Currantly*

(*man do I love currants!)

So, as things tend to do for me occasionally, I've found myself with some projects on the go. The latest completed is the one below, Grand Spectacular.

I'm also working on some illustrations for an adventure book my grandpa Terry is getting printed. It's called Fred's Dillema and is set on an island where a bunch of survivors from a sunken cruise ship try to survive each other and mysterious goings on. I'm doing sick Brett Helquist ish pencil sketches. Except way less dramatic and classy. I'll upload them onto here when I've scanned them, I'm pretty happy with them.

Also on the go is me painting. I have to get back into practice for art school, and I'm in the process of assembling my portfolio for my interview so it's as good a time as any.

The other exciting thing happening is band related. Hans Pucket played at a party the other week which was super fun. I bashed my knuckles on the edge of the drums and spattered blood over the snare and floor tom. It was super punk. Highlight was our Jungle Book medley. We're playing at thom's previously mentioned leaving thing, with all of the bands in the world, so that should be cool.

Also, Custard Bear returned from the depths of nothing-whatsoever to play a paid gig with THE FUCKING BATS! (aka The Bats). It was in the hagley park fanzone (yeah!). Jack had some wedding on an island, so we got our good pal Kurt in as a more than capable substitute, who proceeded to kick ass in every respect. So much fun. I missed playing bass more than I realised. We played a couple oldies, but a new rock song oli wrote that tuesday. My brother dishes them out like the best of them, really. It's insane.

So, all of this, AND full time working going down. In case you were wondering from my absence of posts, I do keep myself occupied, really.

(Photo from Hans flat party gig below)

One Hundred (And a Poster)

Apparently, this is my one hundredth (?) post on this blog. Cool. I assume it's some sort of milestone. Here, have a piece of internet cake.



Yum. Internet-licious.

The main point of this post is vague self promotion (isn't it always?). I just finished a poster for a gig Custard Bear is playing in Nelson with SFRQ alumni Peasants of Eden.


I was given the theme "1950's tin robot'. Turns out tin robots are hard to achieve with water colours, so it ended less tin-robot, and more Tin Tin. But I'm cool with that.

Bitch; Please

Both Steven AND my brother Oli made posters for Bitch; Please.

(being our new band. Pretty sweet. We played at Gorgeous George almost a year ago, but are doing our first grown up gig this Friday at WEHQ (yay for acronyms!))

I decided to join the wagon and make one too, and out do them (naturally).

AND I did it in two minutes.

AND I cheated. The wire lettering was made by Steven when we started the band. The picture of the tiger is from Oli's calendar. But their combination... GENIUS!

Like vanilla and coke.
Or cheese and anything.



For tunes: Bitch; Please bandcamp, and the gig page on facebook.

YAY! See you there.

Its been very quiet.

Yeah I know, it's been months. Although I dont think I want to apologise. This is MY blog, and my bevy of readers now have learned the power of that fact. I have had quite a wonderful winter though. And it's almost over.

The cherry trees have started to blossom. I had a cherry tree in my backyard in Opawa growing up. Every year we'd try to remember to take a family photo under it when it blossomed. I think the initial idea was that you'd stack them up and flip through them like some cool Home Improvement homage. Played so many awesome games in that tree, when we were still small enough to think it was a big deal to climb up it. At one stage, this grape vine growing on the fence started growing all over the tree. We thought it was a grape tree. Got mad confused. Teachers laughed.

Old story, anyway... so winters almost over. And it was an extremely enjoyable one. Il go into detail with various stories and photos. For now, here are some highlights...

- Paige and I reaching our 6th, 7th and 8th month anniversaries, all celebrated accordingly.
- The holidays.
-Busking. More than once.
-Making a sick Vincent Price tshirt and then spilling coke on it.
-Buying my Campus A Low Hum ticket.
-Seeing, like, 800 movies. Because that's what you do in winter. Movie highlights include; ALL the Twilights in one weekend, TOY STORY 3, Dumbo, Iron Man 2 (HUGE let down)Once Upon A Time in the West, The Runaways... oh man... so many more.
-Forcing Paige to watch Monty Python
-COOKING (and being cooked) soo much food
-EATING (and feeding) soo much food.
-Spending ALL of my money.
-Callums Night of Extreme Challenges.
-Custard Bear winning chartfest, rockquest regionals and generally playing SICK GIGS!!(w/ Tono, Gigglepop, Die! Die! Die!) and generally being uber productive.
-Going to Blenhiem to play Dixie Music.
-Meeting PROPS BOY!
-Being meagrely productive in terms of school work.
-My 7th Form Formal, and subsequent celebrations.
-possibly having a career opportunity
-Finding some of my personal limitations.
-Figuring out my five year plan to the vaguest of standards.

