I have never tried to grow a mustache but raising money for the movember foundation seemed like a good excuse to give it a try…
23 years and this is all I’ve got.
We have a week left with this shit living on our upper lips, feel free to donate to myself or Timmy, or anyone participating for that matter, and raise funds and awareness for mens prostate cancer and depression.
15th November marked our last day at Athol Street. We had already moved from the house and emptied it out, and left nothing but a PA inside and the BBQ on the front porch, but this was the last time we’d be able to hang out with our friends in the house we’d lived in for nearly three years.
Tim had offered up our house when the Gold Kids All Ages venue fell through, and with such perfect timing we could double it as a house leaving party. At least a ‘goodbye BBQ’ was a more fitting excuse to have 50 kids in our front yard when the landlords showed up right before the bands started. They bought it though.. (I better say here that Timmy did the talking and I was inside when someone told me the landlords showed up, i’m not trying pretend I’m not a pussy.)
here’s a handful of photos taken by me, Vance, Tim and maybe others..
18 athol.
stoop party.
BBQ.
creeps.
was our loungeroom.
It’s an all ages show right?
Flour violence. The best vegan cupcakes!
Uncle tims guitar: one. Timmys head: zero.
getting nu metal up in here.
Alexis.
Unconcious (members of Ghost Town)
Gold Kids.
Gold Kids we’re fucking amazing, and also some of the most positive dudes I’ve ever met. They were so grateful for us just to give them some food and a room to play to some kids in. If anyone came along that reads this, thank you for helping to make it an awesome day.
“It was my turn to write e-n-d in stone and throw it off a bridge.”
Last Friday night at Seaby house. Ty didn’t come to play drums but the guys from To The North were keen on us playing so Simon learnt our songs by listening to our demo a couple of times and he then filled in 10 minutes later; What a ruler!!
Simon nailed it by listening to the demo some more between songs.
Vance and Brad were down ! Ham came down too. I love Ham!
This photo features Mr. DNA
To The North. Stacey took this photo. Holy shit at Hams face!
The Zuccon brothers!
That fucken guy.
Andy got drunk and sold the shirt off his back to Ham for five dollars.
La Quiete show at El Joyero 08/11/09. Last time these guys came out I was stuck outside a crowded shopfront trying to watch them through the window, two years later and I’m seeing one of my favourite bands three times in a weekend and was able to play this show with them.
Venue.
I tied my hair back for this shit?
La Quiete have a rad blog.
and also some of the nicest lyrics I’ve come across.
being unable to say goodbye
leads to the loss of vital body parts
such as arms or ears
sometimes i’d like to be faraway
as if there were places where
my mind is not reached
by fears of knowing too much
or nothing at all.
- Raid Aereo Sul Paese Delle Farfalle (Air Raid In The Land Of Butterfly)
After nearly three years, this month it was time to say goodbye to Athol Street, and hello to Davies Street.
Nat is moving in.
I was this young once upon a time.
newhousenewlife.
We finally played the arthouse this weekend, so much fun, although I remember feeling like I’d drunk a few too many beers to be playing.
This weekend is La Quiete, then two more shows in the space of a week:
Cute much!
House show at home the weekend after next. I hadn’t actually checked out Gold Kids before the tour was announced but now I can’t stop listening to them, then Tim somehow hooked up the Melbourne All Ages show to be at our house (how weird is the internet sometimes?) ..This is also going to be the last Athol street show/party as we moved on the weekend, however we’ll have an empty house for this show on the day, come hang out!
For the month of November I’m going to participate in the 30 day Vegan challenge. This will actually be a pretty big deal for me, never in my life have I even attempted to stick to a diet of any kind, let alone one that prohibits me from eating any meat or dairy. Basically a vegan friend told me about this a little while ago; she had emailed info on it to her friends and family in hope they’d give it a go, and I pretty much signed up straight away to educate myself on something I hadn’t really considered in the past.
Along with the email was a link to the Earthlings Documentary. Yeah I’m sure a lot of you have heard about this before because it seems to be the first thing that’s dropped whenever anyone mentions veganism, but actually taking the time to watch it will definitely make you rethink the way you live your life, and I’m not just referring to dietary choices either.
Now I know my whole being vegan for as little as a month isn’t going to change the world, but I’m doing this as a challenge for myself, and to better understand the way some of my close friends and thousands of other people choose to live their lives.
Wish me luck.
