It’s Geelong Way To The Top, When You Want To Rock’n'Roll…

Evening folks!

Well now…let me tell you something for free.  Blogging while being on the road is a much bigger challenge than first expected.  Little updates here and there…no worries.  However the ranting i’ve accustomed myself to have proven difficult.  So, my apologies to the regular readers…I hope this Australia recap on what will be our last night in this beautiful country will make you put the pitchforks and torches away!

We’ve had an incredible whirlwind adventure while over here.  Honestly…this has been one of the best tours we’ve been on throughout our time together.  Tonight ended a four-in-a-row gig run for us.  We played in Geelong on Thursday night.  I liked Geelong.  Sure…the show was fun.  We played a good set and the crowd was awesome…but the thing about Geelong that really got us going, was putting the word ‘Geelong’ into lame jokes. (see blog title)

Ballarat was the next place on the bill.  Friday night in a town that I truly felt a kinship with.  I spent so much time walking around this place on my own…doing the whole exploring, touristy thing.  I’m grew up in a small town in the Bay of Plenty called Waihi…and this place truly was just a bigger version of that.  It was awesome.  One of the BEST venues i’ve ever played in.  It was like an old theatre converted into a concert room.  Huge ceilings, huge stage and BOOM the best thing of all…Mother Energy Drink ON TAP!  Holy crap!!!  I was in heaven!  I don’t think my heart has calmed down as yet… We played a cool set that night.  Went absolutely crazy on stage to the point of exhaustion, which is one of my favourite places to be after a show.  I had to lay down for ages afterwards…had a great night.

Last night and tonight we played at the iconic ‘Espy’ in St Kilda.  So much history in this venue.  On Saturday night we played downstairs on a stage in a bar called the Basement as a part of the annual Melbourne festival ‘Rock The Bay’.  We shared the stage with our buddies in Decortica.  It was so awesome to see them do their thing in another country with us.  I teched for Mr Matty Bosher and had the most wonderful time doing so…although I spent much more time air drumming and singing along than tuning his guitars…so I hope they sounded alright. =P

We played in a room called The Gershwin room tonight, such an incredible room.  This was the main room of the Rock The Bay festival where Bellusira played last night to a packed house.  It’s this really old room that honestly looks like it could come down if you leaned against the wall wrong.  The paint is peeling, the walls are swollen from year and years of humid temperature.  It was incredible and is apparently THE place to play in Melbourne.

We’ve been playing brutal games of BUZZ on Mark and Crystals PS3 with the Bellusira guys.  Awesome.  Awesome.  One of those games you just can’t NOT take seriously.

Our flight is at 8:10 tomorrow morning, so we’ve got to be at the airport for 6am…so another early morning for us.  The last of the tour.

I want to say the biggest thank you and send our love to the guys and gal in Bellusira.  They have taken us into their homes, they have welcomed us onto their stages and not once have they complained at the utter annoyance that the These Four Walls camp provides.  Five of the nicest people on the face of this earth. (this round earth)  If any of the readers of this blog are in Australia or are going to Australia, please check these guys out.  They will not disappoint.  They’re working on an album at the moment, so keep an eye out for it.  For the moment, check out www.myspace.com/bellusira or find them on Facebook.

Goodnight Australia.

Good morning New Zealand.  We’ll be home soon.

This is me, signing off.

Peace and love.

Free wifi rocks!

Morning folks!

Gray and I are running to catch a plane at Sydney airport. No sleep at all…running on a litre of juice and a wheatgrass shot! Boost Juice get me through the day!!

I was up all last night watching American news channels…honestly it must be nuts living there! Even I was afraid after watching it. Superbugs here, killer blankets there. Intense. Although, the whole Charlie Sheen meltdown is amusing me!

I was talking with Gray earlier. Know what seriously gets my goat? People who play their music from their phones, with no headphones. Kills me.

Ok!! Time to get a plane to Melbourne to meet up with Chris and Brad for our show in Geelong tonight!

Awesome beans!

This is me, signing off.

Peace and love.

Dick Smith has cereal?!?!

Evening folks!

