It's a GEARFEST

Hello all you magical people.

On Friday 22nd May 2012, Honeybone got their gear back.

I was all OMFFFFFFFGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD (imagine that going up at the end). But this had to be all inside my own head, as I had to work all day so could not be reunited with said gear until approximately 5.45pm that night. The things we do to save enough money so Honeybone can buy a van.

So I excitedly rushed home from said job and entered our abode. And was immediately accosted with empty boxes. I 'casually strolled' into my bedroom and saw this:

Usually you can see more of my floor

So I kind of stood there in the doorway for about 5 minutes, completely flabbergasted. Yes, that is mostly my stuff in the picture. WHY DO I HAVE SO MANY THINGS!! I ask myself that very question everytime I move. I dislike throwing things away because a part of me is still a child and thinks inanimate objects have feelings.

You would too if your toaster was this cute.

So after I got over the initial shock, I unpacked my electronic kit which is in the large standy-uppy box in the right of the picture. Out came a dead spider. Woops. Sorry Australian Customs. Naturally I meticulously combed through anything in that box (we padded my kit with clothing) for eggs. Luckily it appeared to be a Daddy spider. Mummy spider and little Timmy will never know what adventures that curled up ball of legs and fear would have.

Sorry, I digress.

So then, naturally, I took pictures of everyone reunited with their gear, purely for the purpose of this blog. Look at me, a hardworking dedicated blogger. Good at Life.

Drews things. I'm glad I didn't have to lug that cab up four flights of stairs.

My pretty drums all boxed up in a black cage of emotion. Or just a kick hardcase. You decide.

So much gear lovin'

Saturday was spent at Ikea to buy things to put our things in. Needless to say, we now have an Ikea flat. It's like that episode of Friends where Phoebe hates Pottery Barn because everyone has the same stuff. Only I hate Ikea, because in the space of 1 and a bit months, I have been there THREE TIMES. That is a little over the top. But hey, cheap stuff. And it's got cool swedish names. Score. And we are now all really awesome at building things from a box and a set of instructions with a funny guy on them. Win.

We will now begin to practice, which will be interesting. Peter has not stopped playing bass, Drew is currently noodling away at 'Since I've Been Lovin' You' and I played drums to 'Wherever I May Roam' just last night. But I bet we'll still all suck on our first practice. Ha.

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On another note, I have been listening to a shitload of cool music. To name names, Amanda Palmer. AFP. She rules all of the schools. Lately she's been causing quite the stir by putting her new album up for backing on Kickstarter and she has at this present time over 16,000 backers and raised over $700,000 USD in just over two weeks. Of course it helps that she has a rather large, awesome, crazy dedicated fan base Even still, how amazing is that? The revolution has begun. Maybe one day Honeybone will do some sort of crowd funding project. Anyone care to throw some money at the new Honeybone album once it's done?

Cheeky.

Anyway I just wanted to let people know how awesome this is, as it puts the power with the fans. They get to decide who gets the money and who doesn't. This is not the end of shit music, because one man's Beatles is another mans Nickleback. But what I love is that the crowd decides, and that is fucking awesome. There are a few crowd funding websites out there, so go have a look cause there's so much amazing stuff in the world that would never get a look in if it weren't for the internet.

This has been quite the marathon blog.

Rachel OUT.

I love you, blog readers xxx

Random picture of a shark, because they are cool.

Honeybone in the 21st Century

Oh yes, first blogpost in weeks because we finally have internet connected at our house!

I just read the last post to see what I had told ya'll and it was really shit all so I should probably be a good girl and write a really cool interesting funny long one...

We'll see how that works out.

So we have a gig! June 19th at a place called Revolver. It's an industry night showcase run by a promo company called Melbourne Fresh. If you live in Melbourne and want to come, we have to sell 30-50 tickets at $10 AUD a pop so we'd love it if you were keen. Just give me an email at rachel@honeybonemusic.com and we'll sort something out.

We get 20 minutes to strut our stuff, and it's sort of like a battle of the bands because I believe there are prizes and a final and everything. So that will be fun. Woop.

Our flat is very very cool. We moved in on the 16th of April, the first day of my new job. That was a hectic day. We still don't have much furniture because we don't have much money, but we have some camp chairs our good mates Ashleigh and Paul lent us so that's cool. They're really comfy and the drink holders are really good for holding my beer (funny that).

Here is one of them and sneaky Peter to the right

We also bought loft beds from IKEA because we will have so much more room for activities. Seriously though, they are cool except for the fact that I'm scared every morning, because I am that kind of person who would fall.


Melbourne is really really great. It takes me 30-40 minutes on the tram to get to work but it's totally worth it. 

Especially when Asian girls have Pedo Bear Bags lol

We saw The Verlaines a couple of weeks ago when we were here and caught up with some old Dunedin expats, which was great. We haven't had much money because we had to use our first pays to pay the first month of rent so we haven't been able to do a lot, but once I get paid again (I get paid bi-monthly), it'll be sweet as. There's heaps of places I really want to go to, so there's my weekends full up for the next year or so!

