Shows, shows, and more shows!

I just thought I'd share some videos from all the shows I've been doing recently!

Glee:

Earth Song by Michael Jackson, featuring Victor Hawkins-Sulfa:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLE3-jlTe0w

Seasons of Love from Rent, featuring Tamsyn Miller and Lui Fauolo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwH2iACthZY

Oh Happy Day, featuring Matt Nanai:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nzBwH4l9kk

Lady Gaga Medley:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=420377346269&ref=mf

Que Sera Sera, by Sly and the Family Stone, featuring me (lol):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCtgQB5nOHY

East of Eden:

The Diary of Anne Frank, live @ Zeal:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1329322044299

Mount of Olives, live @ Zeal, featuring the wonderful Hannah-Jane Thorne:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1329369845494


The DeLoreans:

Suburban Breakdown, live @ Cassette #9:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOerSfpXa8Y

Just by myself:

In the Still of the Nite, live @ Tabac:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chMmBsPcjIM

Between You, Me, and the Irony, live @ Juice Bar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_ajXUArMoY


So hopefully these videos have convinced you to come out to a show sometime. It's always more fun when more people come, so please come hang out, bring some friends, and we can have lots of fun and eat lots of fruit together! It's good for your digestive health, you know.

Till next time!

Even More Busyness!

Still feeling like a real musician! I've had so much music stuff going on over the last month and I am just busting to share it with you guys.

First up: East of Eden!

Here's a video of one of our shows at Zeal:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iiYS_9CPOI

I am so lucky to be in a band with these guys. Every show we play together we get tighter as a band and as friends, and it's so much fun. The best part for me is being able to reach out and spread the word of God to the audience through our music- a guy who had alcohol and drug problems came up to us after and had a chat to us about stuff and it was awesome. It's great to know that people can take something away from our shows other than just a great time. It's the most amazing feeling having the crowd sing along to your songs live as well! The crowd looks a bit small in this video because the camera was sort of at the back edge of the circle pit haha.

We have some amazing shows coming up so it'd be amazing to see you there: 28th of August at Zeal, 4th of September at Zeal with SCARY KIDS SCARING KIDS (USA) and MISSION IN MOTION (AUS), and 9th of September at Ellen Melville Hall with ATTACK ATTACK (USA) and PIERCE THE VEIL (USA)! I'm so excited to be playing these big support slots. I feel so fortunate to be a part of the craziness that is EoE.

Speaking of craziness: Glee!

Here's a rehearsal video:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEWIcE1BE7o

Glee has been consuming my life a little bit over the last couple of weeks, mainly because OUR SHOW IS HAPPENING THIS SATURDAY!

Get your tickets right hurr:
http://www.iticketexpress.co.nz/events/2010/aug/a-debut/

I'm actually so unbelievably excited about this show, and I'm pretty sure everyone else in the club is too. We've been rehearsing for ages and we can finally see it all coming together- we've definitely come a long way since the first rehearsal! Mega props to the exec team for taking the initiative and starting up something amazing.

Finally: My EP!

It's so close to being finished. Sort of. There are still some vocal bits to be recorded, but other than that it's pretty much ready to be mastered. The artwork is just about finished as well- I've been teaching myself how to use Photoshop, and as anyone who has ever tried this knows, it is incredibly frustrating. I think it is looking pretty cool though. I wish I could post up some samples or something but I'm writing this from a uni computer and everything is on my computer at home. But you will get the real thing soon. So very soon!

My Super Busy Musical Week

I feel like a real musician this week! I've been lucky enough to have been involved with lots of musical stuff over the past few days. In particular I've been doing loads of drumming, filling in on drums for Alex Freer in Martin Paris's band, and playing drums for my band The DeLoreans, while we search for a drummer. Drumming is so much fun, I really enjoy getting into a mean pocket with the bass player. I also like hitting things in general so the drums are pretty much perfect really.

In Martin's band we opened for The Bayonets (who have a residency) at TABAC yesterday night. Chelsea Jade was the other act on the night, and she was awesome. She did all this amazing looping stuff and like played a Casiotone and a drummed with mallets on a floor tom and totally reminded me of Regina Spektor (and if you know me you know how much I LOVE Regina Spektor) which was just so cool. I wish I had some photos or videos, but I forgot to bring my camera. And my phone is too old to have a camera. Here is a picture of Martin anyway, so you can see how beautiful and masculine he truly is:

And here is a picture of Chelsea, who is just as beautiful, in a more feminine way:

I've also been practicing hard with the Glee Club at uni! It's SO COOL LIKE SERIOUSLY KSFBAKUIFBKJASBDFJUIASEUIFBASJDHBFKJASDBHGFBAESAWEDQ. Here is a trailer for our upcoming show! The choreography isn't quite sorted yet so it looks a bit naff:



Singing in a group is so cool, especially when you are surrounded by other singers who are incredible and amazing and inspiring. Mad love for the Glee Club. Seriously. Respect.

I also played the Kiwi FM Open Mic at Juice Bar on Wednesday, which was really cool. Open mics are great because it's always really low key and really low pressure, which is good for me because playing solo still scares me a little bit. Plus you get to meet loads of cool new people and hear loads of cool new music which is always nice. Here is a video of me singing "I'm Gonna Find Another You," by John Mayer. Please excuse the lyrical (and musical) screwups:



And a video of me singing an original song, "Between You, Me, and the Irony":


Sorry about the lighting. It wasn't my fault. Honest.

Lastly, here is a picture very close to my heart (stolen from Allison Weiss's blog):

Hello!

And welcome to yet another blog which I am creating in the hope that I might actually keep posting on a regular basis! I'm thinking that I might keep this blog a bit more musically focused and talk more about musical projects, gigs, bands, favourite musicians, cool people I have been hanging out with, and other fun things (Not included: posts about boring stuff).

Anyway to kick things off, today I have been working on making some loops for my friend Amitabh Arthanari. He's a mega talented aspiring hip-hop producer and needs some groovy guitar samples for his beats.

Here is the guitar I've been using:
















It's the first electric guitar I ever bought. It's been around the block a few times and is pretty bashed up, but it makes an awesome sound and is great for doing funky stuff like hip-hop. It also doubles as my sticker album. Yeah. I never really grew out of those.

I'm running it through this mean program called Guitar Rig which gives me a bunch of cool amp and effect models which I can use to change the sound up.



Here is one of the finished guitar loops!

I've also done a funky little keyboard loop, using my trusty Casio digital piano (pretty much a Casiotone, but all grown up and wearing a nice suit):



Here's the keyboard loop! I used a Rhodes electric piano sound.

I'll post up the finished beats for you guys to have a listen to when Amitabh gets done with them!

So what do you think? Would you like me to keep posting these updates? Leave a comment and let me know!