When a group of individuals from different backgrounds come together to work on the same task the results are often either very good or very bad. When that group has worked together for a long time on many tasks then the chances of things going great increase.

Dave and I have been working in music together for well over 4 years now. And both of us have been working with Stefan for a year. Although it is still early days and we are always learning new things about each other, we are starting to get a groove on when it comes to writing songs together. Take a recent jam session for example.

We started off with no set plan, but soon found ourselves in the midst of a strikingly beautiful sonic experience. Then, after letting that idea develop as far as it could for the time being, we set it aside to work on an almost complete song that’s been a bit of a struggle to finish off.

The main complaint with the song as it was had to do with the chorus sections “just not feeling right”. We had already come up with a series of dynamic shifts that appeared to solve the problem, but we were frustratingly unable to pull off what we had envisioned. We knew it should work, it just never quite did.

So, I suggested that we actually decide very precisely on what it is we intend to do with each dynamic. Make it as explicit as a classical score. Dave, using his extensive classical experience, wrote out the section with the dynamics as he was imagining them. I immediately said “That’s great, because I definitely wasn’t doing exactly that!” Suddenly we were all on the same page. Then we played it as written and everything came together perfectly for the first time.

This made me reflect on the various disciplines each of us brings to the band. Dave has a vast knowledge of the classical world, I have largely learnt organically in the world of rock and metal and Stefan has jazz training. Of course we each have many more sources of influence and been trained in other areas. I have also studied some classical composition and jazz, Stefan was playing in a metal band before joining Riverblind and Dave is now studying jazz, to name but a few. But we clearly have different strengths in different areas. When these are used together we can move into some pretty exciting areas.

What kinds of experiences have you had working in teams of different kinds of people? Do you find it easier to work with people who have similar backgrounds to your own? Or do you find that the best results come from working with a diverse group?

Dan Dan's musings, Uncategorized classical, dan, dave, jam, jazz, metal, rock, song writing, stefan, team 1 comment

Kerry Gray - guitarist for Nibiru Passing and the greatest local hippy muso we know - is “escaping Wellington before it claims his soul”.

To celebrate he is throwing an epic going away party at Adelaide Bar next Friday night.
The line up is eclectic:

JMC and Mr Smith - DnB
Money & The Impressionists - Dirty sexy stoner blues rock
Mental Note - Grunge Rock
The Pleasure Desert - Melodic rock one man band
Riverblind
and YOU!

Also, yet to be confirmed, Tony Wilson may be playing.

On the costume theme, this from Kerry:

“The THEME is……. SCI FI !!!
Yes, get out your laser blasters, stiffen those antennae and set the controls to the heart of the Sun!
If you do not dress up you will have to donate $5 to the musicians if you want to enter and suffer abuse from a shit load of extra terrestrial drunks…oooooh yeeeeah

May the force be with you!
K”

We are going to dress up - are you? What do you think you’ll wear?
I can’t wait, it’s going to be such a fun night.

Related show

• Date: Friday, May 22nd 2009
• Time: 9:00pm
• City: Riverblindin Wellington
• Venue: Adelaide Bar
• Country: NZ
• Admission: In Costume=FREE. $5 if no
• Age restrictions: No minors
• Notes: JMC and Mr Smith
  Money & The Impressionists
  Mental Note
  The Pleasure Desert
  Riverblind

Dan Gigs Adelaide Bar, gig, Kerry Gray, Sci Fi 1 comment

So Dan has been blogging his little socks off and i’ve never actually done this, and I thought it’d be about time that I sprayed some words on the subject.

So… Dave the blog virgin. Where to start?

We Opened for ‘Made in china’ from Dunedin last night at hole in the wall. We played a pretty good set I thought, The music had some guts and the improvised stuff always had direction.  The big thing for me was not knowing what to expct from the other band, I didn’t hear them at soundcheck cause i was munching on a pie…. Good pie though, chicken Korma pie from Tulsi! check it out. Anyway, Made in China completely blew me away. Emotionally driven musicianship is so incredibly honest and these guys were telling the truth. Really good lines, and chord sequences are drawn out so far that each chord feels like a secondary tonic, each one building tension until they hit the real tonic, but the last time they played that chord was a while ago, so each time it comes back, it’s like christmas when you were ten. perfectly matched vocals sung with honesty. I heard tinges of pink floyd, Stone temple pilots, Soundgarden, Gary Moore, Led Zeppelin and Uriah Heep. All things that make Dave a happy chap. We’re getting set to plan our tour later in the year which will include a show in Dunedin, so hopefully these guys are around and want to play with us again.

Anyway, its been a while since I have heard live music that I really like so I got quite excited.

Some new stuff on the way, and all major recording has been completed for the album which we are releasing in August (Details to come). I’m pretty happy with how its coming out.The Choir and String quartet stuff we did sounds better than I could imagine.

