Going down south with Connan, and why you shouldn't play at Arc Cafe

We just got back from a really great trip down to the South Island to play a couple of shows with Connan Mockasin and his great band Ricky, Will and Dan. Plus Connan's good friend Joseph aka The Snat. We drove down in the van and ferry together, had lots of good times.

We had to get up at 5am on the first day to get down to the Ferry on time. The car was packed to the brim with Connan and Joseph squished into the back with a whole lot of equipment. Took the 7 hour trip down to Dunedin, lovely drive.

Turned up to the venue in Christchurch, The Dux, to find that our show hadn't been promoted at all and that it clashed with an overseas band. But the venue still gave us some really nice dinner, and we set up all our stuff and the what not. In the end we got about 30 people through the door which was enough to feel ok in the venue, but made for a very small and low key show. But the people that did come were into it, which was great. We stayed at Ricky's parents place, and it was niiiice. Got a great sleep, ready to leave early the next day for Dunedin.

By this time we could see no promo had been done for the South Island shows, so we called ahead to our friend Matt. Matt saved the day on this show, I'll tell you how. The venue we played at, Arc, is not set up properly for live music. Even though they say they are, they're not. When we turned up, all the gear from last night was still setup on stage with all the mics and leads still set up too. Bad start. The guy doing sound was a guy called Tim, who is apparently the resident sound guy. It was clear from the get go that he didn't know a whole lot about sound, and was possibly also a little bit slow. Connan and his band started setting up, using Arc's Dick Smith $15 mics. But the sound guy couldn't get the PA to sound ok. It was all distorted and awful. Half the speaker cabinets weren't even plugged in. Ricky asked Tim the sound guy whether maybe people from last night unplugged half the PA or something, and wanted to go ask the bar what had happened. But Tim the sound guy told us he did sound the night before and that he doesn't know whether stuff was plugged in or not... how could you not know?? He indicated multiple times that he didn't really know what he was talking about.

This is where it gets really bad/funny. We go to set up our stuff but there are no DIs. Lesson learned, travel with DIs. So we set up on the floor next to the mixing desk. This works really well actually. Also, there is only one mic stand in the whole venue, so our friend Matt comes through and brings some stuff in including a guitar amp, mixer, mic stand and mics. Thanks Matt!! So we're sound checking our gear and the PA is really quiet and super super distorted. You couldn't really hear any music. It was ridiculous. But eventually we get it sounding ok (read: still distorted and awful) and decide to start the set. There are like 100 people or something in the venue, thanks to Matt's last minute promotion efforts on student radio. We start playing but things are freaking out, all distorted, really full on unlistenable. But we struggle through, make the best, people are still into it. But Tim the soundguy just stands there drinking beer, not trying to fix it. So we get our friend Matt over to fix it up, and he does a good job. Tim the sound guy then tells our friend Matt to fuck off.

And then Tim the sound guy just walks out, in the middle of our set with poor sound. I've never seen anything like it. Ricky goes out to find him, and he's sitting out in a booth in the cafe part of the venue with his head in his hands. Ricky asks him if he's ok, but Tim the sound guy ignores Ricky. So we finish off our set, Matt helps out heaps and it ends up being workable. So Tim the sound guy comes back in to help set up for Connan Mockasin. But he seems incapable of patching a mic to the mixer and making it work. So Connan comes up to him and asks him what's happened. I mean, there are now more than 100 people there to watch the show. Tim the sound guy says he doesn't even want to be there. So Connan says that he can go. So off he walks into the night. Sound guy-less, I take up the role of sound guy and get the Mockasin's stuff going. The PA is so broken that only Connan's vocal mic can go through it, and even then it's distorting heaps.

Connan and the guys play a really great set, everyone's into it, it's an awesome show in the end after all the fiddling around. Everyone comes together to make it work out, especially our friend Matt. Awesome! Here are a few videos from it:





Also, here's a video of Matt, our friend who helped out so much. He was having a GREAT TIME:



On the same night in Dunedin the Little Bushman are playing over at a different venue. Connan and the guys are friends with them, so they call them up and Little Bushman offers Connan a slot playing after them. So we pack all the gear and drive across town to the other venue. There are lots of people there and Little Bushman are just finishing up. Connan sets up and they play a great set to a really appreciative crowd. Johanna and I get up on stage and have a play with them, and so does Warren from Little Bushman. Everyone has a really good time.