——————————–
other things I’ve come across;
This is slowly becoming a blog about my band, but hey I couldn’t resist posting the new shirt design we just recieved.. Artwork based on Cohens ideas and drawn up by no other than Rohan of Extortion. We should have the shirts available as of November.
Skeleton pulling off a christ air, Jesus is stoked!
NSW trip; the weekend that has been…
Athol Street, 3am Saturday.
Van hangs, toy guns, piss boners, warm beer.
Sunrise.
Funny on the bus in primary school, funny now.
Wodonga 6.30am
Merch bitch, farting enthusiast, nudist extraordinaire; Ryan Jones.
Tofu Tysons …tiny ..titties..?
Hi mum.
From the floor.
and from above.
Wollongong jam room show.
50 degree sweatbox.
Played like shit.
The show was a whole lot of fun despite the heat and then the smell after a couple of bands had played. Check out Endless Heights, young dudes doing great things.
8am, stayed at Kaytes house (thankyou!) in Sydney. I don’t have any photos from the BBQ after the jam room show but thanks Brooke for your hospitality!
Sunday.
….
The Venue, Huskisson house.
Setting up.
yewwwwwwwww.
Life aint nothing but bitches and money.
Rafter Mic.
This show was fucking fantastic. Small crowd which is what you’d expect on a sunday in the middle of nowhere, but everyone had a rad time. I Exist were great even though they played as a three piece, Break A Leg do Kids Like Us covers and Vera is my new favourite band, even more so now that I know they’re all super nice guys. So thankful to Vance for organising a show like this and paying for the generator out of his own pocket, also psyched that a few dudes helped us out by buying demos and t shirts.
The trip home would be another story altogether, instead of backtracking an hour or two to get back on the Hume Highway, we decided to take the Princes Highway down the coast, without thinking that A) It takes a whole lot fucking longer and B) there is pretty much no service stations open after 8pm the whole way; so we ended up driving through empty town after town when eventually the petrol light came on, and after another 20 minutes we found there was no other option but to stop and make some calls to see if there was anything open that we could drive to. As it turns out, we were hours away from the next service station that was open, and the only RACV guy that could get to us would be able to give us just enough petrol to get to the next town which didn’t have anything open either. In the end we slept in the van outside a servo in a town called Cann River, until 6am when it opened and we could continue driving again. Fuck I wish the camera/video camera hadn’t died by this time, I can assure you some funny shit went down, and some awful stuff too, like Rys compulsive farting that, i kid you not, smells like a wet dog in compost. 2pm Monday we got home, some of us between 3 and 7 hours late for work, but of course laughing at the situation already.
Weekends like this I will never forget. I can’t really find the words but, basically this little band of ours, for me, feels like an excuse to spend more time with my friends and go on adventures and just have fun and not fucking let go of being a kid and not grow up. I love you guys.
A saturday show has been organized in Wollongong, thanks Vance! I hope there’s somewhere to skate in this town..
We’re also going to have T shirts for these shows, thanks to Joel Birch as well as this dude.
See you all after the weekend, with a mega photoblog.
In a month, Yeah Right is going to play one of the support shows with La Quiete, one of my favourite bands ever. So incredibly happy about this.
“Coffee machine will be on the go, we’ll have a whole bunch of beers on ice for real cheap (we’re not going to stop you BYOing, but it’d be rad if you’d buy some beers from El Joyero to keep them in business), we’ll fire up the BBQ out the back and cook some vegan snags and depending on weather / the number of people at the show we’ll get the bands to play in the courtyard out back.”
Yesterday it felt like Melbourne was getting closer to summer (today would tell you that’s just bullshit.) Beers and boards, daylight savings is back!! Random snaps from the last month from camera & phone:
In a couple of weeks my band is driving up to Huskisson, NSW for one show in an abandoned house. We’ll hopefully have another show confirmed for the same weekend, but we’re psyched just to go for this one alone; get out of Melbourne, have some fun and meet new people, and see some bands that (I think) are playing the raddest shit coming out of NSW at the moment. Suss Earthlings, I Exist, Vera & Fixtures. (not sure if the others have myspace pages or what the links are.)
No idea why we’re on the top of that flier but.. cool.
Paradise eh?
When La Dispute played there a couple of months ago.
35mm photos I recently got developed. These were all taken in Japan and I wasn’t going to blog any because they aren’t very good, but here are a few just cos I haven’t posted any film lately.
Since I’ve been back, this is a a big part of what’s been keeping me busy.