Funny how when you record a song, it freezes it in a time capsule. You then play the song for a while, you find better ways to express what you wanted more accurately, and you polish the message. No matter how happy you are with a recording at the time of recording, you will always think ‘i could do that better now’ or ‘my new pedal would’ve sounded better on that’ or ‘the way we play that change now is better’ a few months or years down the track. So often they are the reasons some people like your music. I like that its morphing. Really keeps the excitement up, things don’t go stale in those ‘growth’ periods of a song.

Man, don’t blog after a big weekend of a few too many red wines. You start rambling.

Hope everyone is well

Dave

Oh, to check out Made in China go to : http://www.myspace.com/madeinchinabandnz

Dave Uncategorized No comments

Album Recording

A week ago Dave directed the choir as they were recorded by Rich at the Airforce band room and it is sounding glorious. Then on Saturday he made the final touches to his vocal parts at Rich’s place followed by Stefan and I adding some back up. Next Tuesday Dave will be directing the string players when they get recorded in the Adam Concert Room. The choir parts and strings parts were all arranged by Dave and he has done a superb job.

Song Writing

While we finish recording the album we are still feverishly interested in creating something new. We are currently focusing on one such beast that is of a far gentler nature than most of our previous efforts. Haunting and beautiful I would say. Wednesday evening’s band practice saw it blossom into a fairly certain structure. These things have been known to change without warning, however and with the lyrics not having been placed yet, anything is possible.

Gig - 2nd of May

Just one gig to mention at this point. We are still concentrating our efforts on recording and organising an album release party so this next gig is an opening slot for a touring band. Made In China are actually made in Dunedin and will be at Hole in The Wall on May 2nd, right after us. If you haven’t been down to Hole in the Wall yet then it is well worth checking out - it looks a lot different from the Valve days. The gig is $10 on the door.

Related show

• Date: Saturday, May 2nd 2009
• Time: 9:00pm
• City: Riverblindin Wellington
• Venue: Hole In The Wall
• Country: NZ
• Admission: $10
• Age restrictions: No minors
• Notes: Riverblind open for Dunedin touring band Made In China.

Dan Gigs, News album, gig, Made in China, recording, song writing No comments

As I lay awake the other night eating watermelon and trying to read one of the new Dune books I realised that I have a really hard time doing two things at once. It was surprisingly difficult for me to read the book while enjoying the watermelon. I think I would have done okay if it was a sandwich or a banana or something else that I eat often, but watermelon is a treat for me. I seldom buy it, so I wanted to enjoy it and I couldn’t do that while reading. It was either one or the other. When it comes to tasks that require any decent amount of attention, I am terrible at multitasking.

Take listening to music for example. For me, most of my music collection cannot be heard as mere background noise. I have to sit (or lay down or dance) and really listen to it, experience it. I do sometimes put music on to help make household chores more enjoyable, but it often turns into a distraction as I find myself lost in the moment of the sound and off task. Some albums work better than others for this though and my favourite albums definitely don’t help. If I had music on right now I wouldn’t be able to write this blog.

When it comes to playing music in a band it would appear that I can multitask well. The fingers on my left hand make very different movements from those on my right and I do this while listening to the drums and guitar, making sure that I am in time. But I don’t see these things as true multitasking. My fingers only do what they do because they are trained to do it. It is muscle memory from hours of hard work. To call it multitasking would be like calling the simultaneous processes of my organs multitasking. Okay, so that’s a bit different since it’s in the genes and while I can forget my bass lines from time to time, luckily for me, my heart doesn’t forget how to beat.

Playing music live is not as simple as physically playing the parts. A connection to the truth of the music is vital to playing it with honesty. This comes naturally in Riverblind because the players are also the composers. Just like listening to my favourite albums, I find it very hard to play music that I am passionate about without concentrating fully on its sound. This brings me to the dilemma of trying to engage the audience while engaging the music.

Whenever I decide to view the audience I have to shift my attention. If I open my eyes and look at the crowd with attention rather than a possessed stare then I lose my attention to the music. This could lead to disaster, the worst outcome being that I play the wrong thing and let the music crash and burn. In most cases muscle memory lets me continue as long as the part isn’t too hard or is practiced enough, but even if the part continues to roll around under my fingers, my attention to the whole is lost. A song is a fully formed creature and on stage it is a living thing that is revealed as honestly as possible. With the music being the truth of the composers captured in a piece of art, that honest revelation is a window into the energies, emotions and thoughts of the composers. So if I were to stop paying attention to the revealing of the song then that window would become frosted, the honesty would be lost.

I see my inability to focus equally on both the audience and my music as a failing. My intention is to overcome this failing. Perhaps this is the next big challenge I face as an artist. I welcome your input into this. This subject is not just for musicians or artists, many areas of life require good multitasking. How do you deal with these?

Dan Dan's musings attention, multitasking No comments

Last night was the end of Nibiru Passing (hopefully not forever) and we opened for them.  And tomorrow is the beginning of Hole in the Wall bar (formerly Valve) - and we have been asked to play at the opening.

Nibiru Passing’s last gig was held at the Adelaide so the atmosphere was homely with the exciting addition of lasers, smoke and flashing lights brought in for the show. We had fun, audience had fun and several first time listeners of Riverblind pointed out very accurately some of my personal influences. We wish Kate Brown the very best in her musical studies in the deep south.

