Gear: New Musicmaster Pickguard

Before

After

Although I do prefer the white-on-white, the old pickguard was falling apart... a good swap.

Come up and have a look in person tonight at Pony. First gig... very tense here.

yisBay update

How much does a once in a lifetime experience cost? Well, according to tysondana69.... $10.50. Congratulations, and let us know what kind of chocolate you like. If it is a warm evening, we might even make a trip to the ice-cream bin.

Next gimmick: win all-you-can-eat Ice-Cream from Trampoline on Brunswick Street with YIS.

Gear: New Musicmaster Pickup

This evening, after the penultimate practice before our gig premiere, we performed a little surgery on Bron's new guitar. It's a 1972 Musicmaster bass, (born in the USA), that we picked up from the Swappy for a reasonable price (by today's standards). These are considered the least desirable of the vintage Fender basses (although are incresing in popularity quite a bit), but are ideal for people with little paws. It has the shortest neck scale of all Fender basses, and a lot of fun to play... in fact, I think I might be on the lookout for a well priced MIA Mustang Bass if it pops up.

Anyway, these things were pieced together from leftover Fender Bronco guitar parts at the time, including the pickup. You can see to the right of the pickguard that originally came with the guitar which has six pole-pieces (for guitar strings) . Sounds alright, but lacks a bit of punch and low-end. We replaced it with one of these Aero pickups which slots right into the original spot (no routing or modification, like you'd have to with a vintage style P-Bass pickup), which has four pole-pieces for the bass strings. Sounds great too. Apparently you are supposed to disconnect one of the two capacitors on the tone pot that inhibits the highs from coming through, but we saved that experiment for when we change the pickguard... which has been lost by Aus Post. Damn you!!

A ONCE IN A LIFETIME EXPERIENCE

eBay Auction

For sale is not just a gig ticket, but an experience never to be repeated.

The show is this Saturday, October 31st at Pony (68 Little Collins St, City).

YIS are onstage at 10pm. The successful bidder on this auction will recieve:

1) Admission to the gig & soundcheck (8pm) (valued at $6)

2) One drink from our rider (valued at $4, or whatever they charge for a pot.)

3) A chocolate bar/confectionary of your choice from 7-Eleven, Little Collins St. (Up to the value of $3)

4) A setlist signed by all three original members of YIS, (Priceless, surely)

5) Some sort of congratulatory gesture (i.e. handshake, friendly pat on the back, knucklebump)

6) One drum tip from Andre Fazio

7) One cooking tip from Bronwyn Liroudia

8) One fashion tip from Simon Fazio

9) Free entry to the first YIS Live Mixtape at The Tote, Saturday, October 31st at 5-7pm

You must be 18 to attend this gig and claim the prize. You must also be able to attend the gig. Happy bidding!

Friends: Zac Oblivian & Pissing on the Mainframe

Pissing on the Mainframe

Zac Oblivian was kind enough to give us a payola-free shoutout over on his blog; while you stop by, be sure to check out his tale of bowling with Teen Archer at Crown and other adventures... As well as excellent tour news and releases. Watch that you don't get sprayed...

My First Gig

In honour of the first ever YIS gig (on saturday night at pony at nine-thirty pm for six dollars), today's YISBLOG will take you on a trip to a magical, faraway place that time forgot.

Welcome to Frankston. The year is 2001.

The band was concieved whilst playing kick-to-kick in a Langwarrin street. My cousin Justin played drums, so, I thought I would try my hand at guitar. He was sixteen. I was a year younger. (Still am.)

When I recieved my first guitar; a translucent green asian Strat copy, I excitedly rang my cousin.

"Hey, man, I got a guitar!"

"Awesome, I just got a bass!"

I was not impressed. This had totally ruined my plans. We had gained a bass player, but lost a drummer.

The soundtrack of our lives at that time was pretty much Body Count, NWA and some very forgettable pop-punk rubbish, with a bit of Hendrix thrown in for good measure. I was pretty thrilled when I learned the riff to Lenny Kravitz's "Fly Away" (as it's a pretty awesome riff, despite, y'know, Lenny Kravitz), but seeing as there was no guitar in the verses, and there was no Auto-Wah on Justin's bass pedal, we did not play it.

We found then our drummer, Cam. He was a friend of Justin's. Slightly younger than me. Practice was either at his house, or Auntie Jo's.

