Happy Holidays from Honeybone

A very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

My Mum's Christmas tree. She rules.

This year has been full of surprises, twists, turns and greatness. Our second year in Melbourne has been absolutely fantastic, and I thought what better way to round up the year than with a End of Year blog, especially since my last one was so long ago.

Of course, the most impressive thing we have done this year is finish the album, Talk Back Baby, which was a labour of love, most of the time. I for one had many moments where I turned into a three year old and whinged 'It's too haaaaard I don't waaant toooo'. Luckily for me my two awesome band mates are not as babyish and sorted me out. And we did it, it's done and released. I am so proud of it, my first ever full length album that I have released, and even if not many people hear it or give a shit, I know that I have done something to leave my mark on the world. The music will carry on after I'm gone, even if I have to make my grandkids play it to their friends (Jeez Grandma, this is old fogey crap).

Other fun things have happened this year. We moved to Coburg, and discovered a delightful little sandwich place called 'Tasty Sub'. All the sandwiches/wraps are $4, and they are awesome. And they're open like SUPER early. Bonus. More of our cool mates from NZ moved to Melbourne, and now we've got our own wee posse of people to come to shows and act like they're impressed. It works I tell you. Hype is everything. Fake it til you make it.

Drew started working at Cranbourne Music this year and has now started doing guitar and pedal repairs. He's moving on up in the world. I am still at my office job, and Peter is still at Daiso, confusing all the customers because he's not Japanese.

Probably the second coolest thing that happened this year was the Amanda Palmer House Party that happened at the 'Bone house back in September, and Amanda telling Dave Grohl about our band. I will probably never get over how awesome that weekend was, even if Mr. Grohl hears about twenty bands per day from various people, and if he never even checks us out, I will still be happy because he (and AFP) knows Honeybone exists. And let's face it, with a band name like that, we're kind of hard to remember.

Lately we've been putting our noses to the grindstone learning covers for Drew's sister's wedding in February. We are the wedding band, so we get to play songs like 'Why Does Love Do This To Me', 'Be Mine' and 'April Sun In Cuba'. Classic Kiwi stuff. What's amazing is how 'Why Does Love' is so well known and loved in New Zealand, and nobody knows it in Australia. I keep getting caught out by things like that over here, Australia and New Zealand seem so similar, and yet there's all these tiny differences in culture and language. You forget most people don't know what 'chur' or 'sweet as' means. Anyway, I digress. We haven't been practicing much of our own stuff, but don't you fret, we're not going anywhere and we're coming for YOU in 2014.

2014 is already panning out to be a rad year. We're going on our first ever official tour, playing Christchurch, Dunedin, Invercargill, Oamaru, Melbourne, maybe even Hobart and Sydney. Who knows what will happen. But I know if 2014 is anything like this year, it'll be awesome.

Keep on keeping on kids. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, from all of us here at Honeybone.
Thanks for all the support, and we'll see you in 2014.

Momo especially hopes you have a wonderful Christmas

love
xxx

IT IS OUT

So the album is out.

After two and a half years, a lineup change and moving countries, we have finally released our debut album 'Talk Back Baby'. It's been such an incredible, stressful experience, both wonderful and horrible (only sometimes).

ALBUMS

We had our album launch at Melbourne venue Yah Yahs, and it was such a fun night. We played with our friends The Naysayers and The Velvets, who are both really awesome bands and you should go see them or listen to their stuff online when you get a chance.

The Velvets were up first and absolutely blew me away with their badassery, complete with Green Bullet harmonica microphone and loudspeaker vocals. We saw them last year and I was like woah, and this time I was like WOAH. They really are a must see band, fo sho. 

The Naysayers were up next, and as per usual they rocked the casbah. They are the best 'non-threatening garage rock band' I know. They even played a Beatles song, after admitting they had recently played a wedding and had to learn a bunch of covers. I accidently spilled some cider on one of their new EPs (Dee Eye Why), but that's no reason not to buy one (which you can get here).

Then we were up, and boy was I itching to get behind those drums after seeing some wicked bands such as the above. We decided to play the album in it's entirety (probably the only time that's going to happen), so there were a few songs we had to practice quite a bit to get them worthy of a Honeybone set. Our poppiest song ever, 'Down My Rhode' was one of these, we have only ever played it once back when we were still a four piece. We had Drew's midi keyboard hooked up to my laptop which was running Garageband and got a really nice dirty electric piano sound. The main issue with this song was Drew transitioning from keys to guitar for the solo, but I think we managed it.

