New Year's Resolutions and Yuletide Cheer

December 24th, 2008 | By ben

Hello All,

We will spare you from news this week and instead sprinkle a little of yuletide cheers upon your heads.  It’s been a productive, albeit interesting, year for Mucho-Bravado. We took on two new and, may we say, spectacular additions to our wee roster; The Basics and Hungry Kids of Hungary. Already we’re convinced it’s love and we look forward to an incredibly productive 2009 with them. Of course, they join longtimer Tara Simmons and newcomers Gladstone & Lochaber and an increased presence in the career of Edward Guglielmino. 2009 will be bigger, better and brighter and already many new ideas are being acted upon – we will announce these as news comes to hand and when we can.

Rather than us giving you “on behalf of all the artists…” garble, we thought we’d let them do the talking, the thanking and say a few words about the year that was and the year that will be.

A quick shout out to a few talented peeps who have helped us this year: Joel Devereux from 106!, photographer extraordinaire Ricky Sullivan and web dynamo Caitlin Apelt.

Thank you all for a great year, we look forward to bringing more musical goodness to your ears in the New Year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Ben Preece and Ange Kohler

… and now over to our talented little elves:

WALLY DE BACKER (THE BASICS)

“It’s been a busy and disjointed year for The Basics.

Touring has been more limited than in previous years, but then again, we’ve toured the East Coast twice, Adelaide and Perth/Fremantle twice,
Tasmania twice and recently spent two months driving through the Aussie outback doing workshops and performances in indigenous communities west of Alice Springs as well as remote schools in north-west Queensland. Actually, pretty darn busy when I list it all down.

Tim lived in Sydney this year while Kris and I remained in Melbourne, and we managed to survive the tricky schedule of interstate – organised
rehearsals and meetings, as well as three months of downtime while I went overseas.

Now Kris is in Ireland for at least six months, so The Basics will be on hold as a live band while we release the recordings we’ve been cooking up.

We’ve focussed as much of our time in 2008 on the recording of our new record Keep Your Friends Close. New singles therefrom will be released
early in 2009. Look our for the first track ‘With This Ship’ soon. It will be our first 7″ vinyl release, features Tim’s first Basics song on
the b-side and has an amazing animated film clip by Melbourne wizard Matt Arnold which will be available on the new-look www.thebasics.com.au. Myspace.com/the3basics will also have pics, videos and new tracks so stay tuned as we embark on The Basics exciting next chapter

Have a global financial crisis-free Christmas, Wally”

~~

TARA SIMMONS

For me, this year goes out with a bang. I have the mastering of my debut album Spilt Milk six days before Christmas which is probably a very good thing due to a lack of air conditioning in our studio and an increasing desire to stick our feet in some iced water. Not to mention the afternoon storms that leave Briony, my co-producer, in a frenzy of omigodthecomputerisgoingtoblowup!!! pretty much everyday now. Bless Brisbane.

Despite me being so quiet over the past year I have actually been busier than ever. Spilt Milk romantically launches on  February 14, 2009 and will consequently see me gigging my arse off across the country.  I’ve also taken to doing things a little bit solo of late after almost 4 years of playing constantly with band or at least part thereof.

But you’ll see/hear for yourself soon – MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Tara x

~~

KANE MAZLIN (HUNGRY KIDS OF HUNGARY)

Merry Christmas everybody! YAY, Its that time again…

I had to play some Christmas carols the other day at work for a party. I even wore a santa suit… how stupified is that – considering the aircon broke the day before and started spitting out ice bullets… weird. Anyway, it was really hot and I don’t want to ever do that again. No one knew the words to the carols anyway, so it was humming and awkward silence mixed with my bad piano playing. I love Christmas!

Anyway, we are coming to an end of a rather busy six months for us Hungry Kids.  We found out a couple of days ago we’ll be playing the Gold Coast Big Day Out. I nearly spilt my coffee all over the joint when Benny called me up and told me. We are playing the Hot Produce Stage and we’ll be on super early, so come brave the intense heat with us if you have a ticket!!!!

Early ’09 we will be releasing a new single, followed closely by an EP! Can’t wait! The sound is a little more fleshed out and there may be one or two more harmonies. We’ll also be clocking up some miles down the East Coast with a few surprises to come! Stay tuned!!!