There were plenty of lowlights, some of which aren't fit for remembering. But I'll do my best.

Heres to Spring!

In other news, my ipods broken. Sad face...

Poster Bear

I made this poster for a band competition. I hope you like it. It took me two whole evenings. It's done with collaged oil pastels, which is pretty much the best thing ever.

Bar Gig Bar - A Review

Dear The Press, heres a review for your reviews section in the paper on Fridays just before the movie photos and adverts and things. I think it will do just the tricket...

On Thursday (yes Thursday) the 13th of May 2010 I was really nervous sitting in my bedroom with Paige and Oli and Alex waiting for it to be late enough for us to go in the car to get to the bar in time for our gig. We waited for AGES. It was nine thirty by the time penisey texted me saying that they were on the way. So I ate a muffin and got in the car. Dad drove us there. In the car we listened to Yeah Yeah Yeahs songs to sike ourselves up. It worked. Alex and Paige walked us into Poplar Lane as I'd never been there before and would get lost if I tried to find it on my own or even with Oli. We just walked straight in! No bouncer or anything. I was relieved. Then we went into the band area room and met the sound guy named Mathew/Ben/Something I can't recall and he was real nice saying that I looked like freddy kruegar and started setting up mics. No one else was there but then Penisey was there and told me he got kicked out of home (SAD :(....) and Thom who was wearing SHOES!! which is a novelty for Thom. And others were there too but I dont know everyones names Im new. Then a surf band called Piha Rescue (geddit?) went up and set up on the stage and I got worried cause Jack said he was tired. He arrived and was all gc about it. His brother and my brother and their friends and my dad and jacks dad were all there to see us. We told them we were on next cause we were. Me and Thom danced to Piha and it was awesome. We did the Twist and had a "Play Fight" and bumped into this guy. They were all wearing sunglasses except for Ben Dodd. WHO is awesome as it happens and Penisey is started a band with him (GOSSIP!). Then they finished and we got to go up and play our songs (AWESOME!) We set up and got water and tuned our guitars and there were quite a few people at the bar including some friendly faces. We played pretty well. Olis guitar string broke two seconds into the first song! LOL! And the vocal mics were condensor mics which was pretty cool I guess. We played Fuck You Courtney, Safety Cheque, LPG Doesn't Grow On Trees Bro, Jessica, I Said To My Girl (She Looked Nice), Evergreen, and then we decided to finish, but Ben Dodd stuck his fluffy head in the window and said "play that Jazzy one" which we took to mean Cake, and so we did. It was well sick and everyone danced really well and clapped very loudly. It was very good fun and I was pretty tired as it was twenty to twelve. Paige seemed happy too which was awesome as Paige is wicked. Alex took photos (see below) for us which was nice of her. They came out topps. We didn't get to stay for Lonely Harris Club. But they were my favourites anyway. I was well gutted cause I heard they did a Strange Boys cover and I love them. I gave John a hug as we left though, and said thanks. He replied "Oh no worries. I really hope we go allright...Sorry for not dancing to your set. I'm not sure if I can play my guitar at the moment." But he did. I give the gig a wild 7 stars!! * * * * * * *

Holidays

So the first term went all right. But all in all it was school, wasn't it? Oh, I did have the production (being West Side Story) and that was pretty awesome. Wicked fun all the way through, and the after party was quite memorable. I brought Paige. Yeah, I bring her everywhere now. Awesome, I know. She even came to Easter with our family (didn't she do well?) with declans and photos and foood and chocolate. After that it was pretty much the holidays where all life is real and happy and good. So we decided to go to thoms birthday party and make him turn 18. It was good fun.

Holiday activities include; hanging out with Paige way too much; cooking (mashed potatoes (twice), salsa, indian, mexican breakfast (for dinner), pasta out of thin air etc etc....etc); eating said food; drinking responsibly; sexy parties; sleeping... oh so much sleep; gig wenting (sidewalk meese, rackets, and others....happy birthday georgia by the by...); singing; watching films (finally make paige watch Superbad and Dirty Dancing... a couple of my favourites); anniversaring (bookaramaing... as well as duck feeding, hand holding, park kissing, bagel eating, movies watching, food eating.. all the good things); fort building (ROMG!); homework avoiding; bike riding; walking; room cleaning; new queen size bed assembling; napping in said queen size bed too much; and more things which probably come up in these photos...