The below photos were taken by Dimi Kostakos, and she is rad. Thanks Dimi!

It was a wonderful sweaty set, probably one of our best we've played in Melbourne. We played for over an hour, yet it was over so quickly. For our last song we did 'That's Alright Mama' (made famous by Elvis and covered by many others) and our wonderful pal Ashleigh got up on stage and encouraged others to also. So we had a bunch of mates and randoms rocking out with us to close the night. So. Much. Fun.

In other news, the deluxe album packages will be shipped out to the people who bought them this week, we had to wait as the T-Shirts were going to take a while to print. We've sent the album off to a few music blogs for reviews (eek) and a guy on twitter likened me to Dave Grohl, which made my day (I was sitting at my desk at work grinning like an idiot for about 10 minutes).

Next weekend (the 2nd of November, to be exact) we are playing Cherry Bar with a cool band called The Modern Age, and another one, The Sand Dollars. It's going to be so very rad to play Cherry, we've   been keen since we moved here, as it's such a notorious rock n roll venue. Watch out Cherry, we are coming for you.

We're stoked to hear when people buy and like our album, so let us know! You can use hashtag #talkbackbaby on Twitter and Instagram, or you can post on our Facebook page. Tell all your friends, tell your Mum. And keep an eye out on iTunes and Spotify, the album will be up there soon too!

Yay!

xxx

A Watching Guide for our new Promotional Video

Hey champs

You may have noticed we have a new promotional video

We worked with King of Comedy Andy Weston on this one, and we think it's tops.

Sure, the first time you watch it, it's a hoot. But what really MAKES the video is when you notice all the hilarious small things you didn't notice the first time. We like to pretend we planned all this out, but we didn't, not all of them.

Honeybone's Hilarious Easter Eggs in the new Promo Vid:

1. The old ladies delayed reaction after the CD is thrown at her (0.15)

GILF

This isn't something I planned to do, this is just extreme bad acting. And since that's what all informercials are about, it makes the video all the more funny.

We recommend watching that over and over. Make a GIF if you like.

2. The random guy with his kid in the background watching Sambo Blissett as he spits out 'blood' at the train station (0.39-0.48)

Since we filmed this in a public place, we couldn't really tell the guy to go away. We thought it would be good to have people in the background, like a real life event. Unfortunately (or fortunately), this guy didn't quite understand his role, and was extremely interested to see what we were doing. He looked very alarmed when Sam spit the tomato sauce out onto the ground. Poor guy.

Little did we know that a train station guard was standing right behind us as we filmed, and he kicked us out after we stopped filming (apparently you need a permit).

Since we're hardly professional film makers, we thought we'd keep this in, as it adds to the hilarity.

This is what it looked like to outsiders. Not that interesting, really...

3. The Backstreet Boys are on our album artwork (1.04)

When we filmed this, we hadn't yet printed the album in it's physical form, so we needed a dummy case.

What better CD to use than the greatest album of all time, 'Backstreet's Back' by the Backstreet Boys (one of Drew's favourites in his large collection).

This one was done on purpose, but out of necessity than comedic value. But it's great.

I hope you enjoyed my little guide to our promo video, keep an eye out for the next one!

Oh and our album comes out in officially 6 days!!!!

xxx

Click 'Attend'

Hey guys, just a quick wee bloggy blog today.

We have a Facebook event for our album launch, which is at Yah Yahs on Smith Street on the 18th of October (which is a Friday, great news for all you Mon-Fri people out there!). If you have Facebook, you should click on the link below and click 'attending'. If you are a cool kid and don't have Facebook, here are the details:

We are playing with two awesome bands called The Naysayers and The Velvets. It is free entry (yay) and doors will be around 8pm, with the first band on around 9 (to be confirmed). We will have our album there for sale, as well as t-shirts and lots of other fun goodies. The Naysayers will probably bring copies of their new EP 'Dee Eye Why' and you can get one. How exciting.

Here is the link.

This gig is two weeks away and we are very very excited. We're going to play at least one new cover, so it's worth coming to watch us butcher one of the greats.

Here is the teaser video Drew made for the album, he made it in half an hour, like a boss.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s10Ozla01sk&feature=player_embedded

In other news, Drew got a tattoo and I went to Wellington. It was great fun.