But that's not where the evening stops. Connan and his band decide to head off into the night to have a few drinks while Johanna and I go back to Matt's place to rest up for the 13 hour trip the next day. I text the address of where we're staying to Connan in case they need somewhere to sleep, but Connan says that they'll be able to sort it. Then we get this phone call at 5am from Connan. It turns out that they spent an hour wondering up and down the street looking for the place, and then when they found it they went into the upstairs flat. It was unlocked so they let themselves in. They crept through the house and found an empty room with a mattress and decided that was where they were meant to be. But then they had a look through the flat bills and couldn't find Matt's name. So they started getting worried. Then they heard someone stirring in the other room. Ricky peaks his head in to this stranger's bedroom to try and say hi, but at that exact moment Joseph aka The Snat lets a huge fart loose. The group explode into whispered laughter and have to run out of the flat in order to not wake anyone up. In the end they find the flat, get the keys off me, and decide the sleep in the van.

The last day was Connan's 26th Birthday. So we got him some pies and hotdogs. We spent 13 hours traveling home, talking crap in the car, debating the musical merits of backing tracks and all the rest. The ferry crossing on the way home was super intense, with huge swells. We all got a bit seasick so went up to the decks to pass the time. Here's what happened:



The trip ended up being a lot of fun. Will, Ricky, Dan, Joseph and Connan are all really great guys with lots of interesting things to say. Everyone pulled together and helped each other out in Dunedin, and turned a terrible show into an excellent show. Will even took us over to his friend's place to find a DI.

I was pretty nervous about playing in front of Connan and his band. These guys were all jazz school guys who were really into performing music really well on their instruments. While we use backing tracks and samples, a completely different logic of musical thingy thingy. But they all said nice things to us in the end, which was really great.

We've still to play a Wellington and Auckland show. I think Liam Finn will be joining us for these shows. Should be lots of fun. Will keep you posted!


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EDIT: As an after thought, to Arc's credit they did make us dinner for free which was really nice of them. And they made us free coffees in the morning when we came to pick up the gear which was super nice. But they need to sort out their sound stuff if they want to be a viable option for live bands. The space at Arc is really nice, but the gear is all broken and poor quality. And that in house sound guy was a joke. Not in a mean way, just in a 'hey man why don't you walk out on us mid set' kind of way.

Selling out to Sprite?

A month or so ago we got this weird email from Sprite. You know, the soft drink? They wanted to include a song of ours in a ringtone website they were making. They were offering us no money. Here's what's wrong with this offer:

-They claimed it was a 'not for profit' thing, and that's why they weren't offering us any money. WTF? It had Sprite's brand name all over it. Do they think we're retarded?

-Which band in their right mind will associate themselves with the Coca Cola Company for no money? It doesn't make any sense

-Along with the email they sent us, they accidentally sent us some past correspondence they'd been having with other Sprite manager people. It read something like

Goon 1: "Haven't had much luck in the states or UK"
Goon 2: "Don't worry, you can expect Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines to be paths of less resistance"



Dear Sprite, next time you ask us to associate ourselves with some random giant company, please offer us lots of money.

Camp A Low Hum 09 was AWESOME

We had so much fun playing at Camp A Low Hum this year. We played in the forest, and I played a saxophone solo and I was pretty much this guy:



We tried out a few new versions of old songs, plus some new tunes. We did a couple of mashups which was new for us and was fun. People got dancing in the forest. Thanks so much to all our friends and everyone who came and saw us, we really really enjoyed ourselves :D We even played that Weezer cover, which came out ok in the end.

But man Camp was great. Particularly loved Bonaparte and The Show is the Rainbow. Awesome international stuff. Go see them sometime!

