2008

Written by A.Thomas

January 2008 Pete arrives back on the 9^th and comes over a couple of days later to lay down a bit of backing vocal for Hold but mainly listens to what we’ve been up to whilst he’s been away.

Continue getting final guitar parts on and backing vocals. Sunset guitars are for the most part made up on the spot and end up sounding great.

February Finishing touches done and over 2-3 weeks give the boys mixes to listen for their comments. After we think we have it pretty much done we book in the mastering for the 28^th with Matt Gray. On the last night before mastering I made a few last minute changes with levels and we mastered it the next day. I asked Matt a lot of questions and he was kind enough to help me out so that the next mixes are even better. We put the Master and artwork into Select Media the same day as mastering.

EP2 was really a test bed for me to learn to mix to the best of my ability and to put what I’ve learnt into practice for the album.

Friday the 29^th Feb at about 5:30pm was a defining moment in the bands career as we had just got done listening to the finished product and everyone was blown away by the sound. From now on we can confidently record here in The Vault for free and release records at our leisure under our own terms. A turning point for me personally and a moment I was quite proud to be a part of.

March Friday 14^th March (coinciding with Kristina’s 30^th birthday party – held that night at The Rumpus Room in the West End – 20’s theme) saw the pick-up of our 1000 CD’s from Select Media.

29^th marked Grungefest at The Jubilee Hotel in the valley – put on by Tone of Sonic Porno.

April 5^th – New website layout 'atband.com' complete courtesy of Martin Hill of Datasearch. 8^th April a significant day as we sold our first two Chapter 2 EP’s over the internet via CDBaby.

May In April we had a BBQ with our next door neighbours and they also invited ex-Wallaby/Reds Rugby Player Andrew Heath and his wife and son. We got to talking about music as he was a keen music fan and he mentioned that I should give Carrie Hauxwell a call who runs a music night once a month at the Brookfield Showgrounds. After calling Carrie she sounded keen to have us out so we arrived at the showgrounds on 2^nd May (Friday). It was a very family orientated affair with heaps of kids running around. A very young band went on around 6pm and played a few covers. They had quite the talented girl singing at around 10 years of age (or less). We went on around 7:15 with the intention of playing for 1-1.5 hrs. Because of the kids etc we toned it right down and started with Promised Land. Halfway through the song kids were running away with their ears covered and we were getting disapproving looks from some of the adults and we were playing pretty quietly but it was still too heavy! After we finished there was a collective “Bloody hell – what will we do now?” Memories of the Blues Brothers playing Bobs Country Bunker came to mind, so we knocked into clean mode and played Lighten up my Day which went down a lot better. After playing Feels The Same and a couple of others Pete yelled out: “Let’s do some covers!” We thought that’d be fun so for the next hour we just made up cover songs on the spot with Pete taking most of the vocals and I mainly did harmonies. Between Johnny B Goode, The proclaimers, ZZ top and Gloria Gainer! We did quite a good job. Carrie was quite taken by it all and offered us a spot headlining the Brookfield show in 2 weeks! Another fun adventure. As a result we are learning a couple of cover tunes to throw into the set….

Also that night there was a Blues band playing after us with Neil (the doctor) playing guitar. The whole band were very forthcoming in their praise which was very nice and I gave Neil a card. He called me up the next day and offered for us to play at his next Riverside Jam at his place in Chelmer where I am quite certain the Tom and Julie had been to previously! Small world…..

14^th Karl Filsinger of Tallahassee FL USA buys Chapter 1 and 2. This is only the early stages but it gives me courage that we can really make a proper go at this. If Karl can track us down and enjoys our music, why not thousands of other people?

Naturally it is exciting that we are making music that complete strangers enjoy….

17^th Brookfield Show: Arrive quite early to set up unknown PA system we had hired (for $500!). After 3 hours had it set up and an almighty storm converged and after much scrambling got the gear under our tiny tent as a massive deluge hit us for over half an hour. Ben got particularly wet trying to defend the PA with a borrowed umbrella. We soldiered on and re-set up after the storm. Barn wasn’t there as he had other commitments to another band in Gladstone. We watched the fireworks and there was a good crowd. Straight after the fireworks we kicked off and the crowd was starting to build until Carrie came with her sound meter which she had no idea how to use and made us turn down. This went on for 15 minutes by which time half the crowd had left and it was all quite embarrassing. We continued to play though (eventually just turning it all back up) and the few faithful stuck around including Adam and his mate (2 guys we’d never met before) and they were really into it. Mick got some great photos courtesy of the lights and Pete’s smoke machine we had going. In the end we could have saved the 500 and just used our PA…. you live and learn ….

June 14^th MRAQ Bike show: Called at last minute by Chris Beek, the event organizer and after we explained we did mainly originals he said that was cool (although in hindsight he would have been happier if we played more covers). It was in Dayboro in a (freezing) cold shed and we used our own PA for the first time. The sound was great and they really enjoyed it, considering the lack of covers. We played 4 sets over 4 hours. Wasn’t too bad at all.

