Click here to RSVP to the Facebook Event for this show.
We will be playing as a four-piece for the first time on Friday the 10th of September at The Garden Club.
We have Fuyuko’s Fables opening for us.
We have been rehearsing with Louis Thompson-Munn on keys for a month now and it is sounding fantastic. We’re all really looking forward to playing you our new sound.
Come check it out!
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You may have noticed that the riverblind site is a bit of a mess right now. The sidebar is screwed up and there are weird messages like “post 5″ etc.
I’m sorry if you’re having trouble finding your way around the site, I am currently in the process of re-building the site from scratch right now. I have called in master design Jaap Badlands to do the finishing touches and the new site will be up as soon as possible. So, in the meantime, bear with us and thanks for your patience.
Daniel Simpson Beck
Album price change.
It’s August 15th, so the day has come to put the price up on the digital downloads of Hour Of The Wolf. You can now download the album for $8USD or for $1USD per track. You can still pay us whatever price you want, just that the figure has to be at least $1 per track.
But wait there’s more!
One more track in fact. If you download the album you will also get a bonus 9th track for your hard earned $8. Or you can download the bonus track by itself for $1.
Pian Xin Ze An revisited.
The bonus track is called Pian Xin Ze An – Zen. It is an extended version of the opening track of the Mind Estate EP from 2007. We recorded it during the Hour Of the Wolf sessions, so this version has Stefan on drums instead of Tim who you hear on the original version. It has a different bass line in the middle section, a different tempo and a completely new section near the end. And the feel is quite different with Stefan on the drums. We hope you enjoy the changes as much as we do.
And as with all of our recordings, you can listen to Pian Xin Ze An – Zen in it’s entirety on bandcamp. In fact, click play here and you can listen to it now.
Oh and I hope you like the plasma effect on the player. Neat yeah?
Stay tuned for more surprises!
Working in a band can be like being in a polygamous relationship (not that I’ve ever been in one myself). Just like a polygamous relationship it takes a lot of emotional maturity to make sure the relationship functions in a healthy manner.
To successfully collaborate on anything requires good relationship skills. And the deeper you get into your art, the more important relationship becomes. Art is often about dragging the worst aspects of ourselves into the open and exposing them. This is a very vulnerable state to be in. As a collaborator you must be careful in how you relate to your cohorts. Here are some tips on how to make your polygamous relationship work in your bands and projects.
Think Win/Win
The collaborative process involves countless mutual agreements and group decisions. In order to make them work with everyone involved, all the players must be thinking Win/Win. Otherwise, someone is going to lose. That inevitably leads to frustration and resentment.
Win/Win means that all parties look for a solution to a problem that benefits all parties.This is far more effective than the more common approach of Win/Lose where one person gains an advantage over others. The Win/Win approach takes integrity, maturity and a mentality that believes it is possible for everyone to benefit equally. It takes trust that has to be developed over time and with care. It takes courage and consideration.
When a member of Riverblind brings a musical idea to the rest of the group he exposes himself to the possibility of ridicule and humiliation. Releasing new ideas out onto the world is a difficult and vulnerable process for an artist. But we are able to express new ideas to each other because we have taken the time to nurture an environment of trust. In this environment we understand that everyone has the same principles behind their actions. The principle that the music must be served and not the ego. The principle that it doesn’t matter who wrote something as long as the song is made as rightly as it can be. But we also recognise the principle that what is “right” for one person may not be “right” for another. It is these creative differences that require the most trust and maturity. It is these moments that require courage and consideration to find a solution to a disagreement that becomes an agreement of benefit to all.
What does it mean to benefit everyone?
Everyone benefits when the results lie within everyone’s principles. If you all share the same principles – that the song be served rather than the individual for example – then you can all clearly see when the outcome best serves the principles. Then you can work together to achieve a goal that you all share.
It is possible to make agreements that benefit everyone when you have the emotional maturity to put aside your ego, your drive to be recognised, your desire for attention. You must be humble and realise that the best outcome is not the one that benefits you the most, but the one that benefits everyone equally.
