sydney music // cubisteffects
cubisteffects is the brainchild of Sydney-based guitar effects pedal maestro Christian Moraga. Christian breaks pedals down to their raw component form – then modifies, rebuilds and transforms them into something new.
“It’s all about changing an effect pedal or instrument from its original design to something unique – to extract sounds and tones from it that no-one else has. Musicians, and guitarists especially, are obsessed with their sound. They either need the latest pedal to have a sound no-one else has, or the oldest guitar/amp with lots of ’60s mojo to emulate their rock’n’roll heroes. Modification and circuit-bending allows every guitarist to have this by altering the pedal’s DNA.”
“For me, it’s important to get a feel of who I am modding the pedal for… I won’t be making a noise-maker for a guitarist who plays country music. Likewise, I won’t be making a ‘60s inspired fuzz for a metal player. It’s just important to have an understanding of the genre of music as it is to have the electronics knowledge.”
“In the near future I would like to take this further and make original cubisteffects designs, with the same vision as I do mods/bending. I’d like to work with local artists and musicians, and collaborate to make something unique, something very Sydney.”
St Jerome’s Laneway Festival 2010
Photos from St Jerome’s Laneway Festival, held for the first time at Sydney College of the Arts in Rozelle.
[Shot for The Vine]
* The XX
* Kid Sam
Red Riders @ FBi 94.5
It’s been a pretty great weekend, musically. In contrast to the mind-bendingly loud electronica of Seekae today, on Saturday afternoon I went to see Sydney band Red Riders play a tiny, semi-acoustic supporter gig for FBi 94.5 at Troy Horse rehearsal studios in Redfern.
Thirty competition winners crammed into the squishy Acca Dacca rehearsal room for the set, which was being specially recorded for FBi’s live performance show The Live Feed.
Jens Lekman Backyard Show
Early last week, a friend tipped me off that Jens Lekman was planning on playing a backyard show somewhere in Sydney’s inner west on the weekend – he’d announced it on his website newsletter smalltalk, and apparently there were limited tickets available on request. Following the email trail, I was lucky enough to be able to attend, and enjoy one of the most relaxed shows I’ve seen in ages.
Jens played with Geoff O’Connor of the Crayon Fields and Sly Hats to an audience of about seventy people, sprawled in the saturday afternoon sun. The event turned out to be a birthday celebration for Simon Mingo, the resident of the house, who had flown Jens and Geoff up from Melbourne especially for the occasion.
BRAG // Wayne Coyne
My photo of the Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne is featured on the cover of this week’s issue of Sydney music street press BRAG magazine.
Editor Kirsty Brown and I visited Wayne in his hotel room when he was here on tour a couple of months ago to do the interview and shoot, and I was pretty nervous as the word was that he didn’t particularly like having his photo taken. Happily, that turned out to not be the case – he couldn’t have been nicer, and we had a great time covering the room in confetti & streamers.
It took many attempts to get the timing right on all the different elements in this shot – there would be either too much or not enough confetti, or Wayne’s facial expression wasn’t quite right, or both. I ended up only getting one shot that worked perfectly, and in hindsight, I’m amazed I got anything usable at all! He was a great sport, and tried lots of different ideas to get the shot working. In the end, we abandoned the mini confetti cannons in favour of just throwing the mess over the top of him from the side, which worked a treat.
Los Angeles
Infinite sunshine, drool-worthy Mexican food, street festivals, endless cups of coffee – for the last two weeks, I’ve been soaking up the culture of Venice Beach, Santa Monica and the surrounding areas in Los Angeles, California.
I was there on business, so most of my time was spent trekking up and down the freeways and working out of the Animal Logic office, but I was free on the weekends to venture out and explore.
Morgan and Jay work in the Animal Logic LA office.
Orly Olivier, an LA-based photographer – we checked out her amazing polaroid exhibition in Silverlake.
It took us an hour of waiting in line to get our hands on one of Pink’s hotdogs.
Pushing my way through the throng down at the Abbot Kinney Street Festival, I was pretty stoked to discover Soko performing live – I’d missed her show at the Oxford Art Factory last Christmas, so this was an unexpected treat.
Harry Perry, legendary rollerblading guitar player of Venice Beach.
From a work perspective, one of the highlights of my trip was meeting legendary makeup & prosthetic effects wizards Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr, and getting a tour of their workshop. This massive sculpt of an Alien fighting a Predator was part of a jaw-dropping display room next to their foyer featuring highlights of their past work.
A friendly local.
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