| lololol |
[Sep. 16th, 2008|06:29 am] |
So last night band practice was cancelled due to us just spending 7 days together...My dear ladyfriend MJ asked if I could fill in a spot on her corporate basketball team of which of course I could oblige.
They'd been having problems getting a consistent team to turn up every week, possibly because some goon in the office thought it would be hilarious to call the team "The Hermaphrodites". Apparently the game time, court number and all necessary details is circulated throughout the day and whoever can be bothered shows up to play (usually no more than 4). Being such a large office with over 100 employees in the building, not everyone knows each other.
So when we were standing around the court waiting to see if enough players were going to rock up, imagine my amusement when one of the men on the team bustled up to a anxious woman standing around the court and asked "Are you a Hermaphrodite?" |
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| What a week! |
[Sep. 15th, 2008|09:16 am] |
The last 7 days have been spent up near Montville/Maleny area recording a full length album with Defamer. I didn't really feel like I needed a break going into it, but the almost literal feeling of weight being shed from the shoulders by the second/third day has been a feeling that I had long forgotten.
7 days spent in a five bedroom house overlooking views like this:
and every night drinking this sorta amounts of booze:
And then having a sensational waterfall/rockpool only 2k's walk from our house to swim in that looked like this:
Was easily one of the best experiences of my life.
The recorded tracks sound pretty damn good unmixed, can't wait to hear the brutality when mixed together better! |
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| Wow |
[Aug. 14th, 2008|10:50 pm] |
My band Defamer just got announced today as the support for CARCASS when they tour here in October.
Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!! |
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| Phew |
[Jul. 28th, 2008|07:23 am] |
Interesting times ahead....After two solid months of hard work I've announced the next alternative club that I'm working on. As of October every Friday night @ Rosies Live (ex-Club Phoenix, you know...the other club I started there lolol) will be booked by Obsidian Records and we've just announced our first month of shows. If you're interested in what I've been doing with my life the last two months, have a look behind the cut:
( Read more... )
It might just look like a bunch of bands thrown on a piece of white internet, but thats a fuckload of work. Booking in around 20 bands over three months in advance is a headache and a half, but it pays off due to the pure amount of promo that the place will receive.
====================================
Weekend news:
Friday night was interesting, an old flame turned up late on my doorstep drunk and looking for attention. Hoping this doesn't lead to more "zomg I love you, lets be together" as I don't feel like repeating myself on the situation for the millionth time.
Saturday night was fun...and painful. Am currently sporting a gash on my left cheek from where one of my best friends punched me in the face whilst insanely drunk. He always does it though (which everyone seems far more horrified about than me) because he know's I can take it, and give as good as I get. As the night progressed his punches got harder (without me retaliating at all) and after he headbutted me on the side of my head, I gave him an open handed slap that knocked the fucker out cold.
His girlfriend saw the whole thing and thought it was hilarious.
Tell that to my aching face >:(
For some years now I've been experiencing on and off shoulder pain when drumming. It started in my Melbourne band Soulfuric, got a little worse during Malaclypse and has now at times become unbearable in Defamer. I decided on Friday to stop putting treatment off and went and saw a local physio who has pretty much informed me of having one of the worst upper back/shoulders that she's ever worked on. My muscles are so tense and stressed that they're pushing the bones out of place, and actually making one shoulder sit higher than the other.
She promptly banned me from drums for 3 months, but unfortunately I have 4 shows booked in the next few months and an album to record. I told her this and in retaliation she said I'll have to see her three times a week for an hour of torture.
Sigh. I suppose it's for the best. |
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| Just musing |
[Jul. 16th, 2008|06:46 am] |
Hope this doesn't come off as an emo rant/moment, because it's more meant to be about resolution to NOT being emo and down on things....
