Up to Auckland

The Doubtfuls are playing two Auckland shows this week - the Indie Club at the Dog's Bollix on Thursday, and then UFO in deep suburbia on Friday.

Doubtful Sounds & The Scones

The Doubtful Sounds played a support set for a wonderful gig by The Scones at the Wine Cellar last month.
A great time was had by all!

Powertool Records First Christmas Compilation

To celebrate the end of the year, or commiserate, or something, Powertool records have put out a Christmas compilation this year - and we're on it! Matt's track "All the Angels Sang" is track 4 on the compilation disc (how old fashioned!) or download.

The Doubtful Sounds are supporting Gold Medal Famous on Thursday 6 Nov at Meow in Wellington, and Saturday 8 Nov at Space Monster in Whanganui.

Hope you can make it!

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.

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

Theme from the Doubtful Sounds

Matt & Richard were both around today, so we got to play with recording in the front room of Darkest Karori. We all got a bit acoustick - Matt & Richard on guitars, me on my trusty mando (that really does need new strings - if not an upgrade). Matt overdubbed bass (see if you notice, should sound out of place if you listen hard). Then, there is the first ever real video coming soon to you-tube near you: low-res goodness in an imitable style. After that things degenerated. Matt does look cool with the Rick (but then everybody does). And Richard got to unleash his inner guitar god. (Hmm, but we didn't record any of that. Duh).

On the Move

So around 10 December we moved a kilometer down the hill. Still Dark, still Karori - if anything moreso than ever because we're right in low-lying fog by the park, now, instead of 100m above it. Frosts in Winter, yum.

And when we moved, the "studio" had to move too - but we've only just now recommissioned - starring a couple of brand new monitor speakers that really are quite lovely. Matt's down for a few days, so we're re-recording bits that need it.

The really hard decisions lie ahead: how do we go from 14 tracks at 60 minutes to about 10 tracks at somewhere between 40 and 45 minutes? And them - what do we need to re-record until we're happy with it all; how do we mix; how do we master; how do we put it out for people to get? Will anyone want it?

November in Auckland

November, we went to Auckland. Another iteration. That's (almost) all I remember.

Onwards Slowly

More of a record than anything else: Matt was down a couple of weeks ago, 12-14 October, and we filled in more gaps. Left with apparently 14 tracks in varying versions of completeness. I think we have to start worrying more about mixing than recording - the current versions sound great on headphones, but not very good at all on the stereo.