2007

Written by A.Thomas

January 2007 Year starts with the band supporting The Bloodpoets at Rics Café in the Valley on 3^rd Jan. We met with Tiff Dimmack from 4ZZZ whilst sitting around the Galaga game. Had a great gig sound wise – not a huge amount of people but the ones who were there seemed to dig it! We rocked it and the bloodpoets did an acoustic set. They asked us to play the Valley Mall Rotunda the following Saturday (6^th) at 7pm. Pete couldn’t make it so the 3 of us did an acoustic set without him. Sounded cool. Passers by stopped to listen. Black Mustang went on afterwards in full rock mode and jammed their 70’s style rock out.

20^th sees the band go into 4ZZZ studios from 4-5pm with Tiff. Great fun with everyone bringing in a song or 2 of their choice between random chatting (questions about the band and the boys one-liners). Tiff seemed to think it was one of her best interviews (at least the most fun). Her mum even rang in and said it went really well. Was recorded both on video and mini-disc.

25^th January = The Zoo gig. Fantastic night with the proceedings opening with Sonic Porno. Not very many people in at this stage. By the time we went on the place had swelled to over 200 people and we had a cracking set with many friends and family + new punters enjoying the show. Byron Short finished up the night and they were good but my attention was elsewhere meeting and greeting everyone who had made the effort to come down on a rainy and steamy night.

February February was a busy month with a couple of acoustic gigs and a couple of rockers! The verve café played host to us and Lord Byron in acoustic mode on the 8^th and we supported Glasshouse and City Riots from Adelaide on the 14^th at The Alley Bars acoustic revolution night. Both great sets. Bar Burlesque in the valley mall on the 15^th in rock mode proved interesting as there were not many people there and we were annoyed that Sonic Porno cut our set short so that they could go on again and start playing the same songs they played before we went on! Played well though and gave it our all as usual.

23^rd back at the alley and in Rock mode supporting The Fuss and Showpony (Sunshine Coast) on their album launch. The second half of our set is the best we’ve played I reckon (personally) – really into it, especially on the outro of haunted, our last song for the night.

The month is capped off with a rave review from Tony Bates at Highlands Community Radio station in Victoria who sent a glowing and very encouraging review of the EP. Happy days!

Hi Guys, Having just received, played and classified your EP I felt I should contact you ASAP. "AT have released that certain type of disc that on first listening grabs your senses and demands attention. The very radio friendly track, Elevated, is just what we need at this moment; it's innovative, fresh and well up there with the best of any chart band's efforts. Taking the EP, First Act - Chapter 1 EP, as a sampler of current numbers by this band, shows an incredible range from a ballad like number to true indie sounds. AT deserve far greater exposure, both within Australia and outside, as this is a band with a 'sound' , tight musicianship and great production. Bands like this normally don't just appear; this band appears to be the exception to the rule." Tony Bates Station Librarian 100.7 Highlands FM KYNETON Victoria 3463. Feel free to do what you want to do with the above review/wrap. Out of all the albums received this month from AMRAP, yours just stood out head and shoulders above the others. EXCELLENT! For further exposure, feel free to visit our website and sign our guestbook, where you can leave all your links: www.highlandsfm.org.au If you'd also like to arrange a live phone interview, please let me know and I'll arrange some times with you. All the best with your gigs and the EP too. Cheers, Tony

March The beginning of March sees the introduction of 2 new songs in the set – or at least the beginnings of. Lock the Door and On my Way start to take shape. Lock the Door began life as a the chorus chord progression popped into my head whilst mucking around on the drums one afternoon and On My Way was simply messing around during a rehearsal and evolved with everyone having ideas.

5^th March at 11:30am (Qld time) – live-to-air phone interview with Tony Bates at 11.7 Highlands FM Victoria. Played the first 3 songs on EP around a few general questions etc. Went well.

9^th March sees the distribution of posters for the upcoming Alley gig we are hosting on the 30^th to indie record stores: Rockinghorse, Skinnys and Kill the Music + The Alley itself.