Lately I can't help but notice the way the world (or at least my little world) just co-incides so perfectly with itself to keep everyone in line and just that little bit under the thumb. I don't want to spiel off into any ridiculous government conspiracies etc, just more that just the average cost and timetable of living is juuuust enough to make most people feel they have a life but in reality it's just check-in:check-out with mild interruptions of eating and sleeping to break the monotonous dronnnnnnne.
Pretty much in everything I do I'm constantly fighting to do what I want and keep my mind churning on new things, it's the only thing that really keeps me happy. There is far to much apathy in the world, to much willingness to accept 'that this is my bed, i'm going to sleep in it'. Borrrrring. |
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| and another thing! |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|07:51 am] |
My rock band Shellfin (have a listen!) is playing tomorrow night at The Zoo in the valley. If you've been wanting to check us out then this should be a good one to come to as we're on nice and early and it's cheap ($8). Doors are at 8 and we're on at 8:20, if you were more of a fan of the stuff I played with Malaclypse then this will definitely appeal!
Hope you can come along, been so long since I've seen many of you! |
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| Plea for help |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|07:37 am] |
Hoping some of my LJ friends can help me on this one...
I've been charged with bringing back rock/goth/metal/hc stuff to Rosies Live (formerly Club Phoenix) on Friday nights as of Sept/Oct and I want to try represent all the 'scenes' as best as I can.
Obviously I know a lot about local rock/metal in our big barren country, but I have no idea when it comes to goth rock stuff. I know people like mzzannthropik and the mercy dolls....I just want to know if there are other big australian goth rock bands that people would like to see up here that I can put at this club for everyone.
Some suggestions of bands in this genre would be muchly appreciated!
Hope you can help guys.... |
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| Morning gals and pals! |
[Jul. 3rd, 2008|06:49 am] |
Next Wednesday (9th of July) my rockin' lil' stoner band Shellfin is playing at The Zoo!
We're on at 8:20 and doors are at 8 so I hope you can get in early, have a beer with a mate or two and still get an early nights rest.
C'mon, mid week rock is like morning sex, technically it shouldn't be better, but it's just so satisfying!
 |
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| Children of Bodom |
[Jun. 26th, 2008|09:34 am] |
Sydney was amazing. Everything was well organised and very professional. We rocked up to the venue around 1pm and there was already about 50 kids waiting in line to get in. By 4pm it was up to 200 and just before doors opened at 7pm there was estimated to be 450-500.
By the time we hit the stage at 7:40pm over 1,500 people had made their way into the venue and more were spilling in all the time. Our intro track started playing and the crowd yelled so loudly the stage was shaking....I'm pretty sure they thought it was Bodom :P. Sitting behind the drums looking out at a literal sea of faces was pretty intimidating, lots of metal horns in the air and people cupping their hands to the mouths with long "wooooooooooo!" shouts.
Our intro track finished and we launched into "The Black Obscene" which many Brisbane people tell us is our best track. Right from the get go the front of the moshpit started windmilling and responding to Tim's frontman theatrics. Every now and then the lights guy would hit the "blinders" which light up the entire crowd....I nearly dropped my sticks at one point, trying to take in that many people at once was freaking insane. We went straight from the first song into "Chorus of Whispers" which we played well until I changed to early into an end riff, but the boys covered it well and we brutal'd on like we meant it to happen haha.
That song ends with a very sharp stop, and after a second the Sydney crowd let us know what they thought of it. Thankfully they seemed to like it, response was loooooud.
After a quick intro from Tim, we played probably our heaviest song "The Inverse Dominion" which tests my speed to the extreme, very fast on both hands and feet. I felt this song was our best one of the night, it was punishing! From that we went directly into an older song that had a bit more groove to it called "The Coming of The Maelstrom" which I noticed a loooot of movement in the crowd to. During Mitch's solo's he had a collection of probably 20 people all bowing to his guitar playing prowess whilst another 50 or so all saluted him over and over with the metal horns which was great to see. During the final 'mosh' riff there was a lot of people in both the front section, back section and even the upstairs section moshing really hard which pumped us up heaps.