By the time our first gig rolled around, I had already graduated to a Godin Radiator; a two pickup deal that was covered almost entirely by a ultra-gaudy white pearloid pickguard. I had one of the first Line 6 PODs for distortion; the only problem being that I did not have the footswitch to go with it, so, changing from a clean sound to a heavy sound meant that I had to reach over quickly and press the button on the unit for the next patch. Not very practical at all.

The first point of friction in the band was the name. I suggested 'Plan B', but Cam suggested 'KTX'. I didn't like it, but he had already he organised a gig, and told the venue the name.... and the plastic marquee had already been made.

So, our first gig rolled around; the Frankston High School Fete. We were scheduled to play sometime in the afternoon, but this was pushed back to the headlining slot in the evening, after the sausage sizzle.

(This has turned out to be the second most popular opening act for a band I've been in, with the first being the Snakebusters/Footbag demonstration at the Eltham Festival earlier this year.)

The set was so short we played it twice for the family members who missed it the first time. Nobody seemed to mind. It came and went with very little fanfare. My outfit for the evening was an XL sized At The Drive-In t-shirt with a beige long sleeve tee underneath; for some reason I thought the long-sleeve under short-sleeve look was quite fetching... not so much after footage from the night surfaced. This was capped off with a pair of Air Jordans and a set of 3/4 length 26 Red corduroy shorts; also beige.

And now for the second point of friction. The guys had found a singer. To me, this was a not so subtle way of telling me that I couldn't sing. His name was Milly. We had one practice with him, from which we wrote our first (and only) original track. It was entitled 'Goddamn Van Damme'; inspired by the lifesized cardboard cutout of the the one-and-only JCVD in his garage. He also made great chips. But I still hated him. He was stealing my spotlight and I would not have a bar of it.

I left the band a month later. By that time, the name had been changed once again without my consent to "Normen".

But I had already moved on to bigger and better things. I was now the synth player in 'Cheese Grater Sodomy'.

Video: YIS Helmet Cam

Ange and I having a jam with a camera taped to my head... which falls off.

YISNEWS #3

More YISNEWS, not enough time... This week's pretty hectic (as you can imagine). As well as organising the sets for two gigs and recording, it's also job application season in the Education profession... Not a good time of year... My laptop is also out of action as well... So, some of the Moog Voyager funds might have to be routed towards a new PC, especially if I don't get a job next year... But let's not think about that.

Anyway, just a big thanks to everyone who has been checking out the site, listening to the music, or thinking of coming to the gigs coming up over the next fortnight or so. The band has come a long way in a short amount of time. Please come along to Pony this Saturday, and don't be shy.

Hopefully we'll have a lot of new stuff in the next few months. The mixtape release will be out and about within the next fortnight; just some limited edition CD-Rs at the gig and digitally here... both for nada. We're thinking about doing a split 7-inch release, and hopefully some sort of longer release by Jan-Feb next year. There's a lot of work to be done, and it's pretty exciting. This is the first time in a while I've had to put in a lot of the work in a band, and it's terrfying and invigorating. Being in a band is one of the coolest things in the world; there's so much to be done, and there's a whole little world to carve out. Even if nothing much comes of it in the end, it's a very strange and cool feeling to create things that would have never existed if you weren't making them, even the smallest thing... (although some people would argue a lot of our music has already been made by other people 30 years ago... heheheh...)

So, hopefully there'll be some new, exciting stuff up here in the next few days... if not, some gig videos and pics on Saturday. Come and take some if you're not too busy!

Pony Flyer

YISNEWS #2

Busy times in YISLAND. Thank you Matthew Fazio for reminding me that I did not update yesterday, and suggesting I should take down the "updated daily" notice on the BLOG. Well, Matthew, if you want daily updates so bad, you should subscribe to our Twitter.

It won't happen again.

So, we've been freaking out a little bit about the gig coming up next Saturday. This is confirmed; we're on at 10pm at Pony. Also playing are The Thod and JJ Symon & The Monochromes. $6 to get in.

We've been working hard on putting together a set (which has caused the Mixtape recording to go a little offschedule, although it should be ready in time for the Tote gig). We've worked together a 10 song set which will feature a vocoder at some point.

Still to come on today's (or tomorrow's) YISBLOG, (depending on how co-operative Windows Vista wants to be with letting me back onto the network); some HD rehersal footage from yesterday of YIS working out 'Trevor Block Rockin' Beats', and a (potentially explosive) special YISCHEF report from last night's DDC dinner at Attica. Stay tuned, YISFANS.