GIGS, GIGS, GIGS!!!

Well, well, well. What a busy couple of months we have coming up. I'll try to keep this brief.

On the back of our show at The Queensport Tavern in Hemmant on Friday night just gone, this Saturday (2nd of March), we're heading back to our favourite "home away from home", Murwillumbah (at Murray's Pub) to play our first show there for 2013, alongside Goldstool and Lismore's Substation. This should be a ripper of a show, with the Goldstool lads hosting a BBQ in a park by the Tweed River during the afternoon to encourage some bonding, social lubrication and sausage sinking. Read into that however you like, but it should make for a good show afterwards.

Then, next Friday (8th of March), we're heading down to Lismore to support Radio Birdman founding member, Deniz Tek. What can I say? This one is going to be bloody tops! I don't think I can say much more about it because... IT'S DENIZ FUCKING TEK!!! Fuck yes!!!

The following Sunday (17th of March), we're back in Brisbane playing at the Sunday Rock'n'Roll BBQ at 633 (formerly known as Mustang Bar), which has become quite the institution over the last year or two. Not only is it a bit of an honour to be playing there, but we're headlining a show featuring 2 international bands (Ultra Bullitt - France, and The Von Erichs - USA) and a band from Melbourne (Double Black). Here's hoping Ultra Bullitt survive their shows in the two previous nights, playing (and playing up) with HITS.

We then manage to get a couple of weeks off before we play another Friday night show (19th of April) at the Queensport Tavern in Hemmant (our favourite new Brisbane venue: it's a country town pub, but it's in Brisbane!) with Melbourne's swamp-blues afficionados, Midnight Woolf, who for those not in-the-know, feature Raul from Magic Dirt. They're pretty much one of my favourite all time bands, so it's quite a priveledge to be playing with them. But to top it all off, we're then also playing with them the following night (20th of April), back down in Murwillumbah (at Murray's Pub).

After all this, provided my mind doesn't explode on account of all the awesomeness, we're hoping to knuckle down and get that album finished. I realise we keep saying that, but we've struck a small financial hurdle with it (we just don't have any money to record any more of it) and we want to add another song or two. We'd rather just take our time to get it done properly than to release a sub-standard album, leaving people wanting.

Here's some Midnight Woolf for you ears and eyes to enjoy:

Recording Hot Devil's Sheets

That recording is coming along nicely. Slowly, but nicely. The wonderful Sabrina Lawrie has been kind enough to allow us use of the Beetle Bar once again on a Sunday and we managed to lay the drums and bass for another 6 songs. I'll be heading back in there soon to finish laying the guitar tracks, then it's back off to the studio to add the vocals and other trimmings before the hard slog of mixing and polishing. We're really happy with the big room sound we've been able to capture in there and can't wait to get mixing and finalising it. If all goes to plan, we should have a full length, 11 track album ready for release in February 2013.

New Years Day sees the Australia's original Hot 100 count down of songs from the previous year, as voted by the public. It's now in it's 37th year, which is a phenomenal effort. Anyway, we have a song in the list and you can vote for it if you go to this link -->http://www.4zzzfm.org.au/hot100/2012. They ask you for your email address etc but you won't be getting any spam from them. While you're there, if you could also go to the extra little bit of effort to add our songs Meet Kandy and Whiskey Knight in the additional songs fields at the bottom of the list, we'd be forever indebted to you. All of these songs have been played on 4ZZZ throughout the year and were lifted from our debut EP

Our first show back after our little thought-collecting hiatus is on the 19th of January at The Beetle Bar (love that place!) for the Devil's Kitchen Music Festival. It's going to be a massive day/night with hordes of good bands and we'll be hitting the stage mid afternoon. In preparation for this touring festival, the organisers have put together a digital compilation, upon which we have been lucky enough to get a song. Have a listen to the compilation at http://artascatharsis.bandcamp.com/album/devils-kitchen-2013 and if you like it enough, download it (either for free or you can make a contribution if you deem it worthy of your hard earned money) and listen to it over and over and over. The best thing about this compilation is that you can just download individual songs if you don't like some of them! Our song, L.Y.O.N.S. is lifted from that album we're releasing early next year, so it's a good way to preview what's coming. We highly recommend pre-purchasing tickets for the show here because with this many bands over the course of the day, it's bound to sell out.

Also, if you've got a spare 4 minutes or so and want to hear my acoustic version of an Ironside song, which I recorded under my house as an exercise in learning how to use my new home recording setup, have a listen to Wet Sheets. This bandcamp page will be the home of my solo music, which I plan to get around to recording more of in coming months, so keep an eye on it.

