neame (the events manager, big boss man), and Sally Rees (sound person) really kick arse. Rich saw on the poster that it was our video release tour, and asked us if we wanted to play the video in the bar. We said yes, and he went out of his way to organise the projector, screen, and all that hoo-nanny, which your average events manager wouldn't bother doing.

One of the support bands, the Dissentors, lent us their backline which was really awesome of them. This is pretty much the only way small touring bands can do things if they're flying, and borrowing gear can be a real headache. Often gear doesn't work, or isn't what we need etc etc, but the Dissentors stuff was fine. Fuckin' brilliant.

Sally did a great job of sound for us, with soundcheck lasting about about 20 minutes. We've had sound problems before at Mighty Mighty, but they've gone and invested a bit more money in the PA, and it was cranking.

Anyway we went back to Anthony's mum's house at Johnsonville, got a few hours chilling/sleep in, and then went back down to the venue to watch our first support band, Spoongoose play.
“Spoongoose, aren't they from Dunedin” you say. Well they are, but they moved up to Wellington a couple of months ago. They played a great set, with Alex Barker filling in for an absent Leilana Quinger (who is currently hanging out with some pinkos in Thailand). At times the crowd noise grew over there quiet acoustic songs, but mostly they managed to project their songs to a good crowd of interested listeners.

The Dissentors were really cool. The Wellington three-piece played a sweet set of noisy, twisted Dunediny pop music, that really reminded me of Onanon. I've noticed this tenancy for us to book and really get into noisy, interesting, yet sloppy sounding bands, while our band can end up sounding quite polished and poppy. Odd. Just saying.

The Dissentors ruling

We played probably our best ever North Island show. It was fuckin sweet. I'm not going to brag much more, but it really was fuckin' fun. Afterwards we Djed for a bit, until we got “distracted” by whatever was in the water, and ended up yarning away with our Wellington friends for ages. After the bar shut, Rich drank with us till about 8:30 in the morning. It was really awesome, though I really can't remember much from the hours 6 till 8:30. However this photo popped up on my phone, with the timestamp 7:47am.

Ow yeah thanks to Stu Young (from The Outsiders) for putting our posters up in Wellington. Fuckin' cheers!

*Readers should note that while I'm an Aestheist, I am not predjudiced to race, religion, gender, or sexuality. I just really hate Christian bands. Not bands that are made up of people who happen to be Christians, but bands who play “Christian Rock.” You know what I'm talking about.

**It should also be noted that when Logan is this drunk he's really really fuckin funny. In this photo you can clearly see Logan heckling someone (a Christian rocker), and me almost pissing my pants laughing.

The Dux De Lux, Shitchurch 28th August

2008-09-01T19:57:00.003+12:00

On Thursday we played at The Dux De Lux. I was lucky enough to fly up to Christchurch (or “shitchurch” as it's known in The Tweeks), as I wanted to squeeze another day of recording with the Verlaines in. This meant I missed out on the horrendously boring drive from Dunedin to Christchurch which I've done about a million times this year. Fuckin' tight.

Now I've talked about The Dux De Lux in Queenstown before, but not the Christchurch one. It is run by a very good venue manager, Ross Herrik. Ross is a very fair, straight up, pleasant dude. He is really really busy, and therefore quite difficult to get hold of to actually book a show with. However he always has time to chat to us, and seems genuinely interested in what we're up to.

I like to imagine that bars are an extension of the bar owners' personality. In this case Ross seems to be the type of fellow who enjoys cheese, cigarettes, beer, and music. The Dux De Lux pizzas have retarded amounts of cheese on them (which makes me quiver with pleasure – cheese is my favourite food). It has one of the best outdoor bar (and smoking) areas in the country, award winning beers which they brew on site, and live music 3 or 4 nights a week, almost all for free.

All in all, it's a pretty sweet place to go, though some people lament the affect the Dux's policy of no door charges has had on the shitchurch music scene, as apparently people can be pretty reluctant to pay door charges... I can't really comment as we haven't done many door gigs in shitchurch, but just puttin it out there ya'll.

We were supported by the Stefan Van Soest Hit Machine, a loose, poppy, band that remind me of old school Regurgitator and Presidents of the USA. They were fantastic. Marcus Winstanley from The Undercurrents did the sound for the gig, and the onstage sound was fuckin' bangin' for no soundcheck. Sweet.

Hit Machine!!!!

After the gig we were chaperoned by our mate Rose (who's parents play in the Bats), and took us to a party with the guys from the Insurgents, and another band oddly called Tweek. It was cool to catch up with all those cats, and smoke from their awesome Shisha thing. Bangin. Many thanks to Rose who let us crash at her place. Perfect.

The Thirsty Ram, 23 August, Queenstown

2008-09-01T18:58:00.004+12:00

“Well after last night's debacle, you all get one beer each, and as many soft-drinks as you want.”
“What is this, Hell?” I mused to myself.

"Hell"

In a way it kind of was. It was a Saturday night, and Sunset Cinema, plus myself and the rest of the Tweeks were at The Thirsty Ram, Queenstown's latest “live music, sport, and gaming” bar (it's two weeks old). Just think a cross between Diggers, Shooters, the Grumpy Mole, and any other country/western themed bar, except that there are no windows, and it's in Queenstown, which makes it worse.

“Why are The Tweeks playing at a place like that? Aren't they weird or indie or something?” your probably thinking to yourself. Well I'll tell ya. We got $1000 plus petrol to play there. And we're the type of band that'll do almost anything to get $1000.

Anyway let me give you a run down of our experience with the venue. We arrived, and the staff (I've forgotten their names already) were really helpful with helping us load our gear out of the van, into the venue. That's the first sign that the venue was new. Helping the band. Haha. Anyways, we ended up spending about 2 hours setting up and sound checking, because our boy Matt the sound engineer was pretty disorganised, and didn't really have that much of a handle of the sound system. He kept on getting us to sing acapellas which was a particularly bizarre and funny highlight of soundcheck.

