New single coming ASAP!!! Covering myself…..

Coming on the 13.03.2012 is the first in a run of singles that will lead up to the next full length album. It’s called “From Within”, and while some may recognise that title, read on because it’s not what you might first thing it is…..

Originally recorded in 1999 at Claremont College when I was a young buck of 19, with Colin Mahoney on the skins and Andrew Curtis behind the desk, this was always a song that people seemed to enjoy – something that isn’t a regular comment when it’s my music being discussed ha, so when it came time to do some acoustic sessions the way I had always planned on doing, I wanted a little “extra” for that and came up with the idea of revisiting one of my old songs perhaps. Simply doing a new full band version with current technology bringing it up to date was considered, but never something I really wanted to do as we have already done the band version – I’m not into the idea of repeating myself if I can help it!!

So eventually the idea came about to record this, being one that a fair few people enjoyed, the first song I wrote at age 14 that made me think I may actually have something to say on my own away from the band, and also a song that I had always heard real strings on if it were ever possible. It wasn’t in 1999, but thankfully I’ve come into contact with the amazing Lyris Hung who was able to bring it to life and then some in regards to the string idea I had all those years ago.

So this lead to the acoustic version with string section, that will be coming as a full length music video you can check out, and for sale via all the usual digital outlets for anyone that would like a copy for themselves.

Recording started during my acoustic sessions at Reich Records in 2009 where I did all my parts, including some extremely metal tambo tracks, and Lyris Hung‘s strings were recorded by my good friend Dennis Leeflang at The Groove Cabin in NYC. Mixing happened at Open Plan Studios here in Melbourne by Mark Chierego, while mastering was carried out by our newest addition to the insanely talented mofos helping us out group, Maor Appelbaum. Artwork was done by the incredible Dan Verkys. Check all of these folks out as they’re amazing!!!

Check out a preview video for “From Within” here:

Metal!!!!!

Chris being a heavy metal kid born and bred, couldn’t resist throwing up the horns in front of this advert for an upcoming show by the metal GOD! in Brisbane, Australia!!! Pity we were a month early!!

Solo acoustic gig!!!

I’ll be playing solo acoustic (unless someone feels like a jam???) on March 28th, at The Palace Hotel, (893 Burke Rd, Camberwell) @ 8.30pm if anyone is near by. Will be tracks from “Pieces of Eternity”, some Feckers material, and maybe a cover or two as well. Will have albums with me if anyone needs a copy also!!

Click here to view the venue on a map.

Debut Feckers Single Released!!!!

By the way guys, have you heard the DEBUT SINGLE from our wee little band called The Feckers????

It came out on January 25th, and the plan is that we’ll be putting out a few of these “extra tracks” we ended up with after finishing recording for the “It’d Be Rude Not To” album towards the end of 2011, just to tide over you guys out there waiting for it’s release!!

Here’s a sample video:

And you can purchase the track here and here!!!

New Site!!!!

Hey all!!

Just getting the new website rolling here, which I hope you enjoy, find easier, quicker, more attractive and just cooler in general!!! Maybe scratch the “more attractive” part as it is still a site about yours truly, so that isn’t really possible!!!!

Anyway, drop me a line if you like – site related or general stuff – I’d love to hear from you, especially if you’re in a band – maybe we could do a trade on albums or something??

Cheers!!!!

Update – May 22, 2011!!!

WOW!! – we’re all still here and the world didn’t end after all!!!! Aren’t we lucky!!!! :P

Anyway, just a quick note here to let you all know that heaps is on the go, and I’m having such a great time putting everything together!!!

THE FECKERS:

Sessions to resume this coming weekend, and I’m super pumped!!! This will be one of the last sessions for the album. Finishing up bits and pieces. Since I last updated, there has been another Aussie visit by Mr Richard MacGyver Anderson, and we took care of heaps of stuff for the album – vocals, backing vocals, guitars etc, and Dennis also finished his last drum track over the past handful of weeks.

