Interview with The Dumbing of America

Recently spoke with the music website The Dumbing of America from, you guessed it, America. For the full interview click here.

Bar Open 27.06.2010

All photos by Max Buchanan

The Toff in Town 08.05.2010

Weekend in Sydney

Last weekend we took a drive up to Sydney to play with Animal Shapes for their single launch at The Sandringham Hotel in Newtown. We arrived on Friday night and as I had missed Otouto’s album launch in Melbourne, I was super keen to head to The Sando a night early to see them play and it was an awesome show! Burgerlicious prior to the show was amazing again too. As was Naked Expresso for breakfast on Sat (even if we did wait 50 mins for our food). Such incredibly good foods though! Our show was good too and I think The Sando is close to being my favourite venue to play at. It has wicked sound, stays really cool (kind of too cold if you aren’t on stage playing) and is pretty much the perfect size. Anyway, Simon and I took a few snaps on our phones that I’ve posted below. I big thanks to Owen for having us again and making us feel so comfortable.

- andrew

Time Off Magazine Review

- Time Off Magazine (Brisabane)

Fat Louie’s 27.02.2010

All Photos by Max Buchanan.

Dénouement

As I mentioned in the previous post, our debut EP Dénouement is pressed. Here is a photograph of the stock. It felt unbelievably good to physically hold one of these in my hands: up until this point the product of the majority of the work put into this band has been intangible. This is a welcome exception and we’re very proud of it! You can purchase a copy of it here.

Sydney & Brisbane Launch Shows

Salut!

We are back from our shows interstate and we have had an amazing time while away! Also, while we were away, or rather on the day we left, our EP arrived in Melbourne from Singapore after fears of it not being pressed before our Sydney show. It was (thank fuck!) and we managed to swing some mates-rates on a courier trip for 100 of ‘em up to Sydney on the day of our show. We work to the minute!

ANYWAY, the show in Sydney was really great and heaps of people were nice enough to say a number of lovely things to us after the show and buy CDs, which made us all feel really good! (Even if Jason had felt “like some random dude who decided to show up and try to jam along with the band”) Many thanks to Owen – and Jess too – for accommodating us again and putting up with our shit-talking and giggling until 4am.

We arrived in Brisbane a week before our show (because we couldn’t afford to go home and come back again) and spent the next 6 days entertaining ourselves with Xbox, Man vs. Wild, Vodka, Beers, 5 seasons of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, vomiting, studying the behavioural patterns of the geckos, electric drums, BBQs, UNO and “using up our tomorrows today”. Thankfully we all made it to Saturday and played easily the hottest show I think any of us have ever played! Sweat was literally pouring from our bodies in torrents and I couldn’t think straight. But all-in-all it was a good show and the night out that ensued was a blast! Jason and I were too cadaverous to make it to Wet n’ Wild on Sunday, but apparently that was radical too.

A huge thank you to Jackson, Pat and Fancis for having us and making us feel super comfortable all week! And a sad fair well to our long time friends Willows. That band has meant a lot to me over the last 3 years and I’ll miss it sorely.

- andrew

Recording Diary Pt. 5

The EP is complete. We worked 5 days a week for almost three weeks to get everything down, edited, mixed and mastered. The process was exhausting and Reza and I certainly experienced moments of total insanity. The result seems tantamount to the hard work we put into it however, and we are as excited as ever!

Next we have to finalise our artwork and layout, which we will be doing on Sunday at Cailan’s house. Following on from there, production should begin on Tuesday or Wednesday. I’m told the turn-around is 5 – 10 working days, which should give us a couple of weeks grace before we leave for tour (cutting it close I know, but chill out).

We were extremely scrupulous throughout the mixing process, using as many different reference points as we could. We listened to everything through multiple systems, ranging from discmans to home Hi-Fi systems, portable CD players, headphones, earphones and of course car stereos. My car got the most work overall, as I “know” what CDs “should” sound like in there. By the same token: if anyone who owns a 1994 Peugeot 405 buys this record, they shall be experiencing it exactly as it was intended to be, haha.

The entire record runs for thirty two minutes and thirty two seconds and is probably closer to a miniature album. Or rather it’s my perception of what an EP usually represents or “should” be like, pushed to the absolute maximum.

Below is a video of Reza and I in the middle of mixing the outro to the title track from the record.

- andrew

Recording Diary Pt. 4

Christmas and New Year’s celebrations are done, and so are vocals and piano.

The strangest thing about recording vocals was singing while not playing guitar. I realised quickly that a lot of my phrasing relies on physical cues provided by rhythms that are formed and maintained through my guitar playing. I basically had to relearn how to sing every song and jostle my hand about like a retarded boy where I could. The result is fine though I think.

After my vocals were done, we decided to go portable and take a Pro Tools set-up down to the peninsula to record piano at my mothers house. We also tracked the acoustic song there. We recorded it live in the entrance hall of the house. It’s an ‘L’ shaped room and it has the most incredible acoustics. The combination of a high ached wooden ceiling, a tiled floor (with rug over it), one wall being made of glass and just it’s general tininess, creates the most beautiful short, warm reverb. We also tracked some additional vocals for the final track on the EP in there. They were performed by my sister Natalie, and came out pretty much exactly how I had envisioned them.

All that is left to do now are some group vocals and a few little guitar noises, then we are on to mixing; which is going to be very exciting.

The End Is Nigh!

- andrew