While this was happening, someone from the bar (let's call him plonker #1) was fiddling around in the DJ booth, training some weird moving lights on us, and asking us what colour lights we wanted. I said “pink.” Needless to say the gig looked terrible, as the performers were shrowded in pink-tinted darkness.

Sunset Cinema chose the "yellow" lighting option.

At any rate, come 10:30, we watched our friends from Sunset Cinema play, we played, during which we were heckled by this English chick who kept on yelling “can you play some Libertines?” I replied something in the realm of,
“Sure, this one is called 'Up The Bracket,'” and then we proceeded to play yet another original. This continued for the majority of the set, and even a little bit afterwards while we packed down our gear. Fuckin' weird. Anywho, we loaded out, got paid our full amount, and drove straight back to Dunedin, as I had a 10am start recording the next Verlaines album.

Tweeks 160 Characters Gig.

2008-08-25T21:05:00.002+12:00

On Friday we (The Tweeks) played our first show of our “160 Characters video release” tour at The Backstage in Dunedin. We were joined by a solo Tono, and the DFenders. It was a solid night of music, and it was really great to somewhat formally acknowledge and thank Lucinda McConnon for all the work she put into the video.
It was really awesome to see Tono perform without the Finance Company (who are great by the way) for a change. The solo “format” showcased his amazing ability as a vocalist, and lyricist. He also treated the audience to a couple of his poems, which were absolutely hilarious.

The DFenders played a solid set, they just seem to be getting tighter and tighter. More importantly, they're starting to sound much more like a BAND, rather than a bunch of sausages (guys) who happen to play music together (which is one of my main criticisms of most bands).

Tom Bell did sound for the gig. He did an awesome job – like usual. That guy is one of the better live sound engineers in the country.

Anyway I'm not going to write any more, I'm totally exhasted from the weekend, which I'll tell ya'll about when I've had a bit more sleep.

The Tweeks re-press self-titled album

2008-08-17T16:34:00.005+12:00

Okay so when us at The Tweeks Ltd released our 2nd album, we decided to get 100 CDs printed, and about 40 USBs. We've run out of CDs, and our USB supplies are running low too.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bragging about selling out of units. Quite the opposite. I'd say of the 100 printed, probably half were given away. Shithouse aye? Radio stations, music reviewers, feature writers, etc all demand at least one (and sometimes up the 20) copies for individual DJs, give-aways, and whatever. They'res no shame in it either, they tell you how many to send. They'res no asking. I got asked by one person (Renee Jones from IMNZ) to send a second copy to her home address so she could listen to it before her show at bFM, when one had already been sent to her pidgeon hole at bFM. Of course almost all of these people haven't done anything with these CDs. We've had 3 printed reviews... All of which were shit. To date Real Groovy and Rip It Up still haven't reviewed a Tweeks CD EVER. EVER. God knows where all the CDs, press kits, merch that we send them ends up.

The shit thing is is that all these people don't really realise how much it costs to send these things away for an indie band. Sure the per unit cost of a CD is about $5 plus postage... But the thing is we sell these at gigs for $20, which means that it ends up feeling like we're giving hundreds of dollars worth of potential income... Which we need! I find the media's selfish expectance of freebees sickening, and wasteful.

I am actually seriously thinking about ringing these people up and demanding they send me the CDs back...

Anyway so we need some more. I emailed Amstore, the company who printed our first run of CDs, and they kept everything on file from last time, so I don't have to re-send them anything. They're such a fucking awesome company. Seriously we sent them our masters a week before our first album release gig, and they got the CDs to us right on time (including a proof!), no stress, no fucking around. It was amazing. They truely are a great company, and I'd recommend them.

I've gone the cheaper route before as well, getting CDs printed overseas (Dualplover and Corduroy Records)and whatnot. It's a fine option if you prepared to deal with 1-2month turnarounds, import duty, Malaysian public holidays, timezone differences, printing proof problems, etc etc. These days I'd rather spend the extra couple of hundred and not worry about all that shit.

How was that for a rant? Aye? Aye?

Future Sound Of Edin @ The Backstage

2008-08-16T20:22:00.010+12:00

On Wednesday night I had the pleasure of playing with The Alan Ibell Band at Chris Keogh's "Future Sound of Edin" night. Chris has been organising these nights for a year or so now, with the intention of showcasing up and coming young bands. This time it was with Molly Van Dijk, and The Tobacconists.

It was the first time I'd seen Molly play, and while being quite shy in between songs, she had a good voice and her songwriting showed promise. She played 6 folky, pop songs with an acoustic guitar. Her songs were perhaps too long for my liking, but what the hey, I couldn't write or perform that well when I was 17 - what the hell do I know?

Molly Van Dijk

The Tobacconists were sweet. They play a mixture of folk, bluegrass, and psychedelia. Tom plays an awesome resonator guitar, and the other guy (sorry I don't know his name) swaps between mandolin and violin. I personally enjoyed the music, but I wonder if others would appreciate what they're trying to do if they engaged more with the audience. They're quite shy people, but I think that they're songs perhaps could do with some more introduction and explanation... Tom's diction can be quite slurred (which I find cool), so I find the audience kind of need a few clues to get the songs for first-time enjoyment.

The Tobacconists. Seriously that has to be one of the best band names ever.

The Alan Ibell band played a shorter set than usual (featuring myself and Jeremy Clark), but it seemed relatively well recieved. I'm the rope-in drummer for Al's band, and we only had one practice before we played. Fortunately I know the songs well enough, and the drum parts are simple enough that I didn't make a complete fool of myself. Logan Valentine usually plays with the band but because of other commitments was absent. As a result the songs sounded perhaps a little barer than usual.

