Oh Blog Oh Blog Dog Dog Oh God Run Dog Good Dog G'day Dog

G'day friends how are you all?
I'm pretty tops.
Off the Cuff is tops



That's the Biff Merchants. They were incredible. They were the first artists to have an Off The Cuff session.
They did it in Sammy's. Sucks so bad that it's been shut down.
The next session was Thundercub...



This is all the brain-child of fellow Dunedin designer Daniel 'Blackball' Alexander.
The first two sessions were done in late 2009 as part of his third year Communication Design project.
What's really great is that he's decided to continue the project independently.
The Tono and the Finance Company session was filmed in winter 2010 and will be released THIS WEEK along with the previous two sessions.
The Tono session was the first one that I had helped out on. I think you can see me floating around in the background at one point.



Back then I didn't really know Bugs (the one with the epic beard and cool badges). Now I can't get enough of the guy. What a guy.

So anyway this weekend just been saw the epic task of filming three more OTC sessions in just two days.
Three different bands in three unique locations.
On Saturday we had:
The Maybe Pile - Filmed in Re:fuel (in the front room)
Operation Rolling Thunder - Filmed in the Radio One atrium.
and on Sunday we filmed Freddy Fudd Pucker (my personal favourite of the three).

Can't wait for all you people to come to the screenings and witness what I had witnessed first hand.

The Dunedin music scene is in a transition period at the moment. There's a buzz in the air. People are collaborating all over the place. The loss of venues isn't as discouraging as you might think.

Last week saw the return of Mr. Micheal 'Skinny' Cathro - Member of The Biff Merchants, Paul's (from Alizarin Lizard) brother, and head of Brown. He's been away in Europe/UK for the last year or so. While away he's managed to drip feed us an album and an EP of demos.
Last Thursday was Brown's first Dunedin show. A house party at 3 Fea St - the same 3 Fea St of Feastock fame. Oleh, Alizarin Lizard and Thundercub also played.




Thanks to Louis Smith who filmed these two tracks (I think).



Come to Mou Very this Thursday to see Brown in the flesh.



Oh and Alizarin Lizard's (Ben's) blog is still engaging as hell.

Mechanical Pencil

I lost my pencil. My wonderfully amazing mechanical pencil of 8 years. EIGHT YEARS!
I think it went missing in Auckland while on tour.
Shitty shitty circumstances.

I don't have a spare and I think wooden pencils are dicks.

I guess I'll buy a new one.



The following images were all created with the poor lost pencil.

Flailing Optical

Check out my sweet background image. Cool eh?
That there is the 1st ever full coloured drawing I've done that filled an entire page.
I did it in 2008 when I lived in Blenheim for a bunch of months. Those 4 or 5 months were probably the most productive months of my life up until that point.
I was living in a tiny flat with a small Samoan family and a life long WINZ recipient and alcoholic named Rodney.
I spend those months drawing every single day. Aiming to do something interesting on (at least) 1 page per day.
Maybe all the creativity was because I had no social life at the time or that I couldn't communicate to the people I was living with. Maybe I needed a distraction from my boring factory job. But maybe it was because I had discovered COLOUR. 

Colour was the most important thing that could've happened to me creatively.
Here's a bunch of examples of how I've exploited it.

Post Tour Post

So I reckon it's about time to start hacking away at some footage and put together a video diary of the two tours that I recently did with Left or Right (Nuggetour) & Alizarin Lizard (Oh, Colour EP release tour).

No idea how it's gonna turn out. Probably pretty cool.
If anything it'll give you guys a fair idea on how hard we all party.

The only nuggety thing is that my netbook is too shit to do any real editing aside from windows movie maker.
So I'll have to sponge off my friends and use their superior macs and such. Cheers Bugs.

Here's a wee clip from the Auckland Left or Right show...after the fire alarm went off.

More of this sorta nonsense to come...

Making a blog is really narcissistic

Here's some guys that I've recorded.
A bit rough around the edges but it gives an idea of what kinda noises I like making.
Hands up if you ever wanna have a wee jam and make some fucked up sounds.


Estuary Walkway Dud Men Don't Last by MoonRulesDon'tApplyHere

abitearlythereguy by MoonRulesDon'tApplyHere

fiveloopsamples by MoonRulesDon'tApplyHere

A squeedly dee a 20 bux by MoonRulesDon'tApplyHere

Ben is really cool

G'day guys.

I've been inspired by me ol' mates Alizarin Lizard to start a blog.
Ben's the man. He can write the shit out of anything.


2011 has been neat so far. I've got lots of wee projects on the go and on the backburn.

     The big one was (of course) Alizarin Lizard's EP cover art...

Album cover design is totally my dream job. Pretty cool that I'm getting opportunities to make them for some local bands. Keep an eye out for the Ink Mathematics, Thundercub & Thundercunt EPs +  Left or Right's 2nd LP.


As well as all them album covers I'll also be having a wee go at some video projects...
As you may or not know, me and general good chum Daniel 'Blackball' Alexander filmed Feastock 2010 and turned it into a short documentary:

We're gonna whip together another doco on this years festival too so keep an eye out for that in the coming months.
As well as the Feastock stuff, I'll also be working with the Left or Right guys on their debut music video.
That's gonna be bloody exciting. I reckon we'll end up doing something real trippy similar to this:

So now you're in the loop. Good job. Neat. Cheers.

Tonight I'm gonna go to XII Below for Idiot Prayer + Alizarin Lizard. I think I'm doing lights for the Lizard cats. Man I'm obsessed with them. Good cats.

I'll get into more detail about specific projects in future posts.