Bedroom jams.
Aesthetics.
Demo pressing..
Click here if you want one.
Photos from our first show at Irenes Warehouse in July with La Dispute. Amazing fun! To The North are also rad for asking us to play! I honestly can’t believe how many of our friends came down early to see us, we really couldn’t have asked for a better first show. Thanks everyone!
After party at our house..
Hi Nat.
Fanboy.
Athol street stoop party.
Second show in Stawell.
Catfood press 09.08.09.
We also played at bang with Anchors, who rule by the way. This is my first time in a proper band and it’s been a lot of fun so far. Still shitting myself before every show to be honest. Next month we’re playing a show or two in NSW! More updates soon.
Peace
We were going to stay a night in Nagoya to see some bands but didn’t have accomodation booked, and found out they were playing the night beforehand in Osaka so we got the bullet train back a day earlier and got to spend more time in our favourite city. I fucking love this city and miss it as if it were a house I grew up in as a child. Probably because it was the first place I experienced in Japan and exceeded all my expectations, and also because I can’t see myself going back there anytime soon. Not until I’ve seen some more of the world anyway.
We stayed in the Capsule Hotel again for the last few nights. Getting back there at 1am after a couple of beers and then hitting the spa, sauna and shower was amazing. Also I forgot to mention in the last post about this that it has coin operated massage chairs and foot massagers to use while you chill out and watch TV. Best!
It’s taken me forever, but here are the photos from the last couple of days. The bands in the first photos are the amazing Enemies from Ireland, as well as Toe , who are tight-as-shit and are probably the best Japanese instrumental band I’ve ever heard. It may not sound like the most exciting genre to watch live, but mathy guitars and insane drums were seriously mind blowing.
Toe. Yes that is a Run DMC shirt.
Enemies.
The River through Dotonbori.
Nightlife.
If you’re tall and slim, dress like David Bowie (particularly Jareth from Labyrinth era) and you’re gauranteed to get pussy. Japanese dudes seem to live by this rule..
Laksa.
Back to the skate bar. Chillinggg.
Summer heat.
Sweet Potatoes… Found at some skate shop in Ame Mura.
A park, somewhere in Osaka I don’t quite remember..
Adrian listened to too much Jamiroquai in the 90s..
Tennoji park. Amazing.
Hanging out with the turtles and Koi fish.
We went back to Osaka castle again to chill and take more photos.
This is a sweet GIF, if it doesn’t load click this link.
Kansai Airport.
Overnight flight home, shitty Jetstar airplane food, Jerk airport security and freezing cold weather back in Melbourne.
Anyway this cocncludes my belated travel blogging, I had the time of my life and that’s all that needs to be said.
A week is hardly enough time to explore a city like Tokyo. Even if you visit the same area a bunch of times, aimless walking will guarantee you find something you’d overlooked. We spent our last days in Tokyo taking the subway around and finding new places to explore. and at night we’d go out in search of bars all the while attempting to avoid the the tourist trap that is Roppongi, in hope of hanging out more with locals.
Getting caught up walking around red light districts isn’t something I saw coming, but one night we’d wandered in to a new area of town and every corner we walked around, an African dude would hassle us to come in to his brothel, “20,000 yen, one hour.. you want the pussy right?” and ‘pussy’ would be complemented by his hand gesture with two fingers together as to be sticking them up a fanny. This was quite literally occurring every ten meters. It was time to buy more booze from 711 and find another place.
Some nights we would buy cheap beer, or red wine and coke (again, 711 rules when you can buy this there for next to nothing) and then hit the city when already on the way to being pissed. Eventually we gave in and went to Roppongi where all the other crew from the hostel (mainly Americans) would talk about going out, and ended up in some club called gaspanic. It was actually so much fun, I guess this is where Japanese girls that like western guys go to pick up. But yours truly didn’t find loving that night, aside from the love of cheap beer and being able to smoke inside. We stayed in this part of the city until the first train came the next morning, and I have to say, there is nothing quite like passing out in the brace position in the heart of Tokyo and waking up at 5.30am to daylight in the city.
Even at this hour, in Roppongi you can’t walk even a couple of steps without a girl offering ’sexy massage’ with ‘happy ending’.. but it sure was a good laugh.
We kept in touch with Alex (our American buddy from Kyoto if you haven’t read my earlier posts) and he ended up meeting up with us in Tokyo for the last few nights that we were there. Alex has been traveling the world and keeping a blog of it all on his website, alexrothaus.com – check it out because it’s a good read and he writes real well.