And here is a hilarious photo of what happens when I have a rat (Zuko) and a macbook.

AFP, album preorders and promo videos

Wow what a weekend. I'm still on quite a high from it all. If you 'like' our page on Facebook, you'll probably already know most of what I'm going to tell you but I'll include lots of details so you don't get bored (and if you still get bored, then you don't need to read on and we'll still be friends, maybe).

Warning: this blog contains Amanda Palmer. Here she is eating my face, I hope it tasted good.

I don't really know where to start so I guess I'll let you know about our album preorder while you're still paying attention. Last week, we put our album 'Talk Back Baby' up for preorder on our Bandcamp page. You can order a digital copy for $8, or you can order a physical copy for $15, and we'll ship it to you. It's all very exciting, and your money will go to paying for mastering and printing the album, which is nice because then we don't have to put all our personal funds into it. If you're thinking about getting a copy, have a think about doing a preorder, as you'll be helping us out AND we'll also know how many to print (AND if we get suddenly famous, you're guaranteed a piece of music history). Win win!

This is the album artwork, Kelsie Trainor drew and designed it. Rad!

So some of you may be wondering what 'AFP' stands for. It stands for 'Amanda Fucking Palmer' and she was IN MY HOUSE on Saturday. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. Amanda Palmer put a $5000 package on her Kickstarter for her latest album, if you bought it she would come and party/play at your house. A bunch of cities decided to band together and pitch in for a joint party. This is what happened here in Melbourne and when someone pulled out because the tour dates changed, I took their place and paid the necessary contribution. Then they didn't have a venue, I was all like 'I've got a rad little house with a cute backyard' and suddenly I was hosting the Amanda Palmer Melbourne House Party for 2013.

Look at all the people in my yard!

 With a LOT of help from my wonderful friends (old and new) we set up for the party on Saturday. We had streamers, signs, pink flamingos and garden gnomes (see example A). We set up a band area, an eating area and a filming area for Guy and his crew who are making a documentary about the house parties. It was a lot of work, but my pals helped me pull it off and I am very very grateful, they rock and I would have been a slobbering jittery mess lying on the ground in the foetal position without them (too many to name, they all know who they are. All the loves to you all xxx).

Example 'A'

Example 'B'

Honeybone played and it was glorious (see Example B). Amanda and her bandmates Jherek Bischoff and Chad Raines liked us, which was totally rad (I, in a weird fit of self-confidence, actually asked Amanda what she thought if the band. I hope I didn't put her on the spot, considering it was in the middle of my interview with Tom Dickens for Guy's doco lol). There were some gorgeous dogs who came and one of them kept barking at my kick drum, which was hilarious (although initially worrying when I first saw people laughing during our set). Some other wonderful people played also, including William Robin, Becca Tilley, Brendan McClean, Tom Dickins and Amanda herself with her band. I got to play snare and brushes for her song 'Want It Back' (see the video at the end of this blog) and the grand finale 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. I still can't believe she asked me to play with her, it was unbelievable. Also she played with a few other people, who were all stoked to play, including another cool drummer called Lisa who played Blister In The Sun with her.

Here she is with The Jane Austen Argument's Tom Dickins.

As well as asking me to play with her, Amanda also took a photo of me with my drums with 'Hi Dave' and our Bandcamp link sharpied on my hand, and she is going to show it to DAVE FUCKING GROHL when she hangs out with him soon. Since he's done house party things before I guess she'll have a chat to him about it and she will be totally telling him about my band. Squee indeed. I cried on her after she took the picture, what a baby. She's awesome. She also recorded a quick message for our promo videos. She's the bees fucking knees and I'm so happy to have met her and her amazing fan community. 

Chad played my drums after we moved them off the staging area

The tarp matches my top.

A sneaky AFP watches the Honeybone set

Passion during The Killing Type

The band minus Thor Harris

The party went so very smoothly, 'Take A Walk On The Wild Side' was played and the neighbours poked their head over the fence (to listen and not to complain about the noise). Amanda played ukelele on the garage roof with Drew sitting by her feet, and I was super happy she didn't fall through the roof, because that would be just my luck for my garage roof to kill Amanda Palmer. Everyone was safe, don't you fret.

Ukelele Anthem on the roof

Drew in awe

Sunday morning was clean up day, and then straight into filming promo videos for the album. I don't want to give too much away but they involve me dressed up as an old lady and our friend Sam Blissett spitting out blood (tomato sauce) at Coburg Station (we were promptly asked to leave after that). And of course Amanda Palmer. But just you wait, it's going to be legendary. These videos aren't music videos, the best phrase I can come up with is 'promotional videos'. You'll see, you'll all see.