Our last couple of shows for the year really kicked! We were very lucky to jump on the QLD leg of the Kid Confucius tour this week.

Wishing ya’ll a very happy Christmas and New Years from hungry kiddies!!

Thanks sooooooooooooooooooooooo much for all of your support!

Kane

~~

LUCAS ARUNDELL (GLADSTONE & LOCHABER)

2008 presented itself as a year of achievements for G&L. Having spent the latter half of 2007 getting to know each other and finding a musical commonality, we’ve been determined this year to take it up a notch. In turning our whisper to a shout, the venues we played were soaked in the essence of G&L as the beat shook your hips and amps were cranked way past eleven. Needless to say, the performance element played a big part for us in 2008.

The private life of Gladstone & Lochaber still remains precious to us, but I can let you all in on a few bits’n'bobs. There will be a record or two. More interstate shows. We’ve many a new song to show you [listen/dontlisten]. GladstoneandLochaber.com will soon be online and bringing you a full dynamic multimedia experience alongside blogs, writings and stimulate you in every place possible [ privileged Mac users only ]. Jokes aside, we’ve got plenty of exciting things in store for you all next year.

Our good friends [ME] from Melbourne will be coming to Brisbane in January (24th) with their new release Working Life and we’ll have the pleasure of playing again with them at The Troubadour. March will be an exciting time. We’re releasing our first EP and the single The Sound of Sun will be available for you all to dance/mosh/trip/fall/jog to. G&L will be headed to Melbourne in February for some shows anticipatory to the EP’s release, followed by a launch in early March in Brisbane.

I’ll be completing my seemingly endless years of academia in February and so personally, I am excited to have more time dedicated to our music, vision and search for answers. A storm is brewing; 2009 will wield the full force of Gladstone & Lochaber as the rain strikes train platforms and the people begin to tap their feet to its hypnotic rhythm. So keep your fluro raincoat on and disco dancing gumboots close as Gladstone & Lochaber enter the atmosphere and light up the skies.

Playing to you: listener, friend, alien.

Love

Lucas, Simon, Flynn & Dan.

~~

EDWARD GUGLIELMINO

When the Christmas time rolls around again, I think it’s important to remember what Christmas is truely about. It’s a tradition which we all follow but very few of us know the true meaning of Christmas. Many of us believe its about Santa and presents. This, my friends, is not the case. Santa is more or less a combination of Saint Nicholas and an ad for Coka-Cola from the 1940′s.

Many of us believe it’s a time to celebrate Jesus the Christ’s birthday. Well those of you who have read the Bible will probably know that nowhere does is state that we should celebrate Jesus’ birthday. In fact, Jesus was born sometime in September 5 BC – yes thats right, 5 BC!

In fact Christmas is a Roman Catholic adaption of a pagan celebration called Saturnalia which commemorated the birth of the sun god. So this Saturania (Xmas) why not head down to edg.ug/shop and buy the gift that gives twice. Once to your friends and once to a poor musician (very poor) with no solid income over the Christmas break.

After all Jesus said “Buy a fish [CD] from a poor man and give it to a friend”. Well not really, but I am sure if he was alive today he would use his superpowers to make a record much better than mine.

Merry Saturania Everyone!

Ed

~~

BEN STEWART

In 2008 I have been gathering birds…. watching the sky and waving my arms around until my nets are filled with them; then pulling out the ones with the biggest heads or clubbed feet or brightest fluffiest feathers and stuffing them in cages. I’ve let a few of these birds out on occasion and let them fly around the room. ‘Love is a Cruel Machine’ has flapped in and out of its cage throughout the year. ‘Things Have to End to Begin’ is really finding its feet and even ‘Our Own Private Communism’ has peaked from behind the bars. All such ugly, moody little things; like bearded ladies and circus freaks. But they make me happy.

In 2009, I’m planning on taking the world over; releasing my Angry Birds and letting them tear holes in buildings around town. They’ve been flapping around my head for too long; now it’s time for them to create some havoc.

I owe Emma and Tony Dean and Seamus Kirkpatrick massive thank youse for their parts in my band this year, as well as all the talented people that helped me out with my DVD, Microsymphonix.

Happy-ish NY

Ben.

~~

jOY TO YOUR WORLDS!