The Dawn Collective

Things I have always wanted to do in an empty house:

1. Play laser tag or hide-and-go-seek at night.
2. Make an amateur horror film.
3. Camp ‘in’ for the night with friends, pretending to live in a post-apocalyptic world - eating food directly from cans and talking about all the things we would be doing if They hadn’t dropped ‘the bomb’.
4. Film and record some acoustic performances in a lovely checkerboard-tiled room garnished with Christmas lights.

As much as I love horror, children’s games, and dystopian role play, the band opted for number four on this occasion.  One evening a few weeks back, after Greg had cleared his previous residence of belongings, we decided to capture a few acoustic performances of songs from our debut album Save a Place for Us. We know we have not ventured too far into the world of internet vlogging as yet, so we thought it was time we start getting as much of our faces as possible into your face. FACE!

I am constantly amazed by how much is at our fingertips these days. We can vlog confidently from the safety of our lounge rooms, we can make studio-quality albums in our kitchens, and now that ’shaky camera’ indie films are at the height of cool, every person with a hand-sized camera can upload videos without fear of criticism of their technical skills. This is quite comforting as it seems that people these days seem to be more curious and want the raw, freshly-mined sound and look of the world. People are happier seeing their internet peers posting their unedited quirks with infallible confidence. I am not trying to undermine what we think is quite a super attempt at capturing some acoustic performances; I am simply saying that I am happy that people’s viewing needs have changed.

Last year Greg and I were interviewed on FBi radio. In this interview Greg mentioned that albums can inadvertently become a soundtrack to one’s life experiences. I share this feeling with Greg. I am more than happy on request to rattle off many albums or songs that have become the soundtrack to important moments in my life. Recently, when I sing Eat, Drink, For Tomorrow We Die, it reminds me of the way it was captured in these acoustic sessions. It reminds me of Greg’s house in Chippendale and how it was constantly encircled by police sirens. It reminds me of the times Greg and I had promised to work hard on new material in his room and instead found ourselves milking a bottle of Jameson. I liked that house. I liked spending time in it and I thoroughly enjoyed the send off.

So, to the videos…

In the caliginous glow of the fairy lights you see The Dawn Collective, minus a Stacey. I can reassure you that she is still with us and well, just not available for this exclusive closed-off film shoot. *Brushes his lapel.*

Greg had been busy. Not only had he been through a moving transition, he had also been busy with his day job, like most people in the world. So considering his recent schedule, he deserves a golden star for turning up to track the audio for the videos. We all had a bit of exhaustion about us that night but I think this helped relax the scene a little, as we could unwind and do what we enjoy. As we played, I couldn’t help but think of days back in Wollongong. I remember rehearsing the early tunes of The Dawn Collective, armed acoustically, huddled into one of our lounge rooms whenever we could find the time. Jamming in a lounge room or empty house is a bit harder in the big city – houses are closer, walls are thinner, and, if I may speak subjectively, neighbours are more inebriated and uncompromising. So it was a delight to be in Greg’s cleared room, stripping back the songs to resemble their origins.

We have been releasing these videos one at a time and there are still a few more on the way. Please, check them out on our Facebook and MySpace pages or track them down on YouTube. Leave plenty of comments from fake handles, listing all the ways you could have done them better, or preferably encourage us with ‘Keep it up guys’, ‘That’s the way’ or ‘Your use of space and clouded lighting resembles an early Gus Van Sant!’.  In response, we will tip our hats to you in the street and involve ourselves in light conversation at our future shows. The Dawn Collective’s honour.

Now that The Dawn Collective are busy digitally cutting the defense of the vlogging world with our virtual pick and roll we would love to hear what you, the fan, would like to see more of. I could talk shop till the crippled cows come home but maybe you want to know more about our personal endeavors or how Rob keeps his beard looking so lovely. Set us a challenge! Honestly, anything at all; just leave a comment!

In other news, we have been busy recording demos that might make an appearance on our next release. So it seems as though it is a good time to reveal these acoustic tracks and start our exploration into the great beyond. *Cue: Theme from 2001 A Space Odyssey*  You will start hearing these new tracks filter into our live shows and hopefully you will enjoy them as much as we have enjoyed creating them.

Till we see you, take care!

Sometimes all we need are close friends to bounce impulsive, ludicrous ideas off- in the same way we subconsciously place ourselves in detrimental situations to experience the high of a bounceback. Some weeks this works, although there are occasions when surfaces to bounce-back off are scarce, leaving us naked in a very messy apartment…

For me, the silly season provides time to perform some emotional de-grouting.: whether this is through doing more work or taking more time to relax, it is a process that I look forward to and enjoy every year! My close friends will be able to tell you that I generally don’t work in a linear fashion: never ask me for directions; and do not under any circumstance, rely on me to memorise any kind of list. So, after this disclaimer, on we go…

Musically, this has been a huge year for The Dawn Collective. I have never been behind the release of a full length album before, nor worked with such well respected professionals. I am seeing more of Australia with the band than I had ever seen leading up to its birth and we are enjoying travelling with our music. We are nice kids and we take to the road well together. I don’t want to be kicked in the face next time I head to Melbourne, but I really preferred our time in Queensland this year. The weather and scenery were beautiful and we were lucky to be under the watchful eyes of old friends who now reside there. One of my favourite nights of the Queensland leg of the album tour was in Coolum on the night of my birthday. There was wine, Magnums (i.e. ice cream- side arms were checked at the door), swimming, sing-a-longs, a great game of kill the dill with the pill and the evening finished off with a ‘Best of Beck’ dance party in the guest house. Even though we had to get up quite early the next day to travel to Byron for another show, we had been blessed by the gods of fun and bad dancing - there was no way to stop.

