EXCITING.

Hey so I was all excited for Wildwood Lights getting to no8 on the Bfm Charts last week, well apparently this week they shot to no 1.

Woo Go Them! Girl Power! etc...

Bear Cat Album

Bearcat are releasing the Album I have been working on (on and off) for the past 2 years on Septemeber the 4th in Auckland at Cassette #9.

This is a pretty monumental moment in my life. This was a huge project for me and I am glad its done, I cant wait for you to hear it.

I will be joining them on stage playing bass for the release party (I played bass on most of the album too)

I'm very excited.

Wildwood Lights

Wildwood Lights got in to the BFM top 10, huzzah! If you are reading this you should vote for them HERE

One Week EP

My dear friend Chelsea (http://willowships.blogspot.com/) is currently helping me with some design work for Little Monster, in return I agreed to help mix/master her delightful "One Week EP" projects where a whole EP is written and recorded in a week.

The first EP she did alone and gave away in return for something you made yourself (her blog explains all) For the second projects she collaborated with the multi talented Alex Freer, Reuben Stephens and Jono Pearce from Artisan Guns and they crafted something rather special, heartfelt ballads, autotune masterpeices, 50's guitar tones... Everything you could ask for!

So this Saturday Jono popped round with all the files on his laptop and we gave them a quick tweak here and there and I gave the whole thing a quick master before sending Jono back with a CD. Its turned out really great! If you're interested in the process you can view it online at willowships.tumblr.com

heres some videos from their tracking taken by Chelsea






sometimes I wish I had a cheap video camera running and could use that mic to record drums with they always sound fantastic!

Phil Austen and the Bayonets

some days I have shiny DW Drums in my bedroom, or at least I do when Joel comes round to track drums for some more songs for the forthcoming Phil Austen and the Bayonets EP.

We started recording the EP early this year and I am pleased to say its almost finished. The band wanted to do 2 more songs, which we did over the past 2 weekends but I forgot to take photos after drums.



When I checked the drum sound we had I wanted a wider tom sound, so I moved the KM184 overheads (I like an XY pattern it makes the drums feel more like one instrument) so that my X and Y where looking at each tom and resided exactly over the centre of the kick and lined up with the snare in the center too. I have to say I was quite pleased with the idea and the results were great!

One of the songs has a sea theme and we got my brothers dad and their friends in to track drunken pirate gang vocals for the breakdown which was quite amusing.

Wildwood Lights

This Thursday Wildwood Lights are having their EP release (recorded at Little Monster a couple of months ago) at the Wine Cellar, here's some photos of the recording. I stole these from their tumblr

http://wildwoodlights.tumblr.com/

Please note the deadly serious recording photos for documentational use only as seen below. Haha.

Sarah used to play drums in Debutantes which was probably my first attempt at seriously recording something at home. It turned out pretty good, but we both honed our skills a fair bit over a few years and I got a message a few months ago that she had a new band and needed some recordings quick! Turns out that Hannah makes a delicious calzone and is also sister of Alex from Artisan Guns and Candy works at one of the most amazing cafe’s in auckland (Kauri Gum store in Kumeu) Together they form Folk trio Wildwood Lights who sing about celebrity crushes, americana and broken hearts. SWOON.

they also make some nice music/photos. Enjoy!

http://www.myspace.com/wildwoodlights

Cool Rainbows-Revolver Studios

I met Djeisan probably about 2 or so years ago when Dan from Bearcat bought him round for a cassette tape manufacturing adventure for a limited edition Bearcat release at a Wellington show.

Djeisan does alot of recording himself (Dear Times Waste, Brand New Math, Trees Climbing Trees) but so far I have only really helped out on a vocal tracking session with an artist he was recording at the time. Anyway a few thursdays ago I got a call “hey Dave, wanna come out to Waiuku to Revolver Studios and engineer on recording my new project cool rainbows all weekend?” “umm…yup.”

Had a really great weekend tracking drums (Alex Freer) and bass (Cass Mitchel) and percussion and some extras for 7 songs. Really great to get in to a beautiful sounding studio with a crazy amount of cool gear and track some great music with some amazingly talented and all round lovely people.

I’ve posted some of the photos below. (some are stolen from the wonderfully talented Cass who I'm sure wont mind!)

http://coolrainbows.blogspot.com/

http://www.myspace.com/djeisansuskov

Teacups

Well the Teacups Album is finito. Should be released sometime soon. I am quite sad about having finished it because it means I don't have an excuse to have them round for cups of tea, plates of cake, to feed the chickens and have tractor rides in the field

http://www.myspace.com/teawithfriends

Clap Clap Riot

I thought I’d post some old photos of the first time I had Clap Clap Riot round for some recordings, at this point my set-up was quite primitive compared to how it is now…

This was before the whole MTV kickstart madness umm kickstarted them, we recorded a demo of “Theif” and they sent it in to NZ On Air and found out that they had got a grant the same day they were performing at the finals of Kickstart…which they went on to win of course.

Anyway enjoy looking at the old pics, I've put up the video for the song Thief just below(which I mixed and tracked various guitars and vocals for after it was re-tracked at the Lab)

http://www.myspace.com/clapclapriot

Great North #2

After the initial Live Tracking Strahan came round and made loud sounds with a variety or guitars and various noise boxes, it was quite an enjoyable weekend and we got lots done and started on some of Haydens vocals. One week later Rachel (less appendix) was feeling well enough to finish her bass parts and we completed vocals for all the songs, mixing should be done soon and you can catch Great North at myspace here;

http://www.myspace.com/greatnorthmusic

where, in the mean time, you can enjoy 2 Remix's of the song "Old Town" -Party Town by Strahan and Sexy Town by me... (I went for cheese)

Great North Tracking

Back in May I started tracking for the forthcoming Great North EP.

We tracked bass, keys, drums and acoustic guitar live with drums, keys and bass in my bedroom and acoustic set up in the bathroom that is just down the hall from my room.

Here are some Pics from the live session.

Hello

I am going to move my old blog over to this one... so there will be a fair few posts when I get around to moving them over.