Goofy Fun Stuff – Chris Szkup

08/05/2021

New EP “Chance” – Coming soon!!!

Happy to share the artwork for my new EP “Chance”, which will be coming out asap!! During the lockdown of 2020, we had such a creative rush of songs with The Feckers and when I thought about it for a second, it turned out I had even MORE songs ready to go.

Hearing about so many of my musician friends having their work instantly vanish on them, I thought it might be a good “chance” to check in with Brett Collidge and see if he was up for playing drums on a few tunes. Lucky for me he was, and it was a real pleasure to do!

On the last song we did, I sent a stripped back demo to see what he thought, went to mow the lawns, and when I got back inside there was a message that said “let me know if its too much, but…” and a file that included drums and a beautiful string arrangement for the song!!! We got Rick Curran from the UK to play those lines and it is really something!!!

I couldn’t release music without the amazing mixes of Dennis Leeflang or the incredible artwork of The Art of Dan Verkys either! Thanks to all of you guys for making me sound and look much better than I am! This is going into mastering and then will be released digitally asap. Will keep you posted.

BEHIND THE SCENES AND TACOHAT:

Me being a typical vain, arrogant musician, shooting THE cover image for the “Chance” cover took a few go’s. If I recall correctly, three shoots in total. Some I looked ridiculous in, some were a good vibe but the quality wasn’t the best, and some were really good except for me stepping outside the view of the greenscreen thus making it useless. During the process for a laugh, Dan commented on this and sent back a “Tacohat” version of the cover that just killed me!!!!

This was a few weeks ago. I knew I HAD to post it, and would when we nailed the real cover and the release was a bit closer as well. So we had some fun with it on social media – seemed like it would be a cool thing to break up all the divisive stuff in Facebook feeds for a minute. Anyway, the gags continued, and we came up with an idea of a “World Tour” for the Tacohat EP, and the following poster came to be. Make sure you click on the QR code haha!!

As always, the BIGGEST appreciation to my mate Dan Verkys for the consistently amazing work over a long time, always going above and beyond, and laughing with us along the way!!!! 😀

See ya’s on tour!!!…..Haha!!! 😛

03/15/201508/09/2016

New video – Jamming some Bumblefoot!!

Jamming on the end of the great Bumblefoot song “Don’t Know Who To Pray To Anymore” for some fun on a leisurely Sunday evening!!

Make sure you check out the absolute ripper of an album that is “Little Brother Is Watching” at http://www.bumblefoot.com/

07/21/201408/09/2016

Another sneak peak…..

Yet another sneak peak into the new music coming your way very soon! Unfortunately Skube (drums / lead guitar) and Paul Jolley (keys) couldn’t make it due to living in Tasmania and England respectively, so instead you get the CS Trio for the footage!

08/09/201308/09/2016

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!!

08/12/2012

50c albums????

As most folks would know, there’s going to be a new album coming very very soon by The Feckers – it’s just had the mixing wrapped up, so we’ll be mastering it now before it goes off to the printers. This means it’ll be here real soon and guess what? I think I’ll need the cupboard space when those copies arrive!! So here’s how you can help me out……

For a very limited time, I’ll be selling copies of my first album “Pieces of Eternity” for 50 cents. That isn’t a typo, and it doesn’t mean I don’t totally believe in the music, or that I’m retiring to start a new career to be a pole dancer or anything like that. It just means that I want ya to take em!!! Go on – take em!!!

When you pay the 50 cents, you’ll also get an instant download of the album to tide you over while the physical CD is being shipped out (this generally happens within a day of ordering). Any questions, email me, but other than that, please visit the new Bandcamp Store and go nuts!!!

03/30/201203/30/2012

From the Palace Hotel gig…..

May be some video coming soon if I can find some bits that don’t suck haha!!

Thanks to those that came!!

10/07/201001/29/2012

Update – October 7, 2010!!!

FECKER MEETS FECKER:

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!!

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!!

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