Well, another smashing day in the middle of nowheresville!

We knocked out 4 tracks today, which was a great effort.  There’s just something about not having time restrictions, or space restrictions.  We can just setup where and when we want.  If something isn’t feeling right…we take a break and move on.  It’s been great.  With an instrumental track that we’re finishing off tonight, that will give us 8 tracks we’ve demod in the two days we’ve been here. 

The four tracks we worked on today included the codenames ’25 Years’, ‘Barn Stormer’, ‘Harrys Song’ and ‘Consumption’.  All of which are sounding snazzy as the snazziest crooner that ever graced the Vegas stages.

We leave this peaceful place tomorrow afternoon bound for Sydney once more.  We spend the night there tomorrow and then fly down to Melbourne on Thursday morning.  We play Geelong on Thursday night at a bar called The Bended Elbow.  Sounds great!!!

The wonders of technology are incredible!  I’m keeping in touch with my loved ones via webcam…it’s just incredible to be able to see people from another country right here in a room thousands of miles away.  However…the most important thing i’ve noticed while on webcam is that I’m growing a not so flash looking moustache…and I didn’t bring a razor.  So now, i’ll be walking the streets of a foreign land and everyone I pass will be talking behind my back about my unkempt facial hair.  Embarassing.

I just DEMOLISHED a watermelon.

Well, i think we’re going to call it an evening.  Snuggle in on the couch and watch a movie or two then hit the hay…to try and get an early start on tomorrow to see if we can knock any more songs out before we march to the train station.

Until tomorrow.

Missing everyone back home!  We’ll see you all soon.

Peace and love.

Caravan Of Courage…

Evening Folks!

The title of tonights blog represents two things.  One.  A Star Wars spin-off movie based around the Ewoks that is absolutely awesome and should be viewed by both of your eyes.  Two.  It’s what we’ve titled our little home away from home where we’re doing our recording on our time off from the tour.  We’ve got it all.  There’s a stocked minifridge with snacks, beer and cases of Diet Coke.  A bed just in case we get sleepy.  A computer, a guitar, a microphone and all the serenity we could ask for.  How’s the serenity?

It’s been great so far.  We knocked out three new songs today all of which i’m feeling really good about.  A lot of new directions and ideas that we hadn’t really though of tackling before.  Know what?  They work!  I can’t wait to see these tracks develop.  All with codenames so far.  ‘Wheelies’ is something completely different.  It’s got that These Four Walls flair, but with a solid twist of southern dirty, dirty rock.  So dirty and dusty.  ‘Dead Air’ is sexy as hell.  Sexy as hell.  It’s got melody idea’s we’ve never gone near and a chorus that just makes me melt.  HUGE!  ‘Talk To You Soon’ is a track we’ve been working with since January…but could never really nail.  Gray gave it some tweaking and rewrote a couple of instrumental phrases and it all fell right into place.  This one’s a solid heavy track.  It’s got chunky metal bread, a smooth melodic sauce and a crispy lettuce like verse that would rival any sandwich your local cafe would offer…and way cheaper too.  Cafe’s charge heaps too much.  Like…why is a sandwich 7 dollars?  7 DOLLARS?!?!  You can buy like 4 loaves of good bread for 7 dollars.  You’re only giving me two!  With a slice of chicken, a brown piece of lettuce and a dollop of margarine.  7 DOLLARS?  Wait…what?

We went for a solid bush walk today with a guitar, a pad of paper and a pencil.  The Australian bush is incredible.  The area we are in was ravaged by bushfires about 2 years ago.  Besides the charred remains of a few rows of trees along the way, we’d have never known.  The bush is so thick and dense.  The two pale skinned kiwi’s strolling through it were severly out of place…and the bugs knew it.  We got dealt to by every insect known to man.  Spiders, ants (THE SIZE OF MY FREAKING FIST) and mosquitos.  Now, we have mosquitos at home…but these things are from hell.  Within minutes of stepping out of the caravan i’m loaded with little bumps and bites.  I’m bathing in lotion tonight.  Sexy, sexy lotion.

