Week of Mayhem, Night 7: Future of the Left, The Corner, 08/01/10

The week of mayhem was completed with a gig that was, fittingly, absolute mayhem. An outstanding gig from the first note. Highlights (apart from the music) were the distribution of the backstage fruit platter to the audience, and Kelson attempting to climb one of the poles at the end of the gig whilst the Falco and Jack dismantled the kit onstage. Due to the keyboard going out of tune, we got one-and-a-half Manchasms, and Drink Nike was added to the setlist. YES! They were also pretty touched about playing their "biggest headline show to date" and that they felt like they were a real band when they play in Melbourne. Aww.

Setlist: Arming Eritrea/Chin Music/Wrigley Scott/Small Bones Small Bodies/Plague of Onces/Manchasm (aborted halfway through due to keyboard breakage)/Stand by Your Manatee/Drink Nike/Manchasm (full)/You Need Satan More than He Needs You/Land of My Formers/The Lord Hates a Coward/Fingers Become Thumbs!/My Gymnastic Past/adeadenemyalwayssmellsgood//The Hope that House Built/Yin/Post-Yin/Cloak the Dagger

The mayhem doesn't really stop though: tonight is our good friend Clare's gig with Between The Wars at The Rainbow in Fitzroy (onstage at 8pm), and then on Sunday, Sunday, Sunday it's THE MINPINS (Andre from YIS + Tim from The Strange Attractions with some VERY SPECIAL GUESTS) playing with TELECOM (in their first show in over a year) at The Brunswick Hotel on Sunday. Kicks off at 9pm. Details here.

Week of Mayhem, Night 6: YIS, TSA, Nightmaster, Spitfire Parade, The Birmingham, 07/01/10

YIS by Emilia

The Strange Attractions, plus Andre.

Thanks to all who came out and stayed out until the midnight hour on a school night... It was a big effort, and you were rewarded with three awesome sets from some of the best bands going: The Strange Attractions were particularly mental last night, Nightmaster had the undeniable groove going, and Spitfire Parade were even better than their last amazing set. As for us, we're still learning how to deal with things when it all goes wrong. Oh well, we'll get there... Kudos to Andre for pulling a double shift on drums and putting in an insane effort with both sets, back-to-back, after his first day back at work, and for getting up at 6am to go to work this morning... and to you if you did the same. Hope to see you next time.

Also, happy five month bandiversary, YIS!

TONIGHT AT THE BIRMINGHAM

So, yeah, pretty excited about this one. $5 to get in. If you don't know where the corner of Smith St and Johnston St is, here's a map. You can take the No. 86 (Bundoora RMIT) tram from Bourke St to get there.

Doors are at 8pm, Spitfire Parade at 8:30, Nightmaster at 9:30, The Strange Attractions at 10:30 (featuring Andre on drums), and we're on at 11:30... a bit of a late night, but we promise it'll be worth it.



I've made up 30 extra special copies of "Trevor Block Rockin' Beats" with our cover of "Sex Beat" (not the live one from the mixtape) to give out at the gig. Totally free, just come up and grab one from us at the gig.

Hopefully we'll have a proper CD by... er... the end of financial year. We're just not sure what it's gonna be yet...

Week of Mayhem, Night 5: Nothing, At Home, 06/01/10

...because we all need a night off once in a while. Plus, I have some stuff to do...

If you're in the mood for going out tonight and don't mind being aurally assaulted, check out Aktion Unit + Hoops + Duns at The Old Bar. See you tomorrow night!

Week of Mayhem, Night 4: Grizzly Bear, The Corner Hotel, 05/01/10 (+ Gear Talk)

Tonight's Grizzly Bear show perhaps wasn't totally mindblowing, but it was pretty damn impressive. Perhaps it's just how casual they are about being a great band. They opened with Southern Point, and it was probably the highlight for me; the part where it kicks in felt like reaching the top of a hill and looking out across a great expanse that was far more breathtaking than you'd anticipated. It's very cinematic music.





Okay, so, here's the important bit. Grizzly Bear are total gear-whores. Here's what I could decipher from their setup.

Chris Taylor had the most pedals of all the Bears. He had a couple of microphones set-up that went through his pedals; the one up top was for vocals (and might have not gone thorough his pedalboard, but often had a big wash of reverb, as well as tremolo for Knife). The bottom one was used regularly for his trio of wind instruments (flute, clarinet and tenor sax), which he ran through an Electro Harmonix POG (version 1) to transform his clarinet to bassoon to killer whale. It seriously pumps out a lot of bass. Other pedals were a Moogerfooger (Bass?) MuRF, an Akai Headrush 2 looper, a Boss Digital Delay, a Boss OC-3 Octave and a Boss PS-5 Super Shifter. He played both a Rickenbacker and a Hagstrom bass, and all of this was going through to a Musicman Head + Ampeg Classic 4x10 cab. He also had a radio which he used to feed static through his pedals, often looking very frustrated at not getting the static just right, which reminded me a bit of this for some reason.

Ed Droste has a pretty simple setup with nothing too fancy; he has a little keyboard and an omnichord up top, and played a Fender Telecaster through a Fender Twin. Pedals were a Sansamp (Bass Driver?), an MXR Carbon Copy delay, a Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi NYC and a Boss Tuner. He also had a Boss Digital Delay and a Boss Reverb which I think he ran vocals through. There's also an older EHX Holy Grail and a Small Clone on his board.

