the name of this band is harmonica lewinsky

The Harmonica Lewinsky rehearsals are going really well in spite of the tyranny of distance between band members (Wellington - Raglan - Waiheke). Next time I’ll try to get some audio or video from rehearsal and post it here.

Until then, here’s another taste of what we’re up to:

download mp3

Can’t wait until we’ve all got enough bandwidth to practice online…

good things about vinyl

I used to listen to mp3s while working at the computer (because that’s where they live), but I’ve recently discovered something healthy about listening to vinyl:

You get the micro-breaks for free!

Because every 20 minutes you have to get up and flip the record.

Just one more reason why records are still the coolest format ever and CDs will never catch on.

deep grooves 10 inch

the homewreckers

If you don’t like superheros, wrestlers, bikini girls, 2 piece grrrl bands, wonder woman, glam, boxing and rock n roll, then you probably shouldn’t watch this video.

It’s Lani and Dione aka Lena Assault and Gina Brokenheart (and rhythm section of Harmonica Lewinsky) as The Homewreckers - live at artworks theatre.


 

clench video

I mentioned that Lani and Dione (the rhythm section of Harmonica Lewinsky) also play in some other bands - one of them is “Clench”.

Here’s Clench live. Lani is on bass, Dione on drums, Jason on guitar, Bede on guitar and vocals. The song is “Worse” and the clip also features the “Dead Dolls Dancers”.

sometimes backwards is better

I’m stoked with how well my new band Harmonica Lewinsky is progressing, especially as we’ve never played together at the same time.

Lani’s playing bass and Dione’s playing drums, and they play together in some other bands so they get to practice together. But because I live in Raglan and they both live on Waiheke Island, I haven’t made it to a practice yet.

So I’ve been writing and recording the songs, like this one:

and posting them online for the others to learn. Cool. I can even do special videos if there are any tricky bits.

Vinnie’s here in Raglan now and he’s just joined the band as a guitarist, so he and I are practicing as half of the band and (hopefully) Lani and Dione are doing the same.

Oh yeah, Vin usually lives in Wellington.

I look forward to seeing how awesomely well it works when we get together to practice later this week.

tapes are cool

Especially in the car.

So from now on, whenever you buy a CD from this site, you get a free tape for the car. What’s on the tapes will vary - at the moment they’re Baldwin Fun Machine songs.

See how cool that will look sliding around on the dash with all your other crap?

tapes are cool

white collar criminal - special edition

Earlier this week Dennis Kucinich presented 35 articles of impeachment against George Bush to the U.S. congress and I thought it warranted a quick mix. He spoke for 5 hours so I just used the first bits of audio that showed up on youtube.

Be warned: this is essentially 14 and a half minutes of someone talking about corruption with a beat - if you’re not into that kind of thing, there are better things you could spend your time doing than listening to this:

download mp3

And here’s the rest of the white collar criminal family for those who don’t have them already.

mos to the edge

A bit of unofficial remixing for you today.

I’ve always loved Mos Def’s track “Close Edge” and I thought it was time I fleshed it out a bit.

download mp3

The vocal is taken from this performance on the Dave Chappelle Show and of course there’s a bit of Stevie Wonder in there too.

So that’s Mos, Stevie, Grandmaster Flash and me (heh heh).

picture perfect

A while ago I mentioned that Lani Lewis and I would be doing some recording this year. Here’s a taste of what we’re up to:

download mp3

It’s a pre-mix (meaning not finished) but I thought you might like to hear it in process.

The song is called Picture Perfect - it’s one she’s been playing for a while but I think it’s sounding fresher than ever.

I’ll be going up to Waiheke next week to work on an exciting new project with Lani and Dione, but more about that later.

miss lani lewis

everything clean, everything new

So I didn’t go to bed.

Regular visitors will have noticed the site being all over the place lately. I’ve finally gotten around to rebuilding it in more of a blog-based form (which I’ve been meaning to do for ages).
I’ve been really slack lately with keeping on top of the rss feed and the email updates, so the blog format should aid communication thusly:

  • You can now leave comments and communicate with us that way
  • The rss feed is updated automatically with every post
  • The email updates are synced to the rss feed, so they update with every post too

For me it means i can spend a lot less time maintaining a website and a lot more time making music and keeping in touch with you. Cool.
Of course I’ve still got a bit of tweaking to do and there’s lots to learn (never used wordpress before) so expect fluidity.

Thanks for being patient, I’ve got lots of new music to post here really soon.