Photos from the last day or Two in Tokyo:
Freshness Burger may not be traditional Japanese food but the tofu and avacado burger is actually amazing.
Reunited with Alex.
Stupid paper money.
Our crew plus our friend Ashley from the hostel.
Harijuku again.
Meat on a stick anyone?
Tokyo Kid.
Tyson found the straight edge.
Koenji, Tokyo.
I booked this a few weeks before the trip and was lucky enough to get tattooed by Hata.
Photos Adrian took of LITE that night. I missed them due to being tattooed but apparently they were amazing.
LITE again.
I got to the show in time to see Boris. They were pretty wanky really though.
Alex at the biggest bar in downtown Tokyo.
It’s always the business types that seem to party the most in Japan.
They love to party.
Adrian met a woman.
4am taxi cab.
Bullet train back to Osaka….
Photos from 11th June 2009; Our day trip to Kamakura to see the 43 foot Buddha.
Arriving in town.
It’s pretty much a chilled little surfy town with a hundred craft shops.
On the way to the Buddha. About a hundred schools happened to have excursions there that day.
Since 1252.
Polaroid.
Holga.
Hangs.
100 Mana points.
Doing the Japanese thing…
You can buy actual weapons there. Swords, Ninja Stars, Bows, Knives, all kinds of shit.
Arriving back in Asakusabashi..
Bits and pieces from the next couple of days in Tokyo.
The hostel.
Doing laundry is about this exciting no matter where you are in the world..
Akihabara electric town.
Birds are fussy little bastards in downtown Tokyo.
FTC shop, so expensive.
..but they play dope beats.
Somewhere in Harijuku (I think)
Shibuya streets.
Shibuya Crossing by night. Just to sit and observe the life of this place for 5 minutes is incredible.
Take two, this time at night.
And again..
Oh this is one of them ~arty~ shots.
The Shinkansen bullet train costs about $120 australian to get from Kyoto to Tokyo and takes around 3 hours. The view of the countryside is beautiful to take in, I really wish I took some snaps of that, oh well. We were coming in to Tokyo as the sun was setting and the big city lights we’re all bright and everything was really overwhelming.
We found our way to our hostel in Asakusabashi which would be our home for the next week or so, and I think it was then I realised I was short on money for the accomodation so I had to get some cash out. Finding an international ATM is a piece of cake anywhere in any major city in Japan but the transaction fees are a bitch. I would get about 40,000 yen out at a time, this never felt dangerous though because you could pretty much have your passport and credit cards hanging from your jeans in Japan and no one would ever take it. This may not really be the case, it definitely feels this safe.
I don’t have any photos from the first night, think we pretty much got in late and crashed. This hostel was probably the best as far as hostels went, free internet and small breakfast every morning – it’s only 2 pieces of toast w/coffee or tea, but still a pretty good deal.
The next morning we met a couple from New Zealand in the lounge, they showed us photos of a baseball game they’d been to the night before and we’re insisting we see one while in Tokyo. We were so stoked on their photos we decided to go to the next game which happened to be that night. I’ve never been a sports fan, but the idea of seeing such a huge baseball game in a country like Japan (didn’t even know they were so huge on western sports) was damn exciting.
Tokyo Subway.
We went to the Tokyo Dome to buy tickets in the morning and like true fans, bought some merch to wear to the game. The sizes were perfect…
Then we headed to Shibuya. This is Shibuya Crossing taken from the train station.
Scarlett Johansson stood here in the film Lost In Translation.. I’m frothing..
Shi – boo – yah!
ABC mart sells vans for about $50..
Absolutely no bazookas allowed in Tokyo.
Only around half are locked..
Skate shop in Harijuku..
Should I spend 12,000 yen on a hat?…… Yes, I’m on holiday
Harijuku is rad for shopping if you walk down the back alleys. This skate shop sells pretty much only Thrasher gear.
We’re tourists.. let’s embrace it.
Psyched on my purchases; new hat + the t-shirt I’ve wanted to buy for years but could never find..
Game time! Tokyo Giants fans…
Giants are killing it..
I had no idea baseball was this big in Japan…
The Giants won. Enjoyed the overpriced beer, terrible hotdogs and um, incredibly cute cheerleaders at halftime. Great first day in Tokyo.
There’s about 100 more photos to come from this city..