There's heaps of video and photo stuff of us playing so I'll get it up soon :)



Little Pictures - Buddy Holly (Weezer cover)

A music software maker gets mad at YACHT - my thoughts

So here's what happened:

YACHT admits in an interview that he cracks software. He names Analog Industries as a brand of plugin that he's pirated. Analog Industries finds the interview and posts up on it's blog a response to the interview.

http://www.analogindustries.com/blog/entry.jsp?msgid=1232741050559&page=5#replies

They call him an idiot, pretty much.

Then YACHT responds with a sort of apology in the comments of that blog post.

Then Analog Industries comes back with a big blog post refusing to accept his apology.

Then Pitchfork blogs about it and says "Moral: Don't steal stuff. And if you do, don't tell the Internet about it."


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So here's the problem with all of this. Every musician steals software. And if they don't, it's because they don't understand how to. The reason they steal it is because it's expensive, but easy to steal. So understandably Analog Industries is pissed off with YACHT, but they almost seem surprised.

Worst of all is Analog Industries' crass, personal insults to YACHT. On their blog they adopt an informal 'cool' style of discourse. But they go on to say stuff like "annoying hypocrisy of the whole light and happy rainbows trip you're on" and "While it may be the charge of the Hippy Dippy Light Brigade that information wants to be free, etc.".

It sounds to me like YACHT really got to them. On a very personal level. They're not just like "you stole our software, and bragging about it is a stab in the guts", they're more like "OMG YOU SUCK YACHT I HATE YOU YOUR MUSIC ISN'T EVEN ALL THAT GOOD LOLOLOLOL".

What YACHT did in that interview was give a little insight into the way in which lots of bands make music, what Analog Industries did with that info was a little embarrassing.

Screw you Analog Industries. Learn to internet.

Jo: "Screw you Analog Industries", "Fuck you Apra"... Gee whiz you're an angry-pants this week... I think the internet is making you cranky, maybe you should take some time out...

People making videos of themselves dancing and singing to our songs

It's pretty crazy and cool to find this stuff. Here are some youtube videos I've come across of people dancing and singing to our tunes. By the mos disturbing/amazing one is the one in which someone draws a face on a pillow and forces it to dance. Pretty degrading to the poor pillow. Anyway, check it out





And here's one we've blogged about before:

I love the internet and the internet loves me

So the other day I was sitting in class with my laptop, googling my own name to pass the time (Shut up, it's not lame, everybody does it...Right? Right??), and I came across this nice little article about us in NZ Musician Magazine. I hadn't seen it, because well... who reads hard copy magazines these days? Not me. Anyway, it's kind of sweet, and it features a stellar nerdy quote about technology from yours truly. Yay. I google myself and I love computers. My life is GOING OFF. Also they made a photo of us look purple, and that pleased me. Anyway this is a terrible post so yeah... Enjoy.

Nocturnal Couplings
Author: Stephanie Gray



Lil' Chief Records are riding a wicked west coast swell at the moment, their established acts attracting attention and critical acclaim all over the northern hemisphere. Now, as Stephanie Gray reports, the notoriously incestuous label have widened their pop gene pool with the addition of nocturnal synth + vocal couple Little Pictures.

With the intensity of young love Johanna Freeman sings: 'I wish I could tie a string between me and you / I'd pull on the string whenever I felt confused.'
There is no doubt she's singing to boyfriend and bandmate Mark Turner - the song is from a debut album that is as much a dedication to their togetherness as it is a well-crafted collection of electro-pop.
When the 20 year-old Wellingtonians play I Wish I Could Keep You live Mark triggers samples of Johanna's vocals, sneaking them in between words as she sings, to an effect that Johanna confides she finds a little creepy.
Creepy maybe, but it's a charming technique that had a house-full of Dunedin indie-kids jumping up and down with synchronised 'hip hop hands' recently. More than an enjoyable way to stay warm down south, this is a response that Little Pictures have come to look forward to from the Mainlanders.
"I like the South Island because it's less intimidating - more like our tour in Australia," says Mark."People are excited about you being there," Johanna adds.