Our gear gets delivered to our flat next Friday which is super exciting. I figured out at work the other day (I don't do a hell of a lot at my new job haha) that it's been more than TWO MONTHS since I've played drums. So Melbourne peeps, don't expect too much on my first outing. Muscle memory will kick in for a bit, but then I'll realise just how much 2 months can set you back. We're going to get straight back into practicing which is going to be awesome. Drew will have his computer and hard drive back and we can listen to the mixes of the recordings we did last year and work out what needs redone. It's going to be so exciting, I've had a bit of a music withdrawal. Although last night I played at an open mic night at the pub a block down from our flat, which was interesting, as most open mic nights are everywhere.

We've done so much since I last posted. We went to the Storm/Warriors game at AAMI Park on Anzac Day. That was really cool because we were surrounded by kiwis (even a bunch of Maoris smoking pot right behind us, felt just like home). Warriors lost, but hey that happens.

Here's a picture of Drew putting my IKEA drawers together. IKEA rocks

Drew and I have a Narnia Wardrobe!

I feel like this a good, decent length blog. Keep an eye out, I'll probably write a really good one next week when we get our gear (woop)

xxx

Honeybone Goes To The Zoo

Yep, we went to Melbourne Zoo. All three of us. Check us out, aren't we a bunch o' pretty things.

This isn't a post just about the Zoo though, that was just one day in a whole two weeks since my last post. And things are looking up in the world of Honeybone in Melbourne.

I got a job, Drew and Peter had/have interviews, we've applied for flats (but heard nothing...) so things are getting quite exciting really. The job I am doing is for a vehicle leasing company, don't all fall out of your chairs in excitement at once. I have already done that for you :) Pay is good, I start on the 16th of April which gives me a whole extra week to act like an unemployed delinquent, which is always fun.

Like play on this EPIC pinball machine at a 50's diner in South Yarra. What fun.

We went to a really cool gig on a Tuesday a couple of weeks ago in a place called the Evelyn Hotel in Fitzroy. We went with our friend Sam who used to play bass in the Du Cats Kit, he moved here last December. I was like 'Tuesday, it'll be low key, chilled out et cetera'. Well we walked into the place and it was already packed at 9.30pm, and the people kept coming in. It was like Refuel (in Dunedin) on a really really good Pint Night. Crazy shit. The bands were awesome, the headliners have a two month residency there so they'll just keep getting better and better.

Anyway, I know you only clicked on the title of this blog post to see pictures of zoo animals. You're dying to see them, I know it. So here you go:

A Lion

Gorillas

Rafiki

Honeybone love

This butterfly landed somewhere awkward...

This is more appropriate

Aw baby elephant!

Timone

Patterns

These otters didn't show the first time we went round so we came back at the end and they decided to have a fight, it was so cute.

This concludes this post! BTW I got a twitter after a few months of humming and haaing... follow me if you want @raq_hell. And follow Honeybone if you haven't already @honeybone_.

Love xxx

Arrival

Wow, again I am guilty of sporadic posting, my bad!

This time I actually have a reason to be so slack with my online correspondence. Drew and I are in Melbourne, reunited with our dearest Peter who arrived here in February. So naturally we've been a bit busy. But since I never do a lot on a Sunday I thought I'd update ya'll on what we've been up to.

Haven't managed to get to a gig yet but Peter went to the Checks at Cherry Bar on the 9th, apparently it was awesome. Cherry Bar sounds like a really cool bar, and it's on ACDC Lane in the CBD, which is a pretty rockin' address.

So Drew and I took the bus up to Christchurch on Monday and stayed at his relatives for the night. Then we had to get up at 4.30am to catch our 6.40am flight to Melbourne. It was so weird when we were flying because we were going west so dawn lasted for about 2 hours, got some cool pics but my silly camera has run out of battery so I can't show ya'll. Maybe next time.

But here's a nice one of Flinders Station taken with my new smart phone.

Our first day in Melbourne was spent wandering around getting our phones and bank accounts sussed and then we just walked around the CBD getting our bearings and checking out the shops. Once we eventually got back to where we were staying, we had been up for about 18 hours. Intensity in Ten Cities.

It's crazy to think we've been here almost a week. Our main activity at the moment is trying to find jobs and a flat. I should have taken a pic of this, but one of the flats we looked at had some used needles outside what we discovered was the back entrance of the flat, as the real estate agent came around and frantically hurried us away around the front. Haha. Australia :)

So I've got a job interview tomorrow morning, and applied for about a million jobs so hopefully something comes through soon. Kinda regretting applying for some, because the jobs I've heard back from are ones I don't really want to do lol.

But that's life

You stay classy... Planet Earth

'Fare Thee Well Dunedin' Gig

As I hinted in the previous blog entry, we have a gig coming up.

Design by Kelsie Trainor

Yay!

Sadly, it'll be Honeybone's last gig in Dunedin for a while as we (the band) are relocating to Melbourne, Australia.  We'll TRY to come back sometime soon if our financial state allows us, so this gig is a chance for us to thank Dunedin for being so rockin' over the last 3 years. You guys rock!

