Potential Falcon

Heya,

we’ve got a little show coming up on July 14 at The Retreat. I’ve been furiously writing songs so hopefully we’ll have a couple of newies worked up for it. We’ll be joined by The Bitter Sweethearts, who don’t play so often, so you should totally make the effort eh?!

I’m also playing the odd solo show around the traps, to keep me chops up. Next one is on August 4th at The Builders Arms. See the tour page for further details, though few.

Hey Folks,

Big news! We will be debuting our new drummer at a very special show in a few weeks. On Saturday 16th April we’ll be playing the show of a lifetime for us, opening for two of the best bands this country has to offer! Knievel, who are returning to the scene after almost a decade of laying low, and Halfway, with whom we’ve played a few shows in the past. Come along and check it out!

Back in October, our drummer Don announced that he was moving back to Canberra in January. Well, now it’s January and before he leaves town(and the band) we are going to play one final show with him.

I’ve been playing music with Don since i was about 16 years old, which makes it about 13 and a half years of collaboration. He’s going to be very hard to replace, the kind of rapport that develops over that amount of time is hard to quantify, we are able to read and second guess each others every move when playing and i’m really going to miss his presence onstage.

In the past year we have come up with a whole bunch of new songs (we have a full albums worth at present), I had hoped to record the new album with Don, but at least we got to hammer out the arrangements before he left town.

Anyway, come down to the show and see him off eh?!

Yay us! We have not been idle these past 8 months, writing, jamming and hanging out in our studio in Fairfield. We’ve got an albums worth of new songs, hopefully we’ll be recording in November, and we’re ready to show them to the world. Also, our drummer Don has announced he is moving to Canberra in January. This means we’ve got 3 more months to bash out some ace tunes and give him some happy memories to take with him when he departs. So hopefully we’ll see you at the show, or one of the few others we have planned before Christmas.

Hi there. We still exist. There hasn’t been much worthy of writing about so we haven’t updated the old blog-a-log in a while.

We are working on a new album, we’ve demo-ed 8 songs, and we have 2 that we worked up for the tour last November. Things are definitely taking a turn for the indie. Very guitarry, more upbeat, open tunings, the odd bit of Dinosaur Jr style sludge-y rock. I’m excited! We’ll book some shows soon i promise and show off these new songs. In the mean-time, take it easy and stay well.

laying down some sweet guide vocals

Just heading to Auckland after a sweet show in Christchurch last night. Al’s bar is great! Wildwood lights were really fun. Karaoke was sung, though Candy(WL) missed her song because she was too busy spewing.
Cab driver to the airport rambled for the whole trip about his experiences with prostitutes in C’Church, and we learnt that you need to be a millionaire to get a young lady(if yr old) and that you can buy a virgin for $1000 in Thailand. Oh, and if you get aids you will have ‘juice’ coming out of your face and you won’t be hungry cause the aids is eating your stomach. Werd.

Hey kids! We’re in Wellington NZ, sitting by the water, drinking Macs Hop Rocker and waiting to play at Bodega. Which is a really great looking bar by the way. Soundcheck was nice, although we discovered that our precious Maton Ibis bass has gone missing. We were so damn tired after Campus A Low Hum that we lost track of it. Hmmmm. Fingers crossed it turns up eh?
So, Campus! Damn fun people. 4 nights of excessive drinking, excellent bands and pining for beautiful kiwi indie girls. Ugh. We’ll write more soon and post some photos but for now adios muchach-fuckin-oes.

Signed: Dr Science.

Okay, this is the first day off I’ve had since we finished the tour so sorry about the tardiness of this post! We finally got paid some of the tour shows for which we were owed and we may have scored ourselves a booking agent, so I’m in a pretty good mood.

