Farmstock

For the past few months I (plus a few helpful friends) have been organising Farmstock, a concert/mini-festival at my house (which is almost a farm) in Oratia.


Last night it happened and went great! Avalanche city had to pull out due to vomiting+187 Gangsters (a comedy hip-hop act who may or may not also be a popular local band) plane from Sydney got delayed and cancelled but it worked out well as it made for a more relaxed running order.

Right now I am exhausted. I was out the door at 8 on Saturday to pick up the PA from Musicworks (who kindly sponsored the event) and almost didn't stop (excpet for a lunch break) till 5 when I had a quick shower and was back out ready to do sound for the whole evening.

When the "stage" was delivered at about 11am I discovered that the lady on the phone hadn't looked at the stage and just read from her computer screen the dimensions and it was considerably smaller than she had said... We ended up sending the stage back and getting it refunded. Dad and I collected pallets from neighbours and used the massive super heavy pallet thing from behind our packing shed to put together a stage at least 3 times the size of the one I had booked!

That was the only major hitch, otherwise everything ran smoothly, no noise complaints, no rain, enough people showed up. Overall I think a good time was had by everyone!

Here are some photos of my hard work+bands and some videos too (slightly poor quality on my cheap camera, but its the thought that counts right?)

Chelsea Jade

John Bristow

Mali Mali
The Wicks


Phil Austen and the Bayonets

Subterranes

Lisa Crawley



The Gladeyes

Great North

Jocee Tuck

Jocee Tuck - Seven Years

Recorded this on my camera at the Womens Refuge show yesterday, enjoy!

Womens Refuge Fundraiser

Spent a fun afternoon at St Kevins Aracade doing sound for a Women's Refuge fundraiser run by my good friend Grace. Went and picked up the PA with Chis from Zeal and had a fun afternoon with good music! Heres some pics, I think I only missed photos of Chelsea Jade who played with James Duncan and was INCREDIBLE! I am looking forward to her playing at Farmstock this Saturday (which is a concert at my house) I have some video of Jocee to upload on to youtube so will put that up here soon too!

Great North Album

I was very happy to start work on Great Norths album this weekend, Hayden popped over a few weeks ago and we made a quick recording of him singing through the songs with an acoustic guitar, they're really good. I am quite excited to get on and hear them fully formed!

This weekend we tracked drums, bass, acoustic guitar, guide keys for 6 of the proposed 9 songs and on one of the slower numbers "I Feel Alive" Hayden pulled a touching vocal take out of the bag which was tracked live with the rest of the band!

We're going for a much more natural sound this time around, no click tracks, less mics (despite the amount I put out I think I will probably only go for one or two on the drums). We're going to be re-tracking the piano parts on a real acoustic piano (thank goodness! I hate fake piano). We're even going to be attempting tracking another of the quieter songs all live in my lounge with the piano we have in there and everyone in the same room (except maybe Strahan, hes a noisy boy!)

I can't wait! Will keep you informed as to how its all going in the new year

Pink Pound Experience back!

Pink Pound Experience came back last Tuesday for another song, should be done and on their myspace soon. We got stuck for a synth bass part, the synth lines were sounding too busy, I ended up suggesting real bass through a big muff which we used and then synth over the instrumental. Was a pretty fun day of experimenting though and I'm happy with how its sounding now.

Pink Pound Experience

Pink Pound Experience came round last Thursday to track a song but I've been too busy mixing it to upload the photos we took, infact its now done and on their myspace already! check their song "Easy Come, Easy Go" out here;

http://www.myspace.com/thepinkpoundexperience


I'm pretty happy with how it turned out in such a short space of time, here are some photos from tracking on Thursday;

Teacups Album Release

Wow. Teacups released their album "Forest Fiction" on thursday and it was great.

They booked out hopetoun alpha for the event and made it beautiful with Fairy Lights, a Tent and Forest! I was doing sound for the evening and amplifying very quiet things in a large space like that without feedback is always a struggle with the large amount of reverb etc caused by the room but I managed ok. Fortunately the room packed out with people and killed a bit of the room.

It was so great. One of the highlights of my year.

Also CD's look (and sound dare I say it) great and are in stores around the country, I highly recommend them!

Here are some photos of the Hopetoun, I didn't get any durin the show because I was working sorry about the quality, my camera doesn't like the dark much.

Dinosaur Clubbing

I also made this while Dinosaur Club were on a lunch break at the finest bakery in West Auckland (apparently)

Dinosaur Club Tracking

This weekend I had Dinosaur Club round to record, we're working towards a 5 track EP. Tracking went really well we got drums bass guitar keys percussion done for all 5 tracks and started vocals on 3 of them. A really productive weekend!

I even managed to squeeze in time to take some photos!






Dave and Thomas are heading back here this Saturday to finish them off.

Inbetween whiles I have been preocupying myself mixing the 10 Clap Clap Riot demos and Just finished tracking vocals for Grace Lawry's song this afternoon. Busy is good, could always be busier though!

Clap Clap Finished!

We finished tracking everything last night for all 10 of Clap Clap Riots demos, its been quite an intense past few days but fortunately the band are all very competent musicians and we didn't have to spend too long on takes etc.

Yesterday we spent the day tracking vocals, eating muffins and adding some extra claps and clicks etc! Lisa Crawley even popped her head in to track some vocals on "Yoko Ono"

Hopefully soon you'll be able to hear the results (when I am done mixing!)

Turns out the only photo we got of lisa was this one with her pretending to sing... (she doesn't really sing with her eyes closed and arm in the air) (much)

Clap Clap Recording

Yesterday Dave and Steve came back to fix up guitar parts and we managed to start some vocals too for the 10 Demos that Clap Clap Riot are currently recording. In between tracking we managed to fit in some rides on our lawn mower and tractor, they had a race around our packing shed. A good time was had by all and we still managed to be incredibly productive, hooray!

here are some photos of the tomfoolery!

Steve was working hard.

We realised that we all have fender student guitars from the same era!

Lunch!