PLOPGIFT 2011

As I was in 2008 I'm again at the PLoP conference, and my gift is another mix CD. As is now traditional, I didn't have time to make the covers, but Small Person did write the name on all the CDs. If you got one, here's the tracklisting: if not, here's what you're missing out on. Rise, The Bad Shepherds
Boogey Man, The Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra
The Village Green Preservation Society, Kate Rusby
On The Lake, Robert Scott
Good Light, The Lucksmiths
Diamond Mine, David Kilgour & The Heavy Eights
North By North, The Bats
Love Love Love, Avalanche City
Free All The Monsters, The Bats
Good Keen Kiwi, The Doubtful Sounds
Marvellous Year, Don McGlashan & The Seven Sisters
Residue (New Year's Carol), Waterson:Carthy.

Matt woz hair

So Matt (who still has hair, unlike, well me) came down on 11-12 August. We recorded something: I'm not sure what, yet, let's just say it Needs Work. In other news, well the Pop Album has been mastered; it needs to trimming, and cover art. Then we should feed it into the maw that is powertoolrecords.co.nz. Oh yeah: to get all this to go, the long-suffering mac was upgraded to 10.6.8, protools 9, and ELEVEN. Orange goodness.

Painting by Numbers

Matt came down again afore Christmas (19 Dec I think) - we talked about mixing, we have a first run mastering from Depot Sound but that mostly shows we need to mix more or better. And we recorded basic tracks for "Painting By Numbers" for a potential Powertools compilation. If we can get it finished in time. We have problems with the guitar parts...

Pre-Mastering

So there has been some activity again over the past few weeks. Weekend of 26 Nov, Matt was down in Welli. Not sure what (if anything) we achieved. But there must have been something. Weekend of 10 Dec, J back to Auckland again. Main thing was doing some mixing, making stems and dumps for mastering. The plan is that Matt'll take a few tracks down to Mark Howden at Depot Sound and see what they can do with 'em. And then Matt's back this weekend, we'll see how we go...

Doubtful Sounds Session

Matt was down in Wellington this weekend - well we made it a long weekend and took today off as well. Probably the main stuff we did was go over the track we have so far, working out whether they were done for mixing or we needed to record more stuff. I attempted a first lead line on Where the Wind Blows - re-recorded the bass to make more space for a guitar break, so now have to record a lead line. I figure it will probably take a few weeks to write and then learn the part, then I'll be able to record it properly. Matt is going to finish up Here Right Now, which only has backing vocals but no lead. We played a bit on two new Matt songs: Small Boy and She's the Bomb; started recording an older one of mine (Preaching Jesus - off the lost & stolen demo takes) and a 12/8 chord progression that Matt called Apocalypto - "No matter what the chords are, we can always turn it in to a ballad". Matt's put some demos up on myspace.

New Music

So one of the early flying nun Mk II albums to come out will be a solo album by Robert Scott. Details here including a free download... What else I have been listening too recently:

• New album by Math and Physics club (even though their name is missing another "s").
• Several discs by The Lucksmiths
• Arch hill stuff Including the 10th anniversay sampler & Haints of Dean Hall
• The King Meets the President in Africa

In other news, umm there isn't any other news. But there might be one day relatively soon.

Theme from the Doubtful Sounds

Video is now here: http://www.myspace.com/thedoubtfulsounds