I've got the old lady DOWN

Filming at the train station

And now because I really like to live it up and not have any rest, a week of working overtime lies ahead of me and then I fly to Wellington to hang out with my twin sister Kelsie and my awesome Mum (who told me she wants Amanda Palmer to tell Dave Grohl about her too, and how awesome she thinks he is but alas, it was too late). This weekend will be awesome, but Wellington has a lot to live up to considering the weekend I just had.

Bring it on.

So if you want to check out Amanda's music, please head to www.amandapalmer.net and you can find all her stuff there (for pay what you want, which is nice). She's also a rad blogger. Word up.

And if you are new to Honeybone, please go to www.honeybone.bandcamp.com and you can download free music and even preorder our album, if you feel so inclined. You can also like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter (and you can follow me on Twitter too: @raq_hell).

Oh yes and we've started booking shows for our NZ tour next February, keep an eye out, we'll be making the announcement when all the dates are confirmed! Yay first tour ever!

Thanks for reading, and stay classy, world.

Xxx

P.S. here is the video of Amanda Palmer, Chad Raines, Jherek Bischoff, William Robin and I playing 'Want It Back', which is a song off Amanda's latest album. I get a drum solo and I grin like a total noob.

The Weekend

Hello chums

It's been a while since you've had an update from me, but if you've 'liked' our Facebook page (and I highly suggest you do) you're probably up to speed with all the recent happenings. However if you're not, this is just the place to get up to date with us Honeybone kids.

Drew, Alex (our new flatmate) and I had a party. It was leopard print themed. It was glorious. Drew climbed things and I joined in on a ukelele jam. The next day (I was hideously hungover), we ventured to Pentridge Prison with our friend Andy Weston to take some Honeybone snaps. We got some good ones, some bad ones and some hilarious ones. Some will never see the light of day (one of me in particular). They'll be put up on the Facebook, but here's a couple of my favourites.

That last one is great. Thanks Andy!

Another cool thing we did was SET THE DATE FOR THE ALBUM RELEASE! Yep, after two years, it's finally happening. We've got my cool twin Kelsie working on album artwork and I have even written lists if things that need to be done. I am so very organised. We're not quite ready to go public with the exact date, but it is in mid October. We'll be doing preorders through our bandcamp and even merch deals. The next couple of weeks are going to be focused on getting mixing done (it's sounding AWESOME), and then all the other fun stuff to do with releasing an album will happen.

This last weekend, we played two shows and both were amazing. Friday night we played at The Retreat on Sydney Road with a band from Perth called the Trigger Jackets. It was rad. We hadn't played the Retreat before, and we hope to do it again, what a cool venue. I especially like the stage. The Trigger Jackets were great, if you're ever over Perth way and want to hear some good music, you should check them out, they have an album and everything (that's one ahead of us). Here is their Facebook page.

Saturday night we played DV8 with Massive and Virtue. What a fucking awesome gig that was. I'm probably going to sound a bit up myself a little but we were TIGHT. Every song we played was great, Drew did a lot of cool rock star moves and I drummed like Animal. Our friend was filming the evening, so keep an eye out for some footage in the near future. Virtue were awesome too, and Massive are truly a band that needs to be seen to be believed. Their frontman Brad was everywhere at once, and they even had a burlesque dancer. They are also really nice guys, and we can't wait to play with them again! 

Our next gig is at Penny Black on September 6th with our mates Cotangent. That'll be a great night, and it's free entry!  Get amongst it yo

We always do.

I leave you with an amazing video of an amazing woman singing 'Total Eclipse Of The Heart' as 19 different famous divas. Enjoy xxx

Honeybone does Toyland Recording studio

When I was little , I always thought studio recording was for musicians who had 'made it'. As it was the '90s, this was probably an accurate truth (or you had to have a very rich parent/spouse/cousin/bandmate). I would sing into my little hairbrush pretending I was Sporty Spice (like every other tween girl in the late 90s) and dream about the day I would set foot in a professional recording studio. Granted, that was as part of a Spice Girls rip off girl group and not the drummer of a garage rock band, but nonetheless. Twas a dream I never thought possible.

