Alizarin Lizard Blog

im losing my shit

2012-03-06T17:46:00.000+13:00

i dont even know what the name of this beach is that we're at at the moment. it's around a bay from where Captain Cook discovered New Zealand for the guys. that shit's pretty cool.
We're back at Eggcentric / Whitianga after leaving Auckland.. the owner Dave's so kindly let us stay here for a day..or more? shit i dont even know. i hope it's all good. Hahei doesnt have acomm for the us tomorrow night so we might have to come back..
Bugs, Louis, Paul and Shipsy slept in the tent last night, Logan an I grommed our way inside the house an found beds. shit we're nuggets. this is after using Dave's kitchen to cook a way too big batch of spaghetti at 10 in the evening
Dave is such a hero.
after 30,000 hours of blowing my spine out trying to play cricket with Paul and Louis, i hopped in the ocean with beer in one hand durry in the other thinking id get my legs wet. after vomiting my beer back into the ocean i had to go for a daytime swim.. yeah a daytime swim. i wasnt drunk, i dont wanna put it down to nerves.. il put it down to excitement. it's a beautiful beach ok? ever been so happy that you've vomited? in front of a pretty German girl trying to read her book in peace by the beachside? cos that shit can happen. just be careful guys that's all im trying to say.
day time swim though. baby steps at age 24's cool as. got that doggy paddle down!
i dont even know who i am anymore. ive changed man. from only being interested in getting my feet wet to mid ocean belly-flops from being hip launched by Bugsie and Ships. il try not to get too cocky with the ocean though. i mean look at Buckley. OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH swing batter swing
shit yeah pick on a dead dude. go me as
we played another 45,000 hours worth of cricket after the wee stint in the ocean and now im here writing this. completely rooted. i dont think ive excercised this much since that time i found out the 24 was 10 mins from closing time and having to bolt a 24 pack of Double Brown up Pine Hill for some party that had run dry.
no no ben tell us more, that sounds like a really good story haha..

im gonna get shit for not knowing what the name of this beach is by one of the guys who'll read this. place your bets on who it'll be
i think Logan or Bugs, maybe Shipsy.
Bugs and Shipsy went on a monster hike today and climbed to the top of some hill/ massive fucking mountain that even Sir Ed would lose the gherkin too. they got there, bugsie did poo's in a long drop on top of it apparently. kudo's to him. i know his parents well enough to say that they'd be proud. He's so confident in his abilities to exceed in everyday tasks. even under such dangerous circumstances bugs will always come off best.

this has gone on for to long now, think im starting to lose it a bit. thanks Dave for being awesome and hireing Veronica, sorry Debbie and Malcolm for being a nugget.

we're playing with Die Die Die in Hamilton in a couple of nights time. they're one of my favorite bands. cool

this has been entirely about me,
Woa Daves cooked us dinner. what a boss

Ben

Luggets been telling people that im 13 year old child prodigy and that my folks have trusted him and the guys with my life

2012-03-04T14:02:00.002+13:00

sort it out Whangarei

Whangarei - Salut
good times, the guys from Baylys beach came out an partied with us. some well under aged kids came an hung out with Louis. we took a few of the Bayly's beach guys back with us to slap some goon and party a bit more back at bugs' Uncle and Aunties house. they have their own beach! so of course we went for a drunken late night swim

Louis Smith

Baylys Beach RESPECT IS DUE

above the wee white guy up there is the house we stayed in

trying to hold my shit together

Themes - Speak Easy
quite a buzzy gig. a few rowdy people from the local pub up the road came down an made a bit of a scene but it was great. we were looked after really well with beers and home cooked spaghetti bolognaise. gig got shutdown by noise control at 9:50. early night for the guys.
Freemasons were having a meeting a few meters up the road too. no shit, old people dressed in really fancy gears carrying weird briefcases. don't think they dug us
also told some dude i was 20 and he freaked out- with a couple of the gigs Luggets been telling people that im 13 year old child prodigy and that my folks have trusted him and the guys with my life haha.. whats great is that they believe him.
anything to sell a cd
i found out that my crash and ride stands are now broken. i've had to result to sellotaping the legs down so the things can stand. probably the most frustrating thing ive had to deal with so far.. got 5 or 6 more gigs to hang through before getting to change em.

in Auckland atm, it's alright.. good for catching up with a few friends. Bogan and I fulfilled our tour long dream of going to the ODI at Edin Park yesterday/last night. Legun hasn't been to a cricket match at a stadium before so we had to make dreams happen for the special wee guy.

Pity it was one of the worst Black Cap matches in history but shit it was still great. got to tell Franklin that i thought he was a teabag in person. il assume he heard me and just ignored me..probably gets it all the time. Skinny made it along to the match as well, so it was nice to make fun of Mckay together. they were handing out Gillette Fusions to people after the match which i thought was a bit odd. not sure handing out razors after such a match is such a bright idea. i got one though which is a lifesaver for me personally. ive been needing to shave my beard all tour aye
after the match i met up with the other guys an had a quiet night..couple of them went to some party, i couldn't be fucked. apparently it was cool though
quite keen to get outta Auckland, i have no money and i hate the feeling of treading on toes and 4 (now 5) of us are staying at our friend Grace's house, she's so kindly let us stay here twice now. a massive thank you Grace and flatmates, sorry for all the muck
fingers crossed we get to leave today. Logan has got to pick up an organ of some description and fit it in the van today i wouldnt mind a new liver.. hahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHA FUCK!
Skinny leaves us now though sadly, so brown wont be playing any more shows on the tour.
so say farewell to this

new demo. it's hot hot hot
http://www.box.com/s/3pkgxp17p1vshq4or7ab

we're hoping to go to Hahei a few days early and hang out there. hopefully they'll have us. ive got high expectations for ultra babes that pour you gin and tonic while asking in their foreign accent how many ribs would you like to be eating today, Bin?
lots boitch!
i hear they have these beaches in Hahei where you dig a hole and basically make your own bath..so i guess that's always an option for accommodation

hey Dunedin. we're coming back in a few weeks. looking forward to partying too. tell your friends.

the sweet A0 tour posters might be on sale too if you're very lucky. ask at the door

so ive been hankering for a beer down at Mou for the past couple of days. pretty sure that's what im gonna do as soon as i get into Dunedin. please don't be raining

cya later skinny, you were fun. don't let Auckland change you
ben

put some cinnamon in him in a minute (just a minimum)

2012-02-29T19:58:00.001+13:00

g'day how's it going

Waihi Beach
was almost as quiet as that infamous Palmy north gig, with the exception of people popping in on their way back from buying takeaway's from the boozeshop next door. they caught the last couple of songs anyway. it was one of those situations where you feel kinda bad for getting free acom, booze and a guarantee for a gig that not many people show up too. it's just one of those things that can be fixed with the venue advertising in the local paper or through the local radio station or even just highlighting the gigs date on the tour poster. like i say though it's just one of those things. most venues on this tour have done everything that they can or should do to make the night as successful for them as it is for us an it's been sweet. with all that shit said they let us hold the gig off until the cricket finished which i appreciated, logan got a free bag of twisties and i got a 70 cent discount on a pinky bar.
fuck we're living the high life

Cooks Beach (Whitianga) - Eggcentric
definitely one of the highlights so far. Dave, Pauline and Annie looked after us amazingly well. a smile and beer on arrival, amazing munchies ( i got to eat a fresh seafood platter ffs.) and some of the most beautiful looking bar staff i've ever seen. god. first time ive ever played at a venue before and wanted to stay and work there.
the crowd were fantastic and dug the music. the vibe was great all day. after our set we went for a swim in the bay and played with some more plankton till midnight or so. logan came out second best again an showed us a bloody hand, thinks he cut it on shell? i think his flailing torso may have drawn the attention of a shark an he probably just got off lucky. but other then that shit man, amazing.
woke up and went down stairs for a full breakfast, Dave said he understood how hard it is to be an artist and especially one on the road and made sure we were well looked after the whole time. you feel pretty damn good after gigs like that.

Auckland - Cassette 9
general consensus is that Aucklands a bit shit unless you've had a few beers. too many people, too many buildings, too many teabags with too much money. too many things to make you cringe. i saw a guy at the gig with a set of chatter rings around his neck. fuck bro are you mental?
Silke from BFM showed up to soundcheck and took us away afterwards to do a radio interview. we had to go off to Kiwi FM after that to do another interview with Fleur but found ourselves driving over the Auckland Bridge and eventually in the Northshore. sight seeing for Louis? nahp.
brohammer gets a bit cagey over bridges. at least we found out that Shipsy's GPS doesn't work too well in the big city.
it was sweet though bugs' ended up doing the interview over the phone.
the gig itself was pretty cool though, a bunch of ex-Dunedinites showed up an it was great catching up with them.
we were kinda stuck for accommodation that night but found some at our friend Graces place at the last minute to crash at later on (ending up alongside our chums Alex and Tono). her Parents came over to the house at 10am, which was great. we had wake up real early to catch the ferry to Waiheke Island anyway..so kinda a good thing. we clacked it up again though ferry wise. we were on time this time we just went to the wrong dock.. boats are for dicks
but as it goes the people at this dock phoned through to let them know we were running late, as well as a personal escort through Auckland and along their motorway to where we were supposed to be. a big chur to the bol at Sealink in the Viaduct, you guys really saved our bacon. give them a rise.
Turns out we missed the boat anyway, but they arranged for us to just catch the next ferry. Bugs an i minced around on the beach for a bit and tried to get into the Darwin awards by attempting to create an avalanche.

couldn't even do that right


soundcheck at cassette 9

annnnd the boat trip

bugs talking to himself in the future.

Waiheke Island.
luckily we got to watch the cricket during the boat trip which was pretty bloody awesome, met up with our friend from Dunedin, Malcolm (who organised the gig for us) and his lovely lady Clair. They gave us accom, pre gig gin and a stupidly rushed breakfast at 7:00 in the morning. absolute legends.

We managed to squeeze in some cricket at the first field we saw, which had a pitch and lots of wind.

the gig was awesome, 25 or so people showed up. we had to play a heavier/intense 25 min set due to the night running out of time and the bar closing at 12am. people dug it and bought CD's. we went back and had an after party at Malcolms place afterwards. it's always great to smack it with the locals. bugs an i probably got an hours sleep before waking up again at 7am to get ready for the return ferry.
we almost fucked it up again, we were running late and the second last car to go on but shit, we'll bank that as a win.
everyone kinda went their separate ways on the boat to find sleep. few guys slept in the van, Logan took his blanket an pillow up to the main room an slept in there with bugs. i think Paul walked around and i kipped on top of the ship.
that was the hardest couple of days on the tour schedule. partying till late then getting up way too early to do shit that matters. good to know though that no one cracked during those moments

Baylys Beach

probably the most accommodating gig we've ever played.

still being awake since 7am, we drove north from Auckland and arrived at the Funky Fish at 11am, that doesn't sound too bad but that hour an a 1/2 on the road felt like the longest trip in the world. We arrived to Baylys beach, a small beach side town on the west coast.

Aym and Beth welcomed us with hugs and quickly gave us breakfast, coffee's and juice. what ever we liked. it was exactly what we needed. they showed us to our rooms as soon as we got there too in case we wanted to get some sleep. this place is magic. we played an afternoon gig outside to a bunch of locals and it went down great. sold close to $150 worth of cd's and everyone had a blast.

so hard to explain how good these people have been to us, they took us after the gig down to the beach where we had a few more beers an played in the ocean. the beach by the way is 107k long, being on the west coast too the waters super aggressive so you've gotta pick your battles with it.. lots of rips too.

afterwards we took the party back to where we were staying. Ditch and Beth hooked us up with a whole bunch of Fish and Chips from the bar an we took that back with us. woke up to Ditch bringing us food to make fresh sandwhiches. we were supposed to go to Whangarei but instead stayed around the house, went down to the beach to watch the sunset. when we got back to the accom where Ditch and Aym had put on a Roast Pork with vedgies for us.
the next day we spent relaxing and were lucky enough to watch the sun set.

The next morning we received a message from Sarah, a local who was keen on showing us a bit more of the beach an how to sandboard. Sarah also took some promo photos for us

you could write an entire blog on our experience at Baylys Beach, we're definitely going back. big thank you to Ditch, Aym and Beth for having us.

While we were on the beach playing silly buggers louis made another album and we made our way to Whangarei

listen and download Louis' new album here for free. it's brilliant.

Whangarei

we're here now, sorry the blogs a bit shocking with grammer. we've gotta leave in 10 mins to start the gig.

catchup soon

please vote for us on the r1 top 11. it'd be really nice to have a number 1 when we arrive on the 16th March

ben

second leg nz tour 1080 kills

2012-02-22T15:24:00.001+13:00

waddup
Onekaka - Mussel Inn
it was fat, a little quiet due to Luminate Festival happening up the road but it was cool. they gave us an awesome wee munchie. Paul and i had an argument over me getting Mussels at the Mussel Inn. they were fuckin delicious. a real Dihlma Tea buzz.. for the 2 people who will get that..don't worry if you didn't even for them it wasn't funny..Bugs' g/f, bff, less bearded 1/2 came with us and hungout for a few gigs which was awesome. She'd never been to the Mussel Inn before, like everyone else she had a great time there.

Mapua - The Tap …again
yeah, we organised another gig cos their pizza's are actually that awesome. plus a 42 gig tour is cooler than a 41 gig tour. theres talk of doing another gig there too before this tour ends.

it was kinda crazy though. the night started off all good an as the night went on more weirder shit happened. a few kids came an game some patrons shit, then the lady we went partying with last time we were there came up real wasted an started pulling out The Taps plants. she got allowed in an when she wasnt storming the stage pretending to know the lyrics to our songs she was hassling Andy. the owner, behind the bar. eventually Andy had enough an she got told to geeeeedout which is when she started punching in Andy's girlfriends car haha shit so it was all go.. we left after a few more beers an went an hung out with Rolley at The Playhouse. dudes got an outside cricket pitch that he lit up with a few flood lights an we played cricket till the late hours of the morning over a couple of beers. fuck it was awesome. he put us up there for the night too. good kent.
went back to the Tap and Andy sussed us out some more pizza's and a few beers while we played Pool most of the afternoon. Andy's the man.

Wairau Valley - Dahma Bums Club
We weren't sure at all what we were getting into with this gig.. we got told that there are nudist colonies up in Waiuru Valley so yeah.. it had potential to be a bit weird especially when you're playing a place that mentions bums and club in the name of the venue.. but shit no it was the complete opposite, lergun might of got his torso out and offended a few families but there was no ones balls fell out. we arrived to this awesome wee shack place. it reminded me of a really small Mussel Inn. we played to families, kids and a bunch of locals, about 30 people all up? not bad for a place that's off the main road, through a dirt road and a paddock. after the gig logan bossed out and kayaked into a tree, dislocating his shoulder.
keep an eye on The Dahma Bums Club, i can imagine it's going to be a sought after place to play in the future. do check it out if you're in the area, they have a few bands play there a month. Pete and Nancy B were so good to us.
we woke up an figured out that we'd be late for the Picton ferry (legion read the arrival time instead of the check-in / departure time) so we got our ferry changed. which turned out to be awesome.. this new ferry didnt have room for bands to play their way across so we ended up getting free travel. logan an i watched the NZ / ZIMBABWE ODI while the others played Risk.

Wellington - Mighty Mighty
caught up with friends and family in Wellington, show went well. did well on the door which is nice in a big city. Caught up with our friends Lewis, Stu, Tono, and Mike, all randomly at once while we were packing out of Mighty. think they were all up separately for Camp A Low Hum. it was a nice surprise anyway.
stayed with Logans cousin Craig, who made us a whole bunch of cocktails for dinner one night, shit he got us drunk. we must say a huge thank you to Craig, Gina and The Doctor for putting up with our shit, we ended up coming back after Paekakariki gig and filming a video clip, and maybe getting a little too drunk in the process / being too loud. letting off fireworks. generally nuggety. if it makes you feel better Gina i got your cold a few days after that and now paul, skinny and bugs have it. i think you got your revenge

our crowd at mighty

babes on the door

Paekakariki - St Peters Hall
we picked up our friend Jamie Rae an headed to Paekak.. pretty cool place, super quiet. gig was sweet. maybe 12 people came. last time we played there it was with Rackets on that tour so it was nice to go back, a few international people showed up so that was a nice treat for the guys.
we stayed with Dale again, this 64 year old lady (who could probably drink most of us under the table) in her house made out of old army barracks. i slept in her kitchen, louis in the van an 5 other people in her tiny as lounge. she kicked us out by 11 or so an we went back to Logans cousin Craig's flat in Wellington to film the video clip for I am a Wall.

we all got very drunk that day and night. played a shit load of this great Football game on the playstation. we all got on the whiskeys an the competitiveness took to a whole new level. logan an i had few back to back matches. hogan would score a goal an jab me in the ribs, id score a goal an would run around the kitchen one step short of getting my tits out.. it was so fuckin wicked man
after overstaying our welcome at Craigs, we made our way to Napier

Napier - Cabana
gig was pretty quiet, our opening act Bitch Slap pulled out so there went half the local pull.. we still played to a few people and did all good on the door. my friend snuck in a bottle of whiskey an we smacked that back pretty much all night. it was the same colour as red bull so if you buy a can of red bull the bar chick wouldn't think any of the wiser. she didnt even click when we were going up to the bar as asking for 2 glasses of ice at a time as well. either that or she didnt give a shit, cant take that away from it still being the sneakiest trick for smuggling booze ive heard in ages.. logan an i left and went into town with our friends to find another pub to drink in. we came across crack addicts, a wee dog that looked like Spot and a Kareoke bar that could have been the bastard love child of Corstophine and South Dunedin. after a shot of vodka and getting hassled by some dude with no teeth, we found some rogue can of Cody's Bourbon, smacked that an got the fuck outta there.. pretty funny night
everyones friend Skinny came down from Auckland the day we arrived in Napier so now Brown are on tour with us. (from Napier - Whitianga. 7 gigs plus Waiheke Island) so that's been good. we were fortunate enough to record a new Brown album in Bugs' folks basement while we were there.
brown is a 3 piece which involves Paul and Myself for those who don't know. we play a mixture between lite dad rock and dad rock

so this is the new schedule:
wed 15th - Cabana - Napier w/ Bitch Slap & Brown 
thurs 16th - Geoffs Saloon - Wairoa w/ Too Much Cuz & Brown 
fri 17th - Sunset Point Bar - Mahia w/ Too Much Cuz Brown
sat 18th - Smash Palace - Gisborne w/ Brown 
sun 19th - Pheasant Plucker - Rotorua w/ Brown
wed 22nd - Beach Hotel - Waihi Beach w/ Brown
thurs 23rd - Eggsentric - Whitianga w/ Brown
fri 24th - Cassette #9 - Auckland w/ Beach Pigs
Sat 25th - Rocks Bar - Waiheke Island w/ Brown

really enjoyed our time hanging out at the Millers place in Napier, i found a new love for late night talk back radio where old people talk to even older people about cows and their milking pattern. even if they're supposed to be talking about the cause of the Pike River mine explosion. shit there are some nutters out there
we also got the Jansen amp fixed while we were in Napier but now, although it goes again, sounds shit. gay buzz.