Being the professional he is, he would always give us the option of having him redo parts of the songs if need be, but we never needed to take him up on it ever over 15 drums tracks or something!!! What a guy, delivering such quality in such prompt fashion, and with a great attitude and some comedy thrown in as well. What more could we ask for.

Recently while doing the guitars, I also got to try and keep up with one of my musical hero’s (to be revealed shortly) on a Feckers song, who was kind enough to supply some amazing guitar for one of the heavier tracks on the album. To say it was an honour is the hugest understatement, and I’ll certainly be forever grateful to this gentleman for getting the opportunity at all. Hopefully I don’t suck too much next to his godliness on the instrument!!

On another note, we recently shot a heap of footage here in Werribee for some future Feckers videos. Would love to know what some of the locals thought of us when driving by and seeing some of the antics. We had a bigtime blast doing this, and I’ve came up with a rough version of the first video. We’ll be adding to it over the next little bit while the music is finished off, and unleashing it upon ya’s asap!!!

CS SOLO:

Had an acoustic session with Open Plan Studio recently that went fantastic. There is an EP worth of songs that I had started in 09 at Reich Records that got left behind as The Feckers and everything else took off, that I always said I’d get back to when the time came. I did some vocals on two tracks, and also twelve string guitar which went great. Will be doing more stuff there in early June.

Will also be finalising demos for the remaining songs on album #2 over the next couple of weeks and hopefully busting them out before the years end. This really depends on everything else running smoothly in the meantime, but fingers crossed!!

VIDEO:

Check out my Youtube Channel for a bunch of stuff, including a new video that has a heap of teaser clips from stuff I’ve mentioned above!!! There’s also a live version of “October 22” from the recent 303 gig in Northcote up there among other things.

Make sure ya add me there too so we can keep in touch!!!

Cheers guys and talk soon!!!!!!!!

Update February 09, 2011!!!

Welcome to the year of the Fecker!!!! I apologise for the lack of updating here, but there has absolutely been a lot going on!!!! I’m real excited that it’s now 2011, the year that so much of this stuff we’ve been working on will finally see the light of day!!!

SOLO STUFF:

Gonna be playing an acoustic set at 303 in Northcote on Sunday, February 27th. There may very well be a song from the forthcoming Feckers album in my set for that day. You’ll have to wait and see!!

Check out the Facebook event for the show here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=186638558023738

Also earlier in that week, on Wednesday February 23rd, I’ll be special guest on Radio Roarhouse, which is aired on 98.9 Northwest FM here in Victoria. Will be talking with the folks there, playing a few songs live, and possibly spinning some tracks from “Pieces” as well.

On another note, I recently added custom guitar picks to the CS-Songs Online Store!!! Check em out below:

POE Pick Name Pick

THE FECKERS:

Sooooooooo much stuff going on here. Talking a lot with Richard about setting up some cool merch ideas and more when the album drops.

Onto the music itself, we’ve had so many amazing performances from folks around the globe. It’s really hard to list every single little thing, but at the time of writing, we have one more song to go drum wise, and I’ll be going into Red Planet in a week and a bit to add lotsa guitars and bits and pieces. We’re really on track for the planned release of mid to late 2011 for this baby!

For more info, check out http://www.facebook.com/thefeckers

GONE WILD:

I’ll be meeting up with Jeff Lethborg tomorrow and hopefully we can get his system up and running, then it’s full steam ahead for the 3rd album!!! Some awesome songs underway for this already!!!!

VIDS:

Check out my Youtube Channel for some fun stuff recently, like the first time in 5 years that I got to jam with Skube and Colski plugged in on some metal!! Great fun!!!

That’s it for now folks. Stay tuned for lots of awesome things to come in the following months. This year is gonna be a big one!!!

Update – October 7, 2010!!!

FECKER MEETS FECKER:

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This was something that had been talked about since the late 90’s when we first started writing songs together through this at the time fairly unknown thing called the internet. Living in different countries wasn’t something we were about to let stop us I can assure you. But anyway, what I’m referring to is the meeting of my good mate, Richard Anderson, which happened this past week in Melbourne, Australia.

