There will be a Luge gig at the Media Club (by Centenial Pool on Armagh Street) Friday 16th Jan (in four days) supported by Jungle Mungus. This will probably be the last Luge gig in Christchurch, as I am going to Germany on 1st February for an uncertain length of time. When I come back I will be shifting to Wellington. Luge will hopefully reform there with most of the current members.
I will attempt to keep updating this site while I am away and hope to keep a journal of the more interesting things that happen to me.
New links added.
The Luge gig went perfectly without a hitch. Best gig I have ever done. I have never heard so many people cheer a scrap-metal percussion solo before.
The locking cycle were great too, Goth hiphop represent.
Andrew (drums) and I are pondering another gig before I go away to Germany on 1st Feb. Will keep you all posted.
A funny thing happened after the gig.
When I get nervous I occasionally get short memory blackouts, which usually just means I don't remember everything that happened on stage. After this gig though, I went to get my car to start shifting gear and realised I had no idea where I had parked it. I looked around for about half an hour, but couldn't find it at all.
So I went back to the bar and Tristen (Locking Cycle) and Andy (Luge) where there loading gear.
"I've lost my car" I said
"What do you mean?" says Andy
"I have no idea where I parked it"
"I know where it is, you parked it over by the hospital on that street over there"
"Um where?" (I was still disorientated and confused from playing)
At this stage we are all laughing at me.
"Do you want me to take you?" Andy says.
"Yes please"
So I hop in Andys car and he drives me to where the car is parked. I unpark the car and drive back to the dux. Tristen is there still
"Hey you know when you can't remember where you put something, and you find it and you go, oh that's where I put it?" I say.
"yeah?" says Tristen
"Didn't happen" I say.
This is one the reasons Ari stays off the drugs.
LUGE AT THE DUX DELUX SATURDAY 20TH DECEMBER! DELUSION EP WILL BE ON SALE AFTER THE SHOW, CHECK IT OUT.
Other news, I passed all my courses and now have a Batchelor's Degree in Music at Canterbury University.
I have added some more links.
Wow I finally learned some CSS. I have changed the layout a bit and fixed some things, like the links changing colour.
I am currently involved with a lot of practices for Christmas in the Park. Our 8 person choir The Southern Lights is going to do a feature song on stage (I sing bass). It is kind of silly, but It's not often you get to perform in front of 150,000 people.
Apparently there is something out there called the "Brain Sprouts Memory Program". This is not affiliated with me at all. But nice to know that a term I came up with is now a homonym. I apologise to anyone who comes across my site who is actually searching for this one: brainsproutsmemory.com Please note that my brainsprouts are also good for the brain, and indeed, if you memorise them all, good for your memory, and if you write some of your own and send them to my Guestbook, good for your creativity and my amusement.
I have changed around the colours on the website, as you might have noticed, to a nice black layout. I was hoping to make my site a little bit more menacing and also provide it with some night camouflage. This will no doubt change when I get bored, or when people point out to me that black is sort of tryhard and taunt me with URLs to websites made by people who know what they are doing. I will merely point out that my website is so much more punk and indie and then I will start singing about anarchy and stuff and will smash my computer live on the net to prove it. Which gives me a thought, no one ever seems to smash their guitars at the beginning of a punk concert.
I have also begun learning to use Style Sheets, so it should start to look more impressive as I improve.
I changed my operating system over to Linux cos I found Windows XP to be too unstable and insecure on my computer (also, as a last straw, it stopped working at all). I am now running Redhat (thanks Joff). It really does seem to work a lot better. There was a period there where I had no functional computer, this is why I haven't updated anything on this site for ages. I added a few more links so check them out.
I was thinking about the concept of tribute bands recently and I had an idea. Why don't I sell my band as a
franchise? I could start a new Luge in every major city in the world. I would sort of like having tribute bands
only there would be no original Luge anymore. Every Luge franchise would have equal credit. As with fast food
chains, they would have to be regulated. Each version of Luge would have to play the same songs in the same way.
However any Luge could write songs and send them to the Luge supervisor for consideration. Upon acceptance, the new
song would be sent to all the Luges to play.
The benefits of this idea (scam?) would be enormous. No longer would there have to be expensive tours. And Luge
could perform simultaneously in every city of the world.
There could also be a Luge exchange programme. For example, the drummer from one Luge in say, Rio, could swap with the
drummer in Dublin. This way musicians could travel the world with a garrantee of a job waiting for them, and seeing
that all Luges would play the same songs they would easily adjust to their new positions.
I think Sony and AOL Time Warner will love this idea.
Added a guestbook.
Strange thing happened to me. A few months ago I sent ten Luge CDs to Wellington for my friend Adrian
(who used to be in the band and is now our Wellington representitive) to sell. One of these ten was to be
Adrian's personal copy which I decorated with a cartoon Adrian and various in-jokes that only Adrian would
really understand.
Much to my disapointment none of the CDs arrived. Adrian made a complaint to the postal service and we were
working on getting compensation for the cost of the CDs. Successful application for compensation takes
a number of weeks (NZ post must get a LOT of complaints).
Just as I was getting really frustrated and beginning to lose hope of ever seeing my CDs or the money again
the package arrived back in my letterbox with "return to sender" written on it.
Upon opening it I found all the CDs present EXCEPT for Adrians copy!
So one very considerate thief is now in possession of a limited edition, drawed on by the artist, Luge CD.
If the thief is out there, I hope they enjoyed the album (and my artwork), and would like to say I am impressed
at their "waste not won't not" outlook on life".
I have added all the Brainsprouts now. I dare you to download all of them.
I am playing with with "Stranger" (Greg Malcolm on guitar and vocals, Jenny Ward on toys and vocals,
me on acoustic suck bass and vocals) this friday 3rd October at the Dux de Lux. Check
it out.
I had a very strange dream which involved several attempts to steal a male Gorilla from
a large Zoo. One of the attempts involved a philosophical conversation with a 50m tall
giraffe, which was actually a sneaky cover so that I could send messages to my partner
in crime with a cellphone. Unfortunately I woke up before we got the Gorilla so I never
found out why we had to steal him.
Has anyone else noticed that if you flap your arms in a dream you can actually fly?
Finally got around to making this website after learning html about a week ago (hence the stripped back layout). It should improve as I learn more.