 Wairoa - Geoff's Saloon.
fuckin amazing. so buzzy but amazing. Complete with shooting range, cinema, a bunch of workshop space, and a bar.
Wairoa's a town that has a high Gang presence even though we didn't really see it, there was a different sort of buzz to the place. Wairoa's got the highest population of Maori per capita in N.Z. We're really sheltered from Maori culture in the South Island, so naturally it's quite a bit different up here with not being too sure how to act or what's kosher but when it boils down to it everyones at the gig to smack the piss and have a good time. it was quite amazing. after soundcheck we played cricket in this patch of grass outside the local library which apparently buzzed out the entire town. im not surprised, 8 random white dudes from the South Island playing a game of cricket for about 3 hours on probably the nicest lawn in Wairoa, we gained the a lot of local intreats but no one bothered us. skinny got asked before we played that night if it was us that were playing cricket outside the library, an that it was really really weird, an she wondered if we were aware of the amount of gang activity that goes on in Wairoa. i think everyone was just really really buzzed out.. not that i think they thought we were doing anything wrong, but apparently it was a bit of a weird thing to do.
The gig itself was awesome though, i had a headache so i didn't drink that night, everyone else got pretty drunk an got on with the locals. we had a fantastic family band called Too Much Cuz play after us which made the night run a bit smoothly, they're like a soul/reggae sort of band with 3 female vocals. so that was sweet. the harmonies made everyone in our camp flip out. think the police showed up a few times to check out the buzz.. but there was no drama.. that they could see anyway, skinny said that a chick collapsed moments after the police left one of the rooms so everyone scuttled to get her back in a seat before the cops noticed. haha..classic
i wasn't there for any of that though, i went back to the acom after the gig and had one of the best showers of my life. showers that you can sit down in are fucking amazing

(one other awesome thing at Geoffs is the pool table. massive, like full on billiards table. and free. always a bonus for the guys)

Mahia - Sunset Point
Jamie Rae's got a place on the beach at Sunset Point, an incredible beach house which she so nicely let us spend a few days in. cos shit people, we're filthy. we're lovable enough guys an that, take us home to meet ya folks - all good. we'll probably just stay there for about 3 days, use up all their toilet paper an feel bad about eating them out of food.
jamies place was amazing though, drinking ice cold Steinlager before the gig while watching the T20 match between South Africa and N.Z. it's quite sad to think that ive peaked so early in life cos im not sure it can get any better than that.
all good though guys il put it back in my pants.
bit of a crazy gig this one, louis an skinny seem to think that we were lucky to get out alive, while the rest of us think that it went down sweet. we were playing though an couldn't sense the buzz outside.. so il take their word for it. a couple of local maori folk dug it which i think might have saved our asses.. also we had Too Much Cuz on the bill again who got up after us an sweetened everything over. Mahia had never seen anything like us before an i think they freaked out a bit, some of them dug it, some of them didn't. we still got applauded after we finished (with paul breaking his tuning peg on his Epiphone at the end of our set in a drunken noise-rage) apparently all of Mahia could hear us haha.. afterwards as the night wrapped up the locals sung a Waiata, which was amazing to watch.

after letting some Filipino girl pinch my cheeks for about 1/2 an hour a few of us went swimming in the ocean. anyone who knows me knows im cagey around water but apparently not when im drunk..and when Filipino girls are involved. it was really warm water though, you'd move your arms and the water would light up due to the plankton hanging out, if that didn't blow ya shit then you'd look up and see this massive clear nights sky. pretty incredible.

few other locals were back at Jamie Ray's place when we got back an we had a few more beers before going to bed at some stupid hour.
after waking up and checking to see if my cheeks were still there we went back to the venue, we packed out our gear while the bar cooked us some fish an chips. we smacked them an drove about 4 hours to Gisborne

Gisborne - Smash Palace
Smash palace has a plane going into the side of it, which apparently used to be a cocktail bar but they had to close it due to people falling down the steps on their way out haha..
we've played here twice now, it's a pretty amazing venue. they get their name from the movie ( which i haven't seen but im sure it's all colours of fucked up) theres also upside down cars, weird road signs, a temperimental bar cat that sifts around an bites you and also a really cool signed Sam Hunt poster. we played on their outside stage this time. louis got heckled a few times but shit he shut them up in true louis form. wish i could remember what he said but everyone stopped disrespecting him after that. we played a pretty alright set. i had to hit the drums like hell just to get volume out of them, we had to put the bass through Louis' Roland Cube, just for more volume. Pauls Jansen like i said before, after being fixed in Napier doesn't sound the best so that was a bit of a hassle…it was a pretty hard gig to play to be honest but we got through it well enough, won the audience over. some hero gave us a $100 donation, someone else gave us something else and the bar man gave us a crate of Export Gold. Everyones so giving in Gizzy. every gig has something to offer on this tour. we went back to Rori's apartment to continue partying afterwards. i went to bed but the guys stayed up an drank the crate, bottle of tequila and other stuff that was on offer, while watching Led Zeppelins The Song Remains The Same. think Bugsy climbed on the roof too at some point during that night.. i dunno i was kinda asleep, i could hear all sorts of shit was going down outside anyway.. pretty funny considering we had to stay quiet that night due to Rori being on thin ice with his landlord.
what was really cool was that our new friend Rori turns out to be the guitarist from Opposite Sex (the band we're playing with in Dunedin's) brother. small word.

Rotorua - Pheasant Plucker
Sunday night gig. it was never gonna go off no mater how much convincing you tell anyone. it was fine we played to maybe 15 people? even the grimmest of nights never compare to Palmerston North, the time when we played to 4 people, 2 of which were on the door haha.. Ivan from Pheasant Plucker is the man though, he hooked us up with 4 massive pizza's and a bunch of beer and we were happy, still made 70$ an that's fine. enough for petrol to get to Waihi Beach. Louis almost got in a fight with some bogan but it was sweet. louis would have killed him anyway aye. yea.
while in Rotorua we split up, 4 of us went to Logans aunties house and 4 of us went to Bugs' girlfriends families house. we're lucky enough to have a few days off up here so last night we met up and went to Hot and Cold. A secret swimming spot for the locals where a hot spring meets a cold river. it was amazing. twice in one week i've been swimming. what the fuck. i turn 24 and now i think im Aquaman. we relaxed there for a few hours anyway. perfect for a day off
we're off to Waihi Beach tomorrow, we've been there before it's a pretty cool place. the acom's amazing and their meals are epic. so fingers crossed. wouldn't mind smacking a steak tomorrow.

sorry the blog's so massive. it's hard to stay on top of things. check out these photo's if you havent already.
we're all in good knick, no ones died, a few cuts and grazes. we say Goodbye to Jamie Rae tomorrow who leaves us after spending 12 days on the road with us. she's been wicked, her pretty face sells our cd's so it'll be a shame to see her go.
Special thanks to Craig, Gina and The Doctor - sorry for being loud and nuggety, Malcolm and Debbie Miller for having us in Napier, Casey for the brilliant red bull idea and place to crash, Ross and Robin Covell for having us in Rotorua, Andrea and Gene for looking after the other 1/2 of the muck. and people with sky telly so i can watch the cricket.
our gears' starting to deteriorate a wee bit. 22 gigs in it's bound to happen, Jansen's fixed but broken, paul's intonation on his guitar's even more fucked, some of Logans keys on his Nord are starting to fail, one of my cymbal stand's given up the ghost so im only down to a crash and a ride. I've only broken one stick so far though and bugs hasn't broken anything yet (except possibly his little finger when he crushed it in Mapua the first time we went there) but that's not looking too bad anymore so i think he's winning.
shits sweet
do us a favor and vote for and request 'The Weekend Went Without You' by 'Alizarin Lizard' on the BFM Top Ten. really important, it would help us out a lot.
http://www.95bfm.co.nz/default,top10.sm

and if you're feeling really helpful vote for us on the Radio 1 top 11
http://www.r1.co.nz/top11.php

THANKS

ben

Lahguns arm fell out

2012-02-06T19:36:00.004+13:00

"my arms not in its socket"

Logan went kayaking after the gig at Dharma Bums Club the other night, he drove into a tree an while bailing he landed wrong an his arm fell out. Paul tried to do something for him an when Logan reacted his arm popped back in an we fixed it back up with a red towel and bungee cord.
kinda dicey but he hasn't mentioned anything about it hurting today so maybe he'll be ok

in Wellington at the moment, about to head into town and fix some things.
tomorrow nights gig at Mighty looks to be a cracker. will write up a proper blog soon with a bit of luck. photos an proper stories.
this things cracked 10,000 views. im gonna celebrate that with some mcdonalds i think. they have 2$ burgers and im broke.

ben

you're in the west coast now mate

2012-02-02T12:39:00.000+13:00

omg

we made it out of the West Coast alive, only have a few dozen sandfly bites to prove it but shit it was good times. highlights were of course being able to record in Millerton and the drive through the Karamea Ecological Reserve, rapping to Scribe with a bar girl and then staying in this amazing house in Cape Foulwind.. not hers..

Franks
awesome, we seem to have a following in Greymouth. Nel always looks after us with great food and big bot Speights. how anyone could want to party more after Barrytown, franz and fox was a bit beyond me but it kinda happened.. every time we play at Franks we're fuckin hungover, theres no exception i think it's because we play all the wee towns around that area before we play Greymouth, which makes it super awesome when Nel gives you a hug and a Big Bot which generally makes things a wee bit easier. it was nice to not pack out of Franks for a change though, we usually have to pack out an get outta Greymouth pretty quickly but this time was sweet..we all sorta slowly packed down the stuff an headed to Parrots place, a classic lady who everyone in the Westcoast seems to know. she makes us Fruity Pancakes for breakfast when we stay with her. you can't get much better then that. we said goodbyes to our Canadian friend Maddy. she gave us necklaces and hitched to Nelson to catch the Luminate Fest.

laterrrrr

Cape Foulwind - Westport
went off, there was another band called Parcel of Rogues that were double booked on the night as well so we ended up playing with them. they were a sorta 3 or 4 piece acoustic folk rock sorta band. everything went down well.. i think the barman recorded us on his camcorder from behind the bar which i'd assume is a good thing
it was great from the get go, logan and i were fiending to catch the cricket so it was nice to get there, drink beer and watch it for a few hours. they showed us a great time throughout the night with awesome munchies and an open bar too i think i was drinking double G'n'T's again, a probably now more than sometimes drink..ended on the vodka shots. lergun destroyed everyones soul with hits from Craig David and Scribe on the juke box, then someone put on Matchbox Twenty and i think that's when i coincidentally started hitting the vodka shots.. some lady wanted to give us 150 bucks for another 20 min set. loges an i told her we want the money in front of us. she never came back. "y'on the coast now mate"

Karamea
we woke up and Derek, the owner from the pub, dressed in nothing but a sarong, asked us what we want for breakfast. how cool is that? a round of coffees while we're packing out and then we got to sit down and have bacon, eggs, sausages, tomatoes and hash browns before we get on the road. it's still a bit blurry due to the hangover but it could have been the best morning of my life. think i even snuck in a shower somewhere in there too.. bonus round
on the way to Karamea we had to pass over this gigantor hill that overlooks everything..

we got to Karamea and found out that we'd be playing outside tonight. pretty cool. Karamea's only about 4 people big so it was kinda cool playing rock music till 10 pm with the local police station behind us. i got destroyed by sandflies, this asshole hasn't clicked onto wearing shoes yet.. so i deserve what i get. kinda starting to enjoy getting bitten by sandfIM FUCKING KIDDING
our set was kinda buzzy anyway, we played two sets..the first set had this sorta awkward golf clap thing happening an the second one the crowd was more accepting.. it was a sunday though, there were about 40 people there? 10 times more than what Karamea were expecting. the bar wanted another 1/2 hour music but i was pretty tired/hungover and not too keen..
Shipsy, Louis and I went back to the house where we were staying and the others went to some afterparty.

couple of hours later the guys come back an i hear this huge noise followed by a 'what the fuck?!' Logan somehow pushed a window through the window..unintentionally of course.. The Torso managed to catch it on its way out so nothing smashed. i think the window was fucked from a previous time an the people had just nailed it in, like the Hulk logan doesnt understand his own strength most of the time so we shouldn't hold it against him

caught up with Pat ,Kathy and Sally

Millerton

"you're in Millerton now mate" " too right mate"
fuckin unbelievable place. there are literally about 30 people that actually live in Millerton, it's hard to explain. we spent most of our time hanging out at the Hall or at Vorn and Tanya's house. we did a bunch of recording in that hall over the 3 days we were there. Louis wrote six and recorded 17 songs and we managed to record our live set from the Monday night we played. we set up everything again an managed to get hold of some drum mics on Tuesday an just as we were ready to go - the neighbour exploded. She came down an started yelling at Vorn, telling him that she was sick of the noise an that she has to get some fuckin sleep which she was then told to fuck off an that she lives next to the hall what does she fuckin expect. she was the same lady who put these wee notes on peoples cars an signs outside the venue haha..so west coast.

later that night we went back down to the hall where logan an i played cricket while the others nutted out a game of risk. surprisingly we didn't ruin their game but we did ruin a window.. logan an i temp fixed it an then moved onto playing pool after that
i'd say what we were drinking that night but then you'd all think we were alcoholics
stumbled up the hill an slept in this awesome house, generally good when it doesnt rain ahah but when it does..paul cat will gladly use it as an excuse..

the cat did it

woke up an had a demon packout from the hall in the rainstorm, said our goodbyes to Vorn, Tanya, Chris, Roxanne and Abby-rose. some of the nicest people you'll ever come across. looking forward to going back there in Winter.
In Nelson at the moment, back at bugs' brother Tim's house. We're playing Onekaka tonight at the Mussel Inn. arguably the best venue in New Zealand. the hospitality at the Mussel Inn is known all around the country as the best anyway. you get to sleep in this house that looks like one of those American snow cabins, super fancy and awesome..we've played there once before with Rackets and had a great time. my folks took me there when i was young so i always look forward to going back. better not jinx it any more

catchup soon.ben

Ps here's some songs from our gig in Millerton:

whats the name of this one ships?

2012-01-27T17:39:00.000+13:00

i wrote this last night before the Barrytown gig. in Greymouth at the moment about to play at Franks. excuse the shit grammer im a terrible person. but anyway..

It's been a pretty crazy couple of days. My memories a bit shit an getting worse so i'm just gonna bullet point some towns
Mapua-mucky, shit it got mucky. after the gig we noticed that a bunch of ladies were literally surrounded in drinks, they bought 27 drinks at once and hoarded them .. we sifted on in and found ourselves partying back at their family home afterwards. Like it was fucked, bottles of tequila, vodka, wine and other treats. It was only Bugs an I left at then end with some lady, don't remember much but found a video on my recorder of us stumbling around mapua at 7:37am singing an chatting to locals. I'd upload it but it's far to embarrassing and potentially incriminating.
woke up in a shipping crate with logan an went to The Playhouse Cafe to catch up with Rolly, an old member of The Taliband. They have this awesome back yard cricket set up at the Playhouse. so naturally we had too try it out.
( i was gonna upload a video of us playing cricket but i havnt got time..gey buzz)
The next gig was.. Murchison, a buzzy sort of resturant/bar/hotel place. that was all good, pretty decent turn out for a Sunday anyway. i just played the gig an went to bed after that. the bar staff were a bit buzzy and a maybe just a touch too icey. but it was fat.
The greatest thing to ever happen to Murchison is that hey've got this great shop with random bits and pieces called Somebody's Treasure. we found it last time we drove through Murchisonon a previous tour so it was great to go back there again,. wouldn't surprise me if logan booked the gig just because of that shop ahhbutah yeah the guys picked up bits an pieces an i got a few badges
the next gig was Fox, this is where shit gets real blurry..i turned 24 twice..
they always treat us amazingly in Fox, and i was fortunate enough to celebrate my birthday after our set on Tuesday night. i think i was ordering double gin an tonics haha.. which is only a sometimes drink, we all hopped on a quad-bike and went back to shelly an trav's house (the owners of The Cook Saddle) where we polished a bottle of jager and other shit, i don't really remember to be honest, it's funny how i ended up Drunk Man vs Wild in the middle of nowhere at 7 or 8 in the morning. Trav and i took the quad bike for a drive deep into some forest… something happened with the bike, it wouldn't start for some reason so i had to leave him in the forest with the bike an find my way out of this forest, which i did.. i got back to the road and had to make that decision of whether or not i go left or right.. i chose left and just stuck with it. after stumbling for 40 minutes i started to think that i chose the wrong way, which i might have or not i'll never know.. i stubbed my toe on a rock so with my shit bleeding i eventually waved down a van, (classically lost my phone in the forest when i fell off the bike) an this girl took me back to Fox where i went back to bed. Trav woke me up with a brohandshake an told me that he had a sleep in the middle of the forest, woke up a bit later and figured out that the spark plug had come out. either way, both of us are alive and il have some sort of great birthday memory to look back on.
we packed up our shit an went to play Franz that night, which was terribly drunk as well..it had to be, it was beanies birthday

but yeah shit, we sussed accom and hung out there, i think bugs, logan an paul had a spa which is pretty cool. we played the show and it was fat, plenty of people. the guys sussed me out some pretty crazy drinks. one where i had to inhale burnt cinnamon? that was pretty fucked then later on in the night the barmen gave me something called a Flaming Lambougini which is the cocktail equivalent of a car accident.
5 spirits set on fire and while your drinking it thru a straw the guys tipping in another blue liquor. it was fucked, it set me right though.shits like a 30 dollar cocktail.so i woke up a very broken man this morning and battled a deathly hangover. I'm alright now, bit tired.. the guys got a box of sprights and a cask of wine..still trying to figure out if im gonna have a few. but i know i'll have to, we're playing in Barrytown tonight. we've picked up a lovely Canadian girl too, who's come with us from franz to Barrytown so we might have to have a wee party.

so mucky,
ben

cd preview for the guys an messing about in nelson

2012-01-18T12:21:00.001+13:00

proof of the album arrived in Nelson this morning

and the promo poster for the album, which i assume will go in shop windows an magazines etc.. i dunno i just hit the drums mate cheers

still messing around in Nelson, looking forward to going over the Takaka hill today. Logans fixing a few wee things on the van which is pritty kurl.
Osmium an Left or Right Soundsystem have just been through the Roots Bar recently on their tours an have said to check out the Three Berry Cider and Bar staff.. so i'm sold haha. last time we played in Takaka we didn't have anywhere to sleep and ended up crashing in their Movie Theatre..

i still cant describe how weird that night was

Bugs, Paul, Shipsy, Louis and Tim played the game Risk last night for about 15 hours. Shipsy and Paul made the fatal mistake of forming an alliance which led to them being wiped out by Tim 2 hours in. Bugs an Louis decided to be bumchums and eventually took out Bugs' older brother Tim. I think they called it a night after that with Louis an Bugs both claiming to be the winner. real kiwi sport attitude. I'd probably suss it with a rock off

We hang out at the Nelson Airport Control Tower after tea too.. it was awesome

ben

One down 40 to go

2012-01-17T15:51:00.000+13:00

Alizarin Lizard - Letter from Max Bellamy on Vimeo.
check this out if you haven't seen it, new video for our song Letter. filmed at St Bathans over the new years.
Check out our new single: The Weekend Went Without You

so we've made it to nelson.. left dunedin late enough for us to arrive in chch at 10pm, stayed with paul's family an experienced our first earthquake at 2:50am, we were told in the morning that it was a 5. shit was real loud man, imagine a train driving through your bedroom, kinda puts ya on edge for the rest of the night too..can't imagine getting used to it. kinda happy we got to see what it was like up there though. pretty crazy shit
We had a great first gig in Kaikoura at The Strawberry Tree. they told us on arrival that we'd be playing outside in this little courtyard / smoking area. it was great. Brown started the night off - skinny was already up for the roots festival so we plugged in an went. Louis had the hard job of doing his acoustic set after Brown to a crowd who were essentially there 'to dance'. props to him though it was kinda like a tour test, which he passed. brohammer hasnt toured before, yet alone a national one, yet alone a 41 date one, none of us have been on the road for 2 and a half months before so this'll probably be the test for more bigger endeavors. i wanna go do this in europe, or the states. not just cos of the babes and cheap booze, i really like smoking as well. nurrr
Alizarin went down real well in Kaikoura, someone recorded it on their HD Camera thing, we heard it was gonna be put on something to do with Kaikoura roots fest? which is kinda weird but cool if it..is? i dunno, the guy who filmed it only asked for a Guinness. cheap deal
but yeah, great times. Left or Right Soundsystem took over DJ duties after we played and kept the night crankin.
shipsy took a video of the night.

We're staying at Bugs' brothers house in Nelson at the moment, we've gotta few days off to do things, like send posters, and hopefully do some fishing. bumped into some American girls in Blenheim who saw us in Kaikoura and are keen to come to tomorrow nights gig in Takaka. it's awesome when that happens, turns into a continuing party

a few kodak moments

on the way to Christchurch

Kaikoura

The Strawberry Tree

ciddy

Rusta

a swimming hole on the way to Nelson

bugs hanging with his niece in Nelson

cool, my folks are in Nelson at the moment so we're gonna go catchup an have a beer

ben

like a Seagull

2012-01-11T08:12:00.002+13:00

these guys are a real life Spinal Tap / Bad News.

final mixes have been done on the CD, the seats being put in the van later today, our support act has pulled out last minute for the first 3 weeks yesturday so we're looking someone else to support the tour. potentially have Louis Smith on board but waiting to hear more on that.. i had one of those nights where you go to sleep at 9pm and wake up at 1am an find yourself still watching Never Mind the Buzzcocks till 7:30 am. that's where i found this ballbag, and that wee 10 min video.

saw the Letter video the other day it's quite funny, should be up in the next few days or so id imagine.
i should probably go back to sleep.

razor and a +1 for Sefton if he comes to the March 16th gig
lol,
ben

Bugs brushes his teeth with a bottle of Jack

2012-01-07T04:29:00.006+13:00

New layout new tour that's what ive always said.
full credit goes to Shipsy who drew and designed the new poster as well as the red dot mind-fuck that's probably helping you lean towards an early retirement.
we've been working a bit hard lately trying to suss last minute stuff. it's classic, this always happens but its good.. we gave the stems to Dale yesturday, got posters printed yesturday..

ive been slowly going crazy by myself plotting in all the tour dates with online gig guides (eventfinder,undertheradar,grooveguide,mokuna).. its a little ritual i go through before ever tour, spent 6 hours today and a cheeky 3 last night.. i dont know how people handle being stuck behind a screen all day. certainly don't envy you. during my temporary insanity i started to wonder if bugs was actually Ke$ha in disguise..