12^th is the gig with Aluer at Rics Café. Being a Monday night we didn’t expect many people and we were right. Annoyingly Aluer went and sat outside during our whole set leaving us with James the sound guy and the bar staff. So it was a case of Fuck It – we’ll play for ourselves. Barney and Ben lightened my mood by jumping onto the floor and we jammed in square formation for most of the set which was really great. What a great bunch of dudes!

24^th March: Started video shoot for Elevated. Started at around 8am and finished the days shoot around 1pm. Spent the first 3-4 hours at my house collecting images for the ‘fans’ in the story. Put our poster for Metal Magnet on the wall and got waking up, collecting tickets, jumping in the car etc shots. Also included a semi-hair-raising experience when Ellena (Pete’s step-daughter) and Pete stood on the back of Bens ute as Barney and I drove behind in Ellena’s little red car. When Ben was about to hit busy Moggill Road I started to get a bit worried but when I pulled over so did Ben. Threw a lap around the block to capture more footage.

After our house we headed over to Barneys where Tony (Barns step-dad) kindly let us ‘borrow’ his Porsche carrera for the coming out of the gates shots. Kristen (Barns sister) drove the Porsche for the street shots and Barn drove out and backed up a few times through the gate. Veronica (Barns mum) was there too to offer coke and a smile.

End of the month sees the very first Rock x 4! At the Alley in Milton. I organized the show and the other 3 bands: The Fuss, The Faze and The Reclusives. We had to make $200 to cut even for the venue which we did just! Probably let a few too many people through the door for free! Was a good night though and a few faces appeared who I haven’t seen for a long time.

April 2^nd April – Radio interview with John Weeks at 3MDR Victoria. Went well – talked for about 15 minutes and played Feels The Same. Easter break threw us out for a week or so and then we got into rehearsing for the EP Launch – getting a set list together and jamming on that. We decided Lock The Door wasn’t up to scratch so we just decided to debut On My Way. On The Anzac Day Holiday (25^th) we shot the second of three days video in The Vault, capturing all the ‘band’ shots in a newly organized studio. There was even a bit of green screen action – look forward to seeing how that works…. On that day we also had a quick bite to eat at Maccas as a band (and Ellena) after checking out my work basement for the final days shooting. We also got a shot in front of the Living Room.

This month saw the new website layout completed with new home page and new pages added such as reviews and fan pictures page. The music downloads page also had new free downloads added to help entice people to check it out.

26^th April – EP Launch! Loading in at 6pm we set up and had a sound check – the other bands seemed to be diggin’ it! At 8:15pm Highway Blonde kicked off with their first ever gig – rock/screamo type deal and not too bad at all, some cool guitar work going on there. 5 ways to vegas (also releasing a free 3 song EP) did their set followed by Swaying Buildings. It would have been nice to reverse the order of those 2 as Swaying Buildings were reasonably mellow whilst 5 Ways To Vegas were a bit more rocked up. By the time we hit the stage at 11:20pm there were still 40-50 people left in the room and we gave it our best as always, a great on-stage sound lent itself to one of our best gigs. Barn got a little too drunk but was very Rock! Moving around like a madman, missing notes, hitting his head, hanging off a bar on the roof, climbing on Pete’s drum kit.

May May was the month where we decided to start doing some better live recordings of our songs from in The Vault. This resulted in ‘The May Sessions’, a collection of 7 songs (Fix, Blinded, Hold, Haunted, Enlightened, Intro I + the relatively new Interlude II instrumental – I think only the 4^th or 5^th time we’ve played it). A select few beyond the band were given a copy. Had a gig at Fat Louies and Jubilee Hotel. Both gigs were offered to us by Dead Stock Circa and Sonic Porno respectively. Fat Louies was fun and there was a great crowd – Barns fam from England. Jubilee was the Alien punk record launch (Tone Porno). We played our whole set and then all our mates decided to turn up in the last song (GP, SMF, MR, WT, LP, STY) so we kept playing for another 20 minutes. Probably didn’t make a lot of friends with that one but it was really fun. The Shrewms on after us were fun to watch with their white overalls and attitude.

