Goodbye Mikey

i hope your holidays are going good, this christmas we're all back in NZ, and busy with writing our 2nd album, and making videos etc...

The new songs sound like something along the lines of the Clean and bailterspace doing ronettes covers with the energy of early mbv....i cant wait to get recording in the new year.

Each week i'm putting new songs and ambient tracks that i've been recording for fun up on my stealinandthievin blog i hope you like :)

We shot a video with our friend Andy Defreitas (sp?) the other night for the song Nostalgia....we had previously made one with the demo of the song and footage from snowjam in NZ earlier this year,(which you can view on the stealinandthievin blog) but this one is going to be way better. The footage was of the lighting of a fire balloon, which is a tradition seen often in south east asian cultures..have a look at these videos for reference.

The main reason for this update though is to announce that our guitarist Mikey has decided to leave the band, there is nothing personal in his decision and we stay good friends and respect his decision completely. Mikey will play through till after Laneway festival in Australia, making his last show in NZ at Rhythm and Vines on 29th Dec.

Mikeys' charming personality and amazing talent will be sorely missed by everyone from the band to our friends and fans:
He's had such a contribution to our lives for the past few years that it'l be strange doing this without mr Ramirez, aka:
'MC Free'
'Big Time'
'Tuck-Shop'
'Ricky Riccardo'
'Richard'
'Bongo'
'Mickey'
'Next Level'
im sure there's others too, i cant recall just at the moment...
And we'll miss his retardedly low alcohol tolerance, his rapping, his rap spew, his vampire drawings, Rickenbacker guitar, Sound Check rituals, love for chicken, 100 metre walks whilst on the phone, love for Chris Brown, Neyo, and related artists, love of comics etc etc basically we'll miss him heaps....

....However there's so much coming up for us in the new year- with Rhythm and Vines, Falls, and Laneway festivals, as well as our USA release of 'you and i' and subsequent USA tours, not to mention the recording of our 2nd record- that us 3 (brent phil and nick) are carrying on as usual and by no means is this in anyway an unravelling or an ending...we're so excited about what 2009 has in store!

(Mikey's replacement guitarist takes over from 21st feb when we begin the Ra Ra Riot tour in Vancouver)

So yeah, we're looking forward to seeing you next week at R&V + Falls, in NZ/Aust, please come and show your appreciation to Mikey, who we will miss dearly, and we wish all the best to for the future.

p.s view Mikey's Drawing Blog here

the old days

Just to let you know, tomorrow night's show at Kings Arms in Auckland is significant for a particular reason which we may disclose at the show, maybe not...but regardless...we felt like doing something special to mark the event.
So for tomorrow night only we'll be playing some REALLY old songs, ones that we havnt played in close to 3 years, and most likely wont be played again after tomorrow night..
So come and party with us if you're in the area,
we love you
x

the old days

One more vid

This one is from Utrecht, Netherlands where during the last song of Foals set people got on stage...



Sweet! xo

Some tour footage

Here are some videos taken from my digi camera from tour:



This one's boring but i like it because it reminds me of how much driving we did, 3000 miles in 10 days which took something like 2 days and 14 hours!



After the show finished we were drinking backstage and Jimmy was convinced to do RAP SPEW, a game that Mikey made up...



Pictures will follow as well as some older tour footage.

Luv, Phil x

in Germany with Foals and Friendly Fires pt1

We've been in......
Hamburg where we played in the tiniest club ever, where a lady from a stripclub tried to pull me off the street into her club... then to frankfurt where we missed the show cos we got stuck in traffick minutes from the venue, it took us 2 hours to travel 2 miles at one point, we got to the venue as friendly fires were going on stage.
There's been snow and snowing in each town, especially Berlin where we stayed in a hotel opposite a huge old church that was unrestored from its WW2 bombing. We went to a great illegal warehouse bar afterwards where the ceiling was crumbling and falling into our drinks, and there were sausages for sale in huge pots of steaming water. We visited the memorial to the holocaust, which was thousands of massive graves forming a maze in this ampitheatre-like thing.
Each day has been up at 8am and driving for 8 hours, to places like Koln, then Munich, then over the border to Utrecht, which might have been the biggest show of the lot? Anyhow it's been great to see Foals again who are better than ever, and im convinced are amoungst the best live groups out of anyone in the world, and friendly fires, who i was skeptical about before seeing them, but they are brilliant and songs like 'jump in the pool', 'paris' and 'on board' are still stuck in my head. Tonight we're in Rotterdam, Photos and videos from tour to come soon!!!

CMJ + Australasian album release tour

Some pics from the last month of our travels, starting at our place in Homerton London, through to CMJ in New York, to our album release shows in NZ and Australia...heaps more + videos to be added soon
...oh and thanks fasterlouder.com.au for some of the australian show photos.

Meeson St






Murray..


















Special Problems in NYC
Dear Time's Waste








Brand New Math

Tokyo again plz