Ke$ha

..Ke$ha?

i came across a review of Oh Colour that mustve.. gone..under the radar aye, aye amiright im right

	Alizarin Lizard Oh Colour 7 / 10 11th November 2011 By Ricardo Kerr

Alizarin Lizard

Oh Colour

7 / 10

11th November 2011

By Ricardo Kerr

Never has it been more attractive to churn out albums full of short sharp jolts of agit-pop. With this approach in mind, enter Alizarin Lizard, a ragged four piece from Dunedin, a city that is punching far above its weight when it comes to nurturing our country’s burgeoning musical talent. The band’s biography touches on them using music as a form of escapism, describing them as “four young men intent on avoiding the real world by living in one huge musical party until it all goes horribly wrong”. Having listened to the new EP, Oh Colour, from these four young men (Paul Cathro, Bugs Miller, Ben Sargeant, and Logan Hampton) I can say that it is a mission accomplished on all accounts.
‘Ruby Peacock’ wastes no time hooking you into their world of fractured pop melodies and pretty songs that can turn ugly at the drop of a hat. The self-aware handclaps and harmonies bring to mind one of New Zealand’s most treasured alt-pop misfits: Connan Mockasin. ‘Mad As A March Hare’ makes its first of two appearances with a riff culled straight from classic Motorhead and the adrenaline that flows follows suit. Perhaps the raw, unchecked ramblings of ‘Letter’ or ‘Not Addicted’ (both presented as live recordings) will remind you of Bleach-era Nirvana or The Pixies’ Doolittle. Those albums also tried to hide their inherent pop song writing sensibilities under blankets of nihilistic mucus. The live version of ‘Mad As A March Hare’ that closes out the EP ends with a weary, “Thank you very much”. It is us that should be thanking them for letting us peak through the keyhole into their bizarre world.
The songs barely crack the two minute mark which does not afford the song writing much in the way of extravagance or frills of any kind. So what you get instead is the undiluted core of each song that gets to the point and drops off before it overstays its welcome. The three studio recordings and three live songs (including one song that lands in both categories) that makes up the Oh Colour EP make for a brief but focused listening experience. The real problem with the length is that Oh Colour ends up being a memory of six songs that flew by and left little impression. To see such a thing performed live in a dingy bar somewhere, the kind with beer and sweat dripping off the walls would be another thing all together. If nothing else, this EP should make more people interested in catching Alizarin Lizard live. If Oh Colour can accomplish that meagre goal and convince you to do so then it is ten minutes of your life well spent.

il take 7/10,
if they were chicken nuggets, id be full
beers, id be on my way
durries, sorted for a bit
babes, stoked
std's, stoked

we're away in like a week or so..should probably take everyones favorite psychedelic pedo-clown's advice an get that seat bolted down in the van.. or at least someone should

....................three ....tours ...later tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk..
but thats all its ever needed, bugs picked up some seats off trademe a couple of weeks ago for $20, we just need an idea on how to install them. or who can.

speaking of bugs it was his birthday yesturday! respect is due!

happy birthday bro. without bugs we'd be so so screwed!
would it be rude to place bets on if bugsy has a 1/4 life crisis on the road? no ones ever really seen him angry before. it's well over due an i get the feeling its kinda a now or never sorta situation so if anyones keen to place a wager on bugsy having a meltdown im totally keen.
only rules being it'd have to get it recorded on camera. but i can do that, we have the technology.
wouldnt be fair to him though id totally just deliberatly be a dick to him, trying to encourage him towards a mental breakdown but who wins then really..

...me, i win. i win money. and potentially fame from it going viral on youtube
i bet he had a fantastic night last night. cracks me up thinking that bugs wakes up every morning thinking hes a middle aged black man then goes onto brush his teeth with a whole fuckin bottle of Whiskey haha

you're such a boss, we love you bugs.

possibly the gayest thing on the internet

Our first gig of the tour is in Kaikoura at the Strawberry Tree on the 15th, a sunday, the day after Kaikora Roots fest finishes, we're the afterparty. last time we played there Logan got randomly hit in the face a few times from some street groms whilst getting into our accommodation so.. it can only get better from here.. i think the compensation helped pay for lerguns rent though which is kinda funny.
poor lergun
alright, enough of this.. haha a whole bottle of Jack, shit bugsy
ben

i totally just ruined your Christmas haha

2011-12-25T07:20:00.004+13:00

il tell you a story about the asscapades of yesturday morning if ya like, im not sure you have a choice really. grab a seat though champ it involves a lot of poo.
so while partying up in the Attic the other night i was smackin it back an had one of my irish friend Bazz's homebrews. from the first sip to the last something didnt taste right but shit, had it anyway. you got to. skip forward a few hours and i woke up to the sensation of that id pissed myself, all good until i figured out it was shit and that the more i lay in it the more it was going to wonder how my life got this bad..so literally rolled outta bed, completely buzzing out still..who shits themselves yet alone has it set as an 11am alarm clock? i had to hold my undies to my legs while i sheepishly walked to the bathroom so i wouldnt leave an incriminating trail of poo from my room to the toilet.
got to the toilet, dropped my nasty dacks an went to town. i noticed how much my soiled undies were painting the toilet mat brown (fucking disaster) so i had to hold them just below the knee.. the smell, jesus the smell. it was like being on Fear Factor
still kinda drunk, i laughed at the idea that id just Jackson Pollocked the toilet bowl when i stood up an noticed how much shit was left all over the toilet seat from the backs of my legs, wiped that down..went an dropped off my undies to the washing machine, it's a fuckn demoralizing moment when you have to rinse ya undies before you put them in a washing machine guys haha.. if that wasnt enough of a start to the day i had to have a shower to clean all the excess poo off my legs. couldnt find a towel, had to use an old one from someone elses from a few days ago.. i spent yesturday completely terrified at the idea of farting haha
a hell of a start to the day, i went back to my room, changed the bed sheets..tried to piece togeather what the hell had just happened an went back to sleep hoping it was all just a dream

totally wasnt, i forgot about it and had to explain to the old lady why the toilet mat was in the laundry basin haha.. poor thing no one deserves to see that

so that's that, i can hear you thinking you ruined Christmas and that would be fair

enjoy this song Filthy House, its off the new album.we just got it back yesterday from Dale Cotton
im really enjoying what he's done, everything sounds so smooth!

Filthy house is written about this flat on Melvern St where Paul used to live in 2009

but yea, diarrhea will always be funny.
marriage material,
ben

tis the season!

2011-12-23T04:15:00.004+13:00

shit Merry Christmas guys. i think all the guys are hoping for socks and undies this time around. we've been needing new undies this month from trying to push this new album and tour out.. not sure if its good to suggest that our new albums explosive shit or that our tour will protect your pants from potential shards of shit but id be lying if i didnt say we needed new undies for Christmas if ya knowhaddahmsayinsayin hahahayouknowhaddamsayinnahsayin
nahuhmjustsayinisayinhaha. jasayin.
fuck was that about aye
We got togeather the other day an were wondering what we could gift you over the holidays as a token of appreciation for being such gc's. it came down to giving you a new song off the album for free or setting your house on fire! way! yussss!!
it was 2:3 in favour of house fire but because petrol's so expensive nowadays......we're sorry. but shit cheer up it aint all bad, come Christmas day we'll give you a song/ taste of the new album as a wee thanks for the support or letting us crash in your house along the way, for not caring that we eat all of your bread and leave the crusts in the sink as a calling card.. we thank you
keep an eye on facebook
spose it's been ages since i last did one of these, if anyones had a strike of Alzheimer's in the past month im ben from Alizarin Lizard.
check out my super saiyan eyeballs they glow when i drink tequila. later that night i spewed in Logans tour bag and he wouldnt have found out untill.. now so yeah, sorry bol. way to break it to ya mate aye. i cleaned it up all good tho me'ol
il put the lack of blogging lately down to me just being too lazy. its been too sunny outside, bottles dont open themselves and i havent met anyone that can find the time between watching the cricket and cooking pork ribs to write non sence about bullshit haha.. but seriously i had great intentions of keeping y'all upto date with our recording progress but soon realised that none of you probably gave a shit. it's summer outside, we should all be outside doing stupid shit with our skinhead mates anyway.
so this is us recording in The Attic a few weeks ago.
we should get better mates just quietly

started recording in The Attic

we finished off recording at Tone Temple

pauly cat laying down some vox

We played a couple of shows last weekend, quite an interesting weekend. played with Left or Right at Tillermans in Invercargil. during the pack out a bouncer wanted to be a good kent an thought he'd give Loges a hand loading out a cab after the gig. all good, but when Logan told him not to slide his amp down the stairs, rather carry it, this tattood up bouncer took offense, put his side of the cab down an just clocked meol mate logan in the jaw. there were what the fucks? flying left right an center as the bouncer did the bolt after wards hi-fiving his other bouncer mate on the way out. logan took it in his stride an carried on down the stairs with someone else taking the other side. fuck you're buzzy Invers. dont get me wrong the amount of awesome people down there are always worth it an we love playing down there but shit like that just makes ya wonder sometimes... imagine having him on a tour he'd be fuckin hilarious, clocking everyone in the band on a nightly basis because he cant get his head around roadie 101. just the idea of a bouncer punching a musician because he cant figure out how to carry something down some stairs is funny enough.
drove back to Dunedin at 9am the next morning, everyone slept the way while i blasted through my headphones a bunch of MIA. there's nothing like bopping to some middle aged Sri Lankan mum rap in the breakfast hours. think i was trying to prove to myself that i wasnt hungover. genius idea.
we got back to Dunedin by lunchtime and unloaded the P.A gear into Sammys then went home an slept the rest of the day till we had to come back an sound check..
but yeah, played later on that night and had a blast. Sammys looks absolutely amazing now days if you havent seen it already. big thanks to Deano and Iain Sweetman for organising such a cool party that night for everyone.


Made In China

so much has happened in the past month... i sold one of these paintings for 60$ at an art exhibition in Dunedin.

pretty choice aye, go me as. there's a special at super liquor at the moment. 2x Gordons gin for $60..so il take that as a sign. the painting was framed hence the price tag, but yeah im chuffed. thanks Deano for organising that great wee event a few weeks back. speaking of art shipsy has been up to some serious mischief lately. get a load of this shit. i just wanna hang out in his brain for a wee bit.

he made this during the mad as a march hare tour

isnt he incredible? have a look and follow his blog here

Brown are playing this on friday, as well as pauls other boy band Low Class Hookers
The Attic is this new ..sort of venue, sort of mates workshop sort of dont tell the police or DCC sort of place that bands play at an you can bring your own alch. quite similar to Wanganui's Space Monster venue actually. fucking cool place it's where we recorded the album... it's just starting up as of last week

aight so here's the goss on the new album.
our main man Shipsy is doing the artwork for it
it has 12 tracks produced by us and Weeji, mastered by Dale Cotton
Letter, Not Addicted and Foxy off our previous E.P have been re-recorded and are on it
Jimmy, Grey Skies and Supermarket shopping are finally on a CD (we've recorded them so many fucking times over the years)
Filthy House will be released on Christmas day for you guys - a buzzy pop song.
i think over all the album's sort of like a heavyish psychedelic pop album. ive only head it once but its what id call it
not sure what the name of the album is yet, give us an album name that doesnt suck an we'll set your house on fire first! why do i keep saying that
it's gonna be on a duel case too which i love the idea of. im never making cardboard CD cases again. ever. im sure bugsy would rather take a brick to the bro's as well. doing that shit just makes you want to punch holes through babies, man. im sorry i love kids, i really do. id rather give head to these two doods then have to sit down score, cut, fold and glue only to realise ive fucked something up along the way. then you're left with this piece of shit that these nimble Asian fingers whipped up probably high as fuck on glue fumes who's trying to convince himself that he's accidentally just stuck his fingers togeather an is probably to young to be suffering a stroke. never again will we have to make these cardboard cases. truth be told there's only about 500 left to make though guys so dont worry about it.milky bars are on me
i dont huff glue guys relax. spray cans are wayyyyhayhay better hahahahahahahahaha

Oli Lucks, Max Bellamy and some other hero are whipping us up a video clip for Letter, which should be out before the 15th of January as well. their work's pretty incredible to say the least so we're very excited and privileged to have them on board with us for something. look at their skills
Max Bellamy:

Sparks from Max Bellamy on Vimeo.

Ollie Lucks:

Letter only goes for 1:50 and i think the idea is to cram a whole lot of infomation into the clip. i.e make it a bit of a story and squeeze it into 1:50. more on that when i know anyway. im excited, i hope there are tyitch

good. so bullet points to remember.

Filthy House will be released on Christmas day as a treat to you guys, its' off the new album an will be blingin. it's not a single just a treat.
Alizarin Album out February 1st.
The Letter video clip get released and the Tour starts in Kaikoura on January 15th
The rest of the Tour dates will be announced soon. we have 40 booked so far so put the knives on we'll be coming to your parts soon. (tour 15th Jan - 25th March).
Contrary to some belief Brown wont be supporting, we have instead a young man hailing from the streets of Cromwell, the lean mean Jamie Green machine. with beats so fat they will break your arsehol. bring duct tape and lots of it.
I already regret saying that about Winston Peters, wait is that you Gin?
I made too many bullet points and didnt wanna end with Winston Peters
So i made another one

Daniel Blackball Alexander - best blog ever? 8 hours ago
haha sorry bol!

Merry Christmas, eat heaps and no one be a dick

Ben

an update

2011-11-23T13:10:00.001+13:00

not much to say yet. we're going to record the album on Monday - Thursday next week in a warehouse type space on George st. middle of town Dunedin. should be pretty cool. pics to come of that whole thing.. we have the pleasure of Weeji producing/recording us. should be a cool 10+ track Album. no name for it just yet but it's gotta be released by 15th January.
on top of that we have a big fuck off tour to announce. bigger then the Alizarin/Rackets tour lock up your mothers
vote for us here please,for a chance to play the BDO. theres only 7 other bands doing the mish so easy as

the fuck?

1:30 is sweet

cracks me up how Rogan talks sometimes. deep shit

cant make a decent blog today, just a bit too hungover. our Spanish friend left today so we drunk heaps last night to make the sadness of that a bit easier. i made a cocktail out of left over drinks, bottle caps an doobie ash.. live an learn. pretty sure i french kissed a dog the last weekend too. hope those photos never surface
the fuck am i telling you this for
a hit with the ladies,
ben

funny how you cant un-see something huh

2011-10-30T20:17:00.004+13:00

arghh my fucking brain. how i didnt break something fall off that scooter last night i dont know.. we played Mokonui's label release last night at 12 below. when i say 'we' i mean Bugs, Paul and myself in The Something Quartet, bugs' side project. it was fat, we usually have Samdrugs on drums but he's in Australia watching his grandfather turn 90. NINETY. so i did drums. fuck my literacy's on the fritz today. way to structure a sentence togeather.. jesus
obviously all due to the lack of fuck i gave in English in school..bad dog. i cant even blame that on the booze..sucks, no excuse just straight up retard but anyway..we move on
im not gonna say i stole a scooter from a friends place last night cos i didnt, he watched me take it, i might have even asked if i could take it.i drove the wheels off that beast all the way through the botanical gardens at 6 am. played a haphazard game of soccer/force back/general guy time outside the New World on North Rd intersection for a good 40 mins an then attempted scooting back to bugs'. i totally made it man, only bailed once. bugs didnt see it happen but he certainly wouldve heard my mangled torso hit the ground making a symphony of laughter and moaning noises haha..it was all quite beautiful if you put it like that. it was starting to rain an i was starting to sober up and i could see bugs and jess in the distance so i tried catching up..it couldve happened to anybody so easy off the blame game thereguyscheersguys.
overly chuffed to not have landed on my wrist. that wouldve been embarrasing. didnt land on the money maker either..so you can just relax ladies, i got this..
not sure what..that meant either
Here's us in Queenstown last weekend at our friends house pardee having some sort of drunk blues/rock out moment.

thought it'd be good for a laugh, showing you lot anyway.. way to hit the drums asshole. fat groove at 1:43 though

us in the latest New Zealand Musicians Magazine

its not blurry you just need glasses. you should pick up the magazine in the Rockshop next time your on your way to OPSM

here's us and bum buddies Brown on BFM whilst on the last tour. feat acoustic version of Grey Skies and an interview about touring. Brown also preform an acoustic Bacterium. hilarity ensues.

here's Mad as a March Hare which goes into Omarama live at Art + Music + Party. quite fat

heres a close up picture of one of my nuts

you lose

Heres the Oh, Color E.P. for free

wont be up for much longer so go geddit.

just quickly wanna show a bunch of cool pictures that people have been making for brown lately, ive been meaning to share them for a while if you havnt seen them already..
if you're not up with the play, brown are another Dunedin band that Paul and I are involved with

im still not even sure wtf that is. Louis Smith created it. wtf

good shit skinny,shipsy and louis for making these.

thanks for reading this thing guys i really appreciate hearing that you read it too..although now when you say you read the blog il know that you've seen my nuts and we can be better buddies for it. so that's cool and a bit disturbing,

ben

this is a one way street so don't send me pictures of your nuts. if you do send them to paulcathro@gmail.com

SHIPSY CAME INTO THE HARBOUR CARRYING A SHITLOAD OF..

2011-10-26T12:08:00.001+13:00

eels up inside yaaa
we went to Queenstown the other day with a few friends for a friends birthday party celebration.. just as a 3 piece though as logan was away doing a covers gig somewhere. it was sweet, we've got another two new songs which are short and sharp,about girls and poppy. but cool. i was thinking the other day how many songs guys write about girls. and then you have Adele.. pretty much.. thats how it works aye. if guys actually even talked about girls between guys as much as they write songs about them then im sure the world would be a ..better.. place? the fuck? im not even sure myself, i dont care enough to go back an actually mean what i say 1/2 the time.. i just woke up an this has gotta be done in the next 1/2 hour so i thought ruin as many peoples mornings as i can.
our buddies are doing a 6 video clip release, they release another one every 2 weeks an theres a new one up featuring That Guy.. so have a look at that. why wont you let me embed it?

Jimmy Carr taking down a few hecklers

TONO

it was also our beloved Shipsy's birthday on Sunday so we did what we did in Queenstown again in Dunedin. it was heeps of fun. while in Queenstown though (an this is fuckn dumb) paul an i had a charlie and punch to the arm off which was the stupidest idea he's had all year.. an shit shame on my drunken ass too for agreeing to do it with him. we went an pretty much just hurt ourselves for laughs.. i still cant walk properly and ive gone and bruised a knuckle and tweaked my wrist which has become a huge pain in the ass. just dont do it kids.

.. not much else happened, got kinda chased home by some crazy lady screaming at me and my friends cos i was being too loud skating down a hill after shipsys party, she kept calling me Stephen King an that she knew who i was..'f this an 'f that.. im pretty sure she was the one making all the noise that night but that was fine. seem's i end up writing something about the North East Valley everytime i do one of these. she followed us for a whole block yelling an screaming at us haha the fuck aye.

im gonna shoot off to bugs' now, something quartet practice an im the only drummer left. good thing i dont have a bung wrist aye. shit.
Alizarin are in the n.z musicians' magazine, ironically about $ but in a touring sense.
dont fuckng look at me like that, i wasn't at the interview. i'll suss a way for people to be able to see it next time.
gotta fly it's 12 already..

Happy Birthday Shipsy. you're such a hero

if Tim or Emily are reading this i may have taken a cup and mug from your place on Sunday night, im truly sorry but i'd just filled our drinks an the taxi man came so i had to. i'l get you new ones. please dont hate me

Ben

"alizarin only do what we do for the money"

2011-10-19T19:00:00.001+13:00

nothings been hapening with alizarin lately so nothings been worth writing about. this was my week..kinda

last Wednesday night logan an i had an argument with some kid after he told us that ''Alizarin only do what we do for the money'' i cant tell you how awkward it was tryin to subtly take off our bling without the kid noticing. somebody tell him that you dont get much money being in a band, yet alone ''doing it for the money''? something he would know if he got off his arse an made a band.
He mentioned his friends do it for the love. which is cool, good shit bro. but you cant pay for a tour with love. or you could, but fuck you'd be a shell of a man after even going through the West Coast. god knows how many checkups you'd need to pay for (which you cant, band expenses brah), the crippling and probably lasting self esteem issues, it would've fallen off by the time you hit the North Island an shit guy, i guess now there's only one option left an i bet by this point you're really regretting doing it for the love. thats just getting to Auckland. how the hell are you gonna get back? you'd be second pick to a fuckin rag doll. we all do it for the love bro. we just make sure we can afford the checkup$
think later that night i went back to jamie greens flat an some dude there blasted through a door an started spraying himself with a spray can, woke up in his lounge to these people watching old school horror films on youtube.. it was a fucked night to say the least.. i left my phone at home that night so walked down the road to my friend mishca's house to see if he had a landline, he didnt..so i walked with him from the oval to town then to my friends house, picked up my mums bicycle and cycled to bugs' flat all the way at the bottom end of North Dunedin. can you get done for drunk driving a bicycle? got to bugs' an wrangled a way home. that was a tough day.
we showed up to bugs' house again on Sunday morning after all night treats an asked them if they were having a BBQ, they weren't. so we had a bbq at bugs which was just like a summertime coca cola commercial. was great.

