or so i’m told.
on a non ramps related note, i made a music video for pikelet. it was filmed in the pacific somewhere, and we gave the camera acid. here ’tis.
we’re playing with crayon fields at their ‘welcome back from the US!!’ show at the Northcote Social Slub on April 24. we haven’t played in ages, so it’ll be rusty.
oh, and celebricheese
BAM!
Our song ‘antique limb’ is in the running for the jjj hottest 100. i’m not sure what happens if it makes it in, maybe we win a fancy car or something.
So you can go vote for it here, if you’re one of those people who votes for things.
Also, we made an EP that you can get on iTunes right here. Kinda forgot to tell anyone about this, y’know how it is.
It features our song ‘destroy the universe with jazz hands’ from the midnight believer album, plus a remix by our pal slo-mo speedboat, an 8-bit re-imagining of ‘antique limb’ by neutro & lone zero and a cover we did of leonard cohen’s ‘don’t go home with your hard on’.
So here’s some crap about us from the Triple J webses instead. Hooray! Ps. Dear my boss, be quiet now.
And interview on Home And Hosed here.
Ugh. Work.
As of now, the banjo isn’t part of the ramps set up anymore. It’s been replaced by a homemade gaffa-tape-beast of an instrument that is unruly and unpredictable.
Just occurred to me that the only Patrick Swazye films I’ve seen are Donnie Darko and The Outsiders. Yep that’s right, never seen Dirty Dancing, Point Break or Ghost.
The cast for The Outsiders is fucken nuts, Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Rob Low and Emilio Estevez all pre-stardom and pimply and awkward. Oh and Ralph Macchio too.
Plus Tom Waits. And Sofia Coppola.
Yikes.
Donnie Darko was, in my opinion, a big stinking pile of wank with a petite little turd perched on top.
Speaking of movies, finally got around to seeing The Conformist the other night. Fucken aaaaaace.
so we’re taking a break from driving casey “over the fucken edge!!!” to go to NZ where they speak all funny to play camp a low hum and some other places. the names of which are christchurch, wellington and auckland. maybe other places if stars align to allow such things.
the mixing is about 56.45635456% mixed, mister casey rice has been a real trooper considering the ridiculous amount of instruments we’ve put in our album and the fact that he’s using software that he’s unfamiliar with.
oh and then there was the string of 45 degree days. what a stink fest.
one more sleeps til NZ.
that is, if I can sleep. which is hard with this all excitement. and the all the burning unicorn skulls telling me to stab everyone in their sleep.
OK cheerio then!
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!!
Montreal is such a marvelous city.
What other city dares to include pepper in strawberry sorbet, and a fruit kebab with an omlette?
Songs that I watched Leonard Cohen sing from row W at Place Des Arts:
Dance To The End Of Love
Bird On A Wire
So Long Marianne
Hallelujah
I’m Your Man
Songs that Leonard and band did not play and I therefore did not watch
Famous Blue Raincoat
Number of times that the loving Montreal audience gave Len and gang a standing ovation:
TWENNNYY MILLIONNNN!!!!
Tonight the Mini-ovation was born in Montreal. Whilst Leonard was crooning away like a gravelly bitch, every so often a person would feel so moved by a line that they’d pop up momentarily onto their feet for a mini ovation and then sit back down into their seat.
Our new best friends are a bunch of dudes from Montreal (kinda) called Mixylodian. Even though we are not in their top friends on Myspace at the time of writing, here are some things I know about each of them:
Mike: drives an RV which is very big and has places for sleeping, sometimes while driving, so long as at least one person is awake to drive it with their mind. Mike plays keys and sings and once took a little trip to outer space and the aliens made him allergic to nuts. He never auditioned for ‘You Can’t Do that on Television’ as a child but he did rule at playing Smurfs on Atari
Patrick: plays keys, hits the cymbal with a tambourine (co-signature move shared with Joe ramp), has incredible acting talent, and once found a fish tank abandoned in the snow with barely alive goldfish in it that he rescued and that now live safely in his apartment/aquarium where they clean their teeth with 1960s colgate toothpaste and perrier water. Pat’s girlfriend Joelene looks like Joanna Newsom a little bit.
Alex Boy: plays Game Boy and dances like a fantastic slender duck. He looks like a tall British sea-captain only with giant nerdy black frames, and black and hot pink geometric shapes where there would be medals and shiny buttons. His feet are made entirely of poutine, betcha didn’t know that?
Alex Cooper: plays guitar and keys and sings and his super long quiff comes alive at most mixy shows. I once heard him say his three favourite things in the world are reverb, ketchup and beer. I once saw him eat a hot-dog doused in reverb, whilst wailing-out on his ketchup soaked guitar sound. Beer may or may not have been involved. (I may or may not have made up the concept of “wailing-out”)
Max: plays the time-keeping machine. At mixy’s nxne show Max was busy regurgitating some bad pizza in the washroom whilst they started their first song, and made a full recovery! His mom makes rad pancakes. He looks great in yellow. His mom’s puppy dog, as far as I know, doesn’t run off and play with the chipmonks in the backyard, as much as I wish that he did.
I just looked at the time and it was 12:21:21 am.
…Not the seedy late-night Melbourne haunt, either. I woke up to the sound of these church bells, 10am.