Aside from the fun and games of the tour, it feels like ‘band admin’ has taken up a lot of our time this year. Band admin is the work that rock stars never tell you about when you are young. They never tell you that after a huge night rockin’ and mackin’ wid tha ladies that they have to get up early the next day to lodge their APRA return or send invoices to the venues they’ve just played. How about telling you that after drinking half a bottle of Jack and laying down a few guitar tracks in a studio full of cocaine, they then have to fix the HTML layout of their Myspace page, head to Office Works for a new printer cartridge and then come home to work out the monthly expenses on MYOB. Rock ‘n’ roll lies, lies! LIES!! Unfortunately, band admin has been the reality of many self managed indie bands throughout the years. I am hoping that after divulging this information we still have some mystique-although this may be a new way to break the ice with any indie musician. Have you ever wanted to talk to a muso after a show but felt you had nothing to say? Why not start with ‘So, been to Office Works lately?’ You may be surprised to see the ease that washes over the musicians face. Go on, give it a whirl!

I wanted to explain a little bit about the origins of our Christmas release ‘O, full of scorpions…’ but sometimes trying to explain your own song is like trying to describe a platypus to a foreigner: ‘you know, it’s like a duck kind of otter thing that is kind of … you know… It’s… It’s just a platypus, man!’ I think I have problems with over explaining things sometimes. I blame music class at school for this, and the many hours ripping apart some of the most brilliant songs in history to find abstract meanings for the sake of abstract meanings. I am not saying that some of the most brilliant writers had no purpose in their explanations of life and all concerned, or that their expressions are as ill thought out as belly flopping into a baby pool of jelly, but honestly, the greatest expressions in our world come as easily as talking to a close friend. Sure it may be a long and emotional conversation but it should be effortless communication with the medium: out it flows without restraint or too much thinking. So in short, I prefer not to over explain the songs. I would love you all to feel what you will when hearing our Christmas dirge and I encourage you to let us know what you think.

One thing I wouldn’t mind explaining though is the general tone of the Christmas song and the return to the previous comment of emotional de-grouting: my thoughts each year simply need to be summed up and cleaned out. I never want to get rid of everything; I just love the idea of having room for new experiences. The spring cleaning of hindering thoughts is a pleasant one, which is why the songs that are written around the Christmas season seem to be a little less snowy and a little more on the sootier side. Think of it as the old, boxy, mustard yellow Volvo station wagon spluttering and backfiring before we take off for our semi smooth journey into next year!

Merry Christmas everyone and safe travels!

There’s a quote by French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau “Patience is bitter, but the fruit is sweet” which has been very fitting to the process of releasing our debut album. The album which we began tracking in late 2006 and finished mixing close to a year ago is one step closer to being on the shelves of stores and scattered throughout the net. The album is finally mastered! And the fruit of our labour is oh so sweet.

We enlisted Don Bartley to do the job. He’s quite good at the mystical art of mastering albums. He’s mastered a lot of albums. So it was a pretty easy day for us. Don did most of the work. We just sat back and enjoyed hearing the mixes come to life with extra presence and punch. There are moments on the album which when polished up feel like a warm hug and then moments that smack you around the face and leave you crying like a little girl on the ground. We made the decision to keep a lot of the dynamics in the mix, to keep it breathing a bit. There were also a few anomalies that we needed to fix up. One was this low rumble whenever Andrew was singing in one of the slow songs. The assumption was it was vibrations picked up off the mic stand. Don fixed this with some magic eye looking application which is a graphical representation the energy of certain frequencies. Gotta love technology. There were also some clicks of me turning pedals on and off at a point of a song. It’s the catch of tracking nearly everything live. You end up with some unique “performance related” sounds in the mix. We did end up keeping in some little surprises but you’ll have to find them for yourself when the album is out.

Much discussion was had about the word “shod” which is part of the title of a song on the album Ghosts Shod in Steel Shoes. Turns out that shod is the past tense and a past participle of shoe. I did not know that. And to be unshod is to be barefoot perhaps. With the track listing written out we realised how long some of our song titles are, which is diametrically opposed to Pearl Jam’s Ten which consists of mostly one word song titles.

The tracks came up well and the challenge of sorting out segues and the gaps between each track was next. It’s always a tricky thing as the mastering studio feels like a bit of an artificial listening environment. A few transitions were quite easy and natural, some required a bit of agonising but you want to get these things right so there was a purpose to us being pedantic.

Overall, we were really happy with the flow of the album. It’s so satisfying to hear it done. Now to focus energies on all the other jobs that need to get done and things that need to be in place for the release of it. Thank you all for being patient - it’s great to finally be able to say it is not far off now! We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed creating.