Everyone's favourite Spaniard, Silvi took this photo

i hadnt taken that bear suit off since earlier on Saturday night where we had a big party at Pauls..
i dont really remember much of that whole episode but we played cricket later on in the day an the something quartet had a meeting in a tree outside the front of bugs' flat.
might go out to refuel tonight, wanna catch the Doyleys and see what Heka's about.

ben

fiddy n chiddy

2011-10-11T11:20:00.002+13:00

whats good, just woke up on bug's couch..shits so lush, pillows for Africa. if they wanted them, guess they might have other things on their minds
cant eat pillows
went to the refuel Open Mic Night last night which bugs' girlfriend Jears runs. it was sweet, saw a few cats get up an do their thing. our friends sister Suzy's band was hosting the night with her band. shes easy on the eyeswhat? everyone's thinking it im just saying it. sorry chizzy
all of us seemed to filter down to refuel last night anyway, uncle lehgun grommed in for a jug, the athlete formally known as bugs showed up after soccer with a few grazes to show the guys. self harm's cool as. Paul showed up with Louis an they did a few new songs they've been working on an because i missed out on partying Saturday i was down for a few ciders
everyone's coming around in an hour or so to fuck round for a bit longer/go over some demos. i came back to bugs' last night an listened to a few of them, i dunno if it was bugs' homebrew i was having but Baked Couch Banter is sounding pretty sweet so hopefully i can show you want i mean.

im gonna make a coffee an probably get some fish'n'chips from down the road. 80 cent mussels are all good. only two though lets not take the piss guy. they come in the size of a babys fist

a bitta tame impala for the guys

weighing up the idea of having lettuce wraps or pork ribs for dinner. cant lose.
ben

recording demos

2011-10-06T18:20:00.001+13:00

my mouth tastes like a dead hooker
we partied in about 5 different places last night, i ended up convincing pc that it was a good idea to go back to my house an sink some more piss because the folks have gone to Australia for a week or something, so we did that, bottle of wine, cider and a bit of tequila later we're at the dining table playing poker with my older brother. how'd that happen? im fucking terrible at poker. i was way way too baked to be playing mind games or pretending to look like i knew what i was doing
ended up loosing all ma shit, paul threw it in a went to bed ..this is like 6 in the morning. the birds dont give a fuck at that time of the morning
woke up before which was alright with the classic dry eyeballs.that cant be good my mouth tastes bloody awful at the moment..might have to smack a bottle of listerine

haha jesus.

we recorded 12 demo's yesterday at bugs' flat, it's all working out sweet.. these are for the album we're about to make..shits gotta be done quick cos we're hoping to release it before we leave on the next tour..jan 15.. it's already crunch time.. still waiting back on the people we want to record us but we've gotta plan b
so criptic aye, id spill the beans but i dont wanna look like a dick in case it doesnt work out.. its all gonna be explained anyway by the end of it isnt it.

hope to post up a demo maybe, see how the guys feel about it. ya can already tell that some songs just work when they're recorded. pc might have to re do the vox on a bunch of them, brohammer was about a brewery down before he even started dubbing the first track haha.. he does his best work when he's had a few boxes though so all good. we're a nice bit ahead of the game at the moment.. its just a matter of how long for.

here's a donkey singing Bocelli when Biff Merchants were in Queenstown once.. so glad we caught it on camera. fuckin amazing

aight im hungy as im gonna go see what i can burn in the oven,
ben

6000+ views good shit!

recap on end of tour. and friday night

2011-10-04T17:42:00.000+13:00

sorry dudes i know it looks like i slipped into a coma since Wellington but i didnt have time to do another one since, and im lying i did but just couldnt be bothered trying to remember how things happened.
im kinda sorry. I'm super excited to see how this'll turn out. it's gonna be like the highlights reel of the last week of a month long binge.
its what i used to do for High School home work, leave it for ages and just dont think about it until it disappears.an all i got were awkward meetings with the teachers
its gonna be a bit like this but with a lot less Sasha Mitchell. that girls such a bitch

So we're back in wellington.. i wrote that last one still a bit drunk from the night before on couch of my friends house..sweet recap..cool i'll just do gig by gig cos im sure something interesting happened every night. im doing this while eating a bag of jerky..manly
mankey chops - Wellington

the show was great, we drove there with 12 or 13 people cramped into the tranny, everyone hoped out an then a police van parked behind us. it was dicey as, they cant have seen us all get out otherwise they wouldve/shouldve done us for being fuckin mint

we hooked up with The Blue Onesies who are full of ex-dunedinites and the slur tones and played this art gallery on Cuba St. we made it a donation entry for people an they could also bring in their own booze. one of the highlights from the tour i reckon, soo many Dunedin people there too. the gig kinda turned into a place for ex-dunedinites to catch up.
we ended up back at our friend Meol Churchill's flat drinking bourbon an being silly. walked home in the sunlight that morning.. id love to tell ya something funny about it.. i just dont remember.

did i just get raped?

we left Wellington a few days later, caught the ferry at 7 on a Tuesday morning.
we wanna thank Biddi, Alana and Courtney for having us smelly dudes at their place for 5 days, sorry about the socks an general Oder guysh.

thanks guys

we gotta get one of these

The Tap - Mapua
the Tap was all good, Andy gave us a huge munchie and a bunch of beer. the gig was a bit quiet.. more people then Palmerston North thats fe sure but still quiet. cant be packin out Wemberly every night though i suppose. turns out The Tap is Haunted, we either joined Lahgun or busted him trying to talk to ghosts in the kitchen at the end of the night.
Andy hooked us up with acom at this nudist beach's camping ground where we stumbled back after the gig, we got back and fell asleep after playing board games. yeah for reals, its not all cocaine and strippers for the guys sometimes the guys just wanna go back an have a game of chess or checkers over candle light and softly spoken casual conversation

nudist camping ground. mean

Baby G's - Nelson
what a cool place man, we're definitely going back there next tour. again, if it was on weekend then it wouldve drawn a lot more people in but jess behind the bar made us feel super welcome an gave us plenty of beer all night. we all got pretty outve it that night an walked back to bugs' brothers place where we stayed.

impromptu Pantera rehearsal outside the Health Center

Dolce Bar - The Blenheim
i got the feeling that everyone in Blenheim hated being in Blenheim, fair enough it was like a Methven had an affair (on Nelson) with Palmerson North.
the gig was quiet, but we played to a we bit of a crowd. the newspaper screwed up the dates (classically) an i think that'll generally screw the buzz of a gig night in Blenheim. The Dolce Bar is an awesome place, they gave us great munchies, they had the sexiest waitresses we'd seen all tour (what? you spend a month on the road..) an they treated us real good. we didnt have any acom sorted that night but skinny's friends came through an said we could all stay at their house. unbelievable, we were all gutted about the prospect of sleeping in the van that night but nah it was all worked out sweet. we went back to their place and smacked red wine and makers mark till 5 or 6 in the morning. i think i woke up in a sewing room haha..
real keen to go back there.

Strawberry Tree Kaikora
we showed up to the Strawberry Tree and we got this horrible vibe that the owner changed his mind about having the gig that night due to some car club or something coming thru the town that night.. i dunno what it was, it set the vibe quite sour amongst the guys an the night but logan sorted it out with the venue guy (once again) an it all worked out sweet. we set up our stuff an the venue owner set us up with some acom at a backpackers down the road..a flash backpapers i should say. we all had showers an ended up watching the All Blacks vs France or Italy? game an then headed down to play the show.
some guys started the night off an was doing some terrible covers on acoustics.. eagle eye cheery haha.. so we all drunk guiness outside.
both bands had a good reception, German people are the most enthusiastic cats to play music too, we sold a bunch of CD's that night.
after the gig we headed back to the acom where we found logan being attended to by some girl.. logan had a bit of a bloody face. brohammer apparently pressed in the key code to get into the acom an just as he was opening the door to get in three dudes came down the stairs an rolled him on their way out.. it was fucked up man, non provoked. Loges took a few decent hits id say, he had knuckle bumps on his brow, bit of a bloody mouth an nose. it was all a bit shit to see.. we went upstairs an drunk beers with the french girl who nursed him, she was pretty cool. and french.
anyway, the cops caught the scum who hit ya mate around a few days later so that's good. why they'd do that in such a small town confuses me.. how stupid dyu gotta be man

Paul, Shipsy an I smacked back a whole lotta smirnoffs an beers on the way back down to Dunedin that next day, the guy at the bar felt bad for logan an gave us heaps of take away drinks. what a great guy.

wee break for the guys

how to make a gayer photo gayer?

Refuel - Dunedin
last show of the tour. crazy innit. an it was, a good crowd came out an it was all going well until the last band came on.. i cant be fucked writing about it so im just gonna copy an past what Louis Smith wrote about it. it's brutal, honest and funny at the same time.

the shittest 'musical' experience I have ever had the misfortune to be in a room with "AUTHENTIC CHIC"

by Louis Smith on Saturday, October 1, 2011 at 6:25pm

Okay, so last night Alizarin Lizard and Brown played out the final show of their latest tour at Refuel, so far so delicious, smoke machine pumping, strings and skins vibrating and knickers twitching all round.. but then things got putrid.. the last act on the bill (i use the word 'ACT' in a richard prebble sort of sense here) was 'Authentic Chic' -one of the many "noise rock" ventures of those loveable grease-spots commonly referred to by local musicians as 'the valley cunts' .. a community whose efforts usually straddle the line between abysmal and interesting.. but not this time, oh no, this time that line was left far far behind..
Authentic Chic was the worst, the WORST most pathetic, drivelling, talentless, arse-scraping, eye-gouging, chemist-raping, soul-sucking, fist-chewing, soap-dropping, lung puncturing, fuck-knuckling retarded pool of shit band i have ever heard in my life..
and i'm not talking 'so bad it's interesting and kitsch' style, this isn't some post-port chalmers boundary-redefining, ahead-of-its-time, hate today love tomorrow music no, they were rubbish. fucking awful, like, if there is a speck of anything worthy in any of these people's brains then they should be fucking ashamed of that trash, it's not worth it, it was pointless, it was tuneless, they just SUCKED something rotten, to call the sounds they made 'noise' is an insult to the tortured squeals of brain-damaged voles in a blender..
based on the music alone i pick Authentic Chic as the number one band to never ever ever ever ever see at any point in time even if you have to cut off parts of your face to prevent it..

..but it's not just the music, no, worse even than that.. in order to create the INCREDIBLY UNNECESSARY WORTHLESS TURGID MASTURBATORY BILGE that they were playing this scrotal lump of musicians was bashing microphones on cymbals.. not their microphones... refuel's microphones, and fucking on the foldback speakers.. not THEIR foldback speakers.. that is unacceptable behaviour, i know that part of their anal fashion shtick is to be 'apart from the scene' .. to bombastically pose their disrespect for people, bands, venues and institutions in the desperate hope that 'anti' can in some way be construed as something worthy in and of itself..
but gear means shit to people, like, in order for we musicians and concert attendees to have the good times we have we need there to be venues with microphones and monitors, people have poured their money and lives into getting together the musical equipment that ear-molesters like this have the gall to smash..this pathetic self-obsessed disrespectful display was downright disgusting, who the fuck do they think they are?
as well as talentlessly beating the shit out of the venue's gear these chunder-lickers broke two drum stands owned by Ben (drummer of Alizarin Lizard and Brown) Sargeant's father.. drum-stands from the seventies.. stuff that's been played on for years, stuff that fucking means shit to people, again.. if it's not your gear you can't smash it up, it's just indecent, makes you sick to your stomach..
so anyway.. if you're in a band, run a venue, go to gigs, buy music or any and all of the above.. you may want to steer fucking clear of Authentic Chic.. they were so bloody awful and depressing that i can't even summon the willpower to make that pun where instead of saying 'Chic' you say 'Shit'..not fucking impressed.

=========================================================================

yeah, how about that shit aye. they broke the old mans stands he was using when he was my age which also happened to be my favorite ones. good job guys you really screwed that up.
it was just a bit shit to have them on after wards an them driving people who we wanted to catch up with after the tour..away.
an sure we 'booked them' to play, we actually had Axe Handal on the bill which is usually a drummer and a saxophonist making some semi interesting noise, not all their clown mates on stage making some amateur racket just so they could get a free beer off the rider. grinds my shit even thinking about it.
the drummer's said he'll pay for the damages which i appreciate.
so yea, sorry about that to the people who came out to the gig on Friday night, that wasn't the plan.

but to end on a high note

We're already a few shows booked in for another National tour that will start January 15th 2012 and go through to mid March to promote the new album.
we start recording demo's tomorrow morning at 10am
im cycling to bugs' in the morning for a change.. a complete change, i cant roll a durry without getting a sweat on, Stuart St better come with an ambulance on standby

im glad this blog is over, an we're up to date.
it's nice to be back. i wanna be mature about those clowns on Friday night but im still seething about it.

Ben

Maria Maria

2011-09-16T09:00:00.003+12:00

haha dont even bother going to alizarin.blogspot.com, i didnt just drunkenly go there by accident ive just heard its real shit
actually try it, its worth a laugh.
shit aye
makes me feel way better about this one to be honest. so i left you in raglan last time.. we played Ohekune after that an it was pretty crazy, got an awesome munchie at some restaurant which i assume the bar people own? i gotta starters of ribs an the rest doesnt really matter. ribs were better then Wanaka's but didnt even touch the ones in Fox'
slighty more smokey but real little.. im surprised ive gotten this far with talking about the ribs ive eaten on this tour. no one wants to hear how i rate the ribs
you're still reading it though i hope
muean. suckor
we went back to the bar an was basically told that it was an open bar for us, we wouldve been more keen had we not partied they way we did in Raglan but still managed to take (what we assume) a .7 of a grands worth of courage off the bar. all good, at one stage logan rocked up to the table (before we played) with a bottle of champagne haha
we smacked back all sorts of drinks, pretty sure skinny an i tried mojito's that night as well. i dunno i could go on but its much of the same.. we drunk like kings that night
we somehow woke up an got outta the acom well enough, they set us up in two 3 person cabins. one cabin was better then the other with a bigger telly, an extra heater, probably better coloured sheets an an extra towel. who knows really, none of it mattered to any of us. it was just good to not be treading on anyones toes for the first time in 2 / almost 3 weeks. i tried sleeping through an episode of Dr. Phil one morning an it was the toughest thing ive ever had to do. i hate that bald opinionated fuck

so we got outta Ohekune an down to Palmerston North where we played the grimmist show of the tour haha..
4 people thru the door
no shit, ive never played such a quiet gig in my life. the thought of packing everything down an mincing it to Wellington ran through my head but we already had 2 people pay thru the door at that time so we had to play the show regardless..
it wouldve been shit to not play the show anyway, imagine that.. it's like accepting defeat
we rocked the fuck out to 4 people an packed down. not really knowing where we were gonna sleep the bar owner threw us a deal :
"every Karaoke song we sing we'll get a key for a room upstairs"
no shit, theres still a first for everything
uhmm.. yeah, imagine that for a second..
so ofcourse we had to
shipsy an i went an played pool while the rest of the guys got up an smacked out some classics
got to bed, woke up at 10am (the agreed time by the bar owner guy to get the gear out) there mustve been some confusion or something cos the bar guy was no where to be seen.. but by 11am or so we managed to get into the venue to pack out the gear.. something happened there but i cant be bothered explaining it..shipsy may or may not have scaled a barb wired fence at some point.

packed out asap an darted to Wellington where we hungout for a bit an set up at Mighty Mighty where we played last night

it was a sweet gig, not many people came out last night, the whole thing was quite odd.. i get the notion that everyone who would usually come out an party is hangin out in doors due to the rugby world cup at the moment.. the barmen thinks the same, no one can be fucked with rugby heads getting drunk an potentially starting fights
classic stuff
i heard there were two stabbings in wellington last night. good shit aye.
but the gig was fine, we cut the door an let everyone in so people could have a good time. by Alizarins' set people we bopping away an thats always good
wasnt a bad Wellington gig by any measure

an now im here, hangin out on a friends couch trying to gather my thoughts after last night where we hung out on a grassy patch in the CBD an smacked back 3/4ths a bottle of galliano before i even played haha.. the night ended in me practising my Pantera covers in some carpark on the walk home..good times
got no photos' sorry i dont even know where shipsy an the rest of the guys are

we're hangin out in wellington till tuesday i hear - a huge break before we tackle the south island again which will be no worries. all guarantee shows except Nelson so yeah.. hu$$tlin

get to catch up with left or right tonight as well.. muean

still drunk.cant believe its 9 am an im awake. this better not be a dream cos i cant be bothered re writing this,
ben

just a little ketchup

2011-09-13T15:27:00.001+12:00

hey, made it outta auckland alive an all good. had a great time in Raglan. thanks very very much to Pete Coddington and friends for showing us such a great time an also Oleh for coming from Hamilton to catch up with us.
a very tired drive to Ohekune yesturday afternoon, bugs an skinny shared driving duties while the rest of us caught a wee bit of sleep in the van.
we're in Ohekune at the moment, at a motel. we each sleept 12+ hours last night
ive gotta sore back from it all..gonna go set up soon down at the ski lodge should probably get off this thing..
heres a great review from the Space Monster gig/night in Wanganui
i was gonna throw up some photos from the auckland gig but this motel computer wont let me.

i'll write a big catch up from wellington in a few days
"my poor god damn spine",
ben

bad fire alarm etiquette

2011-09-11T13:42:00.001+12:00

so last nights gig was pretty quiet, im not surprised to be honest.. we were all pretty tired along with a good 70% of Auckland after friday night anyway. but it was real sweet to catch up with RACKETS again.
shit's raining like a mouwfucha outside at the moment, thunder storms an stuff.. skin, bugs an i are hanging out at Chris Bulls at the moment watching Louis, an american stand up comedian turned comedy tv show.. quite good.
got woken up this morning by Chris an skinny rockin into the lounge yelling FIRE haha.. all good, didnt help i was dreaming about volcano's and lava at the same time. kinda worrying that i didnt do anything about it.. i kinda just lay there. same sorta goes for that fire alarm at our gig in Wanganui, we finished the set first and then got out..i have bad fire alarm etiquette
we're gonna go pack outta Kuhja Lounge mid afternoon today an head to raglan to play a show at the Yot Club. probably will be a quiet show, its a sunday but we get to catch up with our friend Oleh which im looking forward to. hopefully it doesnt rain like it is now
the next day we have accom at a ski lodge for a few days.

we're past 1/2 way on this tour, it's going by too fast
looking forward to the Wellington gigs on Thursday and Saturday, Mountaineater and Left or Right are playing on Friday in Wellington too. it'll be good to catch up with them

super hungry,
ben

shake it like a tambourine

2011-09-10T14:08:00.000+12:00

hey shit its been a while..
after picton we found the guys an hopped on the ferry to Wellington.. shit this was so long ago..its so hard to remember.. Brown played a cheeky 45 min set, during which some kiwi rail dude bought us a round of beers. i think shipsy caught it on video too ha.. got to Wellington all good, hang out at Biddi and Alana's flat for the night. skinny made everyone a batch of mac an cheese an we all caught up over a cask of red and a bottle of white.
this little kitten that they had at the flat kept waking me up in the night, i love animals, i really do but im pretty sure it copped a leg to the head midway thru the night. definitly a jandle too.. it was pouncing while i was asleep and scaring the shit outta me. natural reaction or self defence, call it what you will..but i made him stop
dont hate the player, who wants to play in the dark at 4 in the morning.. such a nugget. still holding a grudge obviously
we drove to Wanganui the next day, easy drive.. 2 an a 1/2 hour drive or so.. played a place called Space Monster
holy shit, if you're touring go play there. get in touch with them, the dudes name is Jack, he's a hero. the venue is basically just a long room with a bunch of gear in it. no bar aswell so it's pretty much BYO (not that its advertised that way) it was just a rad place to play. we had around 20 people show up which was cool. tuesday night in Wanganui, it was great. paul and i found ourselfs getting ushered into the girls toilets .. as per
aHAA
shit the fire engines came that night too, we were playing Letter and we noticed in the breaks that there was a fire alarm going off telling everyone to evacuate the building.. we finished the song and everyone got out. it was all good, set off by the smoke machine i think.. but from the apartment above us or some shit.. i dunno.. i think it was all good

pretty funny seeing these girls hop into the fire engine while the guys were upstairs trying to save lives. they loved it anyway. wanganui's cool

8 hour drive to Auckland the next day was pretty crazy. all good, we arrived an went straight to bFM and did an interview / live to air which was real cool. met some great people while we were there. think brown sold like 3 or 4 cds while we were there too. awesome
we got in touch with Oscar from RACKETS and headed over to his place where for some reason they were having a party.. so we got there an pc an i joined in on the fun.. click this it's funny
had all night treats till 6 or 7 in the morning where we eventually went to sleep. i woke up on the floor surrounded by durry butts and bugs' legs
we got up an because the rugby's on they shut down some roads in Aucklands CBD so we had to go an drop off the gear at Cassette a day earlier just to make it easier on ourselfs..
did that, sussed the mish, met up with Chris Bull an headed back to his which is where bug's an i have crashed for the past couple 'a nights
this is all so long ago, the stories are shit because they get worse over time..attention to detail goes out the window when you simply stop giving a fuck. i spent $45 at the bar last night buying pc an i shots and while that seems like no money that's almost 4 days worth of food while you're on the road.
Played Cassette last night and it was mental. absolutely mental. because of the world cup the auckland city is just packed of people, ive never seen anything like it. the gig was crazy the place was full.. i went outside for a durry after browns set and there were people lining up down the street just to get in. i cant even begin to talk about it..but the gig went well, i met some cool people, smacked back the piss an got back to chris' by 6am or so it's all so blurry. i actually got nervous for the first time in 3 years. didnt help with all the beautiful big city girls in the front row. it was just mental
we played with our buddies Beach Pigs last night too - their new video

we're playing Khuja Lounge tonight with Rackets which'l be hilarous. cant wait to see them play again. i saw oscar play knife tricks over jeremys ballsack the other night haha
tonights gonna get loose i can just see it happening
raglan tomorrow,some ski lodge the next day, maybe wellington the next day, a day off on the friday? i could be making this shit up i dunno..

check out alanis' left arm, bitch be crazy

i havnt actually watched that so it might be real shit an probably a waste of your time. it's sunny outside, chizzy bull an i are gonna go get some kfc to make ourselfs feel better. good shit, i like Auckland - you're sunny and full of good people

still kinda real drunk from last night sorry if the spellings a bit ripe.
ben

in picton

2011-09-04T23:54:00.000+12:00

in picton at a backpackers. just pc, skinny and me. this place is fucking weird
the computer doesnt work fast enough for the internet here..wtf
we left christchurch at 6 an got here at 11. long drive
browns playing on the interislander tomorrow afternoon if anyone's on the same boat trip.. the other guys are sleeping in the van around the corner
gc's
25$ to rest your head here
damn

ben

musings of a baeny

2011-09-04T15:29:00.001+12:00

here we are last night, we had to take a photo for The New Zealand Herald annnnnd this is how it came out.. logans actually asleep..
so spending a day in Methven was buzzy we arrived and while packing in some aussie munter hopped in the van an started driving it away, he mentioned something about it being a prank that i managed to catch him in the middle of.. i dunno it was strange as. the gig was all good we played to a nice amount of people who all seemed to genuinely enjoy the music. after a cheeky lock in and challenging the locals at pool we headed upstairs to our rooms with a crate and some ex SAS guy who taught me how to break legs an shit. for reals, i think i remember how to break legs. taught me how to get out of a sticky sitch if i was being attacked with a knife too.. shit it was a buzzy night.. so far ive shot guns, ate ribs and learnt how to break legs this tour. The Blue Pub is a cool place though, woke up and had a coffee and durry on the balcony outside our room where we stayed in sunlight and the company of old people below us talking about undies. shit you're strange Methven.
after packing out in the afternoon we met a guy called Terry who comes from San Fransisco, dude was larger then life an after listening to him tell stories we ended up getting massages from him outside a small local Methven coffee shop
it was all good, i dunno if we got hustled or not. we gave him a few bucks an now my back an arms are all loose and shit. dude made my spine crack. captain posture over here.
played The Brewery in Christchurch last night, another cool place to place. set up at 10pm and was playing by 11. check out PSYCH TIGERS they opened for us last night and were really cool.

we went back to Alex's (a dear friend who's putting us up while we're here) and carried on drinking till the late hours.. Jagermiesters, Foosball and taking photos for a news paper. i knocked over my glass of water mid sleep last night. that seems to happen more then it should. tonight's Lyttleton gig has been cancelled, the Wunderbar isnt in good shape so we're heading to Blenheim for the night instead.. we'll catch the ferry tomorrow and be gromming around Wellington for day or so

playing a Farfisa in Parrots kitchen in Greymouth

Brown in Methven

cook saddle - Fox (check out that tag on our van some grom did it when we were in wanaka. haha nuggety aye.)