I should mention that I really like the Alan Ibell Band. I love the simplicity of the music, and the dark imagery in the lyrics. It's really fuckin awesome. He's putting out an album later this year, which is pretty cool.

Jeremy and Al

The band "rocking out" on "Zoo Song"

Anyway it was quiet, yet pleasant enough evening of music. Props.

A busy week for The Tweeks

2008-08-08T19:40:00.006+12:00

So this week has been a busy one. We gave four performances, one of which was acoustic, one at a high school, and one at benefit. Also our video surprisingly was played on C4's “Watch This Space” show. I seriously didn't believe that was going to happen. Of course we didn't an NZONAIR grant this week however, though you can see who did here. It's appalling.

Open Mic Live Recording

This Tuesday The Tweeks were invited to perform at Alastair Burns' open mic night at the Backstage. Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't a random jam night, as the title “open mic” might suggest. It was a collection of musicians performing 2 songs each, which was being recorded live by Tex Houston (credits including The Clean, The Hasslehoff Experiment, The Verlaines).

It was a pretty cool evening – other notable performances came from The Biff Merchants, and King Leo and the Growling Dogs. I have to give credit to Alastair for organising the Tuesday night open mic night. It's one of Backstage's most popular evenings, bringing in an eclectic crowd. For The Tweeks performing at open mic night was a really relaxed affair, and a great way to bring our music to people who would otherwise not get the chance to hear us. Thanks heaps to Alastair and Niamh for having us again, and I hope the CD comes out well.

The Tweeks at open mic

Pint Night Refuel

On Wednesday we played our first Refuel pint night in ages. We played alongside Oh My Golly! and Sunset Cinema. The gig was pretty decently attended, though you never really know who shows up to see the band, or just drink at a pint night. Chris Bull made a real effort doing our sound that evening, it sounded a whole lot better than last time we played there – though I really do not envy him doing sound in there. I used to work as a sound guy at Refuel, and that room is just not conducive to good sound.

Students for Free Tibet Fundraiser

Last night we played at the SFT fundraiser at the Backstage. Holy crap what a massive night that was! The lineup was monstrous: The Biffs, The Bones, Paper Planes, Knives at Noon, Mama Yeva, Monica Yoeman, Best Boys Electric, and Sunset Cinema. Backstage must have at least 200 people in the bar when we played. Unfortunately I had just come down with a fever and was barely able to hold it together. I don't really know how I managed to play, but I did – wavering tempo and all. Fuck I hate being sick. Thanks to The Biff for swapping time slots with us. That was a really kind thing to do.

Rockquest Mentoring Programme.

Today (Friday) we met up at our practice room at 7:45am, packed the van, and drove to Wanaka to play a gig with and mentor the current Central Otago Rockquest winners, The Slur-Tones. The Rockquest mentoring programme is one of the few government music funding schemes that I actually endorse. Bands get invited by the Glenn Common, the Rockquest manager to go to the school of a rockquest finalist, play a gig at the school in lunchtime, and hang out with the kids for an hour imparting advice (and industry gossip). We get a grand for our troubles, and the kids get real interaction with real, touring musicians.

The Slur-Tones were a really tight unit, and it was obvious that they had outclassed everyone at the Rockquest regional finals. They had good stage presence, tightness, melodies, and arrangements. They were also really nice guys, and were genuinely interested in whatever smack we were talking. Anyway straight afterwords we jumping into the van and drove back to Dunedin. What a day.

2008-08-05T18:00:00.004+12:00

So last week I sent away DVDs of The Tweeks new video to Alt TV, and C4. Between me and Logan we came up with this. I think it's pretty funny.

_______________________
Tweeks Leave You; Tube awaits.

The Tweeks newest music video, ‘160 Characters’, has been accepted for uploaded on YouTube. “It’s been tagged as a music-video, which is quite an accomplishment” enthuses drummer Stu Harwood. “With so much traffic on the Information Superhighway, it’s really hard to break through, and we’re really glad to be given the chance.” Directed by Lucinda McConnon in May 2008 ‘160 Characters’, features several beautifully crafted cellphone suits, a broken acoustic guitar, and a girl with a TV for a head.

In other news, The Tweeks have confirmed relocation rumors. “We were so keen on Bulgaria, but couldn’t raise the money for a house; so we’ve settled on London,” remarked guitarist Chris Keogh. The video-release tour will be their last, before departure in October this year.

See The Tweeks one last time, unless you’re from Auckland, ha!

August:

22 Dndn. Backstage w/ The Defenders and Tono & The Finance Company

28 Chch. Dux de Lux w/ The Steffan van Soest Hit Machine

29 Methven. Blue Pub w/ The Exchange

30 Wgtn. Mighty Mighty w/ The Dissentors and Spoongoose

For further information contact Stuart Harwood
Phone: +64 21 467 590
Email: stu.harwood gmail.com
www.thetweeks.co.nz
www.myspace.com/thetweeks

Vibrasics pay Lewis' Mum

2008-08-03T21:21:00.008+12:00

This weekend Vibrasics played it's last ever shows in Wanaka and Queenstown. Matt Brook (bass) is leaving for London at the end of this month, so we decided the do these last shows, pay off our debt, and throw in the towel.

Vibrasics owed about 800 bucks to our major sponsor, Lewis Waite's (keys) mum. She bought us our plane tickets for our last summer tour, and due poor returns at the ticket booth, we never paid her back. Fortunately we got offered 1.5K to play at Shooters, and 500 to play at Revolver that weekend, so we basically paid off our debts, got drunk on the band money, and came home. Brilliant.

So first off we on Friday we grabbed an essential touring item: The Hirequip shuttle trailor. This is a great trailer, which fits a full backline with plenty of room to spare. However when hiring these one has to remember to get a padlock to secure the catch for the trailer door. Naturally we left the band “padlock” “somewhere,” so using our kiwi ingenuity we used a by product from another industry standard item (Nippy's Iced Coffee) to secure the door. Brilliant – just don't tell my insurance company (AON insurance – the only musicians insurance provider).

