The First Australian Gig

Our first gig (not counting the Open Mic performance) in Melbourne was on Tuesday 19th June 2012. This coincided with the biggest earthquake in Victoria in 109 years.

Oh, and it was during OUR FUCKING SET! 

Seriously. Passes to the Cool Kids Club can be handed out now, thanks.

We didn't feel anything, and our mates didn't either, but the judge man did and decided to hop onto the stage after our last song and proclaim it to be the most awesome thing he has experienced, and allude to the fact that Honeybone's rock 'n' roll manner caused said quake.

I thought he just really dug our tunes, but then I checked facebook and yes, there was a quake.

This came up on my mate Ashleigh's facebook feed after about 5 minutes

So that's a pretty cool story. Although that's the whole story, so it's a short one. But a classic nonetheless.

THE GIG:

(Chur to Ashleigh Dunn for photos)

Stance

We played at 'Melbourne Fresh Showcase' at Revolver Upstairs in Prahran, Melbourne. It was a hell of a mish getting there, as we had to tram then train then change trains, whilst carrying gear and during rush hour. FUN. We had our mates Ash and Paul to help (who were total troopers cause both had worked all day and Ash was a bit under the weather), I don't know what we would have done without them. They're full on Cool Kids.

We played for 20 minutes. Our set was:

Can't Feel Your Love

Don't Need You

Edge of the Sun

Outta Time

You may or may not know these tunes as none of them are on our EP. We gave away about 10 EPS after our set, Aussies seem to like free stuff. If you would like an EP, please email me at rachel@honeybonemusic.com and we'll suss out some sort of deal.

Highlights:

- Fellow Otago Uni ex-pats Oli and BB headbanging raucously whilst all the young Aussies got out their smart phones and videoed them, as if they'd never seen anyone mosh at a gig. Apparantly headbanging is not something often done at Melbourne gigs.

Headless Headbangers Oli and BB

- Being able to PLAY REAL DRUMS. My electronic kit is beginning to get tiresome. I was terrified I'd screw up the start of Outta Time since my electronic kit won't let me play snare rolls that fast (rubber is not the same as a real snare in terms of rebound)

-IT WAS A REAL GIG. I could hear myself, and everything else! This is a rare event, but I had a huge foldback speaker next to me and the sound guy was one of those awesome ones who actually knew what he was doing. Kudos to you, my good man.

Drew Glows

I would let you in on the lowlights (is that a word?) but I cannot think of anything. All the other bands that played were pretty good, or on their way to being pretty good (I think we were the oldest band there in terms of age, felt kinda like Rockquest). The organisers were great and everything ran to schedule. Awesome.

We got through to the next round, which is great. I"ll let ya'll know the deets for that one when we hear.

In other news, we're playing with The New Savages on Sunday 1st July (not this Sunday but next week's Sunday) at The Tote. We're on around 7.30 (methinks), entry is $8. You can find out all you need to know here: https://www.facebook.com/events/344258718978219/

Follow us on Twitter: @Honeybone_ (since Facebook is going to charge us if we want our 700 odd fans on our page to see our posts, pssshhh dumb).

My Twitter is @raq_hell. I think I'm pretty cool, so you guys could maybe follow me? maybs? If you want?

love yas 

xxxxx

Things I should have remembered about Open Mic Nights.

So in  my last blog I promised a blog including what my ipod comes up with on shuffle. I have 3053 songs on my ipod, this is going to be interesting. This blog will be about other things also, but I will let you know how this goes. It will be interesting. First song: Lily of the Valley- Queen. Not bad.

So you may have guessed form the title of this blog is that I have recently had some sort of interaction with an Open Mic Night. (Oceans - Evanescence. Judge me if you will, it's really not bad).

On Monday night we went to an Open Mic at Cherry Bar in the city. And here are the things I should really have already known, but neglected to remember this time.