Psych Tigers

this is taking too long to do.. we're cooking up breakfast at the moment and im having a cheeky wine.
it's sunny in Christchurch.
see you soon north island eh,

ben

jakeh

2011-09-02T14:18:00.000+12:00

in Greymouth at the moment it's all good. sunny. played Franks last night to a bunch of roudy Polytech students. Paul got hit in the mouth with the mic maybe 5 times? but carried on cos he's a hero and cos there was a wee thing in the audience too i think. shit cant be good on the kisser for the guy though aye..
we played Franz the night before and left after the gig, pretty nuggety but had to be done..didnt even feel like a real gig. we met some lovely American girls again though..seems to be a reoccuring trend with us and touring the country. they didnt join us this time though... probably were keen though
so in Franz we rocked in super seedy from the night before in Fox, set up, ate pizza, played pool, drunk beer, played gig, packed down and drove to Graemeth where we stayed at Parrots place
she's awesome man, has a million stories to tell she even made us pancakes this morning. she knows all sorts of people in New Zealand. she mad us up beds and we slept in her garage ha..
i bought new shoes too, such a high roller. $12 at the wherehouse. my old ones were wet and had holes in them. they also really fucking reaked haha.. these ones arnt as wet anyway
palying Methven tonight. should be fun, i hope to have a tele in my room. i hear we have our own rooms tonight

might not get boozy, might get real boozy

just a quick run down, got a minute on this thing left
cheers ears,
ben

im hangin out in Fuhx

2011-08-31T13:32:00.000+12:00

last night got loose an it was great, after writing that last blog we headed to the venue (cook saddle) an were given a cider and cointreu? contrau? confucknmueanbuzzan cider drink each, thats where the night started..pretty sure thats how it ended aswell.. open bar except for spirits..shit i love these small towns..brown went down a treat with the ladies, not so much with the guys.. i think they thought brown were a metal band or something haha.. gutted aye
nevermind, it was sweet.. the girls dug it. Alizarin played for about an hour an a 1/2? people seemed to like it, we got back up afterwards an played a few more less practiced songs for the guys - even a cheeky wee jam with one of the locals on vocals for a wee laugh. it was fat
afterwards we went back an drunk more at the people we were staying with which turned into a party - Fox is so small, everyone's each others neighbours so eventually a whole lot more people showed up an we started playing with fire poi's an shit, pretty fun. think i ruined my jersey though
laghun had a sweet black mark on his face so im sure meol must have copped one to the face haha..

now though im still drunk as, i went to bed before anyone else like a hero.. paul an i left the party with some person called Lyn to go raid her garage of booze. ended up with 3 bottles of red..so while trying to drink a bottle of red i had to go to bed.. think i had a yack all over someones fence last night too ha..
funny how you cant forget what you've already read.. that ones on the house
so i woke up before an headed back down to the venue, ordered some more ribbs and started packing down the drum gear.. ate the ribbs, gave up on packing the gear an now im here on the internet weighing up the option of if it's worth getting caught falling asleep in this wee internet cafe thing.
heading to Franz tonight, the less favourite of the glaciers.. not sure if we have accom - probably dont, i can imagine someone having to stay sober and doing the drive from franz - greymouth.. shouldnt be too much of a mish.. cant imagine anyone would wanna drink for a few gigs after last night..
forgot to add to yesturdays blog that Shipsy supermaned into a garage door in Wanaka, if you see a picture of the guy an he has a coupl'a marks on his head then thats why. im not gonna say it was funny, but it was pretty funny.. he was chasing a rogue bouncy ball and tripped on a ledge of some drive way thing an flew headfirst one of those metal garage doors haha..poor dude, he's all good though. he got up like an was all stunned an shit but carried on like a trooper haha wish it was caught on camera it wouldve been a youtube senstation

aguhhh falling to bits.. those ribs really did a number on me..hangovers starting to kick in too, i need water. call the cops.
ben

whats happened between INVERCARGILL - FOX

2011-08-30T21:20:00.000+12:00

hey howsit all going, this is kinda weird.. we're in Fox atm in a room full of asian tourist's playing piano.. it's all a bit buzzy.. which fits quite well with this tour so far..
a verrry general round up of each shows.. internet costs $1 for 10 mins $2 for 20 mins.. sweet deals

Invercargil was awesome, we played in a small cafe/bar called Louis Cafe. got around 70 people thru the door which was a great start for the tour. walked away with a lot more earnings then we anticipated. everything was sweet, they dont usually have gigs there so it was 'quite an event' for Invercargill someone was telling me..specially on a thursday.both bands sold plenty of CD's
highly recommend any Dunedin band playing in Invercargill

Queenstown was buzzy, always is. this time it wasnt anyones fault or anything like that.. i think it's just a generally out've it place to play. something's always happened there man..every gig.
this time we had finished setting up and an some Australian guy came up and basically asked me if him and his mates could use our gear to play a few songs for their friends who were on a work conference. i told him no in the politest way possible and he left.
just as we were about to leave to go hang in our accom a much bigger, burlier guy came up to us and said he'd give us $500 if his aussie mate and their band could get up and play a few songs.. after mulling the idea around for a minute we all agreed that that was a much better idea..
the burly dude left an went and sussed out the money an we went back an had showers an shit. we got back an the burly guy came up an said that they couldnt get the 500 but they put the hat around all their mates and came up with $385 cash.. we shook hands on them playing 3 songs an i went an switched the kit around for their drummer.
they got up before brown's set and played 4 covers with slightly altered lyrics to make them more funny i guess..
it wasnt funny, it was terrible.. but for $100 or so a song it was alright.
they got off and thanked us and were all polite an shit an then brown started.

fucking buzzy.. but sweet in a 'here ya go kid, buy yaself something nice' kinda way'

we left Queenstown an headed to Wanaka where after setting up we played cricket for a bit.. plenty of video footage of that, shipsy's been busy documenting these things..we even went and did a radio interview for Wanaka Radio which was pretty fat. couple of acoustic songs were sung etc.. we met up with mates Timmy Cooper and Jamie Green after all of this and tried sqeezing them on the meal rider and some restaurant place.. it didnt fly, they cottoned on an they had to pay for the meals they orderd. poor Jamie orded a $30 meal or something haha..brohammers loaded anyway. didnt even flinch
after that we went back to Opium where we were playing an started drinking. i think we had an open bar till we finished playing which was awesome, we didnt start playing till 11:30 at night due to the rugby..
but it was sweet, brown played to a couple of bunches of people and alizarin much the same..
after the gig we found that someone had tagged the side of Logans tranny with some street grom tag..looks a bit shit but theres not much we can do. i hear you can get it off with toothpaste?
after herding everyone back into the tranny we headed out to Tarras where we stayed for a couple of nights at Timmy Coppers place.after a few durries in his lounge we went up the hill to a sheep sharing shed where we played guitars and drunk beer/ gin swigs out've a flask.. didnt finish up there till about 5:30am? the sky's amazing up there at night time
it was real Southern Man but awesome, theres a couple of video's of it all anyway.
we woke up all a bit fragile and started shooting guns. it was bad ass and awesome, ive never shot a shotgun before this but holy shit it was great.

that night Logan an Jamie went an saw the Black Seeds play in Wanaka an the rest of us hang out at Timmys
the next day we left for fox, not without being pulled up by a police man first trying to get to the bottom of finding out who's been taggin around Wanaka.
we explained to him that the same dude did out van an he was sweet with it.. pretty close, if the guy looked inside our van he wouldve done us for all sorts of things.. so that was pretty lucky

Arrived in Fox last night an we all went to bed. so far today we've just played Xbox and set up at the gig. got an awesome much of Ostrich Kebab's and some awesome fried rice..
i got an extra of pork ribs cos i have an unhealthy obsession.. twice this tour already..shit

uhhmm yeap.. gonna get drunk tonight!
sorry for the lack of updates this is the first real chance we've had to suss out a blog. hopefully find more internet soon
tours going great so far, 6 people is easy. the gear is easy, everything is easy. we're sitting over pretty on the $ front
it's all working.

Alizarin Lizard OH, COLOUR EP is on ITunes now if you're interested!

touch wood,
ben

having a much at Bullock Bar in Wanaka

Deep Creek - just outside Timmy Coopers place in Tarras.

old school WWII German dagger

after the Wanaka gig at Timmys

sheep shearing shed shindig

hangin out at Timmys place. it's in the middle of no where

no lahgun

this one goes out to Shadbolt

2011-08-26T13:43:00.001+12:00

shit yeah creamed it.
we're finally outta Dunedin an things are all ready looking up. played to 70+ people at Louis' Resturant/bar last night in Invercargill.it was pretty full as it's not a big place by any means.so yeah it was sweet, sold plenty of CD's and badges and some dude even bought a piece of brown artwork so yeah good shit.
everyones' up, we're gonna go pack out from Louis an head to Queenstown after that. playing Revolver tonight. free entry so come along, my headcold's disguised by my hangover.. and now we're in bold for some reason
cool good shit, we'll suss a better one of these when we have time, the seat in the vans still fucked.
Thanks for coming out last night Invers, cant wait to play here again
im gonan go eat the shit out'v a kebab.
ben

a decent blog for once

2011-08-23T11:02:00.000+12:00

yeuck.
its 5:40am and ive just been woken up by my very own head cold. you can have it if you want. i dont need it.
who knows where this came from.. it's not ideal. we're leaving Thursday and if there's one thing i know about road trips it's you wanna leave with ya best foot forward otherwise smackin it back will only result in that dreaded deathwheeze you can hear in old peoples homes
shits lame.. sore throat and blocked nose, a tweaked ankle.. rotten guts..
obviously after last nights Curry binge i tripped over my own broth and got stuck, my nose and throat blewout trying to hit DEFCON 5 an now im stuck here again moaning about it like it'll help.. always good when you can rely on an immune system that stands about as much chance as a blind kid on a golf course.
kinda daunting that we're leaving so soon, still a mountain of stuff to suss out.. the vans getting rust cut out of it at the moment haha.. yeah aye, thumbs up for time management. we've still gotta suss seats for the tranny too shit.. think my dads friend has some van seats in an old shed out on a farm somewhere that we can pick up.
speights.
but it'll be fine, it's been done before. packed like sardines we once drove from the Picton ferry to Motueka. and i mean sardines, to get 4 people in the back collectively trying to perfect mind over matter is quite a beautiful thing.add on a hangover from all night treats in Wellington the night before.. Paul did well having my foot replace his kidney for a couple of hours.. ya couldn't spend a month doing that.. not saying Paul couldnt, El Dong's capable of ridiculous feats
ive seen Salami back flip off a swing at the tender age of 16. as un intentional as it probably was (and calling it a flip's mighty generous) ive got nothing but the up most respect for the guy. Im just not sure Paul's body could spend a month having to filter his booze through my foot.
..that's fair ay
so fingers crossed we suss some seats.

We had Wellington band The Nudge at my house last night for dinner, it was pretty cool. we pretty much just ate curry, drunk booze and watched cricket. they're going to be a few days behind us in the towns that we're playing on our tour.. well Invers, Queenstown and Wanaka. highly recommend you check them out in a town near you
dates at the end of the video below.

THE NUDGE , Talk about Pies . . . . . from NEKTAR on Vimeo.
very good

We're playing The Crown on Wednesday night. we realise it's the same night as pint night (and all respect to the bands playing that) but come to The Crown
We're doing a deal, if you go to Deano's exhibition at Modaks (7pm-11pm) and provide your stamps you and your friend will get in for the price of one. everyone's favourite Shipsy, who does the art work for us is also part of that exhibition. and he's mental

WEDNESDAY 24th CROWN HOTEL - ALIZARIN LIZARD. BROWN. IDIOT PRAYER
DOORS 10:00
ENTRY $10
all sorts of merch available. 'Lizarin CD's, Brown CD's, Idiot Prayer vinyl.. shit we've even got badges to sell.
oh! an shit yea they do jugs at the crown. big bots too i think? love that place it's just like playing on the West Coast. Jonesies great value.

Come say hi and bye to the guys we're going on this mish for a month,


ben

cheeseballs and skype

2011-08-21T16:03:00.002+12:00

cool cool cool badges an shiiiiiiiiiiit

when bugs isnt making a million ep's he's making badges..

round of applause for bugsy cmon
shit bugsy.
we went an saw Nudge play last night.. shit it was good, went to a bar an watched the rugby for a bit after that..got sick of that an went to pauls flat. found myself an theo playing red goon survivor till the bright side of the morning and ..shit i dunno where i slept.it doesnt matter. im sure none of you lot will go home an tell ya mates about my night over the dinner table.. id be buzzed out if you did. dont. i only write about it cos it fills in the blanks on these blogs.
it's Louis' birthday today/last night. dude is a hero, hopefully he wins big on the 23 lotto scratchies my mum bought him. and i mean that, probably the best gift idea ever

here's slightly the makin of Oh, Colour

it was summer once

we're also famous

ive spent my day eatting cheeseballs and skyping.and in that order too..
everyday im husel'n,
ben

it could be worse

2011-08-20T11:17:00.001+12:00

My dad woke me up with some hot shit Dubstep this morning. im just imagining him getting down in the study room upstairs. it was fine, im not hungover and it was just after 10 am so that's probably legit. i always thought you had to be smacked out on drugs to get into Dubstep anyway. maybe dad was hittin the clubs all night last night an just got home ha..
meanwhile in America:

0:39-0:42 ..fuck
We had a practice yesturday.. well tried too, after the general 2 hour fuckaround we got an hour in before Logan went an picked up the Tranny. babes went an got a full check up an the mechanics yesturday which is super reassuring to know that everything's in working order. still gotta suss a seat for her actually.. if anyone knows where to pick up a bus seat that'd be great.
this trip away is catching up on everyone super quick, it kicks off on Wednesday at The Crown with Idiot Prayer and Brown, ($10 entry ono) come see us guys away, final kisses goodbye etc
there will be CD's for sale - Alizarin Oh, Colour EP and Browns Album. even fresh new brown EP's will be on sale.
it's starting to hit me that im gonna be away for a month so i should probably go suss out some new socks an undies in the next few days. still cant find my cell phone to computer connection thingy so that makes updating this with pictures on the fly real tough
it looks like Logan Valentine will be joining Brown for a handful of shows,
Dunedin - The Crown - 24th
Invercargill - Louis Bar - 25th
Queenstown -Revolver - 26th
Wanaka - Opium - 27th
so if you're friends with Logan then you know where to find him

uhhhhhhmmm.. a cheeky vid of brown preforming Bacterium last Wednesday. the sounds much better when you're at the gig i assure you

sweet. go check out The Nudge tonight at 12 Below. it's gonna be a great gig. $7 pre sales from R1 or $10 door entry i believe.
they're fantastic

laters,
Ben

dads playing some buzzy version of Golden Brown now.. seems sanity has been restored. now you.. can listen too

10 points to the 2 people who got that reference

we're playing at refuel tonight, videos an shit

2011-08-17T10:10:00.002+12:00

Billy Ray at Catlins Fest 2011. pretty cool. we dont play this song anymore

so y'all keeping warm? i think we're all a bit over the weather by now huh.. bugs' made some sweet snow creatures the other day. i kinda wanna go to a warm country and smoke durries at the moment.

dinosaur throne

he's totally sawing his own head

We're still trying to suss these Oh, Colour CD cases out. they take a great amount of time to make. it took me 8 hours the other night to score this box worth that bugs' gave me. heavy stuff. The Beard's been more hard at it chipping away. he thinks he might have about 80-100 fully finished by now. i spent some time with him yesturday evening folding and cutting some out / keeping up the morale. we need 400 for this tour that we're due to leave on next week. yep. this is normal though, i dont know what band is entirely prepared before they leave on tour
we're having a band practice in a couple of hours anyway, so while we crack on..
a few clips to eat your brunch over

probably NSFW.. or anything really

Sly's so so toasted

Alizarin Lizard are playing Refuel tonight free gig with brown and Axe Handal
$4 beers. everyone knows this already..just dress warm
Doors at 9
if anyone wants to help me pack down my drums after the Alizarin set that'd be rad. fat chance but worth throwing it out there
turns out i can write a blog without swear words and/or embarrassing myself.. well lil jon..
ben

P.S - if you haven't seen it already this is the new Mad as a March Hare video clip

see ya tonight. brown have a sweet new addition to the band

Paul hulkin out

2011-08-14T17:53:00.002+12:00

thanks for coming out last night meol, such a good time at Mishca's exhibition. it had it all.. darts, body slams an late night Mishs' to the 24.. the fucked up thing is that's not the first time, its not the last. lets just accept it an make our parents proud. tried going to countdown but got denied at the door. imagine that shit, i know the guy was just doing his job butt fuck.to be fair it was 9:55 an they close at ten. was funny seeing our mate Paul try an have one over the door guy though. pretty sure i watched ya mate faux headbutt him from a meter back haha

shit would be so much better if i could find my dongel .
yea actually linked something that mattered.. such a hardout. ive taken a few pictures an video's lately an managed to catch meol Craig body slam whilst trying to jump one of Mishca's art pieces haha.. you'll prolly see it one day. played the fuck outta darts last night too. always a great night when you can throw things into things an not expect a phone call from the police the next day
but shit yeah went to a karaoke bar last night, never the first time and always the last but such a hit. we chucked on a Smiths song an rang Tono. brohammer did himself a favour an missed the call, it was a dumb time to call anyone at that point.. but shit we tried singing the shit out've it
i cant believe the patience of the people that run that bar man..imagine seeing real shit singers butchering 'ya favourite songs' night after night after night.. after night after night after night..how does that even work? the poor, poor bastards
oh man after a hat throwing incident and finding myself on the roof of some menswear shop in town we went to the 24 a...gain..? we got nuts deep in pies. im not sure if we actually got pies, i cant really remember.it'd make sense though cos i was dunking a bacon flavoured chip into what i hope was my own pie
it was too good to be true tho meol, dont knock it till you try it. dont look at me like that either, the windl' blow an you'll be fucked
im going straight to hell..
my friend Marcus rocked up in a taxi an i got amongst the mish, there were plenty of fresh faced people in the taxi..basically ended up at his drinking goon talking to some lady about which school her kid should attend.. im not sure if this shits normal anymore, it could be far worse but man, seriously in the space of 2 hours it went from me playing music at an art exhibition to retrieving a real shit sailors hat on some shitty mens store roof to talking about what school this lady's kid should attend. an im all for it don't get me wrong, im a regular jim hicky but fuck where does this start to make sense.. an im not sure if this blogs getting better or worse either i just cooked a Marlows steak an pepper pie. obviously. not. here. to. fuck. spiders.
i woke up in a bed and got stuck on Stuart st, walked home in the snow an now im here..