The Nippy's iced beverages range

The Ingenious "Straw Lock" system

Anyway we made it to Shooters in one piece, met up with Grenville from Entertainment Solutions (a good PA hire company in Wanaka), and set up for the evening. The venue was kind enough to feed us, and give us a shit load of beer (another essential touring item). Brilliant.

The bar manager that evening (I forget his name now), was a really nice dude, and asked if we could start playing early, because punters leave in droves after their “Happy Hour” finishes every evening. We obliged, and played live hip hop to a bunch of very uninterested, and mildly bemused tourists and locals. The highlight of the gig was the really drunk girl from the U.S. asking us to “play some American music.” Lewis replied,
“You came all the way over here to hear American music?”

So yeah, a pretty flat average gig. I thought we played pretty tight, and were in good spirits generally given the averageness of the situation. Fortunately we got a massive fee, and got really drunk on the band money in other bars later.

Vibrasics give Shooters the jazz hands

The next day we arose and made our way over to Revolver in Queenstown. Revolvers a pretty cool live music venue. It's got a whoppingly awesome PA system (A $100K turbosound rig), a nice interior, an enthusiastic (maybe too enthusiastic) sound man (Mark), and great bar staff. We set up, soundchecked, got an awesome burger from Fergburger, passed out for a bit in the backpackers, then went down to the venue.

Revolver at soundcheck

So basically the gig was completely dead. We didn't really care – it was our last show in Queenstown, we had a good fee, and we were going to party afterwards anyways. It must be really difficult to run a bar in Queenstown however, as there is so much competition in that town, and with such a transient crowd very little chance to try establish a meaningful culture around an establishment. The owner Jono seems to take it in good stride however, has bought the local radiostation Inferno, and is actively involved with the Queenstown skate and snowboarding community.

Revolver from Shotover street

All in all it was a pretty fun weekend away, everyone was in decent humour, and it was good to wrap up the band's business without too much trouble.

RFM Leaving Party @ Sammy's

2008-07-27T17:24:00.004+12:00

So on Friday night RFM (Retrophonic Funk Machine) had their official breaking up party. It was ambitious affair, held at Sammy's nightclub, with 9 bands and 2 DJ's: Tono and the Finance Company, 'Koile, The 'Bones, Biff Merchants, RFM, Vibrasics, The Tweeks, Julian Temple Band, Left or Right, DJ Getafix, and DJ Boof.

Tim Walsh whips up a trombone solo.

I got roped into doing sound with Andy Straight, which was cool; I get kind of anxious at these sorts of big gigs (which I'm playing at), and doing sound is a good way for me to participate in the event, and a good excuse not to make annoying small talk when I can't be fucked. It also pays, and I enjoy the nerdyness of doing live sound.

Thank fuck I didn't have to put a mic infront of that

Anyway onto the venue. Sammy's is a bangin' venue. It's huge, you can see the stage from anywhere, the acoustics are good, and most importantly, it's purpose built for entertainment. Well, it was purpose built for entertainment about 80 years ago (I actually have no idea how old Sammy's is), as a caberet, theatre type venue.

Lewis Waite crankin' with Vibrasics

There are certainly problems with the venue - don't get me wrong... It's been run-down for years, and the new owners have bought into a massive - and I mean massive task of cleaning, re-fitting, and upgrading. It's going to take years to get to it's former glory, if the owners can stay afloat! Hopefully they can.

The gig. I'm not going to go on about every act, but I will say RFM played their tightest, most energitic performance in years. I was really proud of them. They've obviously progressed as a band and as individuals by performing together. I mean hell, they've toured NZ, successfully released an album, and improved dramatically as musicians.

500+ people came to the gig to show their support, and plenty stayed right till the end (4am-ish) partying and enjoying the music. I was stoked. I haven't seen that many people out at Sammy's before (even at gasp - Holly Smith).

Iain Dangerfield

It was awesome. Bye bye RFM.

"160 Characters" video up on Youtube!

2008-07-24T14:35:00.006+12:00

Hey all,

So I finally uploaded The Tweeks' new music video, for the song "160 Characters." Mucho credits to Lucinda McConnon (aka The Sneaky Spoon) for having the vision, skills, and bodaciousness to put this business together. Fuckin' tight.

The video was made as part (or full?) of a design paper Lucinda was doing, and was shot over several random mornings (including a 7am start at Rialto - shudder), afternoons, and evenings at a multitude of Dunedin locations. Anyway it's fuckin' awesome. It's on Youtube - sweet. With a bit of hicklety-picklety I'm sure Anthony will be able to link it to our Myspace, and Facebook pages.

Now the question is, can we get it on NZ TV? HAH! Stay posted for the ensuing drama.

The Alan Ibell Band, with Tono & The Finance Company and The Biff Merchants

2008-07-22T23:13:00.004+12:00

On Saturday I had the honor of performing in the Alan Ibell band. It was a pretty cool evening, featuring Tono & The Finance Company, and The Biff Merchants in support.

The Alan Ibell Band

Both the support bands really played well. The Biff Merchants played in their “quieter” setup, in which Ben (the drummer) plays with a makeshift box thing which has incredible aggressive kick drum sound, just “turned down.” So basically the whole band could just turn down to his level, and they sounded clear, crisp,and tight. The New Main Street Singers from A Mighty Wind would be proud.

Some Biffs earlier in the day

Tono et al played well also, though by this stage I was starting to get distracted by some elements of the cafe's furniture arrangement for live gigs (sorry guys, nothing good for the press kit in here hehe):

Something really needs to be done about the position of the couches, coffee tables, and lunch tables around the bar. The bar is the place I want to hang around (for it's easy access to beer – which is delicious and cheap at Circadian Rhythm), yet it suffers bottlenecking. As everyone standing are squashed to the bar side of the room it's difficult to see the band if your a few people back from the front “row.” However I don't really know if there's anywhere to really put any of the furniture in that building, and I'm sure that the owners make much better money off running the place as a restaurant rather than a venue.