1. There will always be someone playing who plays for way too long, and is generally bad/weird.

This is typical at every open mic, as anyone can play, therefore everyone who can play 'ten guitars' gets up and does their version of Wonderwall. This time, there was a slight variation. This guy I'm talking about looked like a blond version of Robert Smith from The Cure. (All My Love- Led Zeppelin. Getting better). He sang like the singer from Placebo, and played songs (I'm guessing they were originals) reminiscent of The Rasmus. He wasn't bad, but after about 6 songs, we all got a little bored. He played Disarm by the Smashing Pumpkins as his closer, which was rather good and suited his girlish voice. He had a large tall badass looking guy playing the bongo alongside him. That was the funny part.

2. There will always be someone who treats it like their own show.

This has happened at several open mics I've been to. The first one where this occurred was when I was still in high school and my band plus some other musical cats from the year above decided to rock out at Oliver's in Clyde, about 10 minutes drive from my hometown in New Zealand. The guy running it got pissed at us because we brought a drumkit, and played 'too loud'. Typical old-man-who-lives-in-a-bus-with-a-hippie-wife syndrome. He played some country noodling. It was ok.

Cherry Bar was no exception. (Higher Ground- The Red Hot Chili Peppers). There was a girl who came with her whole band (who brought their own gear - wise men), minions and grandmother. She was down from Sydney apparantly, and decided this was the perfect opportunity for a gig without any organisation. Smart girl. She was pretty good, think Pink with an ACDC type band behind her (with a drummer who looked like Mick Mars from Motley Crue). Unfortunately she kept saying how nice it was for everyone to come see her, and got her 'minions' to hand out 'albums' to everybody. This album consisted of a burnt CD with the artist's name sharpied onto it (mine was scratched to hell) in a white CD sleeve with a sticker on it. I had expected more of an effort from a girl who acted so professional in every other aspect. She played for a good 30 minutes. Everyone left after she played, and we were next. Awkward.

This is us at Cherry. Ashleigh Dunn took this pic, she rocks all of the socks.

3. The gear will ALWAYS be shit.

This is something I learned years and years ago, but failed to remember whilst going to Cherry. As always, open mics are generally free, so it's not like anyone's going to go out of their way to provide a good kit or guitar amp. The bass amp was alright. The kick pedal provided broke halfway through our second song, so we had to stop. I didn't bring a drum key, so had to ask into the microphone for one. Awkward. Lesson learned. A drum key is now residing on my key chain. Silly Rachel. We played averagely, as we couldn't hear Drew (I think the amp was broken), and the place was pretty much empty. (Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin). The floor tom sounded very silly also. But thats ok, it's an Open Mic night. Expectations should never be high.

So all in all, 'twas an average gig. Think Honeybone, circa 2009. Like, just after we formed. I blame the awkward situation and the gear. It was one of those cases where all you could hear was your own voice and it's very unsettling. What's good about this is that now I am reminded is that an Open Mic gig for an actual band (not solo singer songwriter types) is never going to go well. Lesson learned. We weren't terrible, we weren't amazing. (Shihad - Ignite). No one remembers the average bands. So I'm hoping no one will remember us, and we have a second chance for a first impression at the Gig on Tuesday.

Kudos to our good mate Ash for coming to watch us, even though she was hungover. She's a champ. Chur bro xxx

Oh and the practice on Saturday last week at The Wick was in-fucking-credible. I played a REAL drumkit. I could HEAR Peter's bass. We played for FIVE hours. It totally rocked. (Stop - Shihad)

Drew being totes badass at practice.

So not too many embarrassing songs came up this time. Next time I will try harder. I do have Nickelback on my Ipod, and Kidrock. Lets hope they come up so you can all have a laugh.

xxx

Make Good Art

Hello fellow people.

Here is an amazing speech by Neil Gaiman (author extraordinaire) as he addresses the class of 2012 at University of the Arts. I don't expect you to watch it straight away, because, in this day and age of short attention spans, my blog probably wins in the competition of the least-time-it-will-take-out-of-your-day. But seriously, one of these days any one who calls themselves an artist or art lover should watch it.

