A lot of people have been asking me the same questions of late:
"What have you been up to" and "When can we expect the album?".
First of all over the last few months there has been heaps of stuff going on, both musically and personally, even if its not visible yet.
Musically I am still working on the album. Have had to take some down time from finishing the recording as CMD as a studio has moved. We are now located in Lillydale and have been hard at work gutting the new location and building a 100% custom recording studio/film editing suite that will predominately focused around the independent artist in the Hip hop, Metal and electronic scenes. (For those playing at home before hiphop metal/punk rock was my first love, playing drums).
ETA on when we will be able to be booking clients is still unclear, as first priority once building is completed is to finish my album, then it will be full swing into recording the music that I know and love so much, at an AFFORDABLE rate for musicians like myself that otherwise would not be able to push onto the next level. Theres some pics below of the reno's when they just started. Looks totally different now. Will post pics when everything is completed.
I am also writing a side project which will be an acoustic EP. This is also in full swing in the background!
Personally, I turned 21 on christmas eve and celebrated with a house party. I was humbled by the loving/caring people I've managed to surround myself with. Cannot describe how appreciative and humbled I was by everyone who made the night and my life so special. Lovely pic of me drinking "Goon From My Flask".
I've also just got back from a trip up the south-coast of NSW, surfing, reading and writing. Was great to clear my head for a week and spend sometime with my Uncle who runs a personal training studio in Malua Bay.
If anyone is interested in working with one of the best PT's in the country and in the area this is their page (made me spew during our workout, and I'm a gym junkie :s)
I'm writting this sitting next to my engineer and producer whilst we are going over vocal takes for selection, shit is starting to get real. For real, for real..... for real.
For those of you who don't know, I've been slaving away at my debut album for a while now. And by a while, I mean ages. And by ages, I mean most of my life. lol.
Just wanted to keep people up to date with its progress. Aaron Rodgers is producing the album, and its being record at CMD Records by head engineer Matty J.
We're approximately 9 tracks into the initial recording progress, and I'm aiming for 13 tracks on the album (Lucky number 13) with beats coming from all over the world. SO far on the album we have beats by:
Engineer (Canada)
Twist (Germany)
One Tone (USA)
Fons (USA)
Creed Birch (Australia)
As it stands, the album will have guest appearances from DiktionOne, Twist, Flip Simmonds with more TBA when they are confirmed.
If you have made it to any of my recent shows, you would have heard me playing a few of these tracks, ranging from soulful samples to orchestral bangers. They way these tracks have been received live is incredible, and I can't wait to be able to share them with you all.
Release dates are yet to be announced, but rest assure this will be out as soon as possible, no one wants this to come out more than I do!
Matty J and Aaron Rogers working hard on some vocal edits!
For those of you who don’t already know,
the next couple of months for me live shows will be kicking into over drive.
For the first time ever (around my other commitments atm L) I am pretty much booked out for shows. This kicked off this
weekend with a trip to Fremantle for LucidFest 2012.
Note to self: Never fly tiger airways.
Ever. Again. I am writing this whilst on the flight back to Melbourne so the
displeasure is fresh.
(Nekminute I’ll probably be flying with
tiger as I cant afford to be on a plane that wasn’t from the 70’s. I mean,
c’mon how long has it been since you’ve been able to smoke on an airplane and
this thing has ashtrays. Seems legit).
What also doesn’t make me feel to great, is
(whilst on this flight) I finished a report for uni about the Nimrod aircrash
from 2006. Feeling safe.
The way their, domestic flights check in is
what, usually 60mins before. Tiger, specifically stated “Check in BEFORE
4:30am” for a 6:30am flight. Got to the airport at 4:30am, guess what, they
don’t even open until 5. F*ck You. F*ck your baggage allowance rules, f*ck your
attitude. *$@#
Personal bitching about airlines, and
illogical situations aside, we made it to Perth airport in one piece, so it’s
all gravy baby.When I say we, I am
talking about the crew. Aaron Rogers (who you all should know by now) and Josh Mergard.
Josh is our film man/genius/outta the box
advertising ideas man/philosopher. Josh came along for the trip to document
some behind the scenes footage, to film lucid fest, and to film a video clip
for one of our affiliates Chronicle of Perth.
Josh is also essentially the Zen master.
Here are some of his quotes from the weekend, and I sh*t you not. These aren’t
even taken out of context, as the context that they were in had no relevance to
what he was saying.
“Time is irrelevant. The meaning to life is
death”
“If I had a rock melon in one hand, and 12
banana’s in the other and peeled them. Diced them and made a salad with then,
this would be easier”
“I’ve never smoked crack, accept for twice”
“Its just like Zoolander, except none of
this happened”
“It’s a straight back stand up blow job.
When a midget is standing up and giving you head, you eat a pawpaw and the
juice drips on his head”.
^^^^^^^ This right here. Yep. I nearly died
from laughter. Said with such conviction and sincerity. And yes, he said and meant
‘him’.
Anyway, got there Friday and met up with
Vie. First time meeting the dude, had a great time hanging out over the
weekend. Ended up playing a joint set with him, which was sick. Nothing makes
me happier than after a show when people make comments like: “You’re a natural
born performer”, “How do you have so much energy? That was great”.
Honestly though, the set felt great,
getting the props afterwards is just gravy.