We'll miss you Dunedin. It's funny, my Uncle wrote a song that said exactly that, but it was written a wee while ago (I wanna say early 80s?). Still relevant. To us.

I've wanted to write about our relocation plans for a while, but I wasn't sure when we were going 'public' with the news. So now that I can, it's pretty cool. I'm pretty excited.

I've only ever moved towns once before, not countries. Although Australia is definitely easier than moving to London (or somewhere else far far away), since we don't have to worry about Visas or anything. But it's a little scary, considering I've only ever moved two hours down the road from my parents house.

We were tossing up between Auckland and Melbourne, but came to the decision (guided by many of our helpful fans, friends and family) to go across the ditch simply because Melbourne has 4 million people. Thats the size of NZ. So the odds are, more people over there might like our music, because there's generally more people.  Plus I have a feeling that New Zealand's rock scene is a bit small, theres probably less than 10 NZ rock bands that get regular radio airplay. The scene is going towards the dubstep/roots/hipster music direction, which is cool. But we don't really fit into that, methinks.

And Shihad live in Melbourne. Awesome.

Anyways, this giggity is happening on Thursday the 9th of February at XII Below. Entry is $5, and we'll be doing some sweet merch deals, so bring your jar of pennies. We've got Osmium, Kitten Suprise and others who will help us say goodbye to the town we grew up in (musically for me, but literally for Drew and Peter. Awaaahh).

So come on down and party with us whilst we say 'see ya' to this epic town. It'll be a really cool night (we hope).

Oh and in the last blog I promised boobs. Well since two of the bands playing that night have girl drummers, I'd say it'll be a boobfest (yaaa mean).

Yeah, YOU know what I mean ;)

Love ya
xxx

Welcome, 2012

Well hi there folks, and a merry New Year to you!

I hope ya'll had a sweet as holiday season, and got lots of pressies. The personnel at Honeybone do not believe in sending gifts, so that's probably why you didn't get one from us. Soz bro.

So what's new in the Honeybone world? You're probably wondering, since I've been neglecting this blog in pursuit of more interesting activities like wandering around alone on New Years in Queenstown.

This meme is rather appropriate

Well the first thing that's probably new to you (if you don't know us personally) is that Honeybone took a trip in mid-Dec 2011. We went to Auckland and saw the Foo Fighters. It was epic. They were epic. They filmed a music video but we're probably not in it because we're all too short.

Example: That guy to the left was about 2m tall, I was standing on my tippy toes and stretching my arm as high as it would go to take this pic

I also lost my shoe in the mosh, which didn't matter too much during the gig (no one was looking anywhere remotely near my feet), but once we left the stadium people looked at me weird. I was all

The next day heralded an important day in the Honeybone world, Drew and I got qualified. Yep, we graduated from University of Otago with a Bachelor of Music (Hons). So yeah, we can play music, and we have a piece of paper that says we can. Suck on that.

This guy probably has one too.

That was a fun day/night, and as we had to get up at 5am in Auckland to catch a 7am flight back to ol' Dudstown, we had a mean time.

During this time, Drew decided the time was ripe for a change. New Year brings in a new look. He cut his hair. The lovely long tresses are no more. He's still cute as a button. Heres a pic of the process.

Today, Tomorrow, Timaru

Just yesterday I booked a Honeybone gig for sometime in February. Sweet as. Stay tuned for the deets, it shall be an epic night with beers bands and boobs.

Now you're going to come just because I said boobs.

Well here it is again

BOOBS

No More Gigs...

Last night brought on the very last Honeybone gig of 2011. We played an acoustic show at a fancy bar in town called Carousel, and it was fun. People came. Drinks were consumed. Et cetera.

But don't be sad, we'll be back to do a few more shows next year. It will be a fun time.

Especially if you go here and vote for us to open Big Day Out 2011! Wouldn't that be grand. Theres also a wee sneaky version of our upcoming single 'Don't Need You' on that website, which is another sweet ass reason to check it out.

We've had a couple of awesome gigs this month. The first one was with Two Buck Titties and Phoney Dog at the Dux de Lux in Queenstown. Two Buck Titties were awesome, despite a few technical difficulties. They are a band on the rise, so keep an eye out for those guys next year. Phoney Dog were also amazing, and their bass player had a 'Chopper' style moustache. He pulled it off too, which made the band a lot cooler.

We had to drive back to Alexandra after the gig, then carry on to Dunedin the next morning so Drew could make it to work at 10am. So not a lot of sleep was had that weekend, but it was one of the best gigs we've had all year, in my opinion.

We also played with a bunch of cool bands last weekend for Ash and the Matadors album release party at XII Below. Ian Sweetman was doing sound and it was rad. Unfortunately both Drew and I were sick, so we couldn't stay up late enough to see the Matadors set but I heard it was ragin'. Apparantly they were up until 7am. Awesomeness.

You should check Ash and the Matadors out, because they rock. Probably my favourite Dunedin band that is still a band.

xxx