More Rebel Rebel
Here is some more footage from the Rebel Rebel show we played in July last year. This clip includes excerpts from ‘Counting Cars’, ‘We Burn’, ‘Trigger Fingers’, ‘Cry Your Eyes Out’, ‘A Million Pieces’, ‘Don’t Listen To Us’ and ‘Sleep Less’. The video was shot by Sonia Claus and the audio was recorded by Matt Landers.
Counting Cars live
Yesterday I posted this live version of ‘Counting Cars’ on YouTube, so I thought I’d share it here. It was recorded at Rebel Rebel in July last year while we were in the midst of a tour with Eskimo Joe. I’ve got lots of DV footage so if I come across anything else that’s fit to print I’ll post it.
BTW - THIS is exciting!
Baz
Adios, Nashville!
so, today is our final day of mixing with jacquire! it’s amazing how quickly we’ve fallen into a routine - we’ve quickly gotten so used to driving to the studio everyday, taking our places on the big brown leather couch, opening up the laptop, grabbing a round of waters, and flicking through USA Today. and when we grow tired of that we shoot some hoops (and yes, i feel completely comfortable using that phrase) in the backyard until jacquire is ready for us to start giving our feedback and suggestions for the mixes.
yesterday we finished off the mixes for ‘ocean beach park’ and ‘trigger fingers’, and today we put ‘frosty furnaces’ to bed and we’re about half way through mixing ‘don’t listen to us’. it’ll be pretty interesting to see how this one turns out as we already mixed it late last year with tim whitten. but we’ve decided to remix it with jacquire so that it’ll sit comfortably alongside all of the other tracks on the album.
we also have to mix ‘baby, you’re a vampire’ later on today but that shouldn’t take too long. and that’ll be all she wrote, and we’ll be one big step closer to sending this record out into the world! then there’s just mastering, artwork, photos, a videoclip, a release date, and touring to worry about. can’t wait.
tomorrow, ben heads off to new york for a few days, then los angeles, while i’ll be sticking around in nashville for an extra night. i’m gonna check out bright eyes at a local theatre called the ryman auditorium - it should be tops. then on sunday i fly home to sydney. i get in at 10am on tuesday in case you feel like giving me a ride home.
thanks for reading our inane babble over the past couple of weeks. we’ll be posting some more as the album gets closer to its release.
oh btw, we’ve posted some sneak previews of a few tracks on our myspace page - http://www.myspace.com/thedevotedfew. they’ll only be there for a short time so make hay while the sun shines, strike while the iron’s hot, etc.
be excellent to each other,
baz.
Kim: ‘Hold me.’. Edward: ‘I can’t.’
Second last day of mixing… It’s gone so fast.. Yesterday I climbed a mountain that’s right next to the studio. I got lost coming back down and walked out of thick forrest into someones back yard. The kids playing in the yard froze when I appeared out of the bushes.. A skinny unshaven white boy with a walking stick covered in mud and sweat. I had to find my way back to the studio in a maze of streets that look exactly like the street in Edward Scissorhands.
I feel like people think I’m casing the joint when I’m walking around these streets.
So mixing is going well. Jacquire is an awesome guy. He’s got great stories about working with Tom Waits and just yesterday told us he’s recorded Eric Clapton and BB King.. We sat and spoke for quite a while on the first day about what we’re looking for from the mix and stuff like that and ever since he’s nailed it. The drums are singing!! They’re actually shouting.. I’m going to make a bit of a sample of all the songs and post it on our MySpace page over the weekend end. We’ve got three songs left to mix. Well, two and a half…
bf
Graceland
“In Graceland, in Graceland
I’m going to Graceland
For reasons I cannot explain
There’s some part of me wants to see Graceland”
we had this past weekend off from mixing so we figured we should do something worthwhile with the time. and just like paul simon we wanted to see graceland dammit, and we weren’t sure why! so we rented a car (a black PT cruiser no less!) and hit the road for memphis, about a three hour drive from nashville.
now, driving anywhere at anytime is not without its hazards, but driving in america for an australian is particularly perilous. for a start you’re sitting on the wrong side of car, on the wrong side of the road. it takes a bit of getting used to. in fact, just entering the car on the correct side consistently requires practise. then, once you’re underway there is the small problem of your fellow road users. americans seem to take a pretty dim view of traffic lights and pay about as much attention to them as they might a serving suggestion on a tin of food. it’s an approach to driving that keeps international visitors who venture behind the wheel very much on their toes.
so off we set. i took on the driving duties for the first part of the trip while ben dj’d. first pavement, then johnny cash as we approached jackson, then an elvis compilation for our arrival into memphis.
