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