That song also finishes with a really sharp ending, to which we got another looooud response. Most of the crowd was in by this stage, total tickets for the show numbered over 2,100 people.
After another short spiel from Tim we ripped into our favourite song "In Winter It Began" (which is on our Myspace ) and we really owned this song. Nice and even speed, very tight and lots of groove in this one. The final riff/drumbeat of this song is guaranteed to always get a huge response to it's 'moshability' and the crowd certainly reacted to it in a big way. Our final cheer was huge and they seemed to love us throwing out free t-shirts (as they should :P).
We went backstage to our nicely furnished dressing room and drank two slabs of beer whilst asking ourselves if that really just happened. We did a bit of mingling in the crowd and got plenty of great feedback before we eventually made our way back to the hotel, dropped off our gear and went and found an open pub at 1am on a Wednesday morning where we drank until 4am, all the while whilst chatting with Sydney locals who seemed to be really appreciative of what we did on stage.
Woke up around 9am and spent the day lounging around air conditioned Internet cafe's until it was time to come home.
Back to reality this week, sigh! We've been offered a co-headlining spot on a Sydney festival in August thanks to all this Bodom stuff, and have been given two HUGE support slots in Brisbane for touring bands...one for October, one for March...can't wait! |
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| Wish me luck |
[Jun. 23rd, 2008|01:54 pm] |
Soooo nervous right now.
Tomorrow I board a plane for Sydney with my Defamer band mates and play to around 2,200 people at the Enmore Theatre in support of Finlands Children of Bodom.
We've practiced about 13 out of the last 21 days and I swear my fingers are just about 30% made up of wood by now, it's paying off though....we've never been tighter, faster or more brutal.
Have been told by a major promoter that he's going to give us the Brisbane support of a huuuge death metal band in October...and is considering us for Melb/Syd/Brisbane support for an even bigger tour in March.
So happy right now. Hours and hours and hours of working for free for other people is slowly paying off |
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[Jun. 2nd, 2008|06:20 am] |
Awesome weekend spent with good people.
Went to the globe on Friday to see Skypi and Arcane who put on an amazing show. Got quite drunk there and moved next door to the Step Inn to continue drinking with Erin, which was fun and then Sam showed up which made the party all the more ferocious. Eventually stumbled home at 4am.
Saturday involved a hangover curing Defamer practice in which the final song of the album is coming oh-so-near to completion. We got to frustrated with it and had to call it a day before we strangled each other, always the case when writing new stuff as we get more and more technical/brutal. Saturday night was spent having a fantastic time with Joe and Cassie and many others out at Sparkplugs house, probably one of the last times I'll see the handsome devil before moving back to Texas with his lovely wife Diana. Such a shame to see one of the most genuine friends I've ever had going, just gives me more excuses to travel the world I suppose :P. Again, got nice and maggot and got home around 2am to a nice long sleep.
Sunday just involved Shellfin practice and then watching movies with the Shellfin crew. We're getting ready for that show coming up on the 19th of June @ The Globe, hope to see some of you there!
Defamer have booked a house on the sunshine coast (in montville, up in the mountains) to record our album in September. We found this beautiful fully furnished 5 bedroom house with a pool in which we'll set up all the instruments in different rooms and jam together with headphones, sitting on 5 acres of bushland looking out over the mountains. We'll be there for a full 7 days and will hopefully get the brutals down in a truly grim fashion, hoping it'll add to the feeling of the album.
Mostly just keen for a week long boys party. |
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| oh hai there |
[May. 27th, 2008|06:26 am] |
How goes all of you in internet world? My corner of the web is a little bit chilly, but otherwise rockin.
Tour was fucking amazing. Oh my God. I knew it would be fun, but it was on the point of 'life fracturingly good'...I spent a good few minutes when I got back just pondering how much I really need this job and how hard it would be to make a living doing something similar all the time. Unfortunately the crushing reality that is debt reminded me to get my nose ready for the grindstone again.