the drive had been passing largely without incident until we decided to stop off for a thickshake at a dairy queen in the town of brownsville. it wasn’t difficult to find the dairy queen in brownsville because the entire town seemed to comprise of a gas station, a mcdonalds, and the dairy queen. the middle of nowhere is a bustling metropolis by comparison.
so, into the dairy queen we went with frozen beverages on our minds and elvis still ringing in our ears. but the only thing frostier than the thickshakes was the welcome we received from three local good ol’ boys. they were big lads, and not in the athletic sense, their trucker caps were a good few sizes too small for their gargantuan heads. they caught sight of us the moment we walked in and took an instant disliking to us. i’m still not sure whether it was our converse, our skinny jeans, or fletcher’s shock of red hair that rubbed them the wrong way but they made no secret of looking us up and down, then at one another, and having a good ol’ giggle. the western suburbs boy in me told me to arc up and enquire as to the nature of their problem, but the survivalist in me told me to pipe down, order my thickshake and get the hell out of there. we opted for the latter. but before the good ol’ boys made their own exit one of them took the opportunity to give a demonstrative cough while cleverly barking out “QUEERS!” at the same time. and all of a sudden i felt like kevin bacon must have in ‘footloose’. we ordered and left. the thickshakes were lousy.
graceland on the other hand was not. in fact it was pretty cool. we were expecting it all to be very tacky, and in some ways it is; and it could’ve been a total cash-in on elvis’s legacy, and in many ways it is. but it’s still pretty cool. the graceland house and grounds seem to have been preserved largely as they would have been back in the day. the entire upstairs of the house is off-limits to the public which is a good thing. it was nice to see that some things had been kept private. but i couldn’t help thinking that elvis could still be up there, watching telly and counting the heads as they pass through the front door, and multiplying that by the $25 admission fee, plus the kick backs he’d be getting from merchandising.
there are no tour guides to take you around the house and grounds, instead you get one of those audio headsets, you punch in a number and a magic voice imparts a bunch of facts about each exhibit. dunno why but i love those things. ben opted not to listen to his, instead enjoying the spectacle of watching already loud american couples screaming at each other over the commentary in their ears.
with the tour over we went shopping for souveniers in one of the 743 souvenir outlets in and around graceland. elvis’s name and face was emblazoned everywhere, on anything at all. you name it, it was there. women especially were going nuts for the stuff, carrying their own body weights in gifts for family and friends back home.
on the way out of town we stopped in at sun studios, where elvis, jerry lee lewis and johnny cash all got their starts as recording artists. it was a cool little place but it was late in the day and we didn’t have time to do another tour, so we bought some t-shirts, took a few photos and slid across the bonnet of the PT cruiser for the drive back to nashville.
till next time.
baz
Banana & Jelly Sandwiches
Day 5 of mixing. It’s going great! So far we’ve mixed: ‘We Burn’, ‘Cry Your Eyes Out’, ‘We’ve Been Through This’ and ‘You & Me & Everyone Else We Know’. We are just starting to mix a song called: ‘Tom Said’. It’s all very exciting. Jacquire’s a great guy and his studio is surrounded by the most amazing forest. There’s deer, squirrells and he says, although I’ve yet to see one, big black bears.
I’ve been filling my time with word puzzles, annoying Baz, A&W Root Beer, banana and jelly sandwiches, annoying Baz even more and flicking through a book that has 1000 record covers in it.. As you can see..
Where do two Aussies eat when they are in the middle of the American heartland? Where else but:
These are our annoying Australian tourists photos.
The Australian themed Outback Steakhouse. Yep, that’s right we walked in and got a table and the waitress came by in a cheap Akubra hat and when we ordered she said ‘I noticed y’all accents, where y’all from?’… ‘Australia’ we answered sheepishly. She looked at us weirdly and asked ‘why did y’all come here?’.. We didn’t know..