How you can tackle your next difficult agreement:
1. Shared Principles
Start by thinking about the reasons why your project exists. If it is a band, think about the reasons why you are a musician in the first place. Are you here to make great music? Or are you here to attract women? Or are you here to just have fun with some mates on stage? Discuss this with the other members of the unit. Are you all in it for the same reasons? If not, then you have a problem on your hands that needs to be dealt with before you can even hope to collaborate effectively. The solution to this kind of problem is a whole other blog posting, so I hope you’re not in this situation. But if you can all agree on the reason why the band exists then move on to step two.
2. Listen
When you collaborate make sure you listen to everyone very carefully before you speak. When someone presents an idea, listen and really try and understand what they are trying to express before you start to respond. If you don’t understand them then ask for clarification – don’t jump to conclusions! Make sure you really understand where they are coming from before you do anything else.
3. Think before speaking
Once you have understood their idea and position the next step is to think. Not to respond, but to think about your response. This gives your emotional maturity enough time to catch up with your impulsive ego and put it in its proper place. Think about what the idea means to the other person and think about what it means in terms of the principles your group strives for. Then think about how you can best express what it is you have to say about the idea.
4. Communicate clearly
When you express your point of view, express it as clearly and effectively as you can. To do this you have to think about it first (see step 3!). Use small words and short sentences. Not because your band members are too stupid to understand you, but because we all understand things more quickly and effectively when the communication is simple.
5. Form an agreement that benefits everyone
The final step is to make an agreement that puts principles first and leaves your ego at the door. Use your integrity, emotional maturity, courage and consideration to come up with a solution that lets everyone win.
Follow-up
After an agreement is implemented, you and your group need to examine its consequences. Do the results provide the mutual benefit that you all sought? Do the results reflect the principles you are all striving for? If the results fall short, then you need to learn from the mistake and find a new, better solution.
In song-writing, this whole process happens very quickly and repetitively. And there are many failures. It is more common for an idea to fall short of what everyone is after than otherwise. But you must persevere. Don’t give up and just use an idea when it benefits yourself and not others. Likewise, don’t settle on something that you cannot agree with. Come up with a better idea that benefits everyone and serves the principles that you work by. In the long term you will see the difference that this care and consideration makes. Trust grows and ideas flow more freely. Mutual solutions to problems are more easily worked out and benefit the group to an even higher degree than before. The music improves because it is being driven upon one path by a unit working together rather than being run off the road by self-serving individuals.
How well do your collaborative efforts function?
Do you struggle to come to agreements?
Or have you got the emotional maturity to make your polygamous relationship work for everyone?
If you want to learn more about the Win/Win strategy then I suggest you read Stephen Covey‘s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
I think of a song as having two main stages: Process and Product. The Process stage is when the song is being written and the Product stage is when its completed form has been recorded and set in stone (sort of).
Right now Riverblind is in a writing phase. It has been a year since we released a record and it will be another year before we are likely to release another one. We are smack bang in the middle of a serious writing phase. This is a time to focus on Process rather than Product. Anything goes during this stage, outlandish ideas are welcome – even if ultimately we decide to reject them.
Having said that, we are “finishing” songs all the time. We want to play any new song we can at gigs so we decide on when a song is finished enough to gig. But this almost never means the writing process has actually ended for the song. We are constantly tweaking material right up until we record. And then with some songs we even continue to change them after they have been recorded.
So, the Process never really ends. Riverblind is a laboratory within which we experiment and invent new sound art. And we continually adapt the sounds as we evolve as people. Every new sound we make exists because our collective sub-conscious demanded that it be created. And every song that we finish is open to be changed because our minds evolve and demand that our creations change too. Put simply: we are expressing ourselves and our expression changes as we change.
Sometimes songs die and don’t get played again. Usually we explain this as us being no longer satisfied with them. We say that we don’t like the song anymore. But I think it is more a case of our sub-conscious moving too far from the song for us to even want to re-write the material. Instead we just leave it behind and start new songs. It has lost its meaning for us. Or sometimes old songs do have some connection left, but we have to change them in a major way to be properly connected to them again.