June Continuing on the recording at home the main focus of this month was to get everything ready for the website update and subsequent myspace bombardment. So in order to that we needed to get the Elevated Radio Edit done. A long drawn out process that’s for sure. Not entirely happy with Wernhers mix (too compressed and hard to master) I was lucky to have the stem tracks with which I gave masterer Matthew Gray a chop at it. It sounded a lot better but was still not completely happy with it. However at this stage it felt like flogging a dead horse and that’s all the time and money I was prepared to put into it. Especially since it’s not my favourite song. Heard too many times in a short amount of time no doubt.

We shot the final day for the video at Barns house in his garage which they all kindly cleaned out. All of Kristens friends came as did Waz, Sheryll and Mel. Got some great shots on the red carpet and jamming with lights and smoke machines. Great fun but a huge day. Also got the footage down at work in Cribb St for the after ‘concert’ filming.

The Zoo (offered to us again by Tone Porno) was the best we’ve sounded and played to date. Sounded huge and we opened the night for Sonic, Postcards for abbey, black stars. Not a bad size crowd for 8:30pm. Also a gig at The Alley which was a bit of a stuff-up due to overbooked bands. Debuted a few new songs though: Lighten up my day, On my way and Lock the door.

July Working on new songs twice a week as usual. Friday the 13^th turned out to be a bit of a special night. We had a gig at the Clarence corner hotel in Woolloongabba. After playing pool with Michelle (older lady from England) her boyfriend we went on at 12:05am and were supposed to have a 40 minute set. It’s a small room and there were probably 20 or 30 people there. The first few songs were recorded by Luke and Russ of Alive in Brisbane from Bris31 channel. We opened with our almost 10 minute long instrumental Interlude II. A possibly bold move but people really loved it. Maybe that set the tone because we played for almost 2 hours – quickly running through the short set list and calling out songs randomly. The cool thing was that we still had 4 songs left, the voice held up nicely and everyone had a really good time (except for Bens girlfriend Cass who by the end had had enough due to lack of sleep apparently).

A week later and we’re back at Fat Louie’s again on invitation by Tone Porno. (That guy is a gig scoring machine and really cool for offering us so many gigs – in a time where we are not really actively searching for gigs). Matt was up from Melbourne and came along. There were also thousands of sailors out and about on the town due to the USS Kittyhawk (aircraft carrier) being in town. Tried to drum up some business there but they all seemed to have a curfew and had to back in their bunks by 12am. Another fun gig though. The first time the whitey-hop came into action. A great spontaneous bass solo by Barn was a highlight.

Working on 2 new songs this week including one with a cool off-time thing in the verse and another that I recorded all the parts to a few weeks back after the tune popped into my head whilst showering one night.

August Two fairly non-eventful gigs this month. Both put on by Sonic Porno. Jubilee – mum and Nigel and H’s friend Kelly from England came. Bens girl Cass’s brother and friend really dug our tunes. Clarence Corner – another late one, wasn’t as cool as the first time around. Grant and Shannon popped in for a bit.

Continuing to record our songs live in the Vault. Getting cool results.

September 21^st – Begin recording of 2^nd EP. Pete and Ben and I set up Pete’s drums in the middle of The Vault. Do some sound tests ready for next sessions. Barn is in England for 2 weeks. By the 3^rd October have the drums down for Blinded, Hold, On My Way and Into The Fray.

22^nd – entered Fret Fest acoustic audition – didn’t make it through, I guess I’m not the next Pete Murray J

October By the 3^rd October have the drums down for Blinded, Hold, On My Way and Into The Fray. Everyone is very excited about this project.

The rest of the month sees little full band jams due to heavy work loads from me and Pete. By the end of the month all of the drums are recorded for above songs + Blinded Acoustic and Sunset.

27^th – Elevated video aired on Rage (abc TV) at 4:07am.

November/December Pete leaves for England for 6 weeks and recording continues with the remaining 3. We did all the major bass and rhythm guitar work before starting my parts. Everyone has played very well and is sounding great. My guitar session for Blinded was particularly memorable as I improvised a whole bunch of stuff on the spot and most of it ended up going into the song giving it a huge sound.

Back

BAND DIARY

2007