Percussion Obsession.

Percussion is something I can never have enough of.

I recently hired out all my tambourines and shakers etc to Ben from Kingston when he was tracking their albums percussion which has inspired me to expand my collection. I bought a few bits and peices yesterday (more than is in the picture) I got the bells and the seed pods at tradeaid. The seed pods sound incredible, we used them in the mess at the end of Autumn by Artisan Guns. I am on the look out for more bells though.

Kingston came back Wednesday and Thursday and we got heaps done, but still more to do. Once everythings tracked we'll send all the files over to the US for mixing and mastering. Its kinda nice to be involved in a project where I know I won't need to obsess over how the mix sounds for months afterwards.

Tonight Hayden Dale and I are going to try and move the piano. This should be fun.

Kingston Album

Woo. More Kingston Vocals today, this morning we did some gang vocals, my Kiwi set to wide Cardiod works really well for this. Then Shohan dominated her parts on "Miss You" before Dan Scott and I spent the rest of the day working on "I'm Gonna Be With The King" which we finished.

Now I am working on comping up the doubles and harmonies and doubles of harmonies and everything else we did today!

Everyone's voice seemed to be on form today, some really great singing, especially Shohan and Dan. The song is sounding HUGE, Brandons doing a great job on it.

Titirangi Tatler Article

So I got interviewed for the Titirangi Tatler, a local newspaper. There are a few confusions (these probably happened when Tony and I went off at tangents discussing all sorts) nothing major but just for anyone that reads this blog I thought I'd make clear that its not me thats confused about all this err so some slight corrections (again not really a big issue and the article is great thanks Tony if you read this)

1 - I have Sisters too. (please don't be offended Esther and Rachel!)
2 - I started on guitar, taught myself bass a couple of years ago
3 - The Debutantes didn't release these (rough) early recordings as an EP, their EP was only released recently and features excellent recordings from the talented Djeisan Suskov and maybe Shane I think? I helped master it though.
4 - $20k
5 - We recorded Artisan Guns first EP mostly live at my house, for their as yet unreleased second EP we went to Dobworld.
6 - I stopped working on Bearcats Album ages ago but have recently been playing bass live for them.

Again all little things and corrections are for my sanity only.

Still, I am pretty excited about having my own full page article in the Tatler. Woo.

Kingston Album Tracking

Kingston are so close to finishing their Album. They've been over in Canada and New York tracking Drums, Bass and Guitars. They came back to New Zealand a couple of months ago and their producer Brandon Friesen has been over for the past 3 or so weeks finishing off Vocals and adding more guitars and synths etc out at a batch they've been hiring at Piha.

Brandons headed of to Australia and New York before returning to Canada and I've been left to track 3 songs worth of vocals, plus some doubling of vocals and harmonies and some more guitars.

Today we finished the Vocals on "Miss You" and Scott put down a fair bit of guitar pieces here and there.

What I've heard of the album sounds HUGE. Can't wait for Brandon to give it his final touches so I can see how its all going to sit in the mix.

Clap Clap Riot Guitar Teching.

The Aftermath. Nice work Steve.

Yesterday I was guitar teching for Clap Clap Riot who were playing 3 shows in 24 hours. They had played the Friday night in Christchurch, flew back to Auckland at a ridiculous time in the morning ready to play Music In The Parks with the Datsuns where I met them to then go on and play Ellen Melville hall with the Checks and the Naked and Famous in the Evening.

Much less eventful shows and much less stress than at Splore, guitars all behaved themselves except for a string break at soundcheck and a tuner dying.

Lisa Crawley came out and Sang at the park with them too for new song "Yoko Ono" which she features on the recording of.

Really fun day, both shows ran really well, the kids at Ellen Melville were going nuts! Steve stage dived at one point. Crazy.

Lisa On Stage

Ellen Melville Show

Great North Album - Guitar

Strahan came round and we finished the guitar parts for the Great North Album (I think we finished... maybe there will be more, who knows.) in the picture above he is modelling one of many solutions to many problems.

Often when you start to record there'll be squeaks, buzzes and rattles that you won't usually hear. In this case what appears to be an ordinary yellow cloth is in fact a special string mute; muting all of the strings behind the slide to prevent them making noises. Very high tech. The string mute is a custom peice of equipment that I designed and made myself out of a yellow cloth. Haha.

Anyway recording went well, we made some very loud sounds (and some not so loud sounds) ate some cheese toasties and then Steph came round and we watched one of my favourite films of all time that they recently found second hand in a video hire store on VHS.

Mannequin. Incredible.

Splore

This weekend I took a visit down to Splore with Clap Clap Riot as their guitar tech. It was my first real guitar teching job and it was somewhat eventful; basses getting knocked out of tune, straplocks exploding, stage hands hiding guitar amps from me, guitars just not going along with the scheduled guitar changes etc.

Despite this everyone held it together and the boys played a great set to a very appreciative audience.

Feeling slightly worse for wear and in need of some clean toilets we headed home today. Splore is an incredible festival set in an amazing location, however with the majority of the lineup being DJs or Dance acts its just not really my scene music wise. Had a pretty good time despite this though, bumped in to my good friend Tom, had a few drinks, watched Lupe Fiasco, ate some Jamaican food. Good.

(filming a song on the beach)

Great North Album - Guitar tracking.

More Great North guitar today. More geeking out with pedals and amps and guitars and cello bows...

Album is getting to a point where I think its close to being all tracked and ready for mixing. Just piano left to track on some songs, exciting.

Juice Bar - Artisan Guns, Glass Owls, Welfare Mothers

Friday night I was doing sound at the Juice Bar for Artisan Guns, Glass Owls and Welfare mothers. It was a pretty fun show. I am not the biggest fan of Juice Bars PA system, they have a limiter on the FOH that kicks in really early and all the mids are sucked like crazy. But this is all as protection from people who have no idea what they're up to. Really I don't blame them for being overprotective, its just a wee bit frustrating.

Despite this I love a good "family show" as Anthony from Glass Owls put it. Great turn out, Great performances and fun was had by all (especially when members from all 3 bands were on stage to cover Time of the Season by the Zombies and then Light and Day by The Polyphonic Spree) Also I really enjoyed Welfare Mothers set! Good.

Next weekend; Splore.

Glass Owls

Artisan Guns

past couple of weeks

This past couple of weeks I have been mainly mixing and mastering some of the stuff I have been tracking recently and thus have spent my days looking at something like this;



However I think that was taken a few days ago and now there are multiple other envelopes and scrap papers with notes on them...

On Wednesday I had the Pink Pound Experience here but didn't take any photos, we tracked another song, much less dancey this time, with lots of falsetto vocals, should be fun to mix!

I have a fairly decent backlog of songs to work on now, so time to get stuck back in to mixing.