This happened with Pian Xin Ze An, the opening track of our 2007 EP Mind Estate. The song had a very certain feel and structure for years – until all of a sudden it had to change. Now, the song is longer and has a different feel than the recording on Mind Estate. Different enough, we decided, to record it again. So we did. While we were recording Hour Of The Wolf we used the opportunity to get a recording of the new version of Pian Xin Ze An. We’ve had the recording floating around ever since. We do intend on releasing it one day, but I cannot tell you when that will be.
Silence gets filled with new sound, new sound becomes old sound and old sound evolves into new sound again.
What is your song writing process like?
Do you re-write old material continually?
Or do you like to draw a line on when a song is finished and keep it that way?
But until August 15th you can still download it all for free!
Why you can still share it:
Because that’s what music is for!
Riverblind encourages you to share any and all of our music with whomever you please (yes, that includes torrent sites). The digital product is infinitely repeatable at no extra cost, so there is no harm in having more copies of it floating around and getting heard by new listeners. It is far better than it not getting heard!
So, enjoy downloading it without worrying about money, and enjoy sharing it without worrying about the law. And when the album price does go up to a minimum amount, don’t worry, you can still get the album for free if you can find a friend to copy it off 
A note on the copyright symbol we used:
Ok, you may have noticed that the CD and the digital tracks are coded with a traditional copyright symbol ©. And, yes, I know, we should have used creative commons licencing symbols if we wanted people to know they could share it. Sorry, that was an oversight on my part. And also there was confusion over the importance of being a part of APRA. Basically, APRA doesn’t appreciate the creative commons philosophy, but I’ll write more on that subject at a future date.
Take care and enjoy the rain! (Yeah right…)
Daniel Simpson Beck
Shoki Kamishima 1984-2010
Today, as I was practicing a new song, I realised that key sections of the bass part only existed because of a young Japanese bassist named Shoki Kamishima. Tragically, Shoki died last month at the age of 25.
I had only met him once at a gig in 2008 when he was still playing for Cripple Mr Onion. I watched the band play after opening for them with Riverblind. I was fixated on Shoki’s hands the whole set. I was particularly interested in how he was using finger tapping because it sounded amazing.
He would tap three-note chords with his right hand while playing a bass line with his left. I had previously heard recordings of other players tapping chords on bass, but I’d never seen anyone do it live and in a context where it inspired me to do it myself. When I got home that night I tried to do similar things to what Shoki had played. I found it quite hard but managed to stumble through the basics. Since then I have worked the technique into several Riverblind songs including the end section of Unsettled Scenes. That bass line and others simply wouldn’t have existed had I not seen Shoki play that night two years ago.
Rest in peace Shoki Kamishima, I met you only once, but your inspiration has helped me evolve as a player and I thank you sincerely for that.
Daniel Simpson Beck
One week ago we got up early to start our journey to the South Island for two shows. We got little sleep last Thursday night and the following nights would only provide less sleep again. Let me take you through those three long days.
Christchurch
We’d gotten up at 6am to catch the early ferry and then drive to Lyttelton – the port town that sits on the inner slope of a dormant volcano’s crater. We rolled in at about 5pm (we didn’t really roll in, but read on for actual rolling). That was just about time for our radio interview at the local station Volcano Radio 88.5 FM. This looks a great little station and the interview was fun.
After talking shit about ourselves we went to set up and do sound check at Wunderbar. It’s a cool little venue with a tiny wee stage and a crazy lighting rack hanging from the ceiling. It’s made of hundreds of circuit boards and theres a giant mirror ball with a ring like Saturn.
We met our opening act Anthesiac and were shocked to discover most of them were over 27 years old. Talk about baby faces! But their experience shows in their playing. We were treated to a thoroughly impressive set that night. Dave got to drool over Anthesiac guitarist Josh’s pedal board as Josh had drooled over Dave’s during sound check.
Our set went well and included two songs that had never been gigged before. The first new track Something Better (which was partially described in this ridiculous blog) was a great opener and Runner-ups and Broken Keys was debuted in the middle of the set. It felt good to finally get them heard and we managed to pull them off successfully.
After the show we went to our friend Kate’s place in the city. Kate Radford was one of the dancers that did the contemporary dance/music production Lucid with Dave and I about 4 years ago. One of the pieces of music that was born in that show eventually became Tunnel Vision. Kate told us she got chills hearing that music again.