Fast forward to 2008, I got my first taste of 'professional' recording with my first band in Dunedin 'Captain Dave and The Pirate Hookers'. We did a spot of recording at Otago University's Albany Street Studios, and from there on in I developed a love/hate relationship with recording.

Since then I have been lucky enough to experience many hours recording music. For Honeybone's first EP 'Soul On Fire', we packed up Drew's recording gear and set off for his parents holiday house in Moeraki. Five days later we had the drums and bass tracks down. We finished all the guitar and vocal overdubs back in Dunedin in various practice spaces and bedrooms.

Then in 2011, we decided the time was ripe for a full length Honeybone album (yes, the same one we are working on 2 years later). Drew and I were doing our honours year at Otago University, and both had to record/produce an album. I decided to do my solo stuff, and Drew took on the immensity that is our album. Two years later and we have aaaaalmost reached the end of the recording process.

Why the hell has it taken so long, I hear you ask? Well, first of all, our second guitarist Josh left the band near the end of 2011. Then we moved to Melbourne (and spent all our money). Then we had to get jobs to pay for recording (and the van and rent etc). Finally, two years later we had enough time and money to book in two days at Toyland Recording Studios in Northcote, run by engineer Adam Calaitzis. And what a two days they were! As we weren't completely new to the recording process, we had rehearsed almost every day in the two weeks previous to the booking, so we were tight.

Listening back. Photo by Paul Emery

Still, the Honeybone kids are only human (hard to believe ain't it), and we all made a few mistakes. And this is where having a seasoned, professional studio engineer on hand saves SO MUCH TIME. Back in Dunedin with Drew at the helm, if we ever wanted to redo a drum fill or guitar lick, it would take Drew a while to find the part and splice the new part in, since he was fairly new to Protools. This time, Adam would be all 'we can fix that' and get it done in ten seconds. He does this stuff everyday. He knows all about it.

We got all of the base tracks (drums, bass and rhythm guitar) all done in the first day. We decided to do it live, to save time and sanity, plus some songs just had to be live. We were stoked we did it all in one day, considering one of the songs we were doing was our 10 minute long epic of wankery, 'Espionage', and the first time we attempted to record it, it took a whole afternoon. We got it down in one and a half takes. Our chins were floor level.

Bass tastic. Photo by Paul Emery

I mentioned at the beginning that I have a love/hate relationship with recording. Let me explain ya this. On one hand, I love the atmosphere, smell and feel of recording studios. I love the static buzz and heat that eminates from the preamps. Seeing my drumkit rigged up with a shit tonne of mics sends shivers down my spine. Listening to Drew and Peter decide what amp, guitar, or pedal to use for each song isn't as tedious as it normally is (just kidding fellas). What I do not love is that moment where you sit down in the control room to listen to your take and you hear yourself play. You thought you nailed it. You thought you were the best fucking drummer in the world. Then all those mics rigged to your kit pick up EVERYTHING, and kicks you in the crotch. Ghost notes you thought sounded kickass on the snare now sound like nails in a glass jar being shaken by a toddler. That fill you thought was awesome was slightly out of time, and screwed your face up for you as protools tells you how much you suck.

Drew fixing one part or another. Photo by Paul Emery

Well, usually it's not that bad. I am my worst critic, and an extreme perfectionist when it comes to my work. It's a good way to be, but being this way also makes you want to die a little inside when you hear your takes up-close-and-personal-like. I liken it to one of those little curvy mirrors that make your pores look like sink holes and make you want to rip your skin off. You know. THOSE mirrors. They show you up right close and personal. And these days that's what recording is about. We want to be right next to the singers mouth, we want to feel their breath on our face. We want to hear all of the intricacies that you wouldn't hear in a crowded room. Because when you're on your morning commute on a dreary weekday you want to feel close to someone. You want that intimacy. Unfortunately, like the curvy mirror, you will also get all of the imperfections. You will get the blackheads and the blocked pores. The chin hairs and pimples. And that's what rock 'n' roll is about.

DRUUUUMS. Photo by Paul Emery

I had a hard time remembering that while listening back to our takes. In a world where everything is polished and perfect, it's hard to accept being human. Nonetheless, we got takes we were all happy with and finished the first day.