We sat out in the bush and played around with a couple of songs on a old burned out log.  It was awesome.  So quiet, noone around for hundreds of metres.  Just wicked.  When we got back in we did a bit more writing and called it a night.  Something about fresh air poops me out.  We’re both going to call it a night pretty early methinks…then hit the songs early tomorrow to see what else we can knock out!

I hope Chris and Brad are having a lovely time in Melbourne!  We miss them so!

Until tomorrow night folks!

Peace and love.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles…

Evening folks!!

It’s such a pleasure to see you again!  My apologies on not keeping up to my own promise of doing this every night consecutively.  However, we have now discovered that touring can have an effect on such ramblings.  Either way…I’m here, you’re here.  Let’s catch up!

I left you all on Thursday night in…

Sydney. 

We were all crammed into one uncomfortable hostel room where, yes, Chris and I indeed share a bed.  We woke up at 5:30am Friday morning to get to Sydney’s Central train station.  There is a picture of me in front of our long haul train that took us from Sydney to Canberra.  The train was pretty swanky.  It was comfy.  It was roomy…and it had a snack car.  We were set for the next 5 hours.  Chris and Gray had a healthy supply of South Park to tide them over while Brad and I rotated between Angry Birds and his Gameboy.  Chris and Gray were wearing headphones while watching on the laptop.  You know when you’re listening to something and then you speak, without realising how loud you’re talking?  Let’s just say the entire carriage was well aware that Gray wanted something to eat.  “I’M GOING TO GET SOME FOOD!”  Every head in the car turns to hear the announcement.  He then returned triumphantly with a cheese and cracker combo that he couldn’t open. 

Canberra.

We got off of the train in Canberra and waited out the front for our dearest of buddies in Bellusira to come and collect us for the gig that night.  They had driven up from Melbourne that morning and picked up a swanky rental car so that we could all travel together.  (For those of you that don’t know Bellusira, they toured with us in NZ on our Down Falls an Empire tour last year.  They could possibly be the nicest group of people on the planet…and we get on like a house on fire.  They play a blistering set and have killer tracks so check them out at www.myspace.com/bellusira)  They came around the corner and we all went running in for our hugs and hellos.  We jumped in the vehicles and plodded off to the accomodation.  Which was awesome!!!  Luxury apartments compared to the hostels we normally stay in.  The best part about it was the name of the suburb it was in…

Tuggeranong.

We went into Canberra city to setup for the show.  Great venue.  It was the local university bar, so had a cool response from the locals.  We hadn’t played live in a few months, so I felt we were a little rusty compared to normal…but hey, it’s live music.  We played out our set and then chilled out watching the other bands rip it up.  It was a great little night.  The last band played their set to their local crowd…which just got crazy!  It was the biggest amount of man-love i’d ever seen in my life!  Like ten guys all shirtless, hugging and jumping at eachother while singing at the top of their lungs.  Once the local band had finished up, the shirtless guys all proceeded outside chanting ‘T-SHIRT TIME! T-SHIRT TIME! T-SHIRT TIME!’  This prompted both Brad and Chris to strip off on join the guys.  It was a beautiful sight and we have plenty of pictures. MWAHAHAHAHA.  We all went back to the accomodation and had a solid snooze.  What I do need to mention about the accom is that yet again, Chris and I had to share a bed.  I’m growing more and more comfortable with his arm around me in the night, and that scares me.  The morning meant more driving as we pushed onwards to…

Windsor.

Now, I can’t tell you much about the drive from Canberra to Windsor as I was asleep for pretty much the entire time.  However, what I do remember was that there was a hockey game in the sky and that there was a dog running after the puck and I was worried he’d get hit by the players sticks.  I can’t be sure whether or not that was dream or reality.  Australia is a strange place.  Windsor rocked my socks off.  It’s a small westy suburb on the very edge of Sydney…just as suburbia turns into farmland.  Lee from Bellusira booked the accom for the night and rented us this sweet 3 bedroom farm house about 10km out of Windsor.  We had the whole place to ourselves between the bands, with noone for hundreds of metres in any direction.  We had a few hours to kill before soundcheck so some of us had naps, the others crammed into the couches and watched Get Him To The Greek.  We drove into the venue and set our gear up as we were on first to warm the crowd up for Bellusira and the local band who was headlining.  Soundcheck was sweet, and afterwards the bar even put on these wicked little sandwiches!  Delicious.