Had a great time hanging for a week and a half with Richard, writing songs, recording, playing live (!), meeting legendary eccentric tram drivers, eating awesome rissoles and mash pub grub, drinking Fat Yaks and Egg Flips, attending Neighbours night, and even going interstate for some more recording in Hobart.

I’m still totally wrecked and catching up on sleep – I think at rough count I was missing around 14 or 15 hours of sleep from the last weekend compared to usual, but it’s all been totally worth it, and a great time that we’ll always remember!!

Hopefully I can return the gesture come 2011!!

THE FECKERS:

Had an awesome session in Red Planet over the weekend where a number of tracks were tended to, and it’s sounding bloody unreal. We’ve also had some final keys and drum tracks come in over the last few weeks as well as another vocal from Mr Hurb Jephasun (http://www.thejephasuns.com/).

While at Red Planet, I did some acoustic and bass stuff, as well as hopefully not driving Stew too nuts with tracks I had brought down for various songs that needed to be flown into the projects.

Also of note, and it’s a pretty big “of note” is some more vocal stuff that Irene Slade laid down. She was under the weather a bit from a cold, and wasn’t totally confident the voice would hold up. Luckily for all, the song required a bit of grunt.

Stew has her do a sing along to the track to get some level, and before they start, Richard and I are in the control room and commenting that “she’ll probably nail it on this run through”, and sure enough, she TOTALLY did!!! When we heard it back, we just went “WOOOOOOOOOOOOW”!!!!!!!!!!! Great job Cuz!!!! \m/

On another note that is Fecker related, there was an inpromptu debut gig from The Feckers this past week also.

We were having dinner at the awesome Gypsy Bar in Fitzroy, where Richard’s cousin The Titman is the chef, and Richard was having me on that “you’re playing tonight” etc. Me being a pretty laid back guy, the last thing I wanna do is as they say in Australia “cut someone’s lunch”, so there was no way I was about to get in the face of the guy who was playing.

Anyway, my phone rings, I go outside, and Richard is already talking with the guy who was very cool might I add. When I come back in, it was all arranged much to my suprise, and the performance ended up being a Fecker one, debuting one of the songs from our forthcoming album that has some interesting lyrical content. Was funny to look out while playing it and see people eating dinner and laughing at the lyrics we weren’t sure we should even touch in that timeslot!!

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Such fun. I busted out a solo song, and we did a blues jam, as well as a Queen song, which was real fitting being that we wouldn’t know each other if not for Queen. Cool!! :D

SOLO ALBUM NUMBER TWO:

So among all the progress in other areas, I’m getting a clearer picture on how I want the next CS album to go, and for now, lets just say there will be a LOT of music, and it’s gonna have everything from metal to string accompanied acoustic stuff. I’m sure you’ll dig!!

So far there are 4 full band tracks ready to mix, and maybe 7 or 8 acoustic tracks that need vocals.

GONE WILD:

The lads have summoned me to play more of a role in proceedings this time round, and I’m willing and hopefully able haha!!! I know how prolific those dudes are, so am hoping I can keep up!!

While Richard was here, we worked on some backup vocals for a new songs that Rob Smith had penned this past week. Sounding real killer.

Breakfree Recording

Kedi and Chris

Check the Facebook page for more info: http://www.facebook.com/pages/GONE-WILD-Friends/119729439767?ref=ts


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Chris interviews Grayson Hugh!!!!

I recently got to try something new in the interviewing of a musical hero of mine by the name of Mr Grayson Hugh!! I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a way interesting read, and I really appreciate Grayson’s absolute coolness and honesty during this!!

This was a guest article for my mate Peter Hodgson’s I Hear Guitar Blog site.

Check it out!! http://iheartguitarblog.com/2010/09/interview-grayson-hugh-guest-post-by-chris-szkup.html