The first half of the second day was Drew doing guitar overdubs. He is whizkid on that guitar, lemme tell ya. He already knew what he was going to do, more or less, so that didn't take too long. Then onto the vocals. Drew got his scream on and I tried to make my girly voice into something a bit grittier. What resulted was getting stuff caught in my throat and my eyes watering while I tried not to cough onto the very expensive vocal mike. It sounded good though, and that's all that counts. We laid down some keys on 'Touch The Sky' too, which is going to sound badass.

Drew recording vocals.

We got the majority of everything done. This weekend Drew and I will be finishing off the vocals and keys parts for the rest of the tracks, and tweaking things that need redone. Then the recording process will be finished.

And then we get to mix, master, sort out album artwork, etc. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Album shaped light. Maybe in the form of vinyl. WHO KNOWS WHAT WE'LL DO.

Keep an eye out on Facebook and Twitter, and the handy ol' blog. We know this has taken ages, and we thank you for your patience.

Xxx

A New 'Bone House

WE MOVED INTO A HOUSE

It's pretty cool. It has '70s style orange and brown carpet, aqua green walls and a garage. Peter found a classy as apartment just down the road in a warehouse conversion building.Thus why I have been too darn busy to blog. Yesterday I even bought and found a use for power tools. But now is the hour where I blog again. So don't fret and stuff.

So now we are rid of the terrifying downstairs neighbours, we are free to make noise again. I might just set up my drums and give them a bashing sometime soon. Drew has already turned the garage into his 'man-cave' and set up all his amp building gear, which is great because now it doesn't clutter up our bedroom. Winning.

Drew got a job working at the Blackburn branch of Cranbourne Music, so if you're ever up that way on a Thursday, Saturday or Sunday, call in and say hi. Drew is finally getting paid to talk about guitars all day (something he does anyway) and also gets to make sweet as videos such as this (I especially love the somewhat amplified kiwi accent):

Now that Drew is a man of means he works 7 days a week (since he's kept his other job). This doesn't leave a lot of time for extra curricular activities, or recording. Which means the final stage of recording the album won't be finished for a while, since I work Mon-Fri, Drew is Mon-Sun and Peter is whenever he is rostered possibly Mon-Sun between 7am and 10 pm. Annual leave is few and far between for all of us.

We try to not let life get in the way of art. But at the moment (especially with all the moving/bond paying), we need the cash. To pay for studio time, and less important things like food and rent (and the sweet as organ we're getting for our dining room).

I found this photo whilst going through old HB pics last night. This is at DV8 sometime last year. I thought it was cool.

In spite of the recording hiccup, things are still happening in the world of HB. A few weeks ago we recorded some demos at a practice space aaaaaages away (somewhere in the South East suburbs). The purpose of those is to listen to them and come up with better parts and production stuff without having to practice all the time (a great idea since none of us really have a lot of time). We are also planning a photo shoot sometime soon (Andy Weston, photographer extraordinaire is going to take some snaps of our pretty faces), if anyone has ideas for a shoot, let me know! All I can think of is the dull band-in-front-of-a-white-or-brick-wall cliche. I've been bit artistically challenged lately.

And to top it all off we've got some gigs coming up in the next few weeks. Next Tuesday (that's the 23rd of April) we're playing a gig with Sierra Leone and Karl Leedon at the Brunswick Hotel. It's free entry and we're headlining at 10pm (it's a school night but school is for fools). Here is the Facebook event. We're also playing a warehouse party in Yarraville on the 27th, more on that one to come.

After those gigs it's bye bye Aussie for ten days while Drew and I go on a holiday back to our home town of Dunedin and catch up with all the bros and hos down there. I seriously can't wait, I haven't had a holiday in over a year.

Lastly, here's a piece I wrote for The Factory about crowd funding, it's pretty much an expansion on the last blog. It's got statistics and everything, so you know it's totes legit. Unlike this blog.

Until next time
xxx

A Friend In Need Is A Friend With Jumper Leads

Sharing and giving and having and receiving.

Obligatory Friends reference.

I'm sure all of you have had to ask a favour of a family member, friend or stranger. When you ask in a polite, non obtrusive manner, whoever you have asked will generally help you out (unless they are a dick, or genuinely can't help). Asking for help is something a lot of people struggle with. No one likes to be vulnerable. The fear of hearing 'no' is always there, the fear of failure and rejection will always rear its ugly head.

Today the subject of the HB blog is asking. Specifically, is it ok for an artist (by that I mean musician/writer/performer/visual artist etc) to ask for financial help to further their art/career.