We nailed the set.  It felt great.  The crowd was great, the atmosphere was pumping.  Really put us on a high.  We sold a whack of merch and made a heap of new fans.  There were people at this show that had driven three hours to come see us!  They had found us online, liked the stuff and wanted to check us out.  We didn’t let them down.  We finished up and hung out with the locals all night.  Really great vibe about Windsor.  Bellusira smashed their set, so everyone was in great spirits.  The party went on at the venue until the wee hours…however the fun really began when we got back to the farm house.  9 compadres in high spirits, in one house…what else can you do…but pump Dr. Dre as loud as your computer speakers will go?!?!  I honestly have some incredible camera footage from last night that I will upload once we get back from Aussie as a bit of a tour video.  Last night was killer.  A 4am finish to the evening was great.  The 6:30am wake-up wasn’t so much.  We had to have the rental car back to the depot by 9am, so we all packed out like zombies and hit the road once more.

Gray and I got dropped off from the pack at the train station and we said our short term goodbyes.  We sent Chris and Brad on thewir way down to Melbourne with Bellusira in the van where they will be for the next couple of days.  Gray and I jumped a train to an undisclosed location and here we are.  We’re in the most serene place.  Surrounded by native bushland in every direction.  We’ve set our little home studio up in a caravan and that is where we’ll be for the next few days.  No cell reception whatsoever…no cars, no noise, no people.  Just us, a guitar and a microphone plugged into a simple little recording rig.  It’s time to go walkabout!

So, thats where we are!  Up to date!  Chris and Brad will surely post some info on their wherabouts on the Facebook page, so check everywhere for constant updates from us while we’re over here.  Keep the home fires burning, and i’ll see you all tomorrow!!

This is me, signing off.

Peace and love.

The Eagle Has Landed!

Evening folks!

I’m writing this evening from the sticky hostel floor of our room in Sydney, Australia!  It’s been one hell of a day…so let me get started.

I awoke at 3am to be at Gray and Chris’s by 4am.  I arrived at 4:04…so we are already behind schedule.  We left their place in the van en-route to Brads nifty little flat.  With Brad in the van, we headed to the airport.  We were flying out at 7am…so needed to be there at 5am for check-in.  We would have been fine…if the park and ride company we used didn’t delay us by about half an hour.  We got there at 5:30.  An hour and a half to go.  No worries…right?

Wrong.

First…we hit the line.  The tedious, person by person line getting their bags checked in and their passport pictures judged and commented on.  Finally, we get to the front.  Now, obviously, as a band…we can’t travel light.  I mean…we took literally as little as we could, but still had a big issue with oversized and excess baggage.  It was kind of silly really.  I’m all for rules and regulations…but when we had to sellotape our guitars together to make one piece so that they weighed no more – no less that they did as three guitars…that seemed kind of silly.  Anyway…we handled that hurdle.  Then came the line for customs, which most of you know is no small feat.  By the time we actually got to the plane they were doing the calls over the loudspeakers for us.  We were doing the mad bolt to get there.  Through the gate…in our seats and in the air.  On our way!

Very cool thing we noticed on the plane!!  We’re the AirNZ exclusive artist for March on their in-flight entertainment!  Some of our music videos are up there for all to see when you’re flying thousands of miles in the air.  Awesome.

We got off the plane and jumped into a cab to get to our accommodation.  As you may have noticed on our Facebook page…we had a bit of an issue with our accom right off the bat.  Our booking for four beds in one room, turned to one double bed in one room.  So we put the word out to you to choose who is going to be on the bed.  The results are in!  Chris and I will be spooning this evening.  Awesome.