Eeep a Gig!! a review.

On Saturday we all woke up really early and decided to clean Sam's shed for him. He didn't really mind, and we had nothing to do. It was a bit bung smelling so we sweeped up all the sheep shit. It was kind of dark and dingy so we decided to put up fairy lights (by WE I really mean Logan, crazy, Logan). We hated the feel of the room so we moved around all the furniture. It seemed a tad bare, so we chucked in all our band gear in one corner. At this point, Thom went "Eeep!" and we went "A gig??" and then we all said "YES! Eeep A Gig!!" and decided to put on a gig. Lonely Harris Club came over and brought with them a PA system and lots of fans. Then Logan and some of us went and warned the neighboors. That was fun. Then we kicked the shit out of everyones ears for four hours. It was real hot in the shed, but everyone still played really well. Thom especially, and I hadn't heard him play before. Bitch, Please were my favourite. They played real nice harmony songs and the drummer was well fit. Everyone who came was real nice and polite, and didn't smoke that much really. We even made enough money in the pity bucket for Samurai Bowel. We were so happy with ourselves that we went and busked in town, and then went to Ruby Suns and their gig kicked our gig in the teeth, but we didn't mind because we were well gone.

I and Steven Made A Poster

why parades kick ass... when your in them.

During the santa parade on Sunday I strapped my camera to my belt loop so I wouldnt drop it, then sneakily took lots of photos to show Paige, and you too. So here's why being in a parade is significantly awesomer than watching them...

Heres some sick action shots of me and Oli running down Moorehouse Ave because we were late.

We found some other little guys from our band and so they ran away from their mothers to join in on secret awesome mission. Olis the one in the jeans. Notice how the little guys overtake us.

These little kids did not enjoy the loudness of the Samba band.

This is us marching down the middle of Columbo St. Yeah.

BOOOOM!!!

Fuck yeah.

FuEEEED MuEEEE!!!

Yesterday I went on an overly enormous walk with Paige to go to that media club gig. We fed ducks on the way (something I have not done for eons, but Paige has not done for months. I win). Overall I think we both really learnt alot... ducks are like that you know.

The gig was pretty sweet. I was all real tired from all the masses of walking and all but it was so worth it. Sandfly Bay seemed a little down (wich was sad cause I love those guys) but luckily they were playing reeally old horror films behind them which we could watch when we got bored (but I blame the walking).

T54 (NOT a rap group fyi) were fucking killer. They played some relentless rock and roll and plus the bass player was adorable* (*read "had real long bogan hair in a mid part plus a hot cake AND a prunes and custard pedal which destroyed") and the drummer looked like Callum from The Checks which freaked me out (in a good way).

AAAaaahHHH!! Holy fuck they're enormous!!!

HAPPY ONE MONTH!!!

Happy One Month Anniversary bloggers! So far the blog is going quite well. I shall give it three bold L's (for Lapse) out of five...

L L L * *

I know what you're thinking, and yes I agree. Three L's in a cop out. When you rate three out of five, you don't really like something but you don't want to admit it to their face. Everyone knows that.

To celebrate, the band went out and played our first gig in ages ...at Zebedees. Oli doens't like Zebedees, but its where everyone starts. It where you go when you're to slack too organise proper shows. I enjoyed the show but left feeling very self conscious of our band. We were the odd band out. We had non straightened hair, no hats on, we play with too many chords, and we dont have names like Matt and Nick and Jacko. We have names like Jack Callum and Oli. Which is similar but importantly different.

I like Zebedees. Its familiar, like that uncle you only see at Christmas and always gives you colouring in books even though you havent been 8 for a while. AND plus there's one nice guy and one not nice guy who run it, which is even and I like even.

I rate Zebedees 3 out of 5

L L L * *

ps. I had a funny photo of jack standing outside Zebedees but I cant find the camera chord. So heres a picture of Danny Lee. But dont go thinking I like golf (or steam). He's celebrating too.

pps. I've almost finished my art folio. It's due monday. For people who don't know me well, this is my big thing for the year. And twelve credits too. I'm going in to school tomorow (SATURDAY?!?!) to paint so il take some photos to show you... if I can find the damn chord!!