Some quick highlights from tour:
*Sam pissing out the window whilst we passed a winnebago with an old couple in it
*A police officer pulling us over about 30k's up the road due to a "public nudity complaint from fellow motorists" but he could barely contain his own laughter
*8 hours driving to rocky
*Rockhampton show having a girl get a singlet and promising us that she'll get a defamer tattoo
*load out immediatly after show at rocky and drive all the way to Cairns through the night and most of Thursday (bout 12 hours)
*an hours sleep at the Cairns caravan park before playing a show in town.
*a few hours sleep back at the park before an early morning departure for Townsville.
*arrive at backpackers hostel where we were booked for two days, keen to get a look at some hot european chicks after spending three days in the company of 13 penises.
*backpackers hostel is seemingly full of dudes.
*played a dismal all ages show in Townsville
*went back to the sausagefest at the hostel and between the three bands drank 5 slabs of beer and a bottle of bourbon
*woke up around 2pm the next day, mooched around with an ABUNDANCE of hot chicks suddenly everywhere.
*played an AWESOME last show in Townsville, loaded all the gear up and prepared for the 20 hour drive straight back through to Brisbane.
*on the drive home we added 3 hours onto the trip because one of the vans ran outta petrol in the middle of nowhere.
*arrived home about 10pm Sunday night and slept for 14 hours.
So remember how I said that girl in Rockhampton promised to get a Defamer tattoo? She really wasn't kidding:
So overall the tour was a sucess, only cost us about 200 each and I learnt a lot about touring so next time we do it we'll definitely make money.
Now onwards to Bodom! |
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| Children of Bodom |
[May. 23rd, 2008|09:36 am] |
Just a quickie....
My band Defamer has just been announced as the support for Children of Bodom down in Sydney at the Enmore Theatre, which is a 2,500 capacity venue thats nearly sold out all ready.
Yikes.
Stoked.
And shitting myself.
Win. |
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| An update |
[May. 13th, 2008|08:13 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | the abyss | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Guttural Secrete - Reek of Pubescent Despoilment | ] |
Ah the land of James Geekie. Full of wonderment and busy schedules that continue to fill up to the point of brimming and double ups all over the place. I bought a new phone recently and made sure that its calendar function was pretty advanced because I can't afford the on-going costs of a good woman to organise my life for me. Safe (sad?) to say it's made a huge difference to my organisational self and on a couple of occaisons have been able to avoid doubling up on an outing/meeting/practice because the phrase "let me just check the schedule" has saved my butt.
Still nowhere busy as mid last year when Phoenix was still going strong. That shit was intense, but the health problems that came with going that hard were enough to make me know my limits, even if they do get constantly tested. Enjoying my new stoner rock band Shellfin immensely and the reaction to our first show was massive, we've been offered an international support at the Arena just off the strength of that show...Antz (vocals) even thinks he can get us on Big Day Out '09 because a promoter of that event was in the crowd and loved it.
Defamer is going strong with its new lineup, we're heading off on a 5 day tour of North Queensland tomorrow that goes from Rockhampton to Cairns then to Townsville with our buddies in local bands 'neath and nefaria.
Obsidian charges on as always, our bank account looks a lot healthier these days and we're getting more and more shows offered to us to promote/book by the week. Soon I'm going to start working on organising some full National tours, which will be all types of intense!
Have been on a diet lately which coupled with a boxing/bike riding regime has helped me to drop 4 kilos very quickly, and more is coming off each day. Certainly feel a lot better!
Recently went on a trip to melbourne to watch Portal play with Gospel of the Horns, fuck that shit is so evil. It really sucks the life out of the room and leaves you feeling drained and empty. Was good to catch up with the family again as it's been awhile.