We met up with my sister today here in Sydney and she showed us around the sights.  We’ve just gotten back into the room now…and finally just got a chance to get onto a computer.  Tomorrow morning is another early one as we’re catching a train to Canberra for our first gig of the tour.  Can’t wait to see the guys and gal from Bellusira when we get down there.

Battery is running low on the laptop, so better call it for tonight.

I’ll try and check in right after our gig tomorrow and let you know how it all went.  Keep an eye on our facebook page for constant updates and pics from our run on the road!

This is me, signing off.

Peace and love.

…Lady Blaaag Blaaag.

Evening folks…

Tonight is our last night at home for a little while.  A night of picking clothes to take, realizing that they don’t all fit into your bag.  Then…laying all of your clothes out and mentally unpick the clothes that you have just picked until you have a recipe that fits (just) into your carry-on luggage.

Two pairs of socks

One pair of jeans.

Four shirts.

One pair of shoes.

One jacket.

An undisclosed amount of undiscloseds.

For 12 days.

I truly hope that Australia has a healthy batch of Laundromats.

We fly out at 7am tomorrow morning.  I’m scheduled to get to Gray and Chris’s place at 4am.  It is now 10pm.  I should probably get some sleep.  I was late last time we had somewhere important to go.  I’m a chronic sleeper-in-erer when there is something important to wake up to.

We cleaned out the last of our practice room tonight.  Likely the last time we’ll ever stand in that jam room.  Hours and hours of my life standing in a circle jamming out.  Pretty cool.  Onwards and upwards though.  We’re on the hunt for a bit of factory space or unused office space that we can leave our gear setup in.  Because we like to jam…at the wee-est of wee hours.

Ok, doing the final pack and setting the alarm for tomorrow.  My next write-up will be from the warm shores of our neighbours.  Likely from the cheapest internet cafe I can find on George St.  Any suggestions?

See you in Sydney!

This is me, signing off.

Peace and love.

“…you haven’t fixed s**t north of Wellsford!”

Evening folks!

My entire musical life fits into the back of a Nissan Pulsar.

We had our final practice ever at our, now old, practice space…followed by an intense pack down of all of our gear.  I’m very sad to see the old girl go…but we saw it out in style.  A blinding practice of our set for Australia.  A few minor changes and couple of failsafes put in place…but that thing is cranking.  Us kiwis are taking it to the Aussies in style.

We were graced by the cats from Decortica showing up to help us say goodbye to the space.  Those cats in Decortica are the coolest cats of all felines.  A few beers later, we were all sharing in depth stories about the state of the economy and how many porn stars we could name in a row.

Decortica + These Four Walls + Beers + Farewells = Late night for Steve.

I’m going to call it here, so just a quick howdy doody this evening!  One more blog until we head off to Australia on Thursday morning.

Woot.

This is me, signing off.

Peace and love.

Maeby…we’re having a family meeting!

Evening folks!

Here we are for another tour around the keyboard!   In this case actually it’s a tour around the nifty blog application Brad set up for me on my phone.  Now I can do this sucker anywhere!  The wonders of technology huh?   I was watching this comedian do a bit on how we take advantage but don’t appreciate what an amazing era we live in.  I won’t rehash his jokes because they wouldn’t be funny written down.  Or would they?  Would they?   No.  No they wouldn’t.

I did some home recording for a few vocal ideas today.  I’ve got a little studio in my lounge room so I have to be picky and sneaky when I choose my recording times so I don’t disturb peoples tv time, or wake them from slumber.   I had the house to myself today so I figured…’lets get it on!’.

Wrong.  It was so not on.  Because I wasn’t alone.  Not by a long shot.  She stood watching me from the backyard.  Eyes wide and angry.  She kept edging closer to the window as I sang louder and louder.  The more I sang, the closer she got until she was right on top of me.

My cat hates music.

My cat is a tortoise shell.  This meant absolutely nothing to me until I took her to the vet for the first time and they warned me about her.  Bred by Satan himself to bring on the apocalypse apparently.  I haven’t been back to that vet.  I got her at the SPCA.  I went looking for the cat that noone would want.  I’ve always had animals that were either the runt of the litter, or as close to it as possible.  They’re the ones with character and personality.  Well, this one tricked me right off the bat.  I walked in to the cage room and there she was…staring at me from behind the glass like Hannibal Lector from Silence of the Lambs.