Tomorrow - Friday 27th Feb - is the opening night of Hole In The Wall. For the last 9 years or so up until late last year, the bar was the very well known Valve, run by Greg and Andy. Previous to that it was called Hole In The Wall and was run by trannies. Now it is called Hole In the Wall again and is being run by one (or more?) of the members of local group Nort. We are all very curious to see what they have done to the inside of the venue and look forward to playing on the opening night.

So, endings and beginnings are the theme for this weeks Riverblind gigs. This brings me to an important (yeah right) topic that I have been meaning to bring up for a while.

Bogus reason for calling the band Riverblind #1

The name Riverblind is synonymous with endings and beginnings. Here, let me explain.

When the band was formed over 3 years ago, I was an avid poker player. My game of choice was Texas hold ‘em. I was of course very very good and had a great ability at reading other players. Through various methods including watching for tells, habits and calculating odds, I would often be able to tell a player what cards they were holding. I have only ever played for fun though as I don’t believe in gambling. I can still be seen playing friendly games down at the local. I usually let others win these days though as I wouldn’t want to spoil their fun, I’m just that good.

Anyway, all that bullshit aside, here is what this has to do with naming the band Riverblind. If you play Texas holdem you will know that the first bets to be made are called blinds. And then after various betting and the revealing of the flop cards and the turn card, the final card to be dealt is the river. In that way, the River is the end and the Blind is the beginning. The game goes in this cycle - it ends and then it begins again. This is what Riverblind means - endings followed by new beginnings - the endless circle - the game of life.

Believe me?

Dan Uncategorized 1 comment

We have donated a track to Twestival.fm to help raise money for safe, clean water for the one billion people who don’t have access to it. Twestival is organised by Twitter users around the world. On Feb 12th there will be multiple events all around the world to help support this cause. The proceeds go to charitywater.org who use 100% of the money for projects such as building wells in Africa. One easy way you can help is by visiting Twestival.fm and donating money when you download a song. We have donated Checking the Sun and there are also over 300 other tracks by various artists on the site. Any of them can be streamed and downloaded. The songs will be available for download until Feb 19th.

Oh and follow us on twitter if you’re into that. @riverblindmusic has just started, but @dansimpson has been around for a little while now.

This just in:

The Wellington Twestival will start at Mighty Mighty on Cuba St at 5:30pm, Thursday 12th Feb - that’s tonight! At 7.30pm it will move down to Daawaat on Manners mall for Thursday Night Curry

Donations will be taken at the Twestival and, once again, all proceeds go to Charity:Water.

Dan Uncategorized charity, checking the sun, dawaat, mighty mighty, twestival, twitter, water No comments

Right this minute Dave is singing his heart out, recording the main vocal tracks with engineer Richard Shirley. Two days ago Stefan, Dave and I finished up the rhythm tracking with Rich at Joe Callwood’s studio in Erskine, Island Bay. By the weekend that studio will be no more. We were lucky that we finished ahead of schedule as we were looking to go through into the weekend originally. At this stage I haven’t a clue what is going to happen to Erskine, but after hanging out there for over week I hope the unique environment is put to good use once again.

Credit goes to Joe for letting us use his studio even when its future was uncertain. I’ll be heading down to One Love tomorrow to see him play in Little Bushman. I have been looking forward to it since missing most of their set at Canaan Downs - with festival schedules running behind we ended up playing at the same time as them on a different stage.

After Dave does most of the main vocal parts, Stefan and I will step in to help with backup. Then there will be even more vocals from various superb singers as well as strings and more to go on the record. I will keep you updated as the process continues to move forward.

Dan Uncategorized album, dan, dave, joe callwood, recording, richard shirley, stefan, studio No comments

There is of course more to be uploaded and added to this new riverblind.com, but for now I must sleep. Thanks so much to Jake for designing the site and helping me set it up. Visit his site loudthought.co.nz - it is a community of artists of every kind that is well worth getting involved in.

Goodnight! um… morning…. oh dear….

Dan Uncategorized jake, loudthought No comments

We had been concentrating so hard on recording that gigging was not a first priority and opportunities had to be turned down. But when Kerry Gray called to ask us to support his band Nibiru Passing for their final show (until next summer), the timing was good and we jumped at the chance. After recording our songs in intricate detail, day after day, we can’t wait to get back on stage. And to support our friends in their final show for ages it seems all the more fitting.

So, on Wednesday 25th Feb come down to the Adelaide to see us, Nibiru Passing and Charioteer. The show runs from 9pm until midnight, so can you handle the jandal on a Wednesday night?

Related show

• Date: Wednesday, February 25th 2009
• Time: 9:00pm
• City: Riverblindin Wellington
• Venue: Adelaide Bar
• Country: NZ
• Age restrictions: No minors
• Notes:
  Nibiru Passing
  Charioteer
  Riverblind
  
  See us support Nibiru Passing for their last gig until next summer:
  
  

Dan Gigs, Uncategorized Adelaide, Charioteer, Gigs, Nibiru Passing No comments