told my folks it was Saturday before as well, didnt go down all that well. an fair enough too, it's never easy finding out your sons retarded hah,
ben

baz is a handsome man and he doesnt give a fuck

2011-08-12T14:07:00.000+12:00

ohh my fucking brain.
im waiting patiently at bugs' at the moment while he somehow shows outta know where. i hope there's a band practice today otherwise this is what they call breaking and entering
im eating a bacon and egg sammich in bugs' living room atm, its not too bad. it's got some sort of tomato relish with it which is good. cant stand a dry samich though when that happens it can get real mentally draining. becomes more then just a sammich it turns into you trying to convince yourself that eating drywall is possible
brown played a buzzy set at Carousel last night. not sure if we're getting paid for it. it was weird in a "have to play at talking volume" kinda way, great practice if we ever have to play in a church but otherwise fucking buzzy. we played louder then that cos we're rockstars haha..
but it was fine,im slightly worried we drunk our payment.. never a good sign when you get a beer an the guy on the bar says under his breath 'sweet, il just put that on the tab'
really just wanna pretend it never happened and you do and somehow everything's better after that. you dont even hear him after the 3rd one anyway. jokes on me mother fucker
got $80 last night from APRA royalties from another band which was great, i went to mou and partied like i was lil wayne an shit. gotta call from skinny midway getting my face tattooed an ran a 18 pack of dou-bro's from the regent 24 to Pauls flat on Fea St.
now im all for exercise and staying fit. but fuck that ever again. im not even trying to joke about it
i got there an ended up sounding like i was giving birth sitting on their stairs trying to catch my breath trying to tell them that it's all good if they wanted a beer. they disappeared pretty quickly and rightyfully so. i didnt burst 1/2 a lung for beer to sit there an not get drunk.
shit i thought i was Santa Claus last night
i need to lie down. i dont even know where bugs is. too lazy to txt the guy an yet ill write a blog instead. balls up
Oli Bridgman did this today. what a hero!

mint

hopefully people start showing up soon. we're practicing for Mishca's party on Saturday which would be tomorrow i guess. im playing thrice that night. how bout that.

ive met two Malaysian people in the past week. it's been a good week,
ben

went on a Pink Poweranger tangent again

2011-08-09T22:43:00.002+12:00

went to open mic night last night an watched bugs' play with PMK (drummer from the Julian Temple Band) and it was very cool. imagine bugsy' with almost complete freedom with his bass guitar an a whole lotta loop pedals and Dunedins finest drummer jamming out to a few lucky people. very cool
went back to Pauls flat afterwards an caught up over a bunch of left over booze. woke up in a home made fort with red wine lips. classy
spent all afternoon at bugs' today building more Oh,Colour EP's to take on tour. have to have 200 done asap to send to Border so they can put them in their stores.. so it's all pretty frantic. took 3 of us 3 hours to suss 50 out (un glued) an bugsy gave me a whole heap to take home an suss out.i have the luxury of a guillotine here so that's a sort of gauge on how my evenings are gonna be spent for the next couple of nights.

maybe not Thursday night though.. brown are playing at Carousel. so maybe come see that if you're interested..cheeky wee plug never hurt anyone.. other then standing on one bare footed. ever done that? yeah? shutup for a second i remembered when i was young this show would come on tele after school an it was the next best thing to the Pink Poweranger.(who was the leader of the bodacious 5 apparently, who knew? ..wee thing .. nah that's fucked i wouldve been 8 or something..but sure if she was dtf then look fuck fa sure)
pretty sure i just found the gayest clip on youtube. and you just watched it ..so il take that.
shit..tangent as.. check this out it anyway it might ring some bells

that was about it.. i just wanted to post that video somewhere to be honest. if you dont remember it then maybe i was just into shit telle after school

sweet,
some dude on the dunedinmusic.com forums has been 'told he can do better then Ash and the Matadors and Alizarin Lizard'. sounds super
all the best with that Luke. you can tell im clutching at the straws when something like that makes it into the blog. jesus

enjoy the rest of your Tuesday

Mad as a March Hare video showing on this Saturday evening. ive seen it an its fat

ben

tour stories about these tour dates

2011-08-06T18:17:00.004+12:00

funny how a cheeky beer after a band practice turns into smackin back 440' DB's in a bus stop talking about friends who've been run over by forklifts. yeah apparently i have a friend who's been run over by a forklift. im not gonna joke about it cos karma's a biiiiiitch
wasnt even on the brain to drink after practice on Thursday night but i after having a cheeky London Porter at Albar i went next door to see Midnight Kitchen play an open mic night gig at Curisel where i found Skinny. a buzzy wee fact- a pint of Emmersons Pilsner is cheaper at Curisel then it is at Albar.
but yeah, skin, jess an i ended up back at bugs' flat via a bus stop party (bugs-less, The Beard has gone down to Invercargill for the weekend to do something heroic no doubt)
totally kicked over my mug of water midsleep an that fucked my morning buzz, got some clothes wet but i took it on the chin an moved on. what a way to start a day though yuck.

the tour dates 'dropped' this week, good shit. this is where the fun/stress starts..Bugs' and Logan have been working hard for the past few days sussing out the fine details of the tour. Shipsy whipped up this sweet tour poster in a matter of moments an ive been doing the mind numbing exercise of updating gig websites with the the dates. shit gets tedious but it's gotta be done. also been spitting out more home made brown albums

big ups to my nimble asian fingers

......................................................................................................................................................................

ALIZARIN LIZARD - MAD AS A MARCH HARE TOUR AUG/SEPT 2011 w/ BROWN

August
24th Wed - DUNEDIN - Crown Hotel w/ Idiot Prayer - gigs gonna be sweet, last time i played at Crown the dude gave us mini pies, filled rolls and jugs of beer. an absolute hero
25th Thurs - INVERCARGILL - Muratangi Scout Camp (Otatara) w/ Soul Manor & Cosy Nook - CANCELED at this point- i just got word of it last night from logan that the scout committee deemed us to rock to play there. we're sussing out another venue to play at as we speak.
26th Fri - QUEENSTOWN- Revolver w/ Flaming Drivers & The Outsiders - havent played at Revolver before but i hear the'yre hooking us up. i have a lot of faith i'l have a better time at that Revolver then previous gigs ive played in QT. im just keen for more of those fergpie things. try the pork belly pie..apple sauce an shit.real good. it'll change your life
27th Sat - WANAKA - Opium - never played at Opium before but look fuck fa sure ya know
30th Tues - FOX - Cook Saddle - one of Alizarins favorite places in NZ to play, amazing people. they drink Contrau and Cider like its going outta fashion. always seem to fall in lust with someone on the bar too, so many international people work up there it's great. always a highlight of the tour

not sure what you just watched? it was Rackets - Fucking Xtains at the Cook Saddle during last years massive tour
people who ride the saddle naked get a free drink / drinks. it was during their encore as well. gc
31st Wed - FRANZ JOSEF- Blue Ice - played here twice before. once paul ended the set with his back on the wooden floor and his legs up on the side of a pool table. shit can get pretty loose there. theres a strippers poll to the right of where we play as well.. think if you make it to the top you get a free drink. i made the mistake an asked for a strong shot of anything so the guy gave me 1/3'd a cup of Absinthe. shocked, i boofed that whilst the pressure of these blockheads were looking on at me like this city boy couldnt do it. i couldnt be fucked packing down sober so nailed it an some dude beside gave me a hooter. gc

they also make fucking great pizza
September
1st Thurs - GREYMOUTH - Franks - we love Franks, the owner Nel is the most welcoming person ever. she gives us big bots on arrival and has some of the best food ive ever eaten. the Franks gig went absolutely off last time with all these polytech students coming out. Bugs hoped out the window during one of our songs and played on the neighbouring buildings roof haha.. never seen that before
2nd Fri - METHVEN - Blue Pub - never been but ive seen pics of friends bands playing there.. i hear we get accom too. great
3rd Sat - CHRISTCHURCH - The Brewery w/ Psych Tigers - not sure what The Brewery is, check out the Psych Tigers though they're sweet. looking forward to playing Christchurch, i used to hate it there but after the past year everyone feels differently towards the place. looking forward to seeing Psych Tigers and partying with new people
4th Sun - LYTTLETON - Wunderbar - hopefully the place is all sweet to be played in, if not then we'll suss something else out.
6th Tues - WANGANUI - Space Monster - no idea but fuck it looks cool. BYO event. really not sure what to expect but generally with gigs like these they're the most memorable. something awesome always happens
8th Thurs - THAMES - Mama Gins - we've only ever played here once, it was on Pauls birthday an everyone got wankered. i woke up confused as fuck in some random persons bed in this house that were staying in. dont worry though he wasnt home. i still dont know what happened that night. first i should say that Mama gins is the smallest place ive ever played. the area we play is 1/2 the size of your lounge. Mama Gin is like your quirky young grandmother who always wants you to be happy. she's down with you calling her Mama Gin too which is fat. We played our set then when 12 oclock ticked over we celebrated in true PC fashion. people were even smoking doobies in this laundromat next door an no one cared. its Themes after all. i dont know what or how it got so loose. the guys apparently put me to bed in this old persons house that we stayed in before they went next door to some other random old persons home where they made friends an drunk home brew whiskey an shit. everyone was absolutely wankered that night/next morning.. i dont know what to say. theres heaps more shit that happened that night. im looking forward to going back. it was amazing last time

Callum in the morning

outside Mama gins the morning

9th Fri - AUCKLAND - MUM - Cassette w/ Beach Pigs - never played Cassette, always nice to play Auckland though..something about a big city gig excites you. Beach Pigs are good friends of ours after last years tour. looking forward to catching up with them lot
10th Sat - AUCKLAND - Khuja Lounge w/ Rackets & Beach Pigs - back togeather again with friends RACKETS. this'll be a hell of a night, really cant wait to catch up an see their new material. their latest EP kicks ass. click that link an listen to it for free
11th Sun - RAGLAN - Yot Club - love playing the Yot Club, Pete's such a hero an genuinely nice guy. saw that we didnt have a place to stay once so we stayed in his castle of a home. fuckin epic, gives us a welcoming beer too whilst setting up. last time we played there shit got terribly loose, cant go into details but fuck. partying with ex gang head honcho's is always a memorable night
Paul almost fell down a cliff onto rocks too, bugs saved him with his 6th sense it was mental. dont go wondering in the dark kids

always have amazingly pretty bar staff that work there too. surfing town i guess..
13th Tues - OHAKUNE - Turoa Ski Lodge - not sure, but its a ski lodge, how cool is that shit. im hoping for a nice bed to sleep in an foriegn people. i'l probably get a spot on the gravelly car park and some over weight gang member asking me if i have a problem. thank god im not picky
14th Wed - PALMERSTON NORTH - Royal Hotel - last time we played here i was fortunate enough to have my own room and a shower before playing the gig. followed by smacking back heaps of free beer in the green room, getting kicked out but told to go continue partying in the owners apartment upstairs. fuckin great. not sure if it'll be the same this time around but i hope so. il be happy just playing for a bed an shower.
15th Thurs- WELLINGTON - Mighty Mighty w/ Slur Tones - love playing Mighty Mighty and Wellington just in general. Slur Tones are a great young band. Alizarins first E.P release was with them at Sammys in Dunedin 2 years ago. wee bit of trivia for the guys. they treat you well at Mighty Mighty too. they make great toasted sammiches
17th Sat - WELLINGTON - 59 Boulcott St Apartment 9b w/ Slur Tones & The Blue Onesies - in an attempt to be Wellingtons highest band we're playing 9 stories up in an apartment. no shit, we did it last time an it went off! so it's gonna happen again. i packed down my gear an buggered off with my friend after the gig but shit got real house party drunk an it was awesome. later on that night i bumped into Bugs' walking thru the streets of Wellington so i hung with him an togeather we woke up everyone else at 6am to catch the ferry. classic stuff. this time we're playing with The Blue Onesies, Chris and Anthony from the Tweeks' new band. they're excellent and also with the Slur Tones again. i imagine this gig will start early. 4 bands an shit
21st Wed - MAPUA - The Tap - classic venue, its one of my favorite places to play.. just the shit that happens after the Mapua gigs are classic.. theres generally a heated discussion outside after wards amongst the locals. one time some dude wanted to fight this helicopter pilot because he thought that he was telling the cops where his gunja plantation was haha.. it's not all like that though last time we went back to the owners house an had a spa with these young American girls we picked up in Nelson.. fuckn classic. the owner's house is on the beach front as well so imagine waking up to that. i love Mapua
22nd Thurs - NELSON - Baby G's - not sure, ive never been to Baby G's. we played at Phat Club last time we were in Nelson but that's since closed
23rd Fri - BLENHEIM - Dolce bar - not sure, ive never been to Dolce bar. our friend Amber lives in Blenheim though so it'll be nice to see her
24th Sat - KAIKOURA - Strawberry Tree - ive never played in Kaikoura before, i know their fish an chips are wayyyy over priced. it's like $70 for a piece fish
30th Fri - DUNEDIN - Refuel w/ Mr Biscuits & Axe Handal - homecoming gig chaaahooo.. it'll be great seeing friends again. Mr Biscuits are an energetic band, an Axe Handals pretty much just Rory from TFF going hard on some drums.

Thats pretty much the gist of it.. Alizarin Lizards playing refuel on Wednesday the 17th of August. 2 weeks from now. with brown. it's not part of the tour, more of a teaser.
thats free entry for anyone who doesnt know.

this blogs a wee bit old, started writing it yesterday but had to go play a gig. ive changed a bit of it but if it doesnt make sense fagetabowdit
played in Sunley Band last night, that was heaps of fun. double encore!
not every day you get a double encore.

probably a quiet night for me, later

BENJAMIN

Mad as a March Hare tour dates drop today

2011-08-02T14:08:00.001+12:00

shit this thing went downhill fast. i haven't been writing these things because ive been sooooo busy lately
that's bullshit, ive just had nothing to say.
but that was a pretty busy weekend. we went to Queenstown with Thundercub an played at the Dux. bit of a balls gig for me but shit ya cant win em all.
all started going a bit south when we didnt supply them posters for the gig so they deducted us $50 from the bar tab (which i think is a bit shit. but fair enough we didnt promote the gig) but because we didnt get into Queenstown by 7 pm that night they took the remaining $50 off the bar tab for not showing up for "sound-check" as well just to be real nuggety.
i suppose they had a busy night because the All Blacks we're playing an all that shit but cmon guys we're your entertainment for the night. a little bit of love goes a long way
and after a set of being blinded by a projector, i'll officially die a little bit inside everytime i have to play at that bar again. they've always lacked character there anyway.
Thundercub we're great on the other hand, they'll always be one of my favorite bands to watch. great to spend some time away with them too.. hopefully we'll do a small tour one day
so yeah, we were all in queenstown relitivly sober and cold. i ate 3 pies while i was there. fergbaker. fucking hell do try it. the people who serve you are stupidly attractive too, im not saying i bought 3 pies because they were that awesome but im not fooling anyone either. you would too, you can burn that shit off but that shit's going straight to the bank. it was good times in Queenstown though i must admit.

stopped off after Cromwell an got some fruit ice cream thanks to DJ Champion's idea. thats his real name by the way. fuckn woa
some of the best ice cream ive ever had. the lady who served me was one of those dainty old ladies who make a big deal outta everything haha.. i changed my regular ice cream to a regular ice cream with a flake an she did the whole "*sigh* i cant believe i have to type in 3 buttons again, you're such a fuckwit" routine. like she tried to make me feel bad about it haha followed by her giving me my change with the whole *look away* "you're such a fuckwit" face. naturally i was the bigger man an shrugged it off. i get to eat ice cream while she has a mini mid life crisis over having to press a few extra buttons. good boitch
Paul bought pretzels.. im still not sure why. whats the deal with pretzels anyway? if you want something that tastes like shit with salt on it go lick the side of your friends neck.. dont buy pretzels. i would've let paul lick my neck if it was gonna save brohammer 4 bucks probably.
made it back to Dunedin and checked out the new Mad as a March Hare video clip that's just been finished. it looks awesome. it's like a candid video clip and someone on drugs has gone over the top of it with paint shop. its super cool. done by the lovely and seriously talented Emma Johansson. There's a premier for that coming up on the Saturday 13th August
where Alizarin Lizard, Brown, The Something Quartet and Make Money Cheep will be playing. it's gonna be a shit tonne of fun open to public too..

this is a cheeky photo of us making the video clip a few months back

the Mad as a March Hare tour dates get released today. get excited keep an eye on our facebook page. this is where shit starts getting panicky, though i think we've done a lot more pre-tour organizing this time around
We're going from Invercargil to Auckland back to Dunedin on this month long tour so chances are we're playing in your town. unless it's Hamilton..then you assumed right. we played there once and shit it was a character building exercise haha

ive been doing these lately to sell on the tour with Brown.

gonna make more differant ones and try to sell them on tour for a bit of extra coin.

skinny showed me these the other day. check em out if you're bored. they're classic

this is the first ive heard of these Bon Iver guys, sweet harmonies though. and that dog rules

one of my favorite clips on youtube

ive run outta things to bitch about so i'll leave it here. ive gotta suss out 150 brown albums cool aye.
ben

onion dip is the business

2011-07-25T21:24:00.005+12:00

now that your expectations have been lowered..
Last weekend Alizarin played The 2011 Organic Fest at some hall in North Dunedin to a shitload of people. it was an absolute ripper of a night, cheep beer, beautiful women, awesome venue, great rider and pretty close to 300 people..the whole lot. Unfortunately Lahgun couldn't make it cos he was in Auckland playing in some Brass Band Competition

Logan on the far right

orrrr..perhaps joining a cult
this years Organic fest was fuckn bangin though. they always are. I've managed to get on the bill of that gig every year since 2008? id have to say this years one topped it though. easily.
i had the absolute pleasure of playing this drum kit. such a beautiful thing,its not often i get excited over playing a kit but this ones rare as fuck and to make things better Iain Sweetman was on sound. still kinda buzzing over that gig.
after making a whole lotta noise for 40 odd mins noise control came for the second time with their final warning and to everyone's disappointment the plug had to be pulled. just before Thundercub were gonna play too. highly upsetting but out of everyone's control.
yes Alizarin ticks up yet another noise complaint.
no we cant take the hint.
i heard someone ask why Thundercub couldn't do an acoustic set in the middle of the floor haha.. just a few reasons hun.
after the Organic Fest a whole bunch of people headed up to to Shipsys flat where there was a party, it was good times. dancing in their kitchen to the motion of a rock off involving a Spaniard and a glass of red wine is how i like to roll these days. i used to have a cask of wine and a bottle of fresh up and i was all sussed.. now though, well at leased last weekend i had a cup of red wine. good to see i might have moved up in the world. everyone's so proud.
woke up at bugs' flat and battled with the snow/exercise back to my home in Kaikorai Valley.. google maps is for dads and my net's been capped so this is the best i can do

tumble weed

i figured though i would've been out in the snow anyway, and i was still a little boozy from the night before so why not live a little. fuckn epic walk though i saw some funny shit mostly involving old people but it only took two hours and a mild case of leper feet
Alizarins playing Dux de Lux - Queenstown this coming weekend with fellow bumchums Thundercub just for a wee trip away, i'm looking forward to it. nothing like a casual roadie with ya mates. i get to see my brother and eat a kebab, Paul gets to see my brother an watch me eating a kebab.
we're gonna release these tour dates/posters/promo shit all in the next coming week
i hear the Mad as a March Hare video clip's coming along nicely. it'd be cool to release a teaser for errrrrrrrrrbody. that's gonna have a public showing in a few-three weeks.

yeah, this is the quality of blog you get when it seems like you're living in the 90's again. my youtube doesn't even wanna work.so i spend my time watching old DVD's and eating crisps with onion dip.
PLAYORRR

memoirs of a geisha,
ben

couple of clips i saw today

2011-07-17T20:20:00.003+12:00

was gonna write a blog, but changed my mind.

feeling pretty fragile after the weekend. it was a doozy

Thanks Dan at Mou you're awesome.

ahahah..

id marry that

8============================================================================================================D
ben

an Aztec gaylord

2011-07-11T13:30:00.002+12:00

hey howsit all going

eli's fucked.

Bugs went off to Timaru to go hang at his family home for the last time, sadly. his folks have moved up to Napier recently so he went back to Timaru on Thursday to i guess say bye to the place that he grew up. Logan went to Queenstown and Wanaka with Left or Right to do a few shows, i usually know what he's upto with doing out of town gigs but that wee weekend trip must have been to pay the rent or something.
Skinny and Paul met me at Albar on Saturday night an that's where our night sort've started. a nice pint of London Porter outside of a pub on a cold Dunedin night (durry in one hand, nuts in the other) is an absolute treat. i havnt done the whole hang out at a bar with friends thing in a while, its just so expensive.
it was good though, after Albar we left skinny and Paul an i got beer from Countdown.
i don't know how we were able to be served, i dunno about Paul but i wasn't sober, must have had 4 pints of London Porter at Albar. the lady asked us for ID at the self checkout, just as she was about to decline us Paul an i started some really full on, no full stops, never a dull moment conversation to i guess at the very least distract the countdown chick.she mustve buzzed out cos she let us buy our booze.. something happened there, pc an i couldn't figure it out as we left but what ever we did worked.
Went to Paul flat up at Fea street where there was a party happening, and we pretty much followed suit.
NEVER ever buy Speights Traverse. it's god awful and sold at $11.95 for that reason. we both made the same mistake but never again. even through out the night i couldnt give the shit away, it tasted like a cross between vinagar and vedgimite water

at some point in the night i got cold and put on a white onesie that seems to float around pauls flat, i think it kept me warm, i knew that it was better to have it on rather then looking like i was doing bad Michael J Fox impressions. after pauls party slowing down a friend and i went to Oleh's flat where earlier onwards he was having a joint birthday party. between the point of putting on the white onesie and arriving at Olehs, my face got covered in glitter and i had ended up wearing some bright multi-coloured quilt thing. i mustve rocked up to Oleh's party around 2am looking like the GayKK

he was chuffed to see us though and gave us some of his home brewed spirits, it was great times.

but yea thats about all.. Tono and Stu are down to Record with Tono and the Finance Company this and next week and are borrowing Paul and Bugs so we havnt got any gigs lined up this week. looking forward to catching up with those gentlemen.
Brown will be playing at Mou Very on Saturday, that should be something special
ive been spending my spare time making Brown albums, made 40 the other day, took like 5 hours
all in prep for the tour and general shows around Dunedin. ive just gotta watch getting drunk and giving them to people this time ha..
probably make more today

cool,
ben

P.S - id like to mention if you are of the gay community please don't be offended by my remarks sometimes, they're not intended to be taken that way.