Daniel didn't have all that gear as well; he played a few different hollowbodies (a Guild and a Gibson ES series with the one P90 in the neck), as well as a 70s Gibson SG through a bigger Fender combo. He also has a Wurlitzer electric piano (which I like more than the Fender Rhodes). Pedals were an Electro Harmonix POG, a Boss Digital Delay, an older orange Ibanez Compressor, a ZVEX Distortron and a wah of some description, plus a couple of others.

The coolest thing about this band is their ability to sound so full when there's not much going on at all; even when it's just a guitar and a couple of voices, it doesn't feel there should be more going on, or it's a quite part in-between loud parts.

Setlist: Southern Point/Cheerleader/Lullabye/Knife/Deep Blue Sea/Fine For Now/Two Weeks/Colorado/Shift/Ready, Able/I Live With You/Foreground/While You Wait For The Others/On A Neck, On A Spit//Fix It

Tomorrow night... a night off? My ears need it, and I've got some stuff to prepare for the show on Thursday. And the Future of the Left on Friday and the Week of Mayhem will be OVER...

Week of Mayhem, Night 3: King Khan & The Shrines, Ding Dong Lounge, 04/01/10

It doesn't get much more intense than that. Not much I can say, really. This gig had it ALL. If you miss this in Sydney, you are a stone (soup) cold fool.

Okay, well, maybe there is something to say about this gig. Highlights were Khan's "gospel" tale of rebirth (basically involving getting his entire body inside his woman's vagina and coming back out again reborn) and a ripping version of The Saints' "Know Your Product" (performed mostly on-top of the crowd). Lowlights were inconsiderate dicks in the crowd getting all pushy-pushy when people just wanted to dance. A shame. Oh, and I got to do a little organ freakout solo when the keyboard was thrust into the front-row. I was pretty chuffed.


Tomorrow: band practice and Grizzly Bear at The Corner. Brother Matthew just returned from this one and he had content smile on his face and said "It was really good. Look forward to it." I will.

New Song: "Trevor Block Rockin' Beats" (Rough Mix/Vocal)

Okay, so, couldn't resist. Here's the rough mix with the rough vocal. Final version will be on the single along with "Call The Jury (When He's Hungry)".

Recording Jury/Block single, Day 2, 04/01/10

So, we're done! Apart from maybe re-doing the vocals (which I'm not 100% happy with, but might never be) and mixing, the whole thing got finished today. I'd put up the rough mix now but it's probably best to sleep on it and listen with fresh ears tomorrow. "Jury" sounds pretty good, but "Block" sounds better. I'm gonna make up 25 of these bad-boys to give out at the Birmy show, so, get there! Otherwise it'll be up here in the next few days. Drinks at Off The Hip records tonight for those of you heading to King Khan. If so, see you there...

Week of Mayhem, Night 2: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Forum, 03/01/10

Well, that was short. Onstage at 9:40, off-stage at 10:50. In-between was everything you expect from a Yeah Yeah Yeahs show; costume changes, spitting water, deep-throating the microphone... all entertaining. Even if the setlist did slip into ballad-town in the middle (one of the few times I've been at a show and thought "well, I might go get a drink now"), there were plenty of highlights. All the old stuff sounded great; Black Tongue, Pin and Y-Control in the main set and an encore of Maps and Date With The Night were the Fever To Tell choices and they pulled Miles Away from the EP. They even chucked in a Cramps cover and Rockers To Swallow from the Is Is EP. The rest was pretty good; the one-two punch of Gold Lion and Zero about five songs in was where the set peaked, and Heads Will Roll towards the end got toes tapping. Even if the mix was a little muddy and things didn't hit really hard where they should have at some points, you can't really have a bad time in the company of these guys. And David-fucking-Pajo on the keys/bass/guitar!

Setlist: Runaway/Rockers To Swallow/Black Tongue/Miles Away/Human Fly (The Cramps)/Gold Lion/Zero/Pin/Skeletons/Cheated Hearts/Heads Will Roll/Y-Control Encore: Maps>Date With The Night

Recording Jury/Block single, Day 1, 03/01/10

Nothing much got done today apart from setting up the mics and unpacking some new cables, but it's all ready to go for tomorrow. I got bored in the afternoon and made a start on a song called "Call The Jury (When He's Hungry)". The inspiration behind the song is a dream I had:

"Had a dream last night where me and three of our friends (Stu, Sarah and Kris) were going to another city... I got stuck with about six shopping bags to carry in the airport going through the metal detectors (thanks guys). I was driving around when we got there, figuring out where to go. There was a big ringroad around the airport that got us close to where we were supposed to be, but we couldn't get through a certain bit. GPS said we were only about a kilometer away, but still couldn't get there in the twenty minutes after that. We then met a couple of asian girls, who gave Kris of ours a present: a t-shirt saying ''CALL THE JURY... WHEN HE IS HUNGRY'', with a picture of him with one eye bigger than the other, and fangs looking very hungry."

Andre had an idea to have a pulsating synth bit going along with the main song. Anyway, I recorded that intro part today with my Korg MS2000 synth through a Retroman Wolf Tone Machine fuzz pedal (which is reproduction of a vintage FOXX Tone Machine octave fuzz with a few improvements). Sounds like this:

YIS - Call The Jury Pulsating Synth (sample)

Don't know if it's going to work in the context of the song, but we'll see when the drums and other things are added. We'll have to be careful not to throw too much noise in there... Anyway, more samples/photos/thoughts tomorrow. Off to see Yeah Yeah Yeahs now...