Vandas Studio Diary Vol. 2 (19 Feb '08)
Current mood: catalyzed

Greetings friends,

So let's bring you up to speed.

 
We've just finished mixing all the tracks at Newmarket Studio in North Melbourne.  In charge of mixing duties was our old pal Ben Hurt, naturally with Mr Silbersher overseeing the proceedings. It took about 12-13 days in all and we've now gotta decide which tracks to use.

We were able to use a lot of cool toys at Newmarket- all the tracks were mixed to 2" tape, and Ben borrowed a Revox Tape Delay machine from Rocket Science's Paul Maybury, which you can hear splashed all over a few songs like "Warm At Night" and "Go Getter". A few guitars were run through Joel's Hendrix fuzz pedal for some extra crunch. We also chucked on a few more overdubs, just some piano and pedal steel. Most excitingly, the boys from Dynamo came in one afternoon and added some horns to "Know It All".



There was of course a lot of downtime while Ben tweaked and fine-tuned the recordings, so us moosician-types had time to drink beer and watch heavyweight boxing tapes. No real dramas to speak of, all in all it was a pretty enjoyable couple of weeks with the boys being able to watch Ben at work, and watching the sounds he pulled out of our recordings. Next step is the mastering, to smooth off the edges and pretty it up etc. Stay tuned for further news on that front as it happens.

In other album-related news, we've been talking to David Bromley about the artwork for the release. Some of you might know David as the artist who made the video to our tune "Hello Again" a couple years ago (you can see the clip on our main myspace page). So we're all pretty chuffed with how everything's rolling along, it's starting to feel like it's all coming together.

Anyways, thanks for reading, speak to ya soon.

MM

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Vandas Studio Diary Vol. I (16 Jan ’08)
Current mood: breezy
Category: Music

Welcome friends.

Hope you've all escaped unscathed from the silly season. Thought it was about time we brought you up to date on where we're at with the new album. We're working on a pool of about sixteen or seventeen songs which we'll cull down for release. There's some you've heard, some you haven't.



So far we've spent a couple of days recording the tracks at Soundpark Rehearsal and Recording studio in Northcote Victoria. Behind the desk we have our beloved soundguy Justin Hermes on engineering duties, and Producing is Joel Silbersher, whom most of you would know from his work in bands like Hoss, GOD, Tendrils, Tex Perkins band etc.



There's a couple of new songs we're really excited about, in particular "Alarm", "Know It All" and "Slow Burn". We've been starting to pull these out at gigs, so keep your ears open next time we play. Everything's coming out a little more live and rough-around-the-edges than our previous releases, but that's the way I like it, and I think you'll see what I mean. We're trying to keep it as bare-bones as possible, with everyone really firing on all cylinders there's not much point in dressing it up.



Stay tuned for further updates, we'll be mixing over the next week or two, and we'll let you know how it's all coming together. In the meantime, take care.

Vandas out!

MM

PS. check out the rest of the studio pics in the 'Pics' section

Currently reading : The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952 By Charles M. Schulz Release date: 03 May, 2004

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So it's come to this......

so,

the tour's done. and we had us some kinda ball. big thanks to everyone who came, saw, etcetera.

you'll be pleased to know that we're hitting the studio in the coming months to record an ALBUM (that's right). don't wanna give too much away, but we've got a real good mate on board who's gonna steer us in the right direction, and, betweeen you n me, i reckon it's gonna sound great.

in other news, the new Beasts of Bourbon record sounds fantastic, Clare Chick (Julien's better half) is doing well with the expectant bub, and "Stoned" (The Brian Jones story) is the worst film i've ever seen.

Don't go changin, see ya at Gaffstock.

Peas and glove,

MM

Currently reading : Elliott Smith And the Big Nothing By Benjamin Nugent Release date: 30 October, 2005

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Gettin' farked up with The Craaane
Current mood: accomplished

Greetings friends!

So I'm gonna try and get a handle on this blog business to keep y'all up-to-date with our tom-foolery and jiggery-pokery as we travel across the wide blue yonder with Dallas Crane and Airbourne. Hopefully we can get some photos and things like that happenin soon.

Well, about six dates down and a whole lot more to come. We've been busting a collective gut keeping up with the Jones's, as you might say. The wall of amps lugged around by Airbourne and The Crane is nothing short of hilarious... we feel like we're playing in a low-rent jug band with our measley quad-boxes. Nevertheless, the shows have been going great and we're makin' a lotta new friends along the way.

Big thanks to everyone who's been gettin' in early to see us, and if you haven't been visited by the On The Beach juggernaut, get yer thongs and boardies on and catch us in your town! More updates to come soon. Feel free to send along any photos or whatnot that you might have.

Keep reaching for the bar,

MM

Currently reading : The Walrus Was Ringo: 101 Beatles Myths Debunked By Alan Clayson Release date: 01 May, 2003

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