Moving

I'm over at tumbler for a fit new blog situation. Make the jump.

GO SEE/HEAR

GREAT ANCESTORS RIGHT NOW

We finished the new recording this week. Its true what they say, practice makes perfect. I still need to practice, but IMPROVEMENT! I'm so pleased with the results, its filthy, sleazy, and a great direction for them to head in.

Go and check out... my vocal skills enhance the track tenfold in the last chorus OBV!

Cosmic Thoughts Rides

I've wanted to stay relatively quiet about the latest incarnation of mine and Bones' adventures into what we think is acceptable to play for longer than a month.

We invited Steve to come jam with us on some quite raucous ideas we had. We wanted to chill, as Centaurs as a project is just not coming together in the way we wanted. This was to be more about playing loud again. After NCF went down, Id grown tired of playing hardcore, but in the two years since our last show, I have become a fan again.

I'd been obsessing over Suicide File and some more chaotic, older 31G type stuff too. A song came. Practice was good. But as with every thing we'd tried since 2007, we got bored. Quick.

I went back to the drawing board. Leah was staying with me over Summer, working, which meant travel alone, or stay, sunbathe and write. So I did that. I wrote and demo'd maybe 8 tracks, and offered them as almost a final chance to create a decent body of work with Bones and Ruari.

since then, we've been playing, scrapping back the layers, the chords, the riffs, and finding what it really is to write a pop song that challenges us as players and listeners. The need for Loud and clean tone has dwindled since every band on the universe seems to have jumped on that bandwagon(not that i mind a decent bandwagon)....

I'm now armed with a dodgy old Boss DD3, a Boss Metalizer from the 80s, with awesome built in Chorus, and hopefully my fucked up old Morely Pro Flanger once it's been fixed. We've begun mixing real pop convention with pushing the limits of noise with the tools at hand. Both Bones and Ruari are stripping it back, too. Steve is making me very happy with some awesome, relevant and poetic lyrics, and our plans for expanding the sound should come to fruition in the next month or so.

With all of this change, some of the scores of demo's from Jealous Again and Centaurs projects respectively, somehow now seem to make sense. We never wanted to be a rock band with synth, or an electro band with guitars....

WE MAY HAVE CRACKED IT

Take your time. The World Can Wait.

Honest Zanzibar

This weekend, I worked with Great Ancestors. My best friend, Alex has been working with these guys for the last few months, and now they're ready to take on the world. After Alex's Like Hurricane, and the others guys previous Trial of Fifty, this is a more, scrappy, stripped down, punky noise. They reminded me of early Constantines, JR Ewing, Drive Like Jehu and maybe Cloak/Dagger.... really exciting stuff, full of energy and TONE!!!!

We did the whole thing in 8hrs, and it's the first time i think I've been able to achieve what I set out to do with this recording venture; Spontaneous, Live, Raw and imperfect recording of bands interested in capturing the true essence of what they are about, when thrown in a room and told to play.

its been interesting that other bands I have worked with have not been able to stare themselves in mirror in such a stark way. The onslaught of nerves, perfection etc etc set in, and the process starts to draw out, which has been disappointing to me no end, I feel the goals we began with wane in favour of some intangible, perfect recording.

Which is why Great Ancestors are what you need right now... they're not faking. They're a punk band in the truest sense of the word. Loud, Spontaneous, Fun, and full of the need to be swept up in their own performances, soak up the moment that they are playing.

Go have a listen, buy their stuff, watch them live, book them, sign them. Now.

http://www.myspace.com/greatancestors

HIStory

One of my earliest and favourite memories is listening to 'Beat It' on my dads record player. The tone and quality of that track on wax is something else. It's that excitement and anticipation of the crackle of a record leading into the intro of any banger thats carried my love of music through to today. Thriller was the first record I used a record player with.

Bad was the first CD in our house when i was five..... Dangerous was the first album i owned for myself.... 

Thanks Dad, and thanks MJ.

Holy Roar Batman, its a free compilation!!!!

www.holyroarrecords.com

The wicked nice people over at Holy Roar have put together a compilation to celebrate the coming of spring, with the freshest acts on their roster, as well as rare NCF cut 'Return of the Black Dog' from our split seven inch with the galactic Gallows. 

Its a treat, featuring Rolo Tomassi, Throats, Holy State, Brontide, Jealous and a bunch more exciting stuff. Its an honour to still be in the running with these young bucks and a lovely gesture from Alex and Ellen to boot.

Love

Holy Late..... Be my valentine?

SO, after turning up in the middle of the night, making me get up real early the next day to go record them and then scream my flat down all day Sunday so my Landlady wants to now kill me... I think we cut a face smasher this Valentines weekend.... 

Rob, Victor, Dan and Max care soooooooooooooooo much about amps I cant believe it, but its that, that might have tipped it. We ripped two tele's through a JMP and a Selmer TnB 100W respectively, the bass through this rare ass Orange 140 they brought with them... FIT. The new material is already exhibiting real signs of maturity in their composition, I'm mad into it.

Editing is underway, expect to see these tracks going places soon, there seems to be no stopping the happiest band on the planet this year.

Love x