For that reason the twosome tour out of town as much as their university timetables allow - a mission made easier by the fact they can fit all of their gear into one guitar case. It's the touring musician's dream - to fly unhindered by excess baggage and, as a couple tuned into each others energy levels and emotions, free to do as they please. But it hasn't always been so - until the middle of last year Little Pictures was a three-piece, with friend James Halborow adding drums.
Quietly but assuredly Johanna and Mark started planning for the breakaway two-piece electronic act they would call Owl + Owl, in allusion to their nocturnal tendencies. They kept the act's original name in the end, tucking 'Owl + Owl' away as a name for the album that has now followed their self-released EP 'You and Me and My Amplifier'.

Having shaken off the shackles of a drum kit, Little Pictures shaped their new sound around the monophonic tones of a Moog synthesiser, programmed beats, a glockenspiel and his-and-hers vocals. They then stripped back even further by sampling the Moog - the legendary brand's latest Little Phatty model - into an electronic sampling pad. It's a minimalist set-up that keeps people guessing. As does the way in which Mark triggers samples - joyfully thwacking the inconspicuous black pad with drum sticks next to Johanna who, in gaps between glockenspiel and singing, blows shiny bubbles that float across the ubiquitous divide between band and audience.
"It's exciting to play with stuff that people don't necessarily understand. People see me hitting the pads and there's always a musician in the front row who will come up and ask if I'm actually doing anything," smiles Mark.
"It's fun to make things more mysterious," Johanna adds.

Because it's Mark that holds the sticks, people wrongly assume that he's the songwriter - much to the annoyance of both. They are equally infatuated with technology and pop culture, happily trawling blogs and forums and working their experiences with, and knowledge of new media into their university assignments.
"Lots of people like to talk about gear, but I'm more interested in the social shaping of scenes and looking at how people use technology," Johanna explains.
To fine-tune Little Pictures' sound and style they looked into what other musicians were doing, watching YouTube clips to suss instrumentation. With refreshing honesty, they admit to culturally sampling and taking others' arrangements for their songs.
"We can't sample in the way DJs like Girl Talk can, so we try to recreate things we like," says Mark, who like Johanna listens to a lot of hip hop, and grimier artists like Dizzee Rascal. Being the nice young stars they are, Little Pictures give as much as they take - uploading their mp3s as free downloads and sending a cappella tracks to anyone keen on remixing.
"We'd love it if someone downloaded our song and borrowed a riff or a verse and built a new song around it. So our stuff is there for the taking," Johanna offers.

This is an ethic that Lil' Chief Records must be comfortable with; 'Owl + Owl' was released by the Auckland pop label after co-owner Jonathan Bree saw the band performing at Camp A Low Hum last summer.
"We were quite surprised at his interest, because Lil' Chief has The Brunettes and The Ruby Suns - these lush bands with layers of sound," says Mark.
Clearly the label do like what they hear and are propelling Little Pictures into the wake of those acts, with an American tour taking in Seattle and Portland among other cities.
There's a video clip online of a beaming Johanna and Mark reading aloud the email from Bree asking them to join the label. Recorded late at night after coming home from a gig and logging on to find the good news, the video nicely sums up the zeal and techno-savvy that shines through Little Pictures' music.

Strange new NZ copyright laws mean the end of music blogs

NZ has just passed a strange new copyright law. I know that sounds boring, but it's really extreme. It means that if you are suspected of downloading something illegal (i.e. anything form a music blog, unlicensed youtube video etc) then you can have your net disconnected. No trial, no need of proof, just suspicion.

You can report someone to their internet service provider, and the ISP is required under law to disconnect that person's net. On the spot.

The worst thing is that they are doing it to 'protect artists' rights'. Well we're artists, and this is a huge punch in the guts. Fuck you APRA and RIANZ (two big musician representative groups) for supporting this. You don't care about us at all. I'm really disappointed.

You can sign this petition: http://creativefreedom.org.nz/petition.html

Please do, and spread the word about this strange, over the top new law.