If I was smart I would have taken photos of this. Sorry.

Anyway that was really a minor annoyance given the quality of the music and the great people at the gig. I really enjoyed the company of the people involved with the evening, with extra-curricular highlights including a late night business meeting in the nearby alleyway, and Tono getting Logan to by him a “bottle of red” at 3am. I saw him 10 hours later, and it wasn't a happy sight.

The Finance Company

In other news I sent off my Working Holiday Visa application to the British High Commission today (530 something dollars later). Hopefully they don't think I'm a security threat, and grant me 2 years access to their country.

The Tweeks in Queenstown

2008-07-19T18:31:00.005+12:00

Last night it was The Tweeks' turn to play at The Dux De Lux in Queenstown. It was a reasonably low-key affair, with a relatively chilled out crowd. We have realised that this is pretty much the best result for gigs in Queenstown. We got to go through our set without heckling from country yokels or drunken tourists, while quietly powering through our bar rider.

As The Tweeks Ltd is in a reasonable amount of financial bother at the moment (or “in the shit"), we opted to save on costs and did the gig without a support band. This meant that in order to fill out the evening we had to whip out some older songs, and a few covers. While it was quite funny to subject the audience to an unrehearsed version of “I Don't Care” by The Ramones, performing songs from our back catalogue can cause some unwanted self-reflection on the bands progress, especially while onstage. Some of the songs we played last night were 6 years old (written whilst in 2nd year in the contemporary rock paper), and performing them alongside some of our newest stuff highlighted how much the band had changed since then. I could bore you with details but I won't. Needless to say playing some of the older ones was also quite depressing and added enthusiasm to the band's onstage alcohol abuse.

Anyhow it's 2:40pm, I'm in the Mosgiel Shell station, and I'm playing tonight with the Alan Ibell band. All I can think about are hangover remedies. Do I go for the coffee and nurofen? The jazz cigarette and Wayne's World combo? Maybe the Lucozade and sleeping mask?

The Wicks and Sunset Cinema Tour July

2008-07-13T18:21:00.003+12:00

So this weekend I did sound in Dunedin, Queenstown, and Christchurch for The Wicks, Sunset Cinema, Bang! Bang! Eche! and Oh My Golly! It was rather timely as I needed to get to Christchuch anyway to give the British Consulate my “biometric” information (fingerprints and photo) for my working holiday visa for the UK. More on that another time, but yes I'm moving away on the 16th of October to London.

I originally was just going to mix my mates band Sunset Cinema (Matt Brook, DJ Champion, Samdrub Dawa, Lee Nicholson, and Will Jensen) in return for free travel, but it turned out that the Wicks hadn't organised anyone to do sound for them so I ended up getting paid to do the whole lot. Brilliant.

But yea the first show was at The Backstage, which featured a reasonable turnout for a Wednesday night (competing with The Taliband at pint night at Refuel). It was advertised as having half-priced drinks but it appeared no-one in the staff working that night knew about it so naturally people (on both sides of the bar) were disgruntled (I hear however that from now on it will always be half-priced drinks on Wednesdays there). Anyway it was On My Golly!'s first ever show, and they received encouraging support from the audience. Good on 'em. However from a soundperson's point of view I really don't like the whole laptop/midi keyboard thing unless it's done properly (Oh My Golly! and Sunset Cinema were both guilty of this). The factory sound output of a laptop is terrible – buzzing, instability, etc etc. Oh yea and it takes Adam from Oh My Golly!'s laptop about 10 minutes to boot up.

The next day we boosted to Queenstown and setup at The Dux. The Dux is a pretty sweet place to play. They provide you with a reasonable guarantee, a good small vocal PA, and a meal and a few beers. Often crowds can be pretty disinterested and sparse, but hey that's what rural gigs are like. One thing to look out for is while Caleb Finn is enthusiastic and genuine, he can be prone to double booking bands, so when booking there you have to make sure stuff is all confirmed through emails to be safe.

Anyways the gig went well, the PA worked fine, and afterwards Matt and I stayed at DJ's parents place, which features an awesome outdoor spa. Needless so say we enjoyed a (NOT GAY) naked spa at 1:00am. Perfect.

Sunset Cinema performing at the Dux

The next day me and Matt got up really early (7:30am) and started the drive to Christchurch. It's a pretty freakin' long drive (6-7 hours), and we had to be in the square at 3:20pm to make our appointments at the British Consolute. The drive was reasonably pleasant – I spent most of the time on my computer doing my freakin' tax return. Anyways we arrived safely, did the visa stuff, and then met up with The Wicks at The Dux in Christchurch for soundcheck.

The Dux in Christchurch is a sweet venue for small bands. You get a good guarantee (which is a rarity in main centres), and a small rider. Anyways we hurriedly soundchecked (the Dux is in a residential zone, and therefore has very strict times when bands can soundcheck and play). The system sounded fine on first listen, a few channels weren't working, though this is normal for NZ club systems so I wasn't too worried.

When it came to the gig I realised why engineers that do sound for my bands when we play through here complain about the system... Once there are a few people in the room, and the band is charging, it starts sounding pretty boxy, and is underpowered. The venue has the main PA settings locked so you can't fiddle with it (which is probably good for the overall safety of the system in the hands of inexperienced operators).

Otherwise the gig went reasonably smoothly, with all the bands putting on energetic shows, and the mid-sized crowd being enthusiastic. After the Sunset Cinema guys and myself said our goodbyes to The Wicks, then did the usual supermarket beer mission and faffed around at Will's girlfriend's (Helen) parent's place. Awesome.