First off though, News! Hugo has announced that he and his wife Emily are moving to Trinidad in February. Hugo will be touring New Zealand with us in late January(see the tour page), but those will probably be the last shows we play with our keyboard, guitar, vocal and arranging maestro, so for all you Aussie fans and friends who didn’t make it to one of our November tour shows to see him, suck it! We had a blast hanging out together, stinking up the van and behaving badly on commercial airliners, it’s gonna be weird not having Hugo about to kick my ass about melodies, steal my food, beer and coffee and occupy the bathroom for obscene amounts of time. We’ll be continuing with the standard four piece for the time being, with a view to recruiting a keys player when the right person come along.

So we finished up the wings on fire tour a couple of weeks back, with our Melbourne launch and a couple of shows in Hobart. Friday 27^th November we played our hometown show at The Curtin Band Room in Carlton. It’s a great venue with a nice PA based around a big old Allen and Heath console and HK FOH speakers. Nice sound, cool room. We had probably the best lineup we’ve ever pulled together for a Falcon show, with Blood Ones, Oliver Mann and Single Twin opening for us! Hugo, Huw and I had dinner with a couple of friends at Sichuan House in the city, extremely tasty and hot food, probably not the best idea before a show but fuck it, sometimes you need to live a little(or a lot). We got back just in time for the start of Blood Ones set, which despite the lack of crowd was really amazing, Monica’s songs with Mel’s and Jims BV’s were positively spine tingling! Ollie was up next, still no crowd to speak of and I am starting to get worried. He sings the chorus of Diamonds and Silver down octave and my god, the control he has of his pitch, tone and volume is amazing. I know he’s a trained opera singer but jesus! Jealous! Single Twin round out the support sets and the tall and handsome Marcus Teague beguiles all present with his down-tempo lovelorn tales and beautiful melodies. We’re definitely in the mood to play now, regardless of the minimal crowd(40 payers + guests, everyone is at the Ned Collette show tonight). We play well, having a blast and enjoying the big stage and great monitoring. It’s a little sad to play our homecoming launch to so few people, but everyone is attentive and responsive and the thrill of playing together is unaffected. All feels right with the world for a brief hour.

Next morning we meet up at my place to catch a maxi-taxi to the airport and on to Hobart. It’s the beginning of schoolies, so the departure lounge is packed with inappropriately attired teenagers, making us feel like lecherous old men. The Jetstar staff member who singles us out and gets us to the front of the queue looks like some kind of Hitler Youth sex offender, the mo’ he has grown for Movember not helping his side part, lisp and Aryan über mensch bearing.

By the time we deplane in Hobart it’s pissing down and will continue to do so for the entire time we remain in this fair city. Last minute gear borrowing organised we head for lunch by the harbor, fish and chips, oysters and beer. Excellent. Next we head to the Lark to try some of their excellent house made whiskys and see a massive Great Dane with a weird pink thingy hanging off the underside of its front-quarters. Weird.

Finally we drag ourselves over to the Brisbane Hotel for our arvo slot on an all ages bill called The Hobart Medicine Show. Joe and myself have been to The Brisbane a few times with the Ramps and really love the place. Owner Gibbo and soundman Ivan are always super accommodating and great fun to hang out with and we have a great afternoon dicking around and getting way too drunk. The show goes surprisingly well and we sell a bunch of CDs, leading me to surmise that we might have provided the genesis of a country rock revolution amongst the youth of Hobart. Ha! After playing we hop-skip it over to the Alley Cat for our evening show opening for Teeth and Tongue and Ned Collette. Somehow we manage to cram on to the tiny stage and bash out a pretty decent set. Don is on fire on the drums, has been all tour really. Every time he gets the vibe that ‘anything goes’ at a particular show he really lets loose. We’ve really got to encourage him to do it all the time!

After the show we make a pilgrimage to Mykonos for pork rolls, pizza and veggie burgers. Its offensively bad food, but who’s gonna argue with Mr. Toast? Not Potential Falcon, I assure you.

here are a couple of reviews that have recently appeared on the intarwebs:

This one from BMA Magazine in Canberra…

…and this one from Rave Magazine of our show in Brisbane with The Seabellies and Eulogies.

