Doubtfuls playing Auckland and Wellington

The Doubtful Sounds are playing in Wellington on Thursday 13th, support by Vorn and Little Miss Nomer.

(We played at the Lucha Lounge in Auckland last Friday (7th), supported by Superturtle and Winston)

Band Names

A list of band names or album names, some from earlier in the blog, some from elsewhere:

• The Eiderdowns — for a cover band (unfortunately already taken)
• The Whitecliffe poets — folk band?
• Selective Yellow — techno?
• The Blind Guides — blues / depressive
• The Lilburn Quartet — scurrilous academic e-music 
• Chain Home, Chain Home Low, Chain Home Extra Low — ?
• Hatred of Capitalism!
• Music for Retail
• St Mary's Curve
• The Analogue Delays
• The Art of Forgetting
• The Better Angels
• Howlin' Mouse
• Noisy as Fuck (or alternatively/acoustically, Noisy as Folk)
• Young people have friends
• 8-bit Wizard
• (リニアモーターカー, rinia mōtā kā)

It's all too easy for me to write up a band name, and a list of tracks for the first album.  Making even a single?  A lot more effort!

Doubtful Dog's Bollix

So there's been some Doubtful action in the last couple of months I forgot to catalogue here.

Last month, I was up in Auckland and able to practice with the rest of the band (who are now practicing regularly, lucky them), and also was photographed trying to sing "50 Million Elvis Fans" in the middle of the city.

Then a week or so ago, we played at the Dogs Bollix. Interesting because I hadn't had much of a chance to practice, and we weren't sure who was doing what. But fun nonetheless.

Doubtful Videos

Early last month, the Doubtful Sounds played support for the Bats (wow!) at the Leigh Sawmill. Matt's friend Malcolm was kind enough to video us playing - and here's the first one, Saturday Night, fittingly about another Bats gig many years ago:

Doubtful Sounds at Depot

Late last month, Matt & I went in to Depot Sound in Devonport to try recording in a real studio (rather than our front rooms or basements). There are some pictures up on the Doubtful Sounds Blog. So far, it seems to have gone well, but of course we've yet to hear the mixes.

Certainly having to nail eight or ten songs in a couple of days with a clock ticking is a very different experience to recording a single song over however many evenings it takes. I guess one advantage is simply that booking a studio forces us to try and record stuff.

How much better the recordings are compared with what we can do at home - what's a good balance between working at home vs in the studio - are things we still have to figure out.

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.