So all in all a relaxed, reasonably well organised tour. Cheers to all the guys from The Wicks and Sunset Cinema for having me along. I'll post some pics up once I get my (parents) camera out of DJ's car.

Coughing and gagging on vomit

2008-07-09T16:48:00.010+12:00

Yesterday I sent one of these in. You must by now know that I hate doing this shit.

It is a funding application for the NZONAIR "New Recording Artist" scheme. New artists are meant to send in a demo, and then they might pick you and give you $5K to record it, and another $5K to make a video. So I did what most other bands do, take an already professionally mixed song (in this case "Happened Before" by The Tweeks), muted the echo effect, spring reverb, close drum mics, etc, to "downgrade" the song to "demo" quality.

Maybe we'll get a return on our investment.

By the way, speaking of investment, did you know that Liam Finn recieved both a video grant, and a radio hits rebate last year? So I paid tax so that one of the most priviledged under-30's in the music industry in New Zealand could get more money!!

Yes that's right, the same Liam Finn who recorded his record in his father's million-dollar studio Roundhead

For free.

I don't think that Liam Finn really needs a 5K video grant, or a rebate on recording costs for his music. Does he? Surely his father could dip into the cash that stuff his pillows that he sleeps on every night for that money? (I love the idea of Neil Finn dozing off to sleep on a pillowcase of money humming "don't dream it's over," don't you?)

Doesn't it seem a little bit silly?

Now don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Betchadupa, and Liam Finn's solo stuff. I really dig his shiz. Really dig it. But seriously whoever from his management/label/whatever made the desicion to go for that funding must be really fuckin greedy. That's bollocks.

And to the Finn's: Please don't get angry with this post and try to destroy my fragile music career! I really like your fam's music! Please don't hurt me!

I feel sick in my mouth

2008-07-04T21:44:00.003+12:00

So the other day I filled out some of these forms:

Yep, to some in the "industry," they'll be familiar. They're video funding application forms for NZONAIR. Every couple of months most bands in the country go through with this ritual of picking their most "tv-friendly" track, burning it to a CD, and sending it in to NZONAIR, and after a couple of months find out (via the kiwihits website) that they didn't get any funding for their music video.

Well, at least, that's my experience. I've been doing it since 2002. Why do I still do it? I don't usually actually.. I stopped throwing CDs, printer paper, and envelopes out (well effectively anyway) a year ago. I found the exercise to be pretty much pointless. That was until this band got funding for their wicked song "Love and Economics." Awesome huh?

Now I'm usually one to be against shit like NZONAIR music video, album, and new release funding. They've got a bad track record of giving money to (major) signed bands with poor songs, staying power, interest, x-factor. What really fucks me off is that many of these bands actually don't need any extra cash to help them make a music video... They're signed to majors who think their 3-day-old manties are the business. Let's look at some questionable desicions.

Goodnight Nurse

Hard To Watch You Go

Mushroom Records

Shihad Rule The World Warner Music
Elemeno P Loaded Gun Universal Music

I mean seriously - c'mon! These are bands who have sold shitloads of CDs in NZ. They don't need 5K to help them make a video!! What is up with that? And then there's the argument that none of these bands (and there are many more) have actually managed to make any serious dints outside of their home territorys, propably because the music they make is just a shit copy of overseas mainstream stuff.

Another thing I have against all this carryon as well is the amount of money been thrown around. I think it's too much.
"What?" you cry, "5k is a bare bones recording budget - I'd have to get volunteers, skimp out of lighting, minimise rehearsal, get moonlight editing rates, and I won't be able to get the good Auckland coke that I know the director likes." Well for the bands I hang around with down here in filthy old Dunedin, we do videos for less than 1K most of the time, record albums (including mastering) for around 2-3K, and tour NZ on 1K (if it's a real blowout).

Now that I think about it - 5K would be the perfect package for a Dunedin band. With that you could record an album, do a video, and have enough money afterwards to do a radio campaign.

Am I crazy? Or is the world crazy? Ahhh anyway congratulations to Tono! I think they're thinking of touring Oz or something with that cash or something. Awesome. Never fear I'll let you know what they think of my applications (did you like the printed out CD-R? It's the first time I've ever done that for NZONAIR.... Maybe I've got a shot after all... Probably not).

Recording drums for Al Ibell, take 1

2008-06-28T18:51:00.004+12:00

Al Ibell asked me to play drums on his "almost finished" recording. So basically it means recording over an almost finished song, which is different to the way I'm used to recording (i.e. either alone, or with a band at the same time). It's a pretty different skill, and kinda cool to experiment with adding rhythmic textures to an already basically completed recording.

So today I recorded the first song "Sad Orchestra." Al wanted a vintage-type drum sound, so we recorded my old rogers drum kit with 2 ribbon microphones. Here's some photos.

Pretty cool aye?

Fuck I'm a nerd.

Thanks to Logan for the photography. Truely magic stuff.

Jazz school syndrome #1

2008-06-28T13:12:00.003+12:00

So Vibrasics played support for Christchurch-based, jazz school student band "Locean" last night. It was poorly attended. We agreed to play this show a couple of months ago, when the band got in touch with us over Myspace. Here's a rant.

I started getting wind that it was going to be a "blah" gig early this week, when I realized I hadn't seen any promotion for it... Uh oh - unknown CHCH band plays Friday night gig without decent promo - bad idea. Ah well, so I get an email midweek from Tim Driver with an attached poster and an open invite for the support bands to help out with posters. Needless to say I was way too busy and didn't do anything, especially at such late notice.

Anyway on Friday I was openly optimistic about hearing a new band, and meeting some new people. Vibrasics showed up, played first (the best if your playing support, it means you get to drink the majority of the drinks rider while the other bands are playing), and we met some of the people from Locean. The ones that introduced themselves to me were really nice, and we had a bit of a chat.