With the first week of the tour out of the way, we’re at least confident of one thing; the band is sounding great! This week however, Huw will not be joining us as he is playing two shows with his other band Plastic Palace Alice. In his stead, Hugo will have to learn a few key lead guitar parts, the rest we’ll have to do without.

Joe, Don and myself grab another hire car from Hertz, this time finding out that if we were just members of the YHA we could get a significant discount. (I’m gonna have to look that up right now!) We leave at 9am and I take the first stretch of the drive, managing to push through to Holbrook before running out of steam. It’s around 40 degrees through the Riverina and the sky is full of smoke from some fire or other. Jumping out of the cool, air-conditioned Tarago in Holbrook to get a couple of pies is like stepping into an oven.

With Hugo taking the bus to and from Canberra for these two shows, Joe has the whole back seat to himself and proceeds to lie down and sleep for almost all of this drive and the return. Don and I swap again at Picton and I drive the rest of the way to Cronulla, where traffic be damned we arrive in good time at 6pm.
We manage to get a park directly out the front of the venue and the guys from Eulogies are hanging about out front. We catch up, finding out how the previous nights show at the Oxford Arts Factory went. The Seabellies don’t arrive in time to sound check, so we get set up and acquainted with the stage and extremely sarcastic sound guy. The set goes pretty well, other than Hugo’s guitar cutting out at the beginning of On the Road(this is why you don’t bother picking up cables left lying on stage – they are usually broken) leaving him with keys and the song without the lead guitar at the end. The audience are really attentive and seem to be enjoying the set, though we are playing as they eat dinner so we’re trying to keep it down.

After our set we get stuck into the beer and I get stuck into hitting on a very nice mature lady sitting at the bar. I cop a ribbing from the rest of the band but fuck it, its damn fun!

We stagger out of the bar after the Seabellies set and make our way back to Sydney and the awesome decrepitude of the Station Street house.

Friday morning I awake dazed and confused, with a cat named Handsome(and he is) begging to be pet. Breakfast is excellent Phõ from Pasteur in the city. That stuff is the breakfast of champions, wiping away all trace of a hangover. Joe, Hugo and Don then head off to see 2012(steaming heap of turd) while I visit my relatives Wayne, Tracy and their nearly 2 year old son Harvey.

We manage to squeeze in an interview on 2ser before load in and sound check at the Bald Faced Stag. The PA is one of the best in Sydney and the stage sound is excellent but damn is it hot! When Mr Rascal play later I can see droplets of sweat constantly falling from Christians’ arms.
Dinner at the pub is bloody awful, overcooked spaghetti with tasteless Bolognese sauce, unidentifiable Lasagna and a Chicken Parma that looks like the whole thing come from one packet, frozen and reheated. I feel sick for the rest of the night, though this is in part as I am stressed about our ability to pull a crowd. We wind up with 53 payers by the end, which at least covers some costs and play an absolute cracker of a show.

After the show Emma from El Mopa has bought us a bottle of scotch so we head back to the Station Street house to get into it. We party away until 4am, playing Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young and The Boss on the piano and a guitar. Bless Hugo and his amazing ability to pick up the chords of an entire song just by hearing the first line. We smash an awesome version of ‘Because,’ having to double back and play a couple of verses again cause the harmonies sound so cool.
Unfortunately I party a little too hard and wake after 4 hours of sleep feeling decidedly shithouse.

I manage to make it into the city without vomiting out the window however, and a meal of home cooked beans and ham hock at The Wall in Surry Hills sees me right. Don takes first leg of the drive home and in the end I only do about one and a half hours, mostly feeling too shattered to be of use to anyone. We arrive back in Melbourne to the wonderful, heavy rain. Oh, so good to return to after the heat and smoke of NSW.
One more week to go….