Early Wednesday morning blog?!

2011-07-06T10:46:00.001+12:00

Rodents in my room waking me up mid dream about cats morphing in and out of dandy lions.
dont you dare think im making that up, im worried if not kinda proud that i can dream about weird shit like that an still kinda function like a normal person. I hit my head on a light pole cycling down our street once when i was younger. Following my brother who braked suddenly, my front wheel connected his back wheel and i supermanned into a streetlight pole cracking my helmet in half. no brains were spilled but it made me vomit green and find it hard to walk properly for the rest of the afternoon.. 'i got better'
you may or may not know that i sleep in the basement of my folks house, before you get all 'creep job' on me, my folks are actually pretty cool. it's warm down here an that's why i guess guys like these take up residency from time to time.

...that's reduced the girl fan base by a third...
and its mellow, it's just sometimes they must be doing roadworks or something which keeps me up at night. hence writing this.
they must come hang out for the warmth or at leased get a kick out of me stumbling into the asortment of drumkits that seem hang out in my room.
no shit I can count 4 kick drums, 4 rack toms, 7 floor toms, 2 roto toms and 3 snare drums in my room at this one moment. my toes cop an absolute bollocking in the dead of night. hell even when i can see i still manage to trip over something and see if i can separate toes from my feet.
these drums arnt mine, they're my dads. he stores them in my room i think to teach me the values of slippers.

i couldnt find my camera to take a photo so i drew a picture from my point of view. it's too cold to get outta bed to look for something that'll take 2 hours to draw.

even earlier on tonight i did my toes into a set of boules. why they were in front of the door leading down to my room? i'll never know. nothing terribly exciting enough on telle tonight for dad so he'll find other ways to get entertained perhaps?
Bright side is after reading what they were on the front of the bag they were in i know how to spell boules, sucks i had to learn the hard way.
everyone just a quick round of applause for AIDS being pretty easy to spell. what?
We went over the Alizarin tour yesturday, mapped it all out with where we're playing, the gaurentee's, the support band and other generally nuggety wee things that we'll have to do over the next few weeks. i think it's ticked up to be a 23 date thing. most dates have accommodation which is great, while there's never ever really a problem with accom, you always seem to wake up somehow or somewhere it's always a reassuring feeling you have a place to stay for the night. although magic happens sometimes when you dont...

you can read it properly here
the police lady was very kind and the reporter was surprisingly good looking.

No more Alizarin gigs in dunedin for a wee bit .i think the receptions been generally pretty good at our shows lately but im happy to not play any more Dunedin gigs for a while.. probably getting quite detrimental to the health. i did say "you're only young once'' the other day, but i guess you're only old once too. lets not get all peter pan on this shit
this has gone from being awesome and headbutting poles to getting all soppy and reflective about drinking too much.

damnit i really dont wanna let K-Lee down.

ben

public enemy number One

2011-07-04T17:25:00.004+12:00

jesus.
saw Paul Cathro for the first time since that mou gig on Thursday evening, he'd arrived with one seriously fucking jovial Michael, wine bottle in hand an they'd apparently just come from a bar from catching up with friends. it was confirmed that all 3 of us did sleep in/on/around pauls bed the night before. band bonding exercise. i knew the night would be fucked from that point onwards anyway. house parties rule, it's just a fact. Oleh whipped out Ruby Peacock, coincidentally its where the name of the song cames from, an we starting shmacking that back. god awful stuff that it is.
if it's not radio stations getting the boot it's venues closing. Sammys is the latest bar to close its door (be it apparently momentarily) im not sure you can kill culture, but the next month or so in Dunedin will at leased be interesting to see. Does suck about the whole sitch around Radio One at the moment. my old mans listened (and is proud of the fact) to the One since the first day it went on air. he listens to it all day too while he works, literally grew up to the sound of Dad winning CDs off Andy Flyboy most mornings before i went to school. we're all gonna suffer in this house. Logan Edgar you're a piece.

click Like to make things better

Im not gonna tell more stories about the past couple of days except for Alizarin played at the Robbie on Saturday night instead of Brown due to an under the weather Skinny. we didn't play to try and impress we played to have fun and it was. even played a kinks cover.

probably not gonna party for a while, sorry this blogs probably been the worst thing you've read all day. im tired as a mother fucker.
you may blame Tom Clark for absolutely piling on the pressure for me to try and write one tonight
"

Thomas Clark
Write a blog ya dick

48 minutes ago"

ive been watching docos on space lately. holy shit.

anyway tom..
48 mins later,
ben

P.S - Iain Sweetman 'the maned' it and gave us a sweet recording of Alizarin playing Omarama at most recent Circle Jerk. Bugs' then 'the maned' it and put that audio to a video that Sammy's took of us playing Omarama that night. and here it is:

big Thanks to Iain, Sammy and of course our dear Bugs.

oh focking hull yeh

2011-07-01T18:06:00.002+12:00

sweet brain throb
brown played mou last night we all had a great time, i dont remember much/ anything after playing the gig. i had 17 brown cds when i arrived at mou an i woke up with 2 left this morning.

fuck selling them, im pretty sure i gave them away. what a nugget
a literal cd release. they shouldve been sold for $5 a piece haha everyone with two beers in them wants to be santa clause.
we went back to pauls flat after the gig, pretty sure the taxi man got a free cd too. brohammer's probably chuffed just to get a new coaster
i dont know what happened at pauls flat but i woke up with 2 other people (clothed dudes) in Pauls bed this morning, got outta there, battled trying to get some heat pump working then left. i hope i turned that thing off.. i dont even remember if i got it working or not. shit i was having a mare.
i went down to logans flat after all that.. shared a laugh with keiran an got picked up. now im home and have to WHAT THE FUCK? it's 6?
gotta go to bugs' soon and drop off some gear an go set up at our mate Jamies flat where we're Alizarins playing tonight
(haha..)
cant believe im gonna put myself through this again, and i will, i just hope i have durries

keiran's such a hero

my friend went behind a bar last night and made me a drink, i think that's pretty cool.
some how i didnt get told off for drinking it. haha Dunedin. i think im playing at that bar on Saturday anyway, maybe il get a told off then
i cant laugh or cough at the moment, feels like Michael Flatley's teaching a school 'how to' on my brain. its gnarly as

Bugs being awesome with his (and Pauls) other band Tono and the Finance Company

OTC03:Tono and the Finance Company [PART 01] from Daniel Blackball Alexander on Vimeo.

OTC03:Tono and the Finance Company [PART 02] from Daniel Blackball Alexander on Vimeo.

how excellent is that beard. and Logans guitaring. shit yeah

our good friends RACKETS have done this

go click that link and like their shit.
Thanks Shipsy for the link

this was floating around the net a few weeks back, cracks me up it's soo awkward.

what a douchenugget

this has gone from fumbling around the memories of last night and somehow turned into a video fest.
hopefully uhh il see you later tonight.

i hear Alizarins on at 12:30.
focking hull yeh,
ben

an now you think im a horrible person

2011-06-28T23:23:00.001+12:00

Alizarin's really looking for 30 more "Likes" at this point on our Facebook page. that's not many. all you can do is spread the word. it goes towards helping us get NZONAIR funding for our next single, Grey Skies. (it's just part of the criteria) we need to get to 1,000 by this Friday

It's Macaulay Culkin. dont be weird about it

so if you could please click and LIKE or share our page i'd be very grateful.

just so this blog doesnt completely suck, I found this 4 episode thing on youtube an it's been giving me a few laughs lately, il share it with you.

an now you think im a horrible person,
Ben

Miley Cyrus has got a mouth that you could use to help Grandma rake the lawn with

2011-06-27T17:14:00.005+12:00

Beverly, Denise and Margret being old

seems to me the honeymoon period of this things' over, i think we're doing alright.
sure we've had our ups and downs, ive said things that im not proud of, you've cheated on me once or twice with Bugs and thats ok. i like the guy, he should come around more often. Ive probably pissed off peoples folks with the foul language but im sure they were young once too. not suggesting that they're getting old but id probably start looking up prices on rest homes now, if not to scare them it'll probably save you time in the long run. time that they probably wish they had.

And there i go again, the sour taste of regret. but that's the sorta relationship that this is isnt it. you let me type what i like and i turn a blind eye to when Bugs comes around for "coffee".
Someone called this thing "Charmingly Stroppy" which i kinda dig, makes me sound like a little girl who chose the pink Mackintosh but has now realised it's coconut and is now causing a scene. no one makes that mistake twice.
calm the fuck down anyway Mary, the news is on

i dont even know why i started writing this thing today.

cherish old people,
ben

better living everyone

2011-06-26T17:17:00.001+12:00

ive decided to take the weekend off with no booze, no cigarettes, no partying and no playing music. i think it feels great? cant really tell to be honest. ive been eating heaps of this with wasabi lately and i think it's doing ok? it's gotta be though right? i'll be pissed to hear that its doing me more harm then good.
i know that i get a lot more sleep when i go out an spend the whole weekend being hungover and in bed then i do when im not..
it's kind of nice to not be fumbling around in the middle of the night looking for any liquid to cure the brain throb..anyone ever found an ashtray beer beside them where they're sleeping an had a hoon on that? cos that's about as fun as cancer
not saying that happened to me but it certainly pays to check your bottles at the Fea sometimes..

Here's a video Bugs made for Letter.

footage was taken from the recording sessions up at Mr Yoda Studios with a few computers and bugs' ipod. pretty cool i think

but i do feel rested after the weekend. ive needed it after the past two weeks, i hope the other guys in Alizarin have had a bit of my time. Logan went off on Friday afternoon to play a covers show in Bluff. wtf? i admire that.
Thursday night was a really good party, everyone was well behaved. we must have ticked up around 80-100$ on donations which is awesome. some hero gave us 40$ worth of Velvet Burger vouchers. what a score. perfect for using pre-gig/on the road. there were also durries and beers gifted, i had a few durries handed to me through out the night from Logan which was awesome. Here's a bit of Alizarin from the Fea St house gig

Mad as a March Hare:

Biscuits and Broken Bits:

thanks to Shipsy for taking the footage

the night ended with a few of us hanging out in the bathroom. i was still drinking Louis' whiskey, i dunno why. always seems to get to that point where you end up partying like there's no tomorrow. but there's always tomorrow and its another 20 hours away thanks to your drunken ass staying up till sunlight an guess what "today" just got a shitload harder. i woke up on the floor of the lounge with my head on a teddy bear and ass on a bean bag. 8/10 for comfort. not bad at all. pleased with myself that i got it the right way around

it was great fun to play with Paul on the bass again during the Brown set, started off a bit shaky but that's probably due to the length of time since we played last. the crowd were really cool as well so that was also really nice. i should mention Brown are playing HERE on Thursday. free entry, come down and hangout. we'll be selling the Album for $10 o.n.o

hopefully this works for you
its a video of brown playing King Edward St from the Fea St house party

Alizarin Lizard are playing another house party at THIS on Friday with

Mr Biscuits,Thundercub,Oleh and Jah red

haha woah wtf happend there? cool it's staying. all bold an shit
house parties seem to be the go now days. not one noise complaint from the Fea Street party. how about that!
wicked. oh, Shipsy's working on new colours for the Oh, Colour E.P, so if you have one already (there arnt any left) consider it limited edition as Oh, Colour hasn't been officially released yet. great job.
i hope you all had a good weekend.

Puts the mother fuckin chicken nuggets in the oven,
Benjamin

"so, this is Christmas'' - P. Cathro

2011-06-23T18:46:00.001+12:00

meol mate!

we went to a house party last night where there was donation entry, some magazine release/someones birthday. there were heaps of people dressed up like an American
prom, so they did the whole vote for king and queen thing. kinda buzzy, good times though. hungover today blah blah blahhhhh fuck get better work stories..

im writing this while everyones cleanign up and setting up lights. good cunt aye haha..

we're gonna party the ass out of tonight though. skinnys back so come get down with brown. went through our set before, those who dont know what im talking about keep reading cos this is gonna intrest you..

i lied i ran outta things to say after the prom thing..

clutching at the straws,
ben

Oleh - 9:00
brown - 9:45
Alizarin - 10:30
Thundercub - 11:15

bring earplugs

still recording

2011-06-22T14:15:00.000+12:00

3rd? day of recording. so far so good, soo tired. yesturday we went from 12-6pm with a few breaks in between. after all that was finished we all helped Louis Smith on an album he's recording, none of us knew what the songs were but generally had them recorded by the second take. think we mightve got 6 or so of louis songs done. good shit. productive.

so far Alizarin have recorded :
Mushroom
Any Excuse for a Trumpet
Mr. and Mrs Obvious
The Coke Man
Filthy House
She's just a man today
Baked Couch Banter
Biscuits and Broken Bits
Management
Letter
Ibuprofen
Grey Skies
Foxy

still to do:
Supermarket
Jimmy Cant Handle It
High Rollers
Edams Apple Tree
Licorice Legs
About Phone

not sure if we'll get them done by today, pauls away at a meeting atm. bugs is editing a video that we did for Letter, which we'll upload at some point. hopefully today, 3 different angles. MTV as

this song has been stuck in my head since the Oh, Colour tour. a month now?

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk.

that'll either make or break your day im not too sure

I'm sorry and you're welcome,
ben

more telephone books then you could swing a hooker at

2011-06-21T00:55:00.004+12:00

After the general fuck around of unfunny jokes, smoking durries and drinking coffees our shit set itself up an we got some songs recorded. maybe 3 of the 20+ that we want done by the end of Wednesday.
some pictures that Louis an Theo took.

Post Feastock

Thanks to the help and moral support today from Theo, Louis, Weeji P, Samdrub and of course creative genius Shipsy.

Come to THIS on Thursday night, it's a good old fashioned house party.
Donation on entry can include anything from money to durries, booze, your missus, food or even a blat around the Octagon with ya favorite metallica listening bogan mates. i dont care, give me your dog. just donate something.

no dicks rule apply for Thursday. you will be ridickuled and dickjected

funny guy.

11am start tomorrow. you may think that's late but you don't know what you're talking about.
wee video from today

i hope you know im like a chainsaw,
Ben

more Sundays, we need more Sundays

2011-06-19T20:10:00.005+12:00

Sunday used to be the only problem with my drinking but im happy to find it's since become my favourite day of the week.
Bugsy an i literally hi-fived for making it to Sunday whilst we were packing down the gear after the Fudd Pucker gig last night.
it was the house party gig at our friend Mishca's on Friday night that broke us you see, we've since decided that we shouldnt do house parties the night before a public gig.
The neighbours upstairs from Mishca were already stomping the ground in protest of the noise we were making whilst setting up. fucking setting up! haha.. shit if only they had an idea of how loud it was gonna get later on that night...
they were pretty much a bunch of young sweet cunce anyway so i didn't feel too bad for them, it'd probably do them the world of good. Mischa said that they're loud every night of the week so i think maybe Mishca was trying to get back at them via Alizarin Lizard. im totally ok with that maybe now they wont be so loud all the time. pretty sure that's the complete opposite of how things work
We got three noise complaints during the night but as the noise guy arrived on the third time we had already finished and Mishca's neighbour came down an told him it was all good.
so i guess that saved us from getting our gear confiscated.

After that party a bunch of us got a taxi and went back to bugs' flat where we (for some stupid reason) got stuck into more drinking shenanigans and partied for another couple of hours. i kinda pulled a muscle in my back from playing midnight cricket with Theo, stupid idea anyway but i thought it would be fun to bowl as fast as i could at him..in doing so i kinda fucked my back.
the night ended up with a few of us falling asleep on bugs' couch during that scene of that fat kid being interrogated by the wanna be Italian people on the Goonies. im surprised we even tried watching The Goonies yet alone getting that far into the '80s blockbuster hit. its a classic though

how many of you wanna watch The Goonies now?
neither.. shit sucks aye guys. bunch of kids get lost under a house, find some mongoloid with a chocolate bar and kid addiction, trust a bunch of homemade life saving gadgets cos the guys asian, set sail to a ghost ship and are all back at home in time for supper.
shit fucking rules man i don't know what you're talking about.
Everyone conveniently woke up at bugs' the next day then we went and packed up the gear from Mischa's an set up at The Crown for the Freddy Fud Pucker gig (via KFC ofcourse). damn right we went KFC. only the Colonel can give you the sensation of regret you feel when you miss dealing with just the hungover.
and apparently we're all into that

I really dig The Crown, everyone in the band agrees it's got that kinda pub character you find when you play pubs on the West Coast. a place where you can still get jugs, big bots and of course the buzzy locals that look at you like you're from 'the city'
makes me wanna go play pubs in South D
Jones, who runs the Crown, is an absolute hero. couldnt have a more hospitable barmen. dude gave pauly an I coffee's during soundcheck, cheep beer for the bands, an unexpected trip down someones memory lane for Bugsy and I - we were working the door during Freddy's set and Jones came up to us with a photo album of all these awesome Dunedin bands who played at Sammys back in the day ('88 era) got to see a bunch of candid photos with ya mates The Chills, 3D's, The Clean (etc) all hangin out an shit. it was rad.
hell, even at the end of the night Jones gave us and Freddy Fud Pucker hot savouries, cakes and filled rolles. what the fuck aye. amazing.
Logan started chatting to him after the gig and now i think we'll play there instead of another venue in town for this tour. not surprising when you treat a band with such hospitality, you'll get people wanting to come back to play at your venue
nice one Crown

this week we're gonna go balls deep into pre-production/general sussing shit out at logans flat on the Fea, fortunately logan has the flat to himself so we'll get to do a whole lotta shit. thats gonna be from Monday - Wednesday and then theres a party on Thursday at Logans. possible gold coin entry or something, maybe more i dunno. theres gonna be some decent bands.

We've gotten rid of this first batch of CD's so thats great, 200 down an floating around New Zealand at the moment. going to print off and make a whole lot more with bar-codes this time so they can be sold in shops.

We're proud to publicly announce and be part of the Banished From The Universe family so click that link, check it out and and "Like" that
cool cheers.

swears a lot,
Ben

Whe was the last time you saw your back?

2011-06-17T05:25:00.000+12:00

I don't know about you, but I don't know what my back looks like. there could be anything back there. I wonder if there actually is anything back there.

I have so many stories to tell you, I've been having the best times lately, heaps of wicked awesome adventures. Now I just have to work on my remembering skills...Sam Calwell you are crazy

I built a mask for Mishca and Emma's flatwarming party tomorrow. It's a dinosaur / star trek / nudity dress-up party. holyshitijustwatchedthebestthingeverthanksshipsy!
it's totally the most budget-but-super-awesome costume ever. i got a box that used to have beer in it and then i cut holes in it and now it looks like a dinosaur. hopefully someone takes a photo or something tomorrow because I can't be bothered. then you can see what it looks like. sorry I'm being a little lazy with my spelling and stuff.

Man i keep getting sidetracked. Julian Temple has big lungs. My hands are really cold. Sometime soon I'm going to invest some time into researching a way to keep them warm, but for now that will have to wait.

What's the point in getting CDs out of the library? It's such a tease. What about next time I want to listen to that same song? Sucks. Although it's been great...I went to watch Sex With Bowie (wow i just had such a good time watching that video) play at the Dunedin Public Library the other day, and coincidentally it was May, so we got out some CDs for free. The Gladeyes (formerly Sifty Chris And The Gladeyes and then later The Tweeks because there were other Gladeyes'sss) that was fun. I'm pretty glad Paul is good at making up band names that other people don't already have.

I went out for dinner with Jess and we ate Indian food and it was really colourful (I just got lost in that picture for a while. if only there was a clock beside this stuff that I'm writing you'd be amazed) I did that classic thing where I ate enough food and then there was still some left so I just kept going. Now I'm regretting it.

Why do I always end up looking for things at the most inconvenient of times? Convenient is a myth Way to talk to yourself man, like that's a good idea. Shit this is getting personal. If only you could see what is going on inside my head right now (there's some kind of cartoon of a fight, but it got lost on the way to this description) poor snowmen

Ben just sent me a message saying he wants to make a video. I think that's a great idea. This is something that I want to go back to. Ben already told you about everything that has happened lately so now I don't need to. Man I just keep going back to this picture. Effortless Brilliance is a fantastic listen you Maybe Pile (what's this all about?) Good work. HAHA I FOUND YOU!!! HAppy Birthday Samdrub.

I started making a video but it's going to be a different video from the we will make Ben. Apparently there is another Sam Caldwell. That's pretty cool. Shit this just turning into linkfest 2011. I found a really cool picture to look at and stuff. I think the video will look a little like this Our heatpump just started making noises like a monster. I'm not quite sure what kind of monster it would be. maybe like this Theo says: "The heatpump had liquid dripping out of it." Jess is still making her monstor mask.

The video looks pretty cool so far. I can't upload it. Cya Later. Bugs.

''ive gotta stop climbing on roofs''

2011-06-16T20:14:00.002+12:00

shit where to begin..

