here i am in the bunker. it’s roughly how i imagined hilter’s to be….. juno 106… korg ploysix… mdf roof… alien brain in phemaldehyde…. couple of guitars….

the album is being made and here’s a preview for anyone interested in hearing it: http://aleksandtheramps.com/Media/Preview.mp3

do people read this?

easter bloc was fun times, though i wouldn’t wholeheartedly recommend going there to record your band, or for that matter i wouldn’t recommend it halfheartedly either. you didn’t hear it from though. you heard it from…

the wind!!

Our initial studio time is finished…… Lots more work to go, but the basic tracks for 10 songs are down. I missed the first 3 days of recording due to mega-flu. I haven’t been so sick in, ever. Still recovering, i made it down on tuesday morning to do the last 3 songs live with the other ramps, and get into my extensive overdubs. In the end i got everything done, but really didn’t enjoy myself. That’s super depressing for me as i LOVE studios and recording, but i felt so shit the whole time.

Working with Casey was very nice, he’s great at keeping the sessions motoring along and getting good takes out of everyone. Pretty darn hilarious too, he’d like you to know he’s the ‘absolute master of the bass-drum mic technique.’ (you have to sing that)

All in all, i’m pretty excited about the record, we got some great sounds and i hope i’m back to 100% real soon to keep at it.

x Diamonds

Hello, hello.

Well, it’s 12:05am, so it’s technically day three of our album recording sessions.  We’ve been tucked away behind the vaguely tinted window of Eastern Bloc (facing the serene view - a construction site), laying our styles on to tape.  Well, most of us - 80%, specifically - as Diamonds has been at home in bed with the sickness.  Poor Diamonds!

The rant-tastic Casey Rice has been our guy at the controls, our ship’s navigator, our Jeff Goldblum.  He has a keen taste for organic supermarket foods and he wears all-natural deodorant.  Despite all this, he’s able to cross-fade things really fast.

We wasted a lot of time on Day One, getting things set to go and fixing problems we experienced with various buzzings, silences and noises in the studio.  After a handful of weary takes in the evening, we went to get pizza and called it a night.  Fresher on Day Two, we knocked over the bones of four songs - including one of our newest, barely a week old.  Things are getting better.

Aleks and Casey have been eating whole raw cloves of garlic, though.  While they claim this is to fend off the feeling of encroaching influenza, I suspect they’re trying to scare us off so that they can be left alone to record the album.  And, cher monsieur, I’m not entirely convinced they won’t succeed!

Humankinds - the quickest of updates. You may have (probably not) noticed that we’ve not been playing any shows for a while. Instead, we’ve been working on new songs, planning and scheming. Today we commence four days of solid rehearsal, ironing the creases from our newests, and fine-tuning the rest. And, next weekend, we roll into the Eastern Bloc studio to begin recording of our next album.

(The album is tentatively titled %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% .)

(Nah, it’s not.)

That stuff aside, you can next catch us at Mistletone’s next seasonal hoe-down, Spring Tones, on October 5th at Melbourne’s Tote. A line-up so hot that… well, y’know. It burns etc.

…because we’re going to be recording, y’see.

We love Pikelet, we love Slo-Mo Speedboat (HIS FIRST SHOW EVER!), we love VJ Jean Poole.

Shamon!

so this is isn’t really tour related seeing as the tour is officially done with or whatever, but a guy can dream can’t he?

(yes he can)

due to an air china ticketing fuckup i’m heading back to the anus of the earth (geographically speaking) later than the others, so i’ve been in montreal doing pretty much nothing, which has been super great. i’m having serious thoughts about relocating…. me and mike got the overnight bus done to new york, which was a particularly uncomfortable experience, but y’know, more bearable than water torture or other things that people have to deal with so i shouldn’t complain.

we got off all dazed and got coffee and bagels and fell asleep in central park for a few hours (as you do) then we went walking aimlessly around williamsburg and tried to meet up with a new yorker dude i met ages ago, though we underestimated the hugeness of the city and were an hour late and thus no meeting was done.

we went and saw jeffrey lewis play a free show to a crowded bar of hipster-looking people, and i was convinced i was in the inner sanctum of coolness. boy was i incorrect in this assumption! i sort thought he sucked mega naffness and was blown away by how people lapped it up (should i be using this to publicly slag people off?) but hey, my finger’s not on the pulse. the girl that played before his (laura stevenson maybe?) was awesome but people talked all the way through it. when will people learn?!

(i’m putting my bet on 2018)

today we had ambitions of getting up at 8am and doing some bikram yoga (not just because i feel like poo, but the receptionist gave us directions to jeffery lewis and even printed out a map, what a gal!) but we slept in and discovered a awesome cafe for brunch where i had a pear and brie panini (fuck. yes.)

we went to that heathen institution the museum natural history where they poison children’s mind with theories of “evolution” (phhh!) and the “big bang” (scoff!) and other godless scams like “dinosaurs” (don’t make me laugh!) it was good, but i think it’d be better visiting it alone at 4am whilset under the influence of illicit substances. someone remind me to write to lonely planet.

and we went to a free concert where dan deacon was supposed to play, but his luggage ended up elsewhere so he didn’t. which was bad, because the other bands were bad. i can’t remember who they are, but if you’re reading this, whoever you are, lift your game!

then we wandered through brooklyn looking for cool people, we found some, didn’t hit it off, and now we are in a backpackers which smells. end of blog!

Three Earth days - and 30 hours - of flying later, we’re mostly home (Brain Cobra still wanders the Northern hemisphere in search of aurora borealis and healthy organic/multigrain poutine, pffffft). Rather than focussing on the special moments of travel, like the one where Extreme Wheeze slept under the row of seats while Denim Owl slept above, or the time we waited seven hours for a flight, let’s instead reflect on a moment of interest or two from Montréal.

Keeping it real while it’s fresh, y’know?

The above is as it looks: members of Mixylodian getting all collegial with members of us (plus Mike’s pal Dave), in something of a daze after our final show together. What you can’t see in this photograph is Extreme Wheeze stuffing his face with vegetarian pizza topped with poutine. He was sick for at least two days after that effort. Fully sick!

But forget about that, because clearly the highlight of any tour is celebrity spotting. When we heard on the public address at Sydney Airport that perennial celebrity jazzy trashbag Rhonda Birchmore was being paged for a flight, Denim Owl and yours truly, cameras in hand, made pronto on the travel-ator to stake out Virgin Blue Gate 35. Perhaps it was Ms Birchmore’s Jedi Mind Trickery, or the fact that Denim Owl’s gaze was momentarily dazzled by the presence of Energy Mix in the adjacent vending machine, but she managed to slip through our (admittedly flimsy) net.*

But who gives a crap? Because Flying Diamonds and I saw Win Butler on Rue Saint-Viateur, Montréal. WIN BUTLER FROM THE FREAKING ARCADE FIRE!

By the way, those people aren’t fellow indie celeb-spotting freakazoids - they’re just a bunch of Portugese Euro Cup soccer goofs who were actually posing for a photo at the time (the photographer is hidden by their fanatical poses). Yeah, I know.

* Sorry. I know I promised I wouldn’t talk about transit, so please accept my humble apology (NSFW).

Today was a most wonderful day.
I will remember it for a good while.
Stuff happened.
I won’t bore you with it.
Black Wasp probably gonna chamois it up good nice.
Au revoir Canadia.
Sigh.
 

… Ne laissez pas le “Cerveau Cobra” dans votre pays!

Il est clairement un terroriste.

Les meilleurs voeux,
Pierre Trudeau.