See you at the bar!

Up your date!

Crikey, time gets away from you. Been far too long since we updated this blog and despite all the goings on, I'm finding it hard to articulate everything that's happened and what is in the pipeline for Ironside. Where to start...?

Well, we're staying true to our word regarding the tour to Melbourne and Geelong in late October and by criminy gosh golly darn it are we excited about it. Friday 26th sees us in Geelong at Barwon Club with The Dukes of Deliciousness and Cold Harbour. Rumour has it there will also be a BBQ, strippers and pyrotechnics, possibly even a combination of all three! One thing's for certain, there will be a hell of a lot of drunken craziness as we catch up with our good pals, the Dukes. On Saturday 27th we'll be strutting our stuff up and down Sydney Road in Brunswick as we try to find the Cornish Arms. When we find it, we'll play a show in it, alongside Pony Girl and Sierra Leone. Depending on just how drunk and messy the Geelong show gets, we might have to up the ante to outdo ourselves at this one.

We haven't forgotten about that album we promised either. In fact, we've booked ourselves in to finish the recording in November/December and hope to have it getting mastered and pressed early in the new year. We've also organised a guest singer for a duet/ballad that we've only performed live twice. After 3.5 years of existence, it will be good to finally have something to show for our efforts.

One track from the recordings we did at the start of the year is going to be mixed this weekend and will be submitted to a compilation promoting the works of all the bands playing at 2013's Devil's Kitchen Festival, which we have been asked to play. So it's kind of become a surprise single release that we didn't plan. In fact, whilst typing this I've come to the realisation that the other guys in the band probably don't even know about it yet... unless they do actually read our emails occasionally.

So, long story short, lots of shit is happening, even though we don't have any local shows between now and January.

Not dead yet

It wouldn't be the true Ironside way without a good old fashioned set-back. For those who didn't already know, Graham has relocated to Liverpool. In fact, that's pretty much most of our motivation for attempting our tour. We figured that since one of us were already over there, why the fuck not go visit and do a tour!? So anyway, after the buzz of the UK tour and subsequent jetlag had worn off, we found ourselves minus a key element of a 3 piece band: the drummer! This makes for the 4th lineup change for the band and it kind of makes me look like a bit of a Billy Corgan. Make of it what you will.

Thankfully, we didn't have to search too far and/or wide. Both myself and Disco also play in another band, called GUTTER, playing trashy gutter rock that can get quite obnoxious at times. It's a great release. On the trip back from overseas, we quickly threw about the idea of asking GUTTER's drummer, Ben, to join Ironside and he was more than willing to take part. He can play and he's not a douchebag: that's the 2 most redeeming features you could ever look for in a drummer! Ben also plays in a band called Raygun Mortlock, who are really quite worth checking out.

So we've spent the last month or so getting Ben up to speed and now we're back and gigging again with a run of dates through July, including a couple of New South Wales shows. We're also in the middle of trying to organise a quick tour to Melbourne and Geelong in late October, playing with The Dukes of Deliciousness and hopefully Jackson Firebird if they're available (very busy lads!).

Before Graham returned to the motherland, we made the rather sensible decision to record some new tracks for our album we're planning to release later in the year or early next year. Hey, you can't rush these things. 3.5 years in existence and still no album: what's another 6 months going to matter, right? Anyway, we hired out one of Brisbane's greatest live original music venues, The Beetle Bar for a day and recorded drums (great room for drums!) and guitar for 6 songs with Murray Paas. We then went back to Murray's studio, Foundry Sound in the next couple of weeks to finish off the bass and to lay vocals for a few of the songs (some didn't have completed lyrics). We had every intention of getting back into the studio and laying more percussion parts with Graham before he left, however that never came to fruition. Unfortunately, we didn't have a listening copy of what we had done yet, however I have just this week obtained one from Murray. Listening to it with fresh ears has really sparked a desire to get this album finished. Even though it's a completely raw mix, it's sounding amazing and just needs to be heard. We really, really want to complete the album with Graham, however with a large amount of uncertainty surrounding his return to Australia to undertake the task, we may well proceed with Ben, but we're not sure yet.

In any case, you should really get along to one of our shows in the near future and catch up with us and to check out Ben's mad skillz! Hey, he's got a beard, so he fits right in.

All good things...