One of the guys even offered to split the cash from the gig 3 ways (RFM also played) - I of course refused. It is pretty much a given that touring indie (independent) bands should get most, if not all of the door money. They're on tour, the locals aren't. This favour is repaid when the situation is reversed. Anyway I actually don't know for sure what happened with the cash last night - I was too drunk and had to go home by 2am.

Anyways so RFM played their best set i'd seen them play in ages. Paul MK filled in for Andy on drums and did a really great job. I even enjoyed Tim's trombone solos (for the wrong reasons of course haha). Dave Eely Djed in-between the bands, and played a really interested eclectic set of remixed classic funk and hiphop tracks which I enjoyed (don't get me wrong - I used hate that kind of stuff).

So anyways Locean. This band is made of a bunch of reasonably talented jazz students. They can all play their instruments competently, sometimes with flair. However they look like a bunch of people who want to be playing different music to their "soul, jazz, dub, breaks combo," apart from their lead singer, who seemed pretty into it.

Bass Player - metal.

Guitarist - church music

Drummer - drum and bass?

Horn section - dub

So yeh it kinda just looked a bit awkward onstage, and the songs seemed pretty underdeveloped as well. Don't get me wrong, they were lovely people, and the music was well played, I just thought that the group of people didn't play together like a solid unit, and I wasn't sold on the songs. I think that once the songwriting becomes a little more mature, and they fully sort out their lineup - they'll probably be able to hold their own - if Holly Smith hasn't ruined it for them already. But hey, they're booked to play Winterfest tonight in Queenstown for "Jazz night" with other NZ music "greats" such as Tahuna Breaks and Katchafire.

And thus Jazz school syndrome #1.

btw if anyone has photos from the evening flick them through and I'll stick them up.

Digital Distribution 101

2008-06-21T18:20:00.005+12:00

Okay so I thought I better let ya'll into a "not so big secret" about digital distribution.

If you want iTunes to "stock" your CD, you have a few options as to how to go about getting your music on there.

Option #1. Directly set yourself up as a music provider with Apple. This involves applying to Apple for distribution as a music label. The most long-winded approach (though you'll make the most money).

Option #2. Get someone in NZ who already has a hookup with Apple to do it for you (this usually involves a fairly hefty commission). Loop does it, and they take 20%.

Option #3 (This is the best one). Get CDBaby to sort it all out. This is the same pretty much as option #2, except they're based in Portland, Oregan. They also distribute your record to shitloads of other online music stores, and only take 9%. They're pretty freakin' awesome, really honest, and really fast. You can sell physical CDs there as well. The Tweeks have had some success with them, and the Julian Temple Band (though probably under the JuJu Crew name) by all accounts have had good success.

I post this because I just checked The Tweeks' digital distro on CDBaby, and we're on all these. Awesome huh?

PayPlay

and of course our own CDBaby page

Most incredible review ever

2008-06-20T14:08:00.005+12:00

Okay so my boy in Auckland "Magic" Alex Barker found the Groove Guide review. Is has to be the shittist review I've read in ages. Now don't get me wrong - this is not the forum where I complain about my bands getting negative reviews, but check this out. Even the cover art is incorrect (it's from our first album - You Can Listen Too). Now compare it to the mixed review "Dave Local" (David Ager) wrote about our live show on dunedinmusic.com, which in my opinion was researched much better.

So Andrew Ferguson - you failed. D-

The saga continues

2008-06-19T13:03:00.003+12:00

Haha so I got this email today from Leonie at Groove Guide.

Hi again,
I was just going through some recent issues and your Tweeks review is in the
issue that came out on June 4th, with Liam Finn on the cover.
Chuck me your address and I'll send you a copy if you need it.
Cheers,
Leonie

Decent! I guess things must have been a bit messy with the changeover of editors huh?

Let's hope it's not too scalding!

Groove Guide

2008-06-18T16:32:00.004+12:00

Haha so this is the email I got from Groove Guide today, after I emailed them asked when they were going to review my (Tweeks) CD.

Hi there,
It's Leonie here. Kerryanne has moved on and I'm her replacement as editor.
Unfortunately for you that means I have no idea who she gave your CD to, to
review.
I'm really sorry!
I'll let you know as soon as someone submits it.
Best,
Leonie

Ahhhh struth. I also emailed Shayne Gilchrist from the ODT as well, but he didn't reply. So far after the release of our sophmore album, no one has reviewed it. Seriously this is pretty fucked up. I guess it must be really shit!

Quick tour update, and Vibrasics video shooting

2008-06-17T22:05:00.003+12:00

Cool so The Tweeks August tour dates are confirmed.

Thursday 28th The Dux de Lux CHCH

Friday 29th The Blue Pub Methven

Saturday 30th The Mighty Mighty Wellington.

Cool. I paid for the plane tickets (640), which is sweet. All the shows are guarantee shows so I know exactly how much we've got for additional transport and promo. Tight.

So now the others are onto press/posters etc. Yay.

In other news Vibrasics' video started shooting today! It is the brain-child of Dave. Here's a sneak pic.

TFF, Babystock, and The Blue Pub

2008-06-15T19:42:00.004+12:00

This weekend was a relatively busy one for me. On Friday I had the pleasure of recording the recent Otago regional rockquest winners TFF (The Fuckin' Fuckers). They were pleasant enough boys, and had some pretty decent musical ideas. They are the unfortunate victims of a current dunedinmusic.com flame war... Ahhh high school.

On Friday night The Tweeks “donated” a reasonably loose and sarcastic set for a charity gig called “Babystock”, run by a local musician/med student by the name of Eamonn Deverall. The gig raised money for a new ultrasound machine in the Philippines. It was well promoted and well run, and apparently they raised enough money to buy the machine! Well done! From The Tweeks' point of view, our onstage sound was shit, and we played a bit crap. Ahhh well the crowd seemed kinda into it.