Bit of traumatic times lately on the women front. Four girls in five weeks all professed their desire to be in a relationship with me one after another which seemingly came out of nowhere. Of course, there was probably hints and tips along the way, but we men are not the most adapt at picking up these signs without a flashing neon invitation. Three of the ladies all professed to be fine with not being able to see me much more than once a week and just safe and secure in the fact that I'm theirs. Bitter experience and cynicism towards the female mindset on this issue provided me with more than enough reason to disbelieve this statement no matter how vehemently stated and promised. The other one flat out demanded that I drop a band and responsibilities in the label for her, you should have seen her face when I couldn't help but laugh. Idiot.
The response from me is to gently withdraw from any romantic forays for a while whilst doing my best to remain (and so far suceeding I believe) to remain friends with them. I'm not trying to "obstain for XXX amount of time" or anything like that, but I think a time away from women (especially in the metal) scene would be good. It's been nearly two weeks since I made this decision and I'm loving it so far. All my true passions are taking off at unbelievable rates and trying to stay on top of them is taking all of my time during the day and night...I've taken to keeping spare clothes/towel in the car because I sometimes don't come home for 2-3 days at a time as it's just easier to sleep at bandmates/label partners places and go to work from there.
In short, I must say I'm feeling damn good about just about everything in life...and I can't wait to spend 5 days on the road with some of my closest friends! |
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| Shellfin |
[Apr. 21st, 2008|09:15 am] |
hey hey peeps
myspace.com/shellfinmusic to check out the bands new songs....now with vocals.
Noice.
Hope we can see you at our first gig to get your groove on to:
 |
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| April Fools joke? Nup, it's really me. |
[Apr. 1st, 2008|06:46 am] |
Busy busy in James world. Funny the way I do that. I had a lot of things in my life disappear for a while, and I actually had quite a bit of spare time. I could be found at least 3 nights a week sitting at home not having to do anything other than read mah internets and maybe read a book.
Of course this differs far to much from the norm so I had to take on an extra band, rejoin basketball and enhance my workload with the record label.
New band (Shellfin) is coming along in leaps and bounds. It's great joining another band that has limited ego's and completely filled with professionals, everyone in this band has experienced sucess in previous bands through hard work and dedication (and playing good music of course :P) so everyone understands what is expected of them. We've put together 7 originals and a couple of covers in just a couple of months...and it fuckin rocks. For fans of the Malaclypse days, you'll definitely enjoy this as its very rocky/groovy.
The other band Defamer is experiencing some good fortune lately. Here are the shows we've got booked so far:
5 Apr 2008 8:00 P
Club Phoenix - BRISMETAL.COM show! Brisbane, Queensland
1 May 2008 8:00 P
MIAMI TAVERN (gold coast) Gold Coast
10 May 2008 8:00 P
Club Phoenix w/GOSPEL OF THE HORNS/Excruciate Brisbane, Queensland
14 May 2008 8:00 P
O’Dowds Irish Pub - ROCKHAMPTON , Queensland
15 May 2008 8:00 P
Freakquency - CAIRNS , Queensland
16 May 2008 8:00 P
Toms Tavern - AITKENVALE (townsville)Queensland
17 May 2008 8:00 P
Aitkenvale PCYC ALL AGES! Aitkenvale (townsville), Queensland
24 Jun 2008 8:00 P
The Enmore Theatre, Sydney. Supporting C.o.B Sydney, New South Wales
28 Jun 2008 3:00 P
BRUTALFEST 2 @ The Waterloo! Fortitude Valley, Queensland
So as you can see, lots going on there....especially excited about the Children of Bodom support in Sydney. That venue is 2,200 capacity and they're expecting it to be sold out which is causing a fair bit of butterflies and its still 3 months away!
We can't seem to keep hold of bass players though, we're currently training up our 5th bassist since starting which I really hope is the last time as we're recording the album july/august.
Work is good. Ever since the FUCKTARD that they put in from Sydney to work with me pissed back off to NZ work has been a lot more pleasant.