I know I probably harp on about her a bit, but this is something EVERYONE should see. This is what I hope to be the future of the music biz. Amanda Palmer's talk 'The Art of Asking' at the TED conference in California last week was inspiring and full of hope for the young buck musicians like your friends at Honeybone. The speech has gone viral.

Please watch it, its 10 or so minutes of awesomeness. Even if you dislike her music, she's one hell of a public speaker.

If the above video doesn't work, here is the youtube link

The basic gist is: the question isn't how do we make people pay for music, how do we LET them pay for music. In 2012, Amanda Palmer made global headlines by raising almost 1.2 million dollars (US) through crowd funding website Kickstarter for her new album 'Theatre Is Evil'. About 25,000 people backed the project, including yours truly.

Crowd funding has opened up an entirely new way to distribute and pay for music. Amanda (we're on first name basis now she's retweeted me) used the Kickstarter as a kind of preorder for the album, with rewards ranging from $1 digital downloads to an artbook, vinyl packages, 'mailbox invasion' art packages and the list goes on. That's right, we could CHOOSE how much we wanted to pay for her music. And you still can on her bandcamp. And you can on ours.

By not having a hard sticker price on our music, both Amanda Palmer and us kids at Honeybone have found that people have an overwhelming streak of generosity when they are given the CHOICE to pay for something or not. When we put our single 'Don't Need You' up on our bandcamp, we made it a 'pay what you want' option. We knew we wouldn't get many downloads if we made it a set price, so we decided it should be free. And guess what? People paid for it! Mostly they were our mates, but one lovely lady whom I have never physically met paid for it, purely on the basis of the music. And that feels good. Because we didn't MAKE her.

Think of that feeling you get when you give your last $2 coin to an awesome busker or street performer. Knowing the money goes directly to them makes you feel a bit good, doesn't it? No one's making you pay. So is it shameful that they are on the street, performing for passersby and loose change?

Amanda Palmer says her days as a Living Statue in Harvard Square, Boston taught her a lot about being a professional musician. Especially how to deal with the people that did and still do yell at her 'Get a job!!' from their cars/computer screens. She copped a lot of criticism for raising so much money on Kickstarter, and then asking her fans to come play onstage with her for tickets and beer and hugs. People thought now she's a 'rich rockstar', she should pay everyone who plays. Which is a fair enough point, to the people that don't know the relationship she has with her fans. She connects with them directly, through her blog, Twitter and her shows. She asked them to help her, and they did. Because she helped them. In so many ways.

An illutration form of Amanda's talk for those of you on the go.  By  Fever Picture

So Honeybone had a crisis (in my opinion, I was FREAKING OUT) on Saturday night. We had a gig and oops, we left the van lights on. Classic error. Everyone does it once. Not many will do it twice. My mind was running over the possible solutions. We didn't need to take drums or a bass amp, so we could get a taxi? Shit, Drew's massive amp cab is in the van, parked 5 blocks away, not exactly feasible for a taxi (that may or may not show up). We had a battery charger, but there wasn't enough time to charge it up before the gig. And we don't have jumper leads. Fail.

Thus I proceeded to the depths of my phone contacts, feverishly scrolling, trying to remember who has a car, who would be home and who would have jumper leads. Enter drum extraordinaire and vintage radio collector Tom Hendry. What a champ. I called him up and ten minutes later he was jump starting our van. I asked for help and he helped us. Of course, he's an awesome guy so it's not a huge surprise he came and helped, but it's still fucking great. His band is called Son of Set, and they're playing tomorrow night at the Vineyard. You should go see them, they are awesome. We got to the gig a sneaky 5 minutes before we were supposed to start. Luckily the boys from headliner Cotangent (one of the best freaking bands in Melbourne) didn't mind in the slightest. And we played. And it rocked. And everything rocked.

Said rockage. Photo by Heath Gillespie of Cotangent

We wouldn't have been able to play the gig if it hadn't been for Tom. Amanda Palmer wouldn't have been able to release her album if it wasn't for her fans. One example is small, and one is on a scale I can't even comprehend. But both have the same basic principle. Ask and you shall receive. Be a good person and you will receive goodness.

Asking for help, or monetary remuneration for artistic services shouldn't be seen as begging. Busking isn't begging. Playing gigs isn't begging. Crowd funding isn't begging. Let's stop thinking of it as begging. Let's think of it as what Amanda Palmer would think. ASKING.

And also we should all probably think about investing in a nice set of jumper leads.

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