M+N Readers Poll Results

According to the Mess+Noise Readers Poll, we are the #6 Best New-ish Act in 2011. And we released the 17th best Album of the Year. Freaking amazing. Couldn't be happier. Thanks to all who voted.

Update: We also came in at #36 on the Critics list.

New Plans!

So, it seems like the next half-a-year is going to be a pretty exciting time.

First of all, next month, we've got three shows lined up. Our first show is at The Espy this Friday night, with Peabody, The Once Overs and Altyan Childs Alkan Zeybek. We're on second, so I imagine that will be somewhere around 10pm. After that, we're doing a last-minute fill-in job on Saturday night at Pony, 2am style. Last gig for the month will be a big Boxing Day in Ballarat; Yard Apes + YIS at Karova Lounge on Monday the 26th.

In addition, Andre and I will once again be backing up Brat Farrar on a few shows, including the Future of the Left support at The Corner on December 16. More Brat Farrar show info up on his Bandcamp.

After that, we'll be doing a couple more Melbourne shows (and maybe one in Geelong) and then putting a big fat line under the Kingdom of Fuzz-era of YIS, as after that, we're heading off to Europe to play a bunch of shows with Brat Farrar. Andre and I will hopefully be doing a few small YIS duo shows along the way, but you'll see us play Brat's songs of equal quality in the Netherlands, France, Spain, Belgium and Germany from March 22 until April 1. I will post the dates here when I've got them, but it looks like a big of shows.

I'm off to the UK and NYC after that, and Andre is going to spend some more months in Europe, while Bronwyn is finishing up study and does some important work type things, so, prior to that, hopefully we'll be able to pin Matt down for long enough to have one final hurrah at a venue that's yet to be decided. Hopefully on the other side we'll have something new, exciting and different to play for everyone.

Speaking of new and exciting, we did some other stuff this weekend; Andre recorded our pals in Bidet Mate, and then I whipped up this video. Enjoy, re-post, download, etc.

So, that's it for now. Hopefully see you at a show over the weekend. We'll be playing the favorites and some oldies from the vault. Until then...

Espy Show

In what most likely will be our last show of the year, we're playing our first ever gig on the other side of the river with Peabody, The Once Overs and Happy New Year at The Espy on Friday, December 2. It's a free show and we're on second, so, that'll probably be around 10pm. More info when I got it.

On the other hand, Andre and I have a heap of shows backing up Brat Farrar, including supporting Future of the Left at The Corner in December. Dates and details on Brat's Bandcamp.

YIS By Request

Gig coming up in a couple of weeks. Two sets. One set of new & old stuff, another set of requests and covers. Details here.

Holidays!

Thanks to everyone who came out to The Retreat last night, and who came to shows over the last 1 and 3/4 years we've been playing out. We're taking a rest from playing live for the next few months so we can take stock and write and record some new stuff. Hopefully some new material will be ready before the end of the year. What that'll sound like, I have no idea. Anyway, thanks again. See you around soon.

Next/Last Shows

Two more Melbourne shows in August; supporting Legends of Motorsport on Saturday the 13th of August at The Tote with Sons of the Ionian Sea and a free headline show on Saturday the 27th of August at The Retreat with dotcoms. These will be our last shows before breaking to write the new album.

Nerdy Guitar Pedal Update

So, as Google Analytics tells me, I get a lot of nerd traffic coming through the blog specifically to do with the gear related posts. So, yeah, here's another rundown of what I've been using lately.

My gain pedal section changes quite often. Never quite satisfied with what I've got, but this all sounded pretty good last gig. After the TC Polytune Tuner is my Foxrox Octron; still on the board because it sounds and tracks brilliantly. The first octave pedal I had was a POG 2 and I just couldn't get along with it because of the lag between playing and the note, and the fact it just sounded crap in a lot of ways. I don't really dig that Jack White-organ-guitar octave sound. It's just a crap sound. The sounds Future Of The Left pull out of the POG are orrite though. Anyway, this is about the Octron. Sounds great. Tracks great. Feels great. Good pedal.

Next up is my brand new Tym Guitars Big Mudd that I picked up in Brisbane a few weeks back. Sounds brilliant. I always end up running an overdrive after any Muff or Muff-type fuzzes because it gives a little more cut and presence. This one is one of the Ramshead series Mudds and they have a little trouble sitting in the mix usually but this sounded pretty good on Friday night so it'll probably stay a while.

The Lovepedal COT50 runs after that. This one is just a great pedal, but not all Lovepedals are the same by any means. The older stuff is great. The newer stuff is hit and miss. I've sold more Lovepedals than I've kept, but the ones I've kept are some of my favourites. Can be a bit tricky to match up with some guitars because of the single knob (sometimes playing guitars with hotter pickups tend to mean that gain pedals can sound quieter than the clean signal) but it always sounds great.

Last is a Fulltone Fat Boost 3. I like this pedal a lot. I click it on for a bit of a boost when I need it. Yep.

After that is pretty much the same as a while back: the Moog Freqbox is now the FORBIDDEN PEDAL as Mum said I hurt too many ears when I woosh this one. Note to self: be more considerate towards others re: square-wave. After that is the A/DA Final Phase, Cusack Tap-A-Whirl Trem and Earthquaker Disaster Transport Delay. Finally is a TC Electronic Hall-Of-Fame Reverb. It's a solid reverb that's small and tweakable. Not mindbendingly spectacular but it sounds good enough and it's small. Can't really ask for much more than that. I have an Eventide Space for home and that sounds better, but is the size of my face.

Vocal pedals are now a Line 6 M5 and a Pigtronix Keymaster. The old DL-4 got booted off the board for being too damn big. This M5 goes fine. Keymaster allows me to run XLR in and out of the M5 and there's a bit of a boost stage too. Got that running at 24 volts from the Pedal Power 2. Have got all my old DL-4 patches in the M5 and they sound pretty much the same. Plus now I can do other cool stuff on vocals that's not delay. Like this, maybe.

Any questions? Good.

Special Old Bar Thanks!

A special thanks to everyone who attended our second anniversary show. It was an excellent night; all the bands were on fire and the packed house made us feel very warm and fuzzy indeed. If you missed out, we got it on tape thanks to our awesome pal Kris on the desk and Jacqui behind the camera (who also gave me Animals on vinyl for my birthday), so hopefully we can put those two things together and chuck it up online at some point in the next week or so. But here's the best bit anyway.

Old Bar Tonight, Razorcake Review

So, yep, it's my birthday bash at The Old Bar tonight. Should be fun. Bidet Mate on first at 9. YIS on at midnight. Russian Roulettes then Baptism of Uzi somewhere in the middle. Eight clams to get in.

Also, here's a great 'Kingdom of Fuzz' review from the latest issue of Razorcake.

YIS & Brat Farrar Blowin' Up

(pictured above: my rear tyre that blew up on the Eastern Freeway at around 7pm on Tuesday night)

YIS and Brat Farrar in a pair of Top-5 lists on the web today:

Darren Levin, editor of Mess & Noise included 'Kingdom of Fuzz' in his Top 5 mid-year list, calling us "Melbourne's best pub rock band. Bar none." http://www.messandnoise.com/articles/4295308

Darragh Murray from Collapse Board said "Brat Farrar kicked some serious arse" amongst some other nice things in his Flavours of Skuzz review here: http://www.collapseboard.com/brisbane/five-things-learned-at-flavours-of-skuzz/