We have this weekend off so we’ve decided to go to Graceland in Memphis… It’s about 3 hours west of here. I’m so excited.. I wanna sit on the toilet that Elvis died on. I wonder if you can? Seriously though I’m a huge Elvis fan I can’t wait to see his home and Sun Studios where he recorded his first couple of hits. Stay tuned for the Graceland pics.
till then
Ben
Little Bit Tiny
hey hey
so, we’re three days into mixing the record and it’s going really well so far! we’re working in jacquire’s studio, the LBT, which is in the basement of his house in nashville. it’s very pretty here, kinda semi-rural, very green and extremely quiet.
we’ve mixed a few songs already and it feels like we’re just starting to get on a roll. we’re chuffed with how things are sounding; jacquire is doing a great job. i think ben and i both find mixing pretty nerve-wracking though. we’ve been lying awake at night, going over mixes in our heads. we were so happy with the stuff we recorded with anton and scott, so we’re super conscious of not screwing it up. we’re in good hands with jacquire though. he’s a lovely guy and right on the money as far as mixing goes.
being holed up in the studio all day means we haven’t managed to see a great deal of nashville yet. we’ve got this weekend off so we’re going to rent a car and see some more of the sites. with any luck we’ll take a drive down to memphis to visit graceland. and on sunday night we’re going to see ben gibbard of death cab play a solo show at city hall.
we’re really starting to settle in here. our hotel room is starting to feel like a surrogate home, though i still can’t sleep through the entire night. we’ve even discovered an american beer, michelob ultra, that’s to our taste. food is still a bit of a problem, everything is pumped full of sugar, bacon or cheese, so i’m eating an awful lot of raisin bran.
oh, if you get the chance you’ve gotta check out this TV show called ‘miami ink’. it’s a reality show about a tatoo parlour in miami. we’re utterly addicted to it! and it seems to be on every damn night. that, and ‘entourage’, another great show! but television for the most part is pretty revolting here. if you watch too much TV news you could be forgiven for thinking that the world is coming to an end, probably later today! it’s all doom and gloom.
alrighty, i’m gonna return my attention to the back of jacquire’s head coz we’re onto the next song. we’ll write again soon.
baz
Tornados in Cool Springs.
I’m standing in a fast food joint called Sonic’s.. An all American diner with rollerskating waitresses and bad meat with meat sauce sandwiches. Baz and I are sitting on a bench seat out side trying to work out how to order on the ‘push to order wall menu’. Suddenly this loud siren explodes to life ten yards away. It sounds like a shark alarm. A kid runs out from the diner screaming ‘Tornado alert!! Tornado alert!!!’ waving his arms around excitedly. I can’t believe it, it’s our second day in Nashville and I’m going to die in a tornado.
I ask the crazy kid’s mum what that siren means, thinking it’s just a fire truck or something. ‘Oh, that’s a Tornado alarm’ she says. I must have turned a strange shade of white ’cause she takes one look at me and turns to her husband, ‘Oh look at him honey’ she says, laughing at me.
‘What you want to do if you see a tornado is get down low, like in a ditch.. or a basement.. But don’t get in your car ’cause it will get picked up and thrown miles away.’
I suddenly turn into that guy in the movie that needs to be shaken and slapped… ‘Get a hold of yourself buddy!!’ Meanwhile, Baz is happily ordering his sub seemingly unaware of the siren that has just stopped.. Everyone around us is not bothered so I slowly calm down. Then the wind and rain starts.. I hear later that a town, not ten miles away is flattened to the ground, 7 dead 70 missing from the tornado that could have hit us…
Then the rain pores… So I run out and we get this pic:
Then, seriously 15 seconds later, the sun is out for this pic:
Last night was a big party night in the US called: Cinco De Mayo. It commemorates an initial victory of Mexican forces led by General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. Thank Wikiipedia!! 
Much beer and mirth was had by all…
Tomorrow we start mixing with Jacquire!!!! I can’t wait. I think we’ll mix a song called ‘We Burn’ first. We’ll let you know how it goes..
Ben
Nashville
ben and i arrived safe and sound in nashville late last night, local time, after two pretty solid days of sitting on planes or in transit lounges. by the time we arrived the novelty of plane travel had well and truly worn off and all we really wanted was something not pre-packaged to eat and to sleep lying down.
after checking into our ‘far too nice for our budget’ hotel we went in search of dinner. the time said it was going on midnight but our bodies told us it was 4pm sydney time and we found most places closed or closing. but finally we sauntered into a bona fide mid-west bar and grill, complete with locals who gave us the once or twice over, a blues cover band with shredding guitar player, and more baseball caps than you can poke a skinny indie musician at. it was perfec’. a couple of burgers and beers later and we were ready to hit the hay.
we have a couple of days to check out nashville before we begin mixing with jacquire. we’re dead keen to start but it’ll be nice to play tourist for a couple of days.
okay, time to check out of this hotel. more updates and pics to come.
keepin’ it real, nashville style.
baz
LA LA
So Baz and I arrived in LA just now… After a 15 hour flight we spend the night here and then we’re off to Nashville tomorrow. We must eat iHop at once..
More updates when we get to Nashville!
Ben
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