I always thought jetlag was just a term people used to boast about the fact that they'd been travelling overseas. Now that the tour is over and myself, Kim and Disco have returned home, I can safely say that it most definitely a real thing. It's like a 3 day comedown!

Right, where were we last? I believe we were on our way to Glasgow. Wow, what a night that turned into. Ripping show and an even rippinger (?) afterparty. The friendly locals (in particular James Riddell of The Dee Tees, who helped us arrange the whole show) were incredibly accommodating and understand the concept of partying. I think I'll leave most of the finer details of the evening to your imagination but suffice it to say that it left such an impression that all four of us (part time harp player, Kim, included) made it our first priority of the following morning to make a permanent memorial of it by getting ourselves matching tattoos. Despite doing it before consuming coffee, none of us are yet to regret the decision although I think Disco might have chosen somewhere more comfortable than an arse cheek, given the benefit of hindsight, especially after the 34 hour ordeal of our return flights ('nuff said on that too!).

 The start of the afterparty...

Here's a photo of Graham's junk. Oh, and the tattoo we all got.

Friday saw us with our first real break in our tour schedule so we drove down to London and attended All Tomorrow's Parties Festival where we witnessed the brilliance of Melvins and Sleep before having our minds completely obliterated by Slayer performing Reign In Blood from start to finish. Fucking brutal!

Now, the original plan was to stay in London somewhere the night of ATP Festival and then play a show on the Saturday night whilst there. However, due to the way we had been received at Liverpool Sound City and the reactions/hype our shows garnered there (I'll get to that soon), we were asked to support our fellow Brisbane exports,  DZ Deathrays for a show back in Liverpool. This seemed a far easier task to fulfil since I don't believe we had any real plans regarding accommodation in London, so we drove back for it. Sorry London and those who were planning on coming to see us. The show with DZ Deathrays was seriously kickarse!

 Now for the reviews:

Right after we got off stage from our second show (at Screenadelica) on the Saturday of Liverpool Sound City, we were bailed up for 4 separate video interviews. This is the only one we've managed to find online so far:

http://www.baytvliverpool.com/vod/index.php?vid=JBV4fbe5c6de2996#.T8SP3tlAWo

One of the most amazing and flattering things to be fed back to us from our shows was the fact that a rather well known photographer, Mark McNulty, was really pleased with our stuff and took lots of awesome photos (before heading off the next day to do a shoot with Rolf Harris!). It was great to be mentioned alongside Jackson Firebird (fellow Australians, from Mildura) with whom we hope to be playing more shows later in the year. His review and a few snaps can be found here:

http://www.rivercool.co.uk/blog/?p=970

Whilst there, I also managed to play a solo show in the most awe inspiring venue I've ever been in. St Luke's Bombed Out Church is Liverpool's monument to the second world war, serving as a reminder as to how it never bows to anyone (or some shit like that). In any case, it's probably the best place to host live music, provided there is no rain. Someone obviously loved my set and gave it a pretty decent review:

http://liverpoolstudentmedia.com/2012/05/daniel-kulhe-gig-review-st-lukes-church-liverpool-sound-city/
 

Scousers are known for their honesty and if they like you, they'll tell you. If they don't like you, they'll avoid the topic. There's no middle ground, no pissing in your pockets or inflating your ego with bullshit. What you see is what you get. Local living legend, Peter Guy, was more than willing to tell it how he saw it in this review:

http://www.peterguy.merseyblogs.co.uk/2012/05/liverpool-sound-city-2012-oliv.html

Despite living in one another's pockets in a rather cozy apartment and travelling across the UK in a (only very slightly larger) Ford Focus hire car for 2 weeks, we all survived and still get along. I think it's been a great sampler for things to come and we're already starting to lay plans for either a more thorough return trip or a European adventure. Stay tuned!!!

Navalie

Typing this on the road to Glasgow. Got 4 hours to kill and plenty of technology at our fingertips so might as well make the best of the situation. I should really be looking at the loverly scenery and rolling green hills of northern England... my oh my do those cows have large udders... Disco has fallen asleep again after reading half a page of his book. We're spending a lot of time together so conversation is starting to either run thin or return to topics we've already covered... the sheep around here sure are very woolly... ooh, stone walls around paddocks...

Sorry it's taken so long to get back onto this 'ere blog thing but we've just been having far too much fun and playing some fricking amazing shows and just getting generally carried away in the spirit of touring, so the blog has taken a momentary back seat. It really doesn't help that every single pub you go to, of which there seems to be one every 50 meters or so (sometimes even less) in whatever direction you walk, which has an entirely new range of beers or ales for incredibly cheap prices. I have never had so much variety in good quality beer. Really not conducive to productivity and blogging.