Last night we played a gig at Refuel with The Something Quartet. we were given a bottle of Jamersons from a previous gig so what better idea then to drink that before the gig right?
we got creative an made this

good times, that's a bit of a tease from the Album that im sure bugs will release in due time. the gig went sweet, just nice to play with the guys again
After the gig we partied. Found myself drinking Absinthe again, managed to not mack into any dudes this time so that's always a bonus
I got in a car with this guy called Hulio? Julio? this awesome Chilean guy with a mustache, he was friendly enough to take me to a party at this flat on Dundas St
dunno when we left the party but ended up at Mcdonalds eating breakfast which im sure was hilarious. got a mc mega burger or somethign haha fuck i dunno.. it had lots of stuff in it.
Paul an Theo caught a bus home an i went back to meol mate Jamie's flat where we had a beer an watched the news haha.. i dont really know who else was with us at Mcdonalds, luckily i didnt get raped.
Woke up this morning and went to Mou Very for a coffee by myself. Captian no mates aye, i kept myself company with a JB HI-FI brochure.
I should mention that Shelly at Mou makes great coffee's, met some friends while i was there by chance an got dropped back at bugs' where we had an Alizarin practice. bugs greeted me in his undies this afternoon by saying ''ive gotta stop climbing on roofs''. bugsy's obviously got life sussed.

Alizarin practice was the funniest practice i think we've ever had, everyone was still pretty drunk from the night before, i found 6 more beers an we all had a few while practicing. got a new song down 'Any excuse for a trumpet" it's a laid back nice song. i think you're gonna enjoy it.
gonna record all of our songs up at fea street from Monday - Wednesday next week. theres like 25? maybe more songs that we're gonna record. quite a few aye
it'll be good to get them down just for shits, means we can listen an critique them a bit if need be. feel free to come hang out with us

got a gig tomorrow at this
im gonna go in my bear suit. that'll freak em out

got a gig the next day at this with our buddies Freddy Fudd Pucker

got a house party/gig at fea street next Thursday which is gonna be great. could potentially be the first gig of brown since Skinny's back. fingers crossed anyway, brohammers stuck in Brisbane due to the ash cloud. Should be a few bands playing at the Fea anyway, we'll keep you posted. it's gonna be a real decent night.

pretty sure i saw a luna eclipse last night. could be making shit up though

im on a roll with these bullet-points at the moment

im going to bed.
if you're into documentaries heres a couple of sweet links:

documentaries are
better then movies

thats my plan for the night anyway

thanks for playing,
Ben

PS: heres a wee clip of brown if you're interested.
we got shutdown by the optometrist not long after. cool

just me talking shit, really

2011-06-13T21:59:00.005+12:00

Guess who just woke up 2 hours late for a band practice! yeah, fuck yeah!
no no sit down guys sit down you're embarrassing me guys, shit..
I watch F1 racing because it's awesome. they're generally done with racing by 3am except last nights race went from 5am-9am naturally tricking my body clock into thinking that i was on the greasy side of a week long P binge
i didn't wake up till 7 this evening and had Something Quartet practice at 5. what the dick

There's this gig on Wednesday at Refuel that T.S.Q. are playing at. for those who don't know what i'm talking about - The Something Quartet are a wonderfully understanding bunch.. Created by Chris Miller, The Something Quartet has the handy bass work from Alizarin Lizards Paul Cathro as well as the help of guitarists from both Kyuss and The Smashing Pumpkins. Iha an I share drum duties.
(relax, im asian too guys. it's cool. i got this)

Saturday was sweet as at 12 Below, Idiot Prayer are all such gentlemen. I arrived to a (faux?) bollocking from Iain Sweetmen, which im sure is just his thing. i couldnt really be fucked with it as id had a long day and to arrive to the sound guy telling me off for basically being left handed was just a bit lame man..
im surprised he doesn't know by now that im left handed. just save me the lecture next time cuz.
later on he gave me a brush (a drumstick, keeping clear of sexual harassment) while i was there so i guess it's all sweet, i play in a country band as well so that shits handy as.
I hear Idiot Prayer made enough money to get to their show in Auckland so good on them and good on you for showing up.
Later on that night we all went back to our friend Jamie's flat and partied back there..think we played a game of truth or dare, someone ended up eating a cigarette anyway. I think we were loud, made a mess and were generally nuggety as, i hate when that happens. sorry and thank you to you an your flatmates, Jamie.

I think it was bugs who found this today, it's pretty upsetting
basically you can pay for "fans" on the internet, takes everything away from the "if you work hard, it'll pay off" way of thinking. which doesn't surprise me why some really shit bands have such a huge following. not because their fans are dime a dozen muppets, but because you can give off the impression that your bands really good by paying people off to suss the mish. its just a bit grating when you're part of a band willing to work hard at apparently something that money can buy. Don't get me wrong guys, im sure six60 took precious time out of their keg stand/couch burning weekends to practice the G Chord and their Shapeshifter covers haha..

We're playing with Freddy Fud Pucker at the Crown on Saturday (dudes doing another national tour) and we're also potentially playing a house party on Friday as well. more info to come on all that.
i want to go and see this gig on friday. couple of cool bands i want to check out there.

heres Freddy Fudd Pucker doing a 1/2 hour set from Australia for radio1's May music month..thing.
just watch it, its great.

Logan just tells me he's sussing out a gig in Invers on the tour that involves room hire and bunk rooms. i'll let your mind wonder around that idea for a bit haha.. first i think of having a good sleep, then i think that that's not gonna happen, then i think why, then i think hi five, then i think family planning then i think im just taking the piss and barely getting away with it.

but still kinda getting away with it

Ben

you dont wanna see me when im ANGRY

2011-06-11T11:35:00.005+12:00

I did the right thing last night and came home after the gig at refuel. i feel like 80 bucks this morning which is virtually un-heard of. i know if i went out an partied after wards i would've been woken up by the sound of Jeremy Kyle on the TV and some middle aged man in the kitchen making a cup of tea or some shit.. just, i dunno..something god awful
personally i think last nights gig seemed to feel good, i finally think we played a decent Dunedin show, we've been cursed with bad timing for playing gigs here a bit lately but by playing at 12 last night it was alright.
still 12 is late though, shit. but there were still people there and they looked like the were enjoying it. i still haven't got sticks that im happy with, playing with odd sticks at the mo.
where can i get 7A Vic Firth sticks in Dunedin?

meanwhile, on youtube...

"translation: desperate. desperate. i am really desperate." logan showed me this at prac yesturday haha..

oh yeah i had to raise my voice at some nugget last night who walked up to the mic in between bands an started yelling into it. i never raise my voice at anyone but i couldnt be bothered watching this guy make an ass outta himself any longer. of course he's gonna get someone to tell him to shut up, he's basically practicing his Singstar in between bands at a gig.
"AHHHHHHHHH"
- "oii bro!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
-"HEY OI"
"WHAT?"
-"stop doing that man"
"why?"
-" cos it's fuckin annoying"
-"k, sorry man.."
-"jesus.."

he showed up front row during our first song, i think he was trying to stare me down. Gutted bro im slightly busy hitting things i havnt got time to check out that greasy mug. come stare me down after the gig, we can chat about gig etiquette at the bar over a big jug of you'readouchenugget
sure i was being an asshole too but you at this point im sober, it'd been a long day and all i wanna do is smack this gig out an go party with my friends.

Louis Smith was on great form last night, while im sure he'll disagree it was easily the best ive seen him play. he's got this great way of holding the crowds attention during his set that i guess only Louis can do. a lot of muttering in between and during songs but that makes great watching
my Mum came along early last night to hear some Maybe Pile stuff too which Louis payed. which i thought was pretty sweet.
Two cartoons were pretty cool, a two piece band from Timaru? can be quite heavily based on the vocals as they both sing a bunch of the time. Paul brought up a good point in saying he would've liked to hear the guitar sounding a bit less safe, drummer held some sweet groove. they're quite young i think an it was their second gig.so good on em! hopefully they play more gigs. they certainly brought a whole lotta friends to the gig. sexy friends. fuck, im a creep job.

some scum took a kick mic from the side of stage last night at refuel. if you hear of anyone wanting to flog off a cheep kick mic let us know please

uhmm.. shit this is running dry. we're playing 12 below tonight with local superheros Idiot Prayer, im looking forward to seeing them again.
10$ on the door, it's a fundraiser gig which are always just that extra bit funner. so come and help them out.
they posted this great link today haha.. check it out.

man some people are buzzy

skinny's coming back in a matter of moments.so everyone get ready for Brown

cool, thanks again to those who came out last night. let's do it again tonight

ben

PS ppl gotta stop calling me bean, starting to think its making me sound physically deformed. not a good look

too hungover for this right now

2011-06-09T20:30:00.004+12:00

yesturday started off all good, got to bugsy's an had that coffee i always seem to mumble about. band practice was a bit nuggety, sometimes things just arnt clicking an it was one of those days. being tired and playing drums is about as fun as falling down a flight of stairs.

i feel a bit bad for that guy, but he seems to get up an carry on alright.. kinda surprised he can even walk again after that last stair tumble though, that looked like a sweet party trick.

after practice we went to see Idiot Prayer at refuel, they were really good. we're playing with them on Saturday. so that'll be fun.
arrrrrrrmmmm...
after the gig we went to Fea street and shit gets real hazy from there onwards..
someone bought me a shot of absinthe from the bar last night.. that'll be why i was still kinda boozy all day today on top of what else i had
totally kissed a guy last night too.. tried shutting this gay dude up about being gay by kissing him.. fuck that didnt work. no big deal. i dunno aye. some seriously fucked logic haha.. like i said, shit was hazy up in fea street.
just for the record i dig chicks, just to clarify that to all the baby mommas out there who wanna get down at the back of the restaurant. all 2 of you that read this thing

fuck im way too hungover for this..
uhm today we practiced again, amazing practice. think we learned 3 new songs today. we're doing demos for the next EP, i think we might play a whole bunch of new material tomorrow night at this gig.
when i say new, i mean like brand new. crowd test songs yea bei. we'll also probably play some other new stuff..shutup with saying new

god im boring. sorry this blog sucks
i want you guys to hear the new songs, come tomorrow night it's only 5$

dads got a band practice happening next to my room. i seem to be surrounded in music at the moment.

cool dear diary bro

haha..
Ben

track pants: a natural contraceptive

2011-06-08T10:59:00.004+12:00

we got super productive yesturday, i even went around to bugs' 3 hours early. having been up since 2 am that morning (aint that some shit) i really had to do something. we were so straight into it that we even cut the bullshit chitchat, im used to the full treatment when i go to Bugsy's. they continually offer to give me the red carpet treatment. usually someone will make me a coffee (plunged, of course. bugs' not a fuckin derro) then il reciprocate with telling some shit joke about how my days been or how my night was and then ill roll myself a durry go outside an start cursing at their Blindspott obsessed neighbours.
im like your uncle at Christmas.

Samdrub played me this the other day. cracked me up, i think the backing band's cool.

good to see im only 1/2 a year late on this song, i guess that can only makes me cool as, or hipster as, im not sold on or even sure what a hipster is, i wear track pants which people have been commenting on how much they dig. shit guys, you can be comfortable too. you should all buy some you'll be amazed at how good it feels to walk around in a hoodie and track pants all day, everyday. even though they're comfortable warm and reliable there's more often then not a drawback in such pleasures of life, the Achilles heel of all track pant wearers worldwide.. wearing track pants will not get you laid. Actually probably the downside of wearing trackpants is everyone knowing that you wouldn't have of slept with anyone for weeks and you probably wont for a while haha

yea it's real as. you can see why our Jess was so puzzled

i took this picture on the Oh, Colour tour an bugs' girlfriend / our minder Jess has always wanted to know what it is but me being the prick i am, i'd never tell her. just for personal gain i think haha.. i was just wanting to see what i could get out of it really, what i could milk it for. My original "deal" was 6 beers, which i thought was completely unreasonable. Secretly i know her curiosity has been building up inside her ever since i posted the picture a month ago, shes been doing that whole Gollum thing. not saying that i put Jess in that cave, she totally did that on her own accord, i just gave her the ring an baited her to look after it. We finally came to an agreement last night where i told Jess what it was..Jess is now going to give me 3 shots of vodka + 1 on the bottles arrival and also a "special drink" later tonight before we go out to see IDIOT PRAYER at refuel. I've never been so proud of my efforts, i kind of sound sadistic, kinda. i dont actually know*. i know shouldn't just drop word bombs based on their trisyllabic value. too lazy to look it up on the internet as well. guess il just look like a dick. plus Jess can now tell the other 3 people who cant figure out what it is. so everyone's a winner.
*terribly high levels of critiquing goes into Alizarin's Lizard blog, it's cute you're acting like you're not so surprised.

shit that was a pretty cool story though cheers. raise your hand if you learned a new word today. raise it again if it was Trisyllabic.
get out Louis

We made this weird promo for the Oh, Colour EP.it all makes sense, it's just all very cryptic. big clue with the bug eating at the end.
that was the final thing we did yesturday, a bit of fun after sitting at the computer the whole afternoon.
Thanks to Jess, Shipsy and Louis Smith for helping us and hanging out yesturday. general good cunce.

So going back to yesturday we gained over 1800 fans on myspace - a prerequisite for this NZ on Air Funding thing we're applying for. you have to have a whole bunch of stuff..having over a 1000 fans on myspace is one of them. same with having 1000 fans on Facebook too
kinda buzzy.. but if it's what you have to do to get funding then shit, a few clicks here an there's not gonna hurt anybody. beats sucking off Trev in a carpark for Mars Bars an the chance to be played in The Diner on Home and Away.
With Myspace now you can select 30 people at once to "friend".. hence the 2000+ friends we now have. cant wait for our new friends to spam us with heeps of their shit.
i am afraid we've opened a serious can of worms.
I'd like to go back to 1999 and punch the myspace guy in the junk for creating such a peice-of-shit-to-use website. brohammers probably now had it done so many times over the years, it'd be like punching a cinder block.

On top of that we updated band accounts/profiles all over the show. (youtube/dunedinmusic.com/tumblr/blogspot) you should check out Bugs' handy work on www.alizarinlizard.tumblr.com/ - it's upgraded as.
Thanks OLEH for helping us out with that, dude just emailed us out of the blue an gave us heaps of help and pointers. it's much appreciated ma man!

Here's a short movie that our friends Theo and Tom made earlier in the year when we got off our Rackets/Alizarin tour
"Biscuits and Broken Bits" - a short film about Alizarin Lizard by Theo Francis / Tom Woodhouse.

Today we're having a band practice, as well as recording the next single.it wont be released till after June turns over though so.. we want to use it with apply for nzonayer funding.

well this blogs taken a dive

we're playing on Friday at Refuel, more about that next time.
cheers, ben

PS
Here's everyone dancing after the An Emerald City / The Checks / Alizarin Lizard gig this year. pretty funny. everyones wankered.
warning though, watch your volume control.

Ben's just one cool cat

2011-06-05T22:49:00.000+12:00

hahaha i've been in timaru too long

guns blazing this morning apparently

2011-06-03T10:15:00.001+12:00

9:30 in the morning man what the shit? ive gone nocturnal. it's officially winter time though so fuck what're ya gonna do otherwise?i could paint something but that'd only get tossed on the floor with all the other Picaso's, i could go hop on the drums and learn how to blast beat an see who gets outta bed first or i could write another blog saturating blogspot with another graveyard of words and letters.
Alizarins blogspot is the place where words come to die.
After this sudden urge to watch Rackets clips on youtube this morning Ive had an epiphany.. i suddenly want to make cheep, low fi and awesome video clips for songs. i go through super productive modes at stupid times of most mornings.i want everyone to be awake so i can go film a video clip with them, my best shot would be Paulous Cathro, lets be honest, Chuck hasnt been to sleep since 2006 it was debated that he caught a wink of sleep on last years lizard/rackets tour but after a seriously heated discussion he convinced us it was just a blink
Bullshit Cathro.
we only need his one face for the clip, bonus too if Salami's still partying from the night before, we can use his bitches as props.

check it out though Rackets have it down, they're not just an awesome band they're productive as.
i dig how it's all low budget and awesome. do the music television programs even play low budget video clips? surely it's the song that matters.. aye mtv. clearly not

Rackets - Colgate Kid

Rackets - Hello Homophobe

see this shit? why dont more Dunedin bands get off their asses an do stuff like this?
Louis Smith has always had the right idea he's been doing awesome clips on facebook lately, he's even doing some sort of striptease in one of them. kinda sexy.

he did this for us once too, a mash up of tour footage and a gig we did at The Cook once.
Alizarin Lizard - Supermarket Shopping

im gonna go take my frustration out and build more brown cd cases. dawned on me last night that if i dont at the very least make 100 before we leave late August then shits gonna get real tough, real quick. they each take 10 mins to make. big ups to my nimble asian fingers.

sweet bitch an moan to start the weekend though. awesome

Ben

Thundercub are great

2011-06-02T02:34:00.069+12:00

I have 'that' head cold at the moment and am feeling a little worse for wear.. but my chin's up. it's probably just a ploy that my body's set in place so that i eat my greens, drink my juice, sleep regularly and think twice about going out and having fun. Maggie noodle soup man oh shit yea.
It was just 1/2 a durry i had yesturday that sealed the deal though..it's made my cough heaps worse. Cry me a river, i should aim to grow up to be this guy
prior to that i'd just come out of a two hour dentist session. after two of those injections i felt i looked a bit like Joseph Merrick. if there was ever a time to be slapped in the face by some disheartened girl, it would've been then
should of put a few txts out rahrahrah

We just came back tonight from filming a session of music up in a forest above Chingford Park in the North Valley. i think it turned out real well..we started off up there with a band practice of sorts..Paul's written another song (mystery song in the video link the other day) as well as other stuff.. then onto a few songs. we even played Thundercubs BETA to the surrounding forest/ confused neighbouring folk of the Chingford Park and the like.
Would've been pretty hard to shut us down had we been annoyingly loud, good luck to the sound police climbing through the trees and shit yet alone finding us..
it was all for our friend Mishca's art project. or something.. i dunno, i never know what we're doing 1/2 the time we're doing something for something that he's doing. artists all around the world should stop being batman. i play drums, not solve mysteries
he does always end up with cool shit though so i have faith. i think it might be used for this
which among other things is going to be the official release of our "Made as a March Hare" video clip. which im actually really excited about

making the Mad as a March Hare video clip

Mischa and Emma made it. it's not gonna be as straight forward as it looks

fuck these guys are awesome...

I tuned into the Radio 1 top 11 last night to find out that we're number One! we've been in that chart for the past 7 weeks. which im pretty surprised about and grateful for.
We've got plans to record another single next week and release that later on in the week / ( Monday fortnight at the latest ) figure it'll be a good push for the local gigs coming up.
what we could do is document the shit out of it all.. videos, photos via this blog.
what're your thoughts? interested?

but yeah.. we're pretty subdued in Alizarin at the moment. Bugs' away to Timaru to hang out with the family for a couple of days. Logano has been busking to make ends meat down at the supermarkets every night. if you see him throw him a few coins / food / nuggys to keep him going. dudes a hero man. Pauls still writings songs and general lady killing. Ive been getting my shit drilled an trying to get over this head cold.
We dont have any gigs this week so it feels like things have been put on pause for a wee bit.
in the next few weeks though we have gigs coming up hence the idea to release single --> ideally get radio play --> means more through the door at gigs --> sell cds --> pay to make affordable t-shirts --> sell them at the next gig or at least make heaps for the next tour --> buy a box of beer, laugh along side shipsy and repeat.
That's always the plan. gotta have a treat for the guys at the end of it..

Shipsy an I are gonna make t-shirts very soon. im really excited, if you havnt already check out and 'like' Shipsy's art project Wees Popsicle
i really want a Wee's Popsicle T-shirt

bugs has created a band website too so check this out an tell us what you think, or give us a few pointers on how to do stuff. it's in it's early stages at the mo. should be up and running proper by mid next week.
ALIZARIN LIZARD WEB PAGE

aight im gonna go play some Playstation and eat some Shapes

benyaminge

Oh, Colour!

2011-05-30T18:37:00.000+12:00

if you ever want people to hug you wear a bear suit

2011-05-29T16:53:00.002+12:00

hey guy

played that house party last night, it was sweet. had to do the 'pack out the gear before noise control come back to take our shit' thing.. 3rd times always a charm with them lot, we already had two. i can understand though it being in a residential area an all.. kinda funny though, we should have expected it i mean we started our set at 11pm. good cunce. the Police came to shut us down but we'd just finished, i think that's the second time that's happened to us now haha.. we're not that bad though are we?
finally am back at home after a party heavy weekend, woke up dressed in my bear costume on bugs' lounge floor around lunchtime today. think i might have lost my clothes in a childrens playground last night haha.. yuck aye. ''tidy it up boys...'' - Candy Hendry Blair

... bahtuh i hear AFFCO, Ignite The Helix and Black Sky Hustler won the Battle of the Bands last night so a big congratulations to them. i heard all the bands played really well. someone told me that Honeybone were on form last night an they dug it so im kinda keen to go check em out next time they play
someone also mentioned AFFCO passing their 1st place 'recording studio time' across to Ignite The Helix which i think is a nice gesture

this clip will knock your brain around a bit!

"its the final countdownnn" haha yuck

Ben

Poor Ben

2011-05-28T21:10:00.001+12:00

Look at the poor guy on the floor in the corner. He needs the support of 500 people to come back to life. At the moment he's sitting on 485, so it's not too far off. Click "like" and help the brother out.
Here's some real-time footage to keep you going in the mean time.
Good work cheers bro

P.S.
Shipsy is awesome