Dunedin
After four hours sleep we got up and drove to Dunedin. After a quick visit to my Mum in Waikouaiti, where we received an entire chocolate cake as greeting, we rolled into Dunedin about 4:30pm. This time when I say “rolled in” I mean it. We had decided to see if we could get into Dunedin without topping up on petrol again. We almost didn’t make it. After coasting down the last few hills into Dunedin we managed to make it to a petrol station with less than 5 litres of petrol left in the tank.
We filled up and went to Re:Fuel to set up. There we caught up with the Made In China guys again and met Ink Mathematics. After sound check and dinner I took charge of the door and met the locals as they walked in. There were a fair number who saw us in Dunedin the last time we were down and even one guy who had seen us at our infamous Invercargill show…
I heard Ink Mathematics play their stomping set while sitting at the door in a room separate from the stage. I could hear them but not see them – still, I liked what I heard. Then it was our turn to take the stage.
We started the set with new songs again and they went down great with the large crowd. The chorus of Runner-ups and Broken Keys was particularly well received. We played well and fed off the huge energy from the audience. It was a cool moment when they started clapping a beat for us in a low dynamic section of Tunnel Vision. At the end our set the new fans demanded an encore so we played Veils to finish off.
Then it was time for Made In China to rock out to their home crowd. This is the first time I’ve seen them play in Dunedin and damn, did it go off! A brilliant, heavy, powerful band with a world class front-man. I had a ball moshing to their set with the locals.
When I returned to the door I discovered we’d already sold a bunch of CDs and when I took over we sold a bunch more. It was cool to see completely new fans snap up both the EP and album. I had a chat with Lyle, the guy who saw us play in Invercargill 18 months ago. I reminisced about the “toasted sandwiches” with unmelted cheese and burnt bread…
Long snowy drive home.
Finally, at 4am we made it to bed only to get up 4 hours later and start driving back to Picton. We felt in a hurry to get to the ferry by 9pm. So when Stefan discovered he’d left his jacket and phone at a Burger King in Christchurch we almost didn’t do the 30 minute drive to go back and get it.
But in the end we arrived in Picton 4 hours early – even after driving through a thin layer of snow outside Ashburton. We used the extra time to enjoy the local atmosphere. Sitting in a quiet bar with few patrons on a Sunday night we watched the All Blacks destroy Ireland for the 17th time in a row. We were all delirious from lack of sleep and our behaviour was…humourous….
We used the ferry as a floating bed and crashed out for the journey. It wasn’t until 3am that we managed to get into our own beds at home and rest up in comfort.
Thanks to everyone who came to see us and all the bands and everyone who helped us out – we are already planning the next trip down there.
See you soon!
We’re heading down south for two shows in June.
On Friday 11th June we’ll be playing in Christchurch at Wunderbar with local ambient rock trio Anthesiac and a yet to be confirmed guest.
On Saturday 12th June we’ll be playing in Dunedin at Refuel with local legends Made In China and Ink Mathematics.
Come along to hear brand new songs and tracks off the album Hour Of The Wolf. We’re looking forward to hitting the South Island again, we had a ball last time and both Dave and I have family in Dunedin. Actually, that brings up an interesting tidbit for those into strange coincidences. Dave and I recently discovered that both his mum and mine were born on exactly the same day.
See you soon!
Hello 2010!
Oh we’re almost a quarter of the way through the year already?! WTF? Time for a gig!
See you at Bar Bodega, March 25th.
RIVERBLIND will be playing new stuff with new bits and old stuff with old bits and old stuff with new bits and new stuff with old bits.
The WETLOOK is the new band of Matt Swain from OdESSA. It’s fuzzy 60′s pop and futuristic DIY country juggled over dusty duct taped drums.
EVERYTHING REVS is made up of another bassist called Dan, another dude called Dave and Marty Nicholas (Stefan’s cuter cousin). I could rattle off a bunch more coincidences, but I’m sure you already get that it’s guaranteed awesomeness.
The show starts with The WETLOOK at 9pm sharp so don’t be late.
$5 on the door.
