AUSA End Of Daze

Last Friday I did sound for the Auckland University Students Asocciation's End Of Daze event with Lydia Cole, Randa, The Wyld and Loui the Zu. When it stopped raining (see tarp hiding under the DJ booth below) it turned out to be a nice, fun day. More photos from the show here on the bFM facebook page.

Hula Hope and Avalanche City Tour.

I returned from a 6 day Australian tour with Avalanche City, late at night on Monday ready to start recording a couple of songs on the Tuesday with Hula Hope from Wellington. The Tour was great, so nice to spend some time with the Avalanche City guys and gals and interesting to do some shows in a different country.

The shows were pretty good, my low point was thinking I was going to have to mix a show stood on stage right behind the band with a particularly rowdy looking croud staring at me but my high point was discovering I could mix with the venues iPad from wherever I wanted! Hahahaha.

Back to recording with Hula Hope, the first day we recorded Acoustic Guitar and Vocals for the 2 songs and then I played a bit of Bass and the second day I added the rough outline of where drums would maybe go in one of the songs ready for me to redo later and some piano and Hula added a few harmonies and backing vocals. I have to finish adding some parts now while she's back in Wellington and send her the rough mixes!

Watercolours win VNZMA Critics Choice

Readers of this blog will know that for the past few years I have been playing guitar in and had been working with Watercolours towards some demos, as well as of course the first Watercolours single "Under"

The other week we played at the Kings Arms for the Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards Critics Choice award, up against stiff competition for the award in the form of Beach Pigs and Loui the Zu. Any of the bands could've taken out the award, the other two bands were and are amazing but somehow the judges decreed Watercolours as the winner.

Its pretty special to have been involved in this project so far and hopefully I get to continue as a guitar player for as long as possible. Anyway, big congratulations to Chelsea on this award, its well deserved.

Josie Tuck - Drum recording

We spent a few days last week recording drums for Josie Tucks album with Stephen Thomas behind the kit. We got some really great sounds and tracked some really cool beats; a bit of afrobeat influence in a couple of songs, some cool percussion as part of the kit and a fair amount of jazz influences, even some free jazz moments! Lots of the parts are almost symphonic which should be a good base for the type of instrumentation and arrangements that Josie intends to have on top.