Anyway, where was I? Gigs, yes. Where to start? Our shows at Liverpool Sound City were so well received it almost hurts. Playing one of the opening slots at the world famous Aussie BBQ show in the back courtyard of Heebie Geebies left an indelible imprint on the memories of many a local and international punter. Rave reviews and incredibly professional looking photographs that have emerged from the show would indicate that people there love the shit out of us. Scousers tend to wear their hearts on their sleeves and speak quite freely about whether or not they like you: not a bad word was said.

Three hours later, we found ourselves playing the hallowed halls of Screenadelica, a pop culture exhibition of heavy/alt/rock/punk music poster art. Evidently word of our live show has spread amongst the locals and festival-goers as within the space of two songs, our audience has gone from about 5 to a nearly 2/3 packed room. Our lack of setlist structure and between song banter, fly by the seat of our pants approach soon become the talking point of the town. We were bailed up for 3 video interviews outside the venue. People here are lapping it up! Don't worry folks, so are we!!!

For getting around, we've employed the assistance of the world's cheapest GPS navigation system. We have named her 'Navalie'. Navalie is a psychopathic drunk/junkie and wants to either get us completely lost or have us burned to death in a fiery automobile accident. Her future employment with the band is on very thin ice and she's soon going to find herself in a canal somewhere if she doesn't pick her act up. Somehow though, she managed to get us to Manchester, where we played a fairly early opening slot to a handful of Uni students at Sound Control. Whilst on stage it seemed like none were all that interested nor impressed, we soon realised after packing down that a few were actually quite into it. We definitely made a few new fans, including one of the scariest but nicest people you'd ever want to meet: the bouncer, Dave. Look out for him on the Mixed Martial Arts circuit in years to come. He's only small but he could quite probably kill 10 people around him within 4 seconds using nothing but one of his testicles. Then there was Maria from Brighton who was just so amazed to "...see a real man up on stage, really y'know, singing properly". Thanks Maria, now everything I do is being done as a real man. Sometimes it's just good to see a real man eating soggy chips and a veggie burger.

Now we're off to Glasgow to play at 13th Note Cafe, a place that apparently serves absinthe. This point has been drilled into us by the very friendly and enthusiastic James Riddell, who helped put the show together for us. I have a sneaking suspicion tonight is going to be a very, very interesting night. My liver is already trembling... ooh, windmill... then we're back to playing in Liverpool on Saturday night at The Shipping Forecast with our fellow Brisbaneites, DZ Deathrays.

Warm reminders and dandier lions

Ironside are in country, finally! Telecommunications are challenging to navigate when one is stricken with jetlag and facing an entire new continent full of strangers and slightly different cultures. You can park on the other side of the road here! 

After a very gruelling 32 hours, we can safely advise that you should NEVER, EVER FLY CHINA SOUTHERN AIRLINES!!! Seriously, save the extra $500 or so and fly Emirates or someone better than the Bi-Lo/Crazy Clarks of the sky. The first leg of the journey comprised a 'cattle truck that can fly': 9 hours of knees behind your ears (or the person's in front/beside you), 1 carton of warm beer and 3 bottles of wine shared amongst 120 people. Needless to say, by the time of the second trolley run up the aisle, halfway through the flight, they had well and truly run out of anything relaxing. Too early and untimely for the xanax though.

We land in Guangzhou and are immediately ushered onto a bus/cattle truck that was possibly built in 1968 (and last maintained/serviced in '72) before being driven to the arse end of the international terminal. One poor guy is left stranded, trying to wave the bus back to him. Professionalism and thoroughness take a distant second place to militant promptness. The first heart skip presents when passing through a security check and the mostly non English speaking staff become confused by the guitar effects pedals in my bag, mostly home made. How the hell does one explain a "Dooms-Delay Device" to someone who doesn't speak English!? Thankfully, after being called aside and being told it's because she finds me "velly cute", any trouble is escaped by some air guitar explanations by another border security staff member.

Did I mention it was 34 degrees and approximately 113% humidity?