‘Hello Clarice…’

I was intrigued. She was staring, following my every move.  Like the open mouthed clown at fairs going back and forth, back and forth.  I asked to see her, went into the room and to my surprise, she jumped right up on my lap and started cooing like a pigeon.  I was sold.  Literally, I had to pay for her…it wasn’t until I got her home that I came to regret my investment.

Now, lets get one thing out of the way here.  I love cats.  Including my one.  That doesn’t mean that she isn’t evil.

Within one week she proved how good at hunting she was.  Her skills at bringing in the most incredible of bounties including but certainly not limited to…

A nail.

A stick.

…and another nail.

She hides behind corners to attack.  NOT to play.  To purely attack.  She never backs down…even early on when I was ‘training’ her.  She would never back down from a fight.  She’d hold me down by the neck and spit at me calling me names and making me cry.  Needless to say, it’s a scary household…one foot out of place and it’s gone.

I discovered her distaste in music early on when I started playing her the guitar and she sat in front of me staring with those wide eyes.  She started rolling on the floor all lovingly.  I was wrapped!  I’d finally found a way to calm the beast.  She got up and then crept away, seemingly content.  I got lost in playing a song and was then interrupted by the deep seeds of pain sprouting from the nerves on my back as every one of her razor-like nails pierced into me…a hellish squeal and hiss coming from her wide open mouth…her eyes, rolling back in her head like a possession.

She scares me…but she’s the best.

In between takes of screaming my lungs out as her teeth ripped shreds out of my legs, I got some pretty cool vocals down today for a song I’ve been toying with for a few years now but hadn’t actually laid down.  It’s got a lot going for it.  A face peeling riff that would peel your face right off!

‘Hello Clarice…’

Until tomorrow!

This is me, signing off.

Peace and love.

(this is the best photo I’ve ever been able to capture of her…she is either blurry, or invisible in all others.)

Here’s looking at you kid…

Evening folks.

Today was a sad day.  Today was the day we cleaned out our practice space.  We, unfortunately, have to move out of our long term little home away from home after 4 glorious years.  We’ve been renting the top floor of an industrial office unit…an incredible setup.  24 hour access, kitchen, bathroom, T.V. room and the ability to leave our gear set up at all times.  It’s where we wrote Down Falls An Empire from start to finish.

It’s not until you move out of somewhere that you realise how much crap you hold onto.  You spend most of the day reminiscing after finding a little piece of your past hiding underneath a moudly sandwich that was hidden behind the ripped couch.

We took jam packed van and a over-filled trailer to the dump to dispose of history.  Let me tell you now…when you get to the tip you’re here to do a manly job…get rid of the trash.  Then, when you throw that first piece of rubbish into the pit, the inner child escapes.  We were hurling couches at lightning speed to see if the television already in the pit would explode.  The staff were looking on in utter embarrassment as four grown guys play around in garbage.  It was awesome.

Our gear is till set up in the space as we’re going to have one last ‘goodbye’ practice before Australia on Tuesday night.  There will be tears, there will be beers…and we’ll make some serious noise.  One last time.  Then the hunt begins for a new spot.  We’ll likely be hiring time at a local space for a while…however if you know of somewhere let us know!  Something like a empty room in a warehouse, workshed…anywhere with a bit of unused space that doesn’t mind it getting a bit rock’n'roll!

I took our recording computer home with me tonight so I can start laying some proper demo’s down at home.  I discovered something tonight on this thing.  Winamp is awesome.  Brad has been batting for Winamp for ages…and it got to be quite the feud between us all.  Gray is staunch for Windows Media Player.  That or nothing.  I actually didn’t mind a bit of iTunes here and there.  It wet my whistle just fine.  Now…the votes are in.  You win Brad.  Enjoy the sweet taste of victory.  Yum?

Okies, i’m going to write up some drum tracks before bedtime.

Until tomorrow.

This is me, signing off.

Peace and love.