Vie has an EP titled “ENTER” that will be
out on Monday, check the first track released from it below
Vie is another affiliate of ours, and
really glad to have him on the team.
Daniel Ray opened the night; have to say I
was very very impressed with this guy. IMO he shouldn’t have been the opening
act by any stretch of the imagination.
Chronicle closed the night spitting his UK
grime inspired raps. I still can’t figure out how he flows like that hahaha.
The day before the show (Friday) we filmed
the video clip that we had set out to for his track “What’s Left”.
Can’t wait for it to come out, it was
Josh’s ideas for the clip, and Josh doing the filming but everything else was a
real group effort to get things done. And would you believe that our lighting budget
was $0? You’ll understand when you see the clip.
The trip was loads of fun. Had a great
time, cemented a lot of new relationships within the Perth hiphop community,
stayed in a kick-ass place on the beach in Fremantle, got a bunch of live
footage. Fremantle you are a truly beautiful part of this country, and I
enjoyed every second of being inside you!
If you wanna catch me live in Melbourne,
I’ll be playing with Chance Waters 31st of August at First Floor,
and then 1st of September with Bastian Killjoy at Revolver upstairs.
As this was a four-week residency at the
workers club in Fitzroy, I was booked to play the second week. The first week I
went down to check out the set, and it had been a while since I’d gone to a gig
just as a spectator. I love being around live music, it’s the only real place I
feel that I fit in/feel at home.
Turns out GG is playing with a full band,
and the whole set had me thinking “Goddamn that bass player looks familiar”.
Turns out its DJ Matik. If you don’t know
who this is, he’s the man behind the music for Seth Sentry, Pez and Grey Ghost.
He’s also one of Australia’s best scratch DJ’s. If you ever get a chance to see
him playing a DJ set, it’s more than worthwhile checking out.
After the show had a chat to him and GG,
was pretty pumped for my set the week after.
I took the liberty in this set of playing a
lot of new album material I’ve been working on, and played 6 or so songs for
the first time ever. This is so exciting for me as I’ve been sitting on these
tracks for a while now, and the crowed (although small numbers for my set) was
really feeling the new stuff. Being so intimate and close was also fantastic
after playing a few big shows recently… really lets me show my soul through the
mic when I'm performing.
Allday was the other support for the night,
and I was really interested in checking out his set. You’ve probably heard his
new one “It’s all good” being smashed on triple J rotation.
GG killed the set again as expected… Also
noticed mantra just quietly shifting through the crowed. It makes me so happy
when I see bigger names still making it out to gigs and involving themselves in
the scene.
The Funkoars support really got shit
rolling for me, and this next support slot that I landed I was so, so happy
with.
Seth Sentry and Chance Waters are two of my
favorite Australian rappers, and when I heard that their shows were being merged
together and that I was going to be playing along side them: Mind basically
blown.
This show sold out. And I mean really sold
out. And then they managed to sell at least another 50 tickets than what the
Everlyn could hold… The show was overflowing.
I have never seen the Everlyn with that many people in it before. That
venue, as I'm sure it does with many people, has a special place in my memory.
I remember going there on a Monday night (when I was about 14) for the hip-hop
night hosted at the time by litigate, seeing acts such as Fluid MC (now known
as Bam Bam) come through and rip sets and open mics. I’ve seen so many great
gigs at the Everlyn from every style of music, and lots of the acts I’ve seen
there have gone onto pretty massive things (Pez and 360 as prime examples).
Anyway, the crowed was digging my opening set,
which was nice, and getting props from Seth and Chance really is a highlight of
my career to date. Chance played with
his full band, adding even more dimensions to an already killer set… When it
was time for Seth Sentry to take the stage, you should have seen the crowed go
mental. Comes on stage starting the chant of what is pretty much the unofficial
hip-hop anthem
“Its bigger than… HIP HOP, HIP HOP, HIP
HOP!”
Also gave us a taste of the new album... this is the first time i heard the new single "Float Away" which I'm sure you've heard by now.
What a fun night. Check this photo out of
me getting my fan on and getting all my shit signed…
This is a video of a track me Olivia Romas and Jordan Creely wrote together, decided to play it for the first time live. Its Called "Fake Hate That Can't Aim". Used this to close the set.
Also notice the Grey Ghost drawing in there.
I ran into him on the way out of the gig and stopped for a chat. Its funny
though, I had this song stuck in my head for weeks and I couldn’t for the life
of me remember where I had saved it/what it was called. It was a track that I’d
listened to A LOT when I was about 14, after one of the nights at the Everlyn
seeing the band “Alex the Kid”. I could even recite the lyrics, and I new that
the song was featuring Jeremody (now known as Grey Ghost). I took my chance and asked him about the
track, and because I didn’t no what it was called I had to rap back some of his
lines to him… it quickly jogged his memory and he laughed saying that that song
was never released and wondered how I had it. I really have no idea, but once
he told me the name of it I found it saved on an old laptop of mine. Listening
to it as we speak…
“That’s why I don’t take drugs anymore, I
just drink lemonade” – Jeremody (Grey Ghost)
I think this little run in is maybe what
sparked his management to contact me for me to support him at his Mixtape
launch.
If you haven’t already check out Grey
Ghost’s EP and new free Mixtape… I am a big fan.