Speaking of onstage sound, the onstage sound HAY MAN! had in The Blue Pub in Methven was great! In fact, the whole gig was freakin' fantastic. The Blue Pub is right up there with The Redcliff Cafe in Te Anau in terms of an awesome rural gig to play.

Now let me explain to you some things about rural gigs. In many ways they are an oxymoron when compared to “city” gigs. For one, the band almost always gets paid a reasonably good guarantee. They will also get good meal, accommodation, and a generous bar tab. The band will also have to play for about three hours, to a few country bumpkins who want to hear “The Gambler,” “To Be With You” etc. Dragon's “April Sun in Cuba” would probably be considered “edgy”. So yeah, you can imagine what it's like when a bunch of skinny white guys sporting “gay” haircuts jump onstage straight after the rugby in one of these places.

Now the experience of playing a rural gig can be horrific, scary, and plain depressing. It can also freakin' rule. Welcome to The Blue Pub. Every time I played there Luke Piper, the bar manager, has been the most incredible host. We were made to feel totally welcome and comfortable, he wasn't demanding, and put up with our constant demanding for drinks once our tab had run out at about 2am. More importantly, he'd talked up HAY MAN! to all the local's and by about halfway through the night they were up jumping around, doing the twist, pulling the fingers, getting on the microphone, and asking us to play Stereophonics songs.

Now as I said earlier, we had great onstage sound. This is all due to the fact that the Blue Pub is one of the few rural venues to have it's own, fully working, full-range sound-system. They also provide you with Chris, a quiet, likable sound guy. In fact the only venue in New Zealand I can think of that also provides this is Mightymighty in Wellington! Isn't that mental?

So there ya go, ring up Luke at the Blue Pub, and book yourself in – if you can get a spot!

media done properly

2008-06-11T23:05:00.003+12:00

Remember yesterday's rant about how The Tweeks can't afford to send CDs to the media anymore?

Well check out this guy: "gerd aka dj ottic," from Sinzig, Germany requested a CD. I told him to download it. He replied,

"hello,

thanks for your reply. i´m looking forward to play your music soon.
stay tuned for playlists & feedback.

best regards
gerd aka dj ottic"

Now what a nice guy. For that I'll let his little "plural issue" go. B-nets - take note!

Gig booking update

2008-06-11T15:43:00.002+12:00

So after consulting the band last night about what to do about this free date, we've decided to try play another show in Canturbury. So I hit up Luke Piper, the guy who books The Blue Pub in Methven, while Anthony filled out the online booking form for The Wunderbar in Lyttleton.

I haven't heard from Anthony yet about The Wunderbar, but Luke got straight back to me. The deal there is they don't usually do bands on Fridays (the 29th of August is a Friday), but he's pretty keen to get us back and is trying to jiggle things around with another band to let us play that date. What a good cunt!

Anyways we'll see what the dealio is soon!

Also HAY MAN! are playing there this weekend for the "start of the ski season" party. It's going to be outrageous. I'll let you'll know how it goes after!

First real rant

2008-06-10T23:23:00.002+12:00

Okay so today I was trying to sort out a date for this Tweeks tour that I'm booking. We desperately need a gig on the 29th of August, as we're in CHCH the night before, and Wellington the night after. We wanted to play Auckland of the 29th, but after several reasonably off-putting (though retartedly common) incidents I decided to drop it.

I got my girl Fleur at KiwiFM, and "Magic" Alex to give me lists of venues up there at the moment which are worth performing at. Here's the results (note this is abridged, this is the result of 1 weeks ringing/emailing/begging). Ow, also Andrew Tidbull from cheeseontoast.co.nz was reasonably helpful.

Whammy: Booked
King's Arms: Booked
Coherent: No one answers the phone
The Basement Bar: They have a venue hire fee, and it's booked.
Dog's Bollix: Booked
Backbeat: No reply to email
Masonic: There's no way I'd play there again under normal circumstances.

But what really tipped it off was ringing Simon from The Thirsty Dog. After a few attempts to get in touch, the phone finally rang, he picked up and I said "Hey it's Stu Harwood here from The Tweeks-"
Simon replied "Can you hold please?" and then put down the phone.

I waited for 5 minutes as he had a chat to someone in the bar, with my phone credit rapidly diminishing. At this point I thought to myself "fuck this," and gave up on Auckland for this round.

In good news, us at The Tweeks got a sneak peak at our newest video. It looks awesome. I'll post it up once I'm allowed.

Oh yeah, and Rob Forbes from http://www.leicesterbangs.co.uk/ wants to review The Tweeks' new album. That's kind of nice. No-one in the New Zealand media has reviewed our yet, despite pretty much all the outlets having a copy.

However I went to their site and it says they're not interested in MP3s and stuff. They want to review the actual package. Uh oh!

So what that means is that they want a free copy of the album. Now this sort of practice is actually really common. However when your in a really poor Dunedin band, and you've almost run out of your first run of 100 CDs , and can't afford to press the next 100 cos your still in debt from your last tour things get trickier. Yep, the email I send Rob is gonna be a cracker!

Fuck it, I might just send this guy a real copy, as he's actually asked for it, unlike all these NZ people who got free ones, and haven't done anything with them apart from probably play a "hilarious" round of office Frisbee.

Anyway nighties for now

First real blog

2008-06-10T23:08:00.000+12:00

Okay so here goes. My name is Stu Harwood. I play in several bands in Dunedin, New Zealand. This blog will hopefully relieve my frustration at dealing with "players" in New Zealand music "industry." This will include booking gigs/tours, negotiating licensing, organising promotions, playing shows, recording, distributing and marketing albums, and whatever else for The Tweeks, Vibrasics, and The Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band HAY MAN!

So yeh I'm not fucking around. Noticed how I used my real name? Yep you saw it. That means I'm going to use YOURS in this blog as well. Enjoy.

Testing 123

2008-06-10T23:05:00.000+12:00

This is Stuart from Borderline, checking that this shiz works..... Does it?