We have 6.5 hours to kill, however the wing of the airport we're in is only about 80 meters long with about 4 shops worthy of attention, none of which had English speaking staff. Signs indicate "Wi-Fi Free", however we soon discover that this just means it's a Wi-Fi-Free zone because none of our party are actually able to connect. A duty free shop yeilds a carton of Panda brand cigarettes for Disco, the cost of which we soon realise is still relative to back at home. Time to search for a drink... Downstairs in one of the designated smoking rooms (which closely resemble Auswich-inspired rooms of hazy death) we find a water despenser with 3 temperature settings: Cold, Warm and Hot, complete with temperature display. People are milling around taking shots of water in miniature paper cups. I approach to fill my Evian bottle from the 'Cold' setting. The display shows 39 degrees. I assume this must be reading in farenheit however the warmness against my hand indicates otherwise. Halfway through the bottle filling I decide to test the 'Warm' setting for comparison and discover a stream of 54 degrees. What the fuck are these people thinking!? I opt to fill my bottle and leave it for a while the air conditioning (a term I use rather loosely, as it seems to be in similar condition to the bus we were herded onto earlier) to cool. The same people return for more shots of warm 'cold' water.

EVERYTHING about Guangzhou is warm. There's even a sign just near our departure gate giving us a 'warm reminder' about something I don't read because I've deliriously lost my shit in a fit of laughter and might just start running around naked pretty soon. I return to the warm water dispenser to refill my bottle so that it might cool before I need a drink on the plane: 42 degrees on the 'cold' setting now.

Amstergoddam!!! Cheese. Wi-Fi. People with incredibly sexy accents. England is not far away. Must come back and check this place out more. Didn't see any windmills but the airport shops are full of clogs and orange shirts/merchandise. Plenty here to keep us occupied and entertained for our 4 hour stop over. Coffee!

We land in Manchester to a blast of arctic winds and virtually no security checks. Despite the unnerving lack of security checks, we still manage to find ourselves in the 'naughty corner' for about 30 mins, slowly getting concerned about our immediate futures as we await visa clearance. The woman at the gate seemed rather put out by the extra paperwork involved in processing us bloody musicians, however our fears of being waylayed too long (like poor Dina from Utah, former drummer from Zombiance, fucking awesome name! who has been there for 3.5 hours) are alleviated fairly promptly after the main queue dies down and time allows gate woman the chance to process us.

Thanks to the relaxed efficiency of the Dutch, our connecting KLM flight has found us landing early and even with our brief hold up at the border, we're ready to meet our tour guide, Graham (Ironside's drummer) earlier than listed on our itinerary. None of us have working mobile phones yet so I find a small gaming area (poker machines are strange here) that has a change dispenser. The smallest note I have is a £20. Little did I realise, the machine only gives out 50p coins. There are not enough pockets in the world for that amount of coins! I call Graham. He's 15 minutes away.

Walking outside, we're met with icy cold droplets of rain. Disco quickly befriends some locals, bound for Morocco and strikes up conversation and cigarettes with them. They tell of the hail storm the previous day and mention the icy cold rain might well turn to hail. Perfectly timed words as tiny bean bag stuffing sized pellets of ice start scattering everywhere. Again, delirium gets the better of me and I start laughing uncontrollably at the poor attept nature has of showing these northerners what hail really is. I explain to the Moroccan bound intrepids that I'm laughing because our hail is the size of cricket balls (not that it's a competition). We seem to be standing out in this crowd.

One thing I noticed when flying into Manchester is that every single building appears to have been built by the same person, who has no concept of variety. I then realise that they're all built by the Monopoly guy!

Our first stroll to the local shops to get our bearings and to be able to survive the next couple of days without Graham whilst he's at work, reveals that the Monopoly guy built Liverpool too. It's nice though. So much heritage. I hear an almost familiar sound being called from the sky to our left. I quickly spot what I can only assume is a seagull, except this thing is fucking huge! It's call is very much like that of a pirate and not much like a seagull at all. "Arrrgh" I pirate back at it as it flies over, undoubtedly looking for hot chips. We quickly surmise that it's actually a seagullbatross. Then Disco points out that even the dandelions are bigger, quickly qualifying that they're more dandy than the ones back home: "dandyerlions".

Graham leaves us at the local Tesco, where we purchase our sim cards so we can communicate with one another and the rest of the world whilst we're here. There's a pub across the road that seems the perfect place to figure out how to set up our phones: The Pineapple Hotel. Unlike the seagullbatrosses and dandyerlions, this is a hell of a lot smaller than the one we have back home. Jetlag is getting the better of me. 6 hours sleep on a 32 hour trip and the worst selection of music you could imagine, being blasted through the tiny pub, compounds my frustration with my phone that I can not get working. I just want to let people back home know that we're here, safe and sound. It's not going to happen today, Daniel.

SLEEEEEEEP!