New music from Chris – A sneak peak….

Just a tiny peak at the new music I’ll have coming very soon. Joining me on these songs is my bro in life and music, Mr Mathew Szkup, who you’ll see rocking out in this video for a moment!

The audio here is unmastered but I hope you dig it all the same and I’m sure you’ll agree that the mixing by Mr Dennis Leeflang crushes!

New CS music news / Full length Feckers track!!

Hey all,

Just a quick note that as long as all the planets align and nothing goes wrong, I’ll be handing over the new songs to Mr Andy VanDette for mastering late next week when I’ll be also posting cover art and track listing!! As a writer I feel I’ve really raised the bar since my last releases, so to say I’m looking forward to people hearing them is an understatement!

On another note, here’s a full length track from The Feckers album “It’d Be Rude Not To” that we released last year.  It features my cuz Irene Slade on vocals, Mr Dennis Leeflang on drums and myself on guitars and bass, and was mixed and mastered by Mr Stew Long at Red Planet Recording with artwork by Dan Verkys. Enjoy!

Dennis Leeflang – Tribal Drums!!

Hey folks! The EP tracks are coming up great – at the time of writing we’re six mixes into things. More on that soon!

This week Mr Dennis Leeflang added some tribal drums on one of the tracks and he’s posted the drum only files up on his soundcloud page – check it out and tell my what you think!!

Tribute to The Godz Vol 1 – Out May 13th!!

godzLast year, The Feckers recorded a medley of songs for an upcoming tribute album to legendary Ohio rockers The Godz!

The line up for our track (known as “N.I.S. medley”) is as follows:

Roy Bratbakken – Lead Vocals
Rob Smith – Backing Vocals
Paul Jolley – Piano
Ponch Satrio – Lead Guitars
Chris Szkup – Electric, Acoustic and Bass Guitars, Backing Vocals
Dennis Leeflang – Drums / Mixing

I’m stoked to say that it’s coming out on May 13th, and available for pre-order now at http://www.thegodzofficial.com/ !!

“Like Yesterday” – Out now!!!

like_yesterday_lower_res“Like Yesterday” is the new single and it’s out now!! This one is also the last in the acoustic run of singles. It remembers and says thanks to my parents and talks about what life was like when they were here. To me, music, and especially rock music is about baring your soul….. after all, whats the point of listening to someones music if it isn’t honest? With this song, I don’t think you could get a more personal song or a song that I believe in more.

I get goosebumps looking at the artwork that Dan created from my concept idea. It really is beautiful. Strangely, the concept for it came from the photo of me with the guitar which existed before the concept, although it looks like I knew exactly what I was doing and was posing accordingly. As usual, Dan was able to take my Tasmanian gobbledy gook and knock it out of the park with another amazing piece of work.

I remember showing my Dad the music for this song before any lyrics existed as I had just gotten strings from the amazing Lyris Hung on a couple of my songs (having real strings in my music was always a dream when I was younger, but one that I was never really sure if it would happen), which in retrospect was a real special thing having him hear the music for this one. Obviously the song wasn’t intended to be what it is back then, but I’ll never forget that night. That was one of my favourite things in the world – just hanging over a couple of beers, playing music for each other and catching up. Will miss it a lot.

In loving memory of my folks, Bysh and Irene Szkup. Much thanks to Dennis Leeflang (mixing), Lyris Hung (strings), Andy VanDette (mastering), Dan Verkys (artwork) and Ren Reich (engineering) on this one especially. It’s available in the STORE here at CS-Songs.com, as well as iTunes and all the usual digital outlets that stock our stuff!

New Feckers single out now!!!

This is the fourth single that originally was due to be released before our album “It’d Be Rude Not To” in March. Sometimes things happen however and the song tells YOU when it’s coming out, but anyway it’s finally here!

Once upon a time I was going to do this song solo having had the bulk of it sitting around a long time before it was decided we would do it Feckers style. It features a great singer and infectiously enthusiastic guy in Carl Lindquist from Sweden, and also our old friend David Austin from New Zealand who we had written a few things with back in the early 00’s. Due to those songs not ever really happening, we wanted to finally have something with all of us playing together and this is it!

Also joining those two lads are myself and our resident crusher of heads on the kit, Mr Dennis Leeflang who also mixed the track.

As usual, artwork by Dan Verkys and mastering by Maor Appelbaum. I hope you enjoy!!

“You’re Not Alone” – Out Now!!!!

That’s right folks, the latest single is up for your listening pleasure. This is the latest in the run of acoustic songs from Chris’ acoustic sessions that took place during downtime from tracking for The Feckers debut album at Melbourne Records.

This one features Dennis Leeflang on drums and Chris on guitars, bass, keys and vocals, while the mixing was handled by Dennis also, mastering by Maor Appelbaum, and artwork by Dan Verkys.

The official video is below. It was shot a few weeks back at The Palace Hotel in Camberwell during a solo acoustic gig there. Much thanks to Richard Anderson and Stephen Titter who helped out with the shoot, and Steve Legg for having me play there!

Purchase the song here: https://itunes.apple.com/au/album/youre-not-alone-single/id635688807

“You’re Not Alone” – Out Wednesday!!

You're Not Alone“You’re Not Alone” is the next of my acoustic singles that’ll be coming out this Wednesday, April the 17th!! Won’t be doing a preview video this time due to things being pretty insanely busy, so for now, here’s the artwork as created by Dan Verkys, featuring the modelling debut of our boy Kedi!!

The track features Dennis Leeflang on drums / mixing, and was mastered by Maor Appelbaum. It’ll be hitting digital outlets on Wednesday as well as there being a full length video hitting my Youtube channel. Big thanks to my good mates Breakfree and The Titman for not only coming down, but helping with filming for this single at The Palace Hotel back in March. Also thanks so Steve Legg for putting me on at late notice!!