We released the China Tour documentary a couple of months ago. Here’s the Chinese version complete with subtitles…
Cherry Bar show set for November 18th.
It’s our only Australian show for the year. We’ll be joined by The Resignators at Melbourne’s Cherry Bar, AC DC Lane. We first met ska-punkers, the Resignators, in Toronto earlier this year, on a six-week-long North American tour. We shared the stage at Horseshoe Tavarn as part of Canadian Music Week.
Checkya later,
Fires out.
PS – Somewhere In The World post below; the Youtube video is now live…
Once a month from wherever we happen to be, we record a song to video often with a local guest artist. The video goes out first in our monthly ‘Hose Down’ eNews & is released shortly after on Youtube.
We’ve recorded songs with local musicians from Warsaw to Brooklyn, Beijing to Tamworth. In this month’s Hose Down we’re featuring something really special – a performance by Australian indigenous Mungo man, Ernie Mitchell. Max and I went up to Mungo National Park in the Aussie Outback & Ernie was our guide, leading us through this ancient, sacred park. He played an acoustic song he’d written & explained the aboriginal art adorning his guitar.
Sign up for the Hose Down email at the top right of this page & get the latest Somewhere In The World video link each month, along with the latest gig & tour news, Max’s food diaries & more.
Bed 7am. Up 11am. Feel like shit, bed again. Up 2pm. Surely there’s a chorus there. All night writing. Not good for conducive social behaviour. Convince myself it’s really not that late. One day bleeding into the other. It’s OK to not know what day it is. Day numbers a relatively modern construct…
Youtoob surf amidst chaos. Drunken tears of joy…
A long time friend, photographer for the band, adventurer and writer (add marathon runner these days), Mat Ward’s been a part of The On Fires since the very beginning. In fact, he used to come to shows in support of the bands Max and I were in way before this one…
Mat recently launched a new website dedicated to his artistic creativity – Eyehunger.com. On his writings page he’s written a piece called Caribou Falling. I hope I’m not wrecking the mystery here – this piece, for me, is a somewhat accurate reflection of how it felt to fall out of a plane together, something we did with Mat late last year. Check out his photo gallery too.
Late Night YouToobin’…
Had a big night last night, sitting up til the early hours writing. Started the night out differently, YouTube surfing & gathering any ‘classic’ song I could think of. One video leading to another & another, the whole trip lasting hours. If you’ve never done it, you’ve gotta do it sometime just for the sheer fun of it. Where did I go? Prince, Teenage Fanclub, Buffalow Tom, Duran Duran, Garbage, Sex Pistols, The Verve, Friendly Fires, Glasvegas, Bee Gees, Gladys Knight, Fleetwood Mac, Zepplin…
Yep, things got pretty weird here. Then at some point a strange vibe took over & the writing started just before midnight, dragging me through to the morning. A tad on the tired side today. A clip from last night to sign off on…
The On Fires China Tour Documentary on Vic Firth website.
Kent Aberle, our drummer from Altanta Georgia, who’s been touring the world with us for the past year is one of Vic Firth’s rostered artists. Vic Firth manufacture a range of high-end percussion equipment – and they look after Kent whether he’s at home or out on the road.
This month they’ve been featuring our China Tour Doco as part of Kent’s artist profile on their site.
Kent started touring with us last year. We headed down to Georgia early in 2010 for shows in Altanta & Athens when we first hooked up. We clicked straight away. Then later in the year Kent saved our arses from a cancellation disaster when a drummer from New York City pulled out on all of our north eastern US tour dates at the last minute. KA flew up from Atlanta, blasted through the shows with us – and we’ve been touring together ever since.
This year Kent’s toured with us through the US, Canada and China.
Checkya later,
Fires out.
PS: Listen to our Betrayer Album from start to finish here on YouTube.
We’ve just released the entire Betrayer album, from start to finish, on YouTube.Click this link. It’ll take you to the Betrayer playlist. Hit ‘Play All’ & enjoy. Each song video features stills from this and last year’s touring, including Europe, the US & China – and we’ve also added a bonus track.
Check out more playlists we’ve set up at our YouTube channel. This weekend, a few beers in hand, I sat back to watch the Europe and USA 2010 tour documentary videos. Each playlist brings all the tour documentary episodes together in order, so you can watch the whole series with one click.
We’ve also set up our ‘Somewhere In The World’ live acoustic cover series in the same way. Select that playlist at our YouTube channel & roll through a dozen acoustic songs recorded live, often with guest artists, from all over the world. Be the first to see the next video – subscribe to our monthly Hose Down eNews (top right of this page) emailed direct to your inbox.
Last week we announced the winner of the Vagrants New Album competition.
The winner: Ross Buckingham with That’s Entertainment by The Jam.
Ross Buckingham
Last Saturday night our good friends, The Vagrants, launched their new album, Stand Up, at Cherry Bar in Melbourne. By all reports it was a great night (I’m up in northern New South Wales at the moment & unfortunately missed the show). In the lead up we held a competition on our Facebook page, the prize – a copy of the Vagrant’s new album.
The idea was for folks to send in suggestions for the next ‘Somewhere In The World‘ song (every month we record a cover live & acoustic on video, sent out in our monthly ‘Hose Down’ eNews). And Ross nailed it with The Jam’s ‘That’s Entertainment’. We’ll be playing this song live for the next episode with Ross as our special guest guitarist.
This coming Monday (5th Sept), we’re releasing the entire Betrayer album, start to finish, as a play list slide show on YouTube.
Checkya tomorrow,
Fires out.
PS: Apologies for the lacking updates here – writing continues in earnest…
We’re updating the ‘daily’ Hose Down blog here once a week for the next couple of months.
Check out the China Tour Documentary (see above). A snippet of life on the road, filmed a few months ago on an amazing tour of China. If you’re a member of our monthly Hose Down email, you’ve already seen the pre-release of this doco last month.
It’s been a busy couple of weeks. I flew up to Brisbane last weekend for the Splendour in the Grass festival at Woodford. Jane’s Addiction headlined the day I was there, with the mighty Living End in tow. A full report to follow – when I figure out how to get the pics off my ancient mobile phone…
We’ve also been down to Melbourne & back, breaking up some intense writing sessions here on the farm (near Mansfield). Writing is coming along a treat. Started a little reluctantly – but flowing out now. The weekend just gone being the best so far.
We’re updating the ‘daily’ Hose Down blog here once a week for the next couple of months.
In between collecting fire-wood, we’ve been writing & demo-ing new sounds, based out in the countryside 3 hours from Melbourne. It’s going great – the first real writing time we’ve had for a couple of years. Stuff’s just falling out of us, so to speak.
The shot above was taken by my mum last week. She hit a Kangaroo driving home from work. When she went back to see what had happened the roo had disappeared, leaving it’s joey (baby roo) behind in the middle of the road. So mum took the little bub back to her place. Her dog, who is a gigantic Great Dane cross, took a protective shine to it. They slept together for a few nights before the joey went off to the Kangaroo re-hab centre in Tamworth. It’ll be put back into the wild when it grows up.