The record label is growing as usual. Few bands are starting to get very 'rockstar-ish' and demanding things of us that we simply don't have/can't provide yet which is wearing very thin on my already thin patience. We simply offer the best deals for band out of any underground label in the country and a couple of these guys are demanding more. Give them an inch.....
This matter will be resolved soon because I don't appreciate ungratefullness much.
Not a whole lot happening on the girl front. I thought I found myself a young girl who was worth a bit of time, and whilst I still like her a whole lot, there's nothing thats going to be long term with that. I've told her this and she accepted it, but somehow I don't quite think it's sunk in.
Anyways, hope to see a few of you out and about on Saturday at Rosies. |
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| New band |
[Feb. 10th, 2008|09:13 pm] |
Have been missing being able to get drunk and play nice and rocky music since the end of Malaclypse so I got together with a mate and started a stoner rock band called "Shellfin". It's good fun and rocks along quite nicely, especially since adding a bass player the other week...just need a vocalist now!
Know anyone? Keen yourself? Have a listen to our new rough tracks on the myspace and see if you can help us out :) |
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| Weird Dream |
[Feb. 5th, 2008|09:08 am] |
Had a fucked up dream last night. I never ever remember them, so of all dreams why this one had to stick I really don't know.
It started off kinda cool in a young boy kind of way. I was part of an assault team who were infiltrating what seemed to be a giant mansion owned by a drug lord in the middle of what was probably the columbian jungle, complete with AK-47 toting guards strolling the grounds. This first bit is clearly indicating that I'm playing to much call of duty 4.
My assault group was only made up of two other people, a hot blonde girl named lisa and an asian guy called Tom and both of them seemed to be really good friends with me and we were damn good at what we were doing. We killed guard after guard and got into the house and eventually confronted the druglord.
It was all going swimmingly until suddeny tom and lisa turned on me with their guns and made me sit on a chair whilst the druglord laughed, obviously appearing that he'd bought them off before hand.
What happened for a while (what seemed to be the majority of the dream) was the three of them taking their turns in torturing me in the most horrible ways and laughing the whole time whilst doing it, and the fucked up thing is that it seemed that I was immortal but could feel everything.
First my fingers and toes were one by one smashed with a hammer, my knees and elbows drilled into with power drills, teeth were viciously yanked out of my head, one of my eyes exploded with a soldering iron, lisa ripped one of my ears off with her teeth and all four of my limbs were slowly and painful cut off with a saw...done in such a way that i could feel the teeth of the saw grinding through the bones as they removed the limbs. Finally the druglord put a hunting knife to the side of my throat and slowly pushed it in behind my adams apple, and then cut outwards opening up my head like a fucking pez dispenser.
Whilst that was happening Tom had used the pliers to gouge a hole into my stomach and was busy pushing rats, wasps, bees and cockroaches into my intestines which I could feel running around eating and burrowing into me.
I was suffering through all this, screaming and crying in agony when out of nowhere.....a giant tidal wave rose up and killed everyone/everything in the valley (except for the immortal me) and it washed me down into a small village where the natives ignoring my pleading put me in a coffin and buried me alive....immortal and underground.
Woke up in a sweat to a dark room and thankfully intact limbs and rodentless intestines. Hope that was the last I'll see of that dream :S |
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| Finally |
[Jan. 27th, 2008|02:09 pm] |
Goddamn this has taken a long time, but they're finally done.
Defamer have finally got new songs up that were recorded live late last year, really happy with the progression of the band and I hope you could take a couple of secs to have a listen for me...probably not most peoples here cup'o'tea, but do it for me?
*makes a puppy dog face so sweet you cant resist the temptation to click the link*
Click here :) |
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| woot |
[Jan. 17th, 2008|02:10 pm] |
All things going well, booking tickets for a trip to Japan in August for me and 4 (so far) friends as Jetstar have announced some pretty sweet return deals ($360).
Pretty darn excited, only 8 months to go. |
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