20^th Set up Pete’s Drums for recording debut album First Act. An exciting day for me personally (and for the others). It has been a very long road to this point if you take into consideration the aspirations of 1994 and onwards. After a successful mission in completing Chapter 2 EP ourselves the time is right and it with great pleasure that we’ll record these songs over the coming months. We have set aside 12 songs and will do all the drums first. All songs will be new except ‘Into The Fray’ which we’ll take from Chapter 2 EP and possibly re-mix.

July 19 After getting over half the drums down for the album over the last few weeks we hit Toowoomba for the first time. Through Fran we did a bit of PR and secured a radio interview with ABC radio (South Qld) on Friday 18^th (10:40pm). It went very well and the DJ (Vicki) asked some great questions about being in a band and juggling that with other commitments as well as getting in other plugs for our website and songs. We also got a nice piece written up in the local Entertainment Pullout in The Chronicle.

Playing at The Norville hotel in the front bar we had 2 local bands open for us with 45 minute sets; 3 young fellas playing Blink 182 type stuff called Forest Barcode and a really great 6 piece southern rock type band called Project 62. Barn didn’t attend this gig and at the time of writing we are not sure what is going on with him. We’ll see what happens there…

We went on just after 11pm and had a nice crowd. We played well for about 2 hours playing all our originals except Everlong, Dirty Deeds and Better man. Afterwards Ben, Leanne and I hit Subway for a great meatballs feast which went down nicely.

August We entered a band comp called Global Battle of the Bands which still irks me as I write this a couple months later. Turns out you could buy your way into the next round by purchasing votes regardless of how well you played. We played good enough, the first song Promised Land didn’t sound too good due to the equipment and unfamiliarity of it. Don’t Stand Alone sounded great though after turning up the amps. An event best forgotten I think

Other than that, recording goes on and we finished all the drum tracks and started on guitar and bass.

September Recording continues and is sounding great. Quite a few takes are one off which is cool. Conflict within solo was cool because I was trying to nail it all night and couldn’t quite get it. Just before pulling up stumps for the night I had one last crack and nailed it.

October Recording guitars and bass is nearing a point where we can do a rough mix ready for vocals. We’ve been invited to play at a private party in Fernvale on the 25^th so we are devoting some sessions to jamming out which we haven’t really done for months!

Party went well. Just picked up Metallica's Death Magnetic so was pumped listenign to that on the way out in the middle of nowhere. We played until late under a little canopy and had a great time – swapped with Pete at one stage on drums, covered for a blown bass amp with beat boxing and scatting by Pete. Veronica (Barns mum) raved about us :) Got a bloody speeding ticket on way home though.

The majority of the instruments have been knocked over and we are well on track. The use of the ‘taylored’ snare is making all the difference with the drum sound. They sound massive and for some reason the guitars also sound a lot better this time around (must be the SM57 secret technique we’ve been using J ). For the EP we DI’d the bass but this time we’re recording live from the Genz Benz, Barn’s huge amp and getting a much more warm and fat sound.

November Vocals begin in earnest. This time around we are recording all vocals with everyone there to listen and critique (as opposed to EP2 where I just went in by myself and sang all the songs in one afternoon!). This has been an immense help for me and my confidence with vocals. I was a bit nervous at first having to belt it out in front of them but that soon gave way to making it quite fun and with the guys encouragement and suggestions. As a result we are getting excellent results and combined with Pete and Bens harmonies it is really coming together. I have also started doing some rough mixing of nearly complete songs.

December Coming closer to Christmas is making it a little difficult for all of us to be together twice a week, that and the fact that we are now doing Tuesdays instead of Wednesdays due to a course Ben is on (Pete often goes to Toowoomba on Tuesday’s for his work). However we are still working on the vocals. Early in the month with Ben and Barn in one night we got down the main vocals for Slidey Song, Under Fire, Checkmate and a rough pass through Conflict Within (which we ended up re-doing). Really felt good with the voice and we just kept cranking them out. Probably why we had to re-do Conflict as my voice was pretty shot after 2 hours of yelling…We’ve spent a lot more time on the vocals this time around and I believe the results are proof of this. As it stands right now there may a couple of lines that need redoing but overall it is sounding really good to all of us.

Last night (16^th) Ben and I recorded a new idea of his + jammed on a riff that Waz had showed me. Barn and Pete were working so they couldn’t make it. We also thought that the chorus for Conflict needed a lift so we added an ‘octave riff’ to it to fill it out more and it sounded great.

Met with Media Hammer guys Brent Hampstead and Brett Farley to discuss tour PR. I contacted them after seeing Brent speak at the QMusic PR/Marketing workshop in November. Nice guys and I think they’ll be good to work with.

Xmas and New Year slow down the mixing process for a couple of weeks.

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BAND DIARY

2008