The moment I decided I would watch this was the most absolute perfect moment in my life for it. Having graduated university with a music degree, moved to Melbourne and 'gotten a real job', I couldn't help but feel lost. What am I doing, working 8.30-5 Monday to Friday, wrecking my wrists typing at a computer all day, then I come home too sore to play drums? I came to Melbourne to make music and make a little money out of it. I was not doing as much of this as I would have liked. As Drew pointed out, not much point in complaining, we've only been here 2 and a half months and had our gear just under 3 weeks. Yet every day that I don't spend playing music feels like a day wasted. It was easy to be nonchalant about it all whilst at uni, because it all seemed so distant. I had no idea what I would do. Now I am here, it's pretty freaky.

So I watched Neil Gaiman's speech, after hearing about it for a couple of weeks on Twitter. Needless to say, I was rather inspired. His words 'Make Good Art' are probably the best words I've heard someone say  in a while. 'Cat explodes? Make Good Art'. That was the kick in the arse I really needed to actually stop worrying and start doing it. We had the best band practice last night. I was so excited about everything. Thanks Neil :)

So we've been practicing. Our first few practices were fairly shoddy, but this could be blamed on a number on things. We live on the 2nd floor of an apartment building, so we cannot be loud (for the sake of our age challenged neighbours). So (now that I have an amazingly hip and cool electronic drum kit) we all plug into Drews recording interface and run everything through Logic, then out through headphones. This is pretty cool for a free/quiet way to practice. However, we can't work out how to get mono sends, so we all only have sound going through one side of the headphones. Awkward.

On Saturday we have a 5 hour rehearsal booked at a rehearsal space in Brunswick. They hire gear so we don't have to lug drums over there. That's nice. I'm really looking forward to it, since it'll be the first time I've played a real proper kit since February. I wonder what that will be like. Hopefully fun.

I'll think I'm all:

But I'll really be like:

Exciting time in Honeybone's young life. We recently turned 3 years old (an event I meant to celebrate with a blog entry, but I neglected my post. Soz), and we've got two gigs lined up for the next couple of months. The first is on 19th June at Revolver in Prahran. It is called Melbourne Fresh Showcase, and is similar to a battle of the bands scenario. We have tickets to sell to that, email me rachel@honeybonemusic.com if you want to come support us, that would be so rad.

The second one is a similar deal in the Gershwin Room at the Espy on Sunday August 12th. We also have tickets to sell to that, etc. Email me if you want, that would be rad :)

I can't wait to get back into playing and gigging again. I feel a bit like a 'square' working the typical office job. But I'm using that money I earn to pay for rehearsal spaces, band vans and a new tattoo so I doubt I'm really your typical office girl on the inside. I don't mind it so much, as I can listen to my ipod whilst working, and when it takes an entire album to get to work, and an entire album to get home again, you can bet I'm getting some sweet listening done.

So my new motto is 'make good art'. Or, at the moment, 'make art'. I always seem to forget that for every fucking kick ass song, theres probably 20 or so crap ones. You need to wade through the shit, pay your dues and learn from your mistakes. This is what I've learned from ol' Neil, and it's something we all need to remember.

Make Good Fucking Art EVERYONE

Ok guys?

PS.

With my ipod on shuffle, here's what I listened to whilst writing this blog:

Amanda Palmer: Do It With A RockStar
Amanda Palmer: Want It Back
Katy Perry: California Gurls feat. Snoop Dog (oh yeah)
Shihad: Bullitproof
Jack White: Sixteen Saltines
Princess Chelsea: Goodnight Little Robot Child
Queen: Crazy Little Thing Called Love
White Stripes: Little Ghost
Jeff Buckley: Lover, You Should Have Come Over
White Stripes: Little Room
Led Zeppelin: Since I've Been Loving You
David Bowie: Ziggy Stardust
Shihad: Pacifier


I think my next blog is going to be a list of whatever comes up on my ipod whilst on shuffle. That'll be good for a laugh.

xxx