0 New Zealand Tour Blog (Part 3)

So after a nice couple of days chilling in the wilderness I get back to the life of a road dwelling musician.

A beautiful drive from Wanaka to Fox Glacier does wonders for my soul and then it’s onto the hard giggin. The show in Fox was frankly a wonderful experience and the locals welcomed my sound. I felt truley relaxed onstage and the performance resonated with that.

Next came Franz Joseph Glacier followed by Greymouth and my west coast run ended in Granity. My stay in Greymouth was literally a few days before the Pike River Miners disaster. Having briefly got to know the town and the locals I can only say my heart goes out to them. A truley sad time for Greymouth and New Zealand.

During my West coast run I also had the major inconveniece of having my Ipod delete all it’s music. Thanks Apple for making a product that is not able to simply carry out the task of playing MP3’s and not deleting them. This is doubbly inconvenient as my Ipod is synched to a laptop that is in London. DAMN!!!! Fortunatly I have some of my music on an External Hard drive that I travel with. Eventually with the help of other people and their computers I managed to get some tunes back on to it.

I drove an epic distance through the mountains from Granity to Christchurch. It was a scolching hot day and at one point I decided to pull over by a beautiful river. The water was freezing but it didn’t deture me from having a swim. Truley refreshing!!! Then I was back on the road.

Next stop is Christchurch – Lets hope for no earthquakes 🙂

Stoo

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0 Mowvember!!!!!!!

Mowvenbertastic!!!!

This year I have opted for Metal riffmeister shic. A very specific style of mow that works well with a predominantly black outfit and whiplash from intense head banging 🙂

On a serious note Mowvember is to raise awereness for Prostate Cancer. I have had a close member of my family diagnosed with it in the last year and the silly tash is my reminder not to use my contrant travel as an excuse not to visit a doctor and seek out some piece of mind.

🙂

0 New Zealand So Far in Photos :)

0 A Break from gigs – a two day NZ mountain trek.

Well the title says it all really.

But with a healthy run of shows comes a farily unhealthy life style and diet.

So to follow it I use the two days off I have to drive a couple of miles into the wilderness untill the road runs out and it just becomes a dirt track. After about 30km  it involves shallow rivers and after another 10km it just becomes a walking track.

From here I parked up and hiked through The Matukituki Valley.

There was some ultimatly very liberating to be missioning through the wilderness.

The time away was two days and in that time I was able to walk to a hutt where I slept over night and then the following day I began an ambitious climb out of the valley to the top of the first shelf of the mountain. Earlier that morning as I woke up I was talking to a man from the French Island of New Caledonia (located north east of Australia). He went on ahead to climb the route I was to follow a couple of hours later.

About 2 hours after, I had set off through the forest, climbing the whole route. After a while I found myself sat about halfway up next to a waterfall. I was out of drinking water and out of energy when the same man I had been talking too was on his way back down the mountainside. He gave me some drinking water and gave me some chocolate. He also assured me the remaining hike was well worth it for the view; and so with a renewed sense of vigour I crossed the waterfall and continued my trudge towards the top. I was truley rewarded at the top with the view can never truley be summed up in words of even photos. I remember the sense of a feeling that came from breathing in the air and taking joy in the location and scenery I found myself in. It’s always nice to know you can surprise yourself 🙂

The climb down the mountain was followed by a couple of hours sleep followed by another trek back to my car.

My mind cleared I felt ready to get back to the music and to begin the drive up the west coast.

0 New Zealand Tour Blog (Part 2)

*In over dramatic voice over* (US Drama style – with generic racy background music)

“Recently on Stuarts New Zealand tour”

Stu – “Oh no I’ve broken down en route to my gig many times but luckily I was able to be jump started many times so I got to my destination.”

Random Kiwi Dunedin living people – “We’ll help you along your way and make sure you get to the gigs OK. Cause we rock!!!”

Stu – “Thanks guys I couldn’t have done it without you.”

🙂

Stu (again) – “But oh wait my PA equipment has decided to blow. How on earth am I going to play without the essential equipment.”

More random very helpful Kiwi Dunedin living people – “We will help you with that too. Cause like we said before, We farkin rock!!!”

Stu – “Thanks again guys, all my Dunedin shows went ahead and I couldn’t have done it without you.

Now it’s time for me to leave Dunedin. I do hope I have no further trouble along the way.”

(At this point Stu forgets to touch wood – bad mistake).

So that was how things were left.

Now before I get started on the thrilling drama of part 2 of my NZ experience I just want to chuck you out my favourite Kiwi quote of this juncture.

“She’s so ugly she ‘s like a pitbull chewing a wasp” – A thrilling visual description by a local of the old lady across the road to one of the venues I played who sees fit to complain on a regular basis about the noise.

So anyway!

From Dunedin I missioned it to Milford sound. An awesome 5 hours of driving through wonderful mountains and  open valleys.

Really a unique experience. My Ipod was blasting and the sun was beaming.

Unfortunately the picturesque ideal nature of the trip was interrupted by the back to reality bump of my PA (which was working fine in the music shop in Dunedin) suddenly having more issues during sound check.

This time there was no smoke filling the venue but there was a bastard horrible distortion over every sound that went through it.

Somehow I got through the show but I knew there was a problem that needed sorting bad. I contacted the electronics expert who had serviced my gear in Dunedin.

He was awesome and I felt he really did sympathise with my situation. Because the nature of the problem was different this time I knew he was not to blame for the new problem. He worked tirelessly to help me resolve the issue over the phone and when nothing worked he offered to get new equipment to me at my next destination. How I asked? “Oh I’ll just pop it on the bus”.      At this point that all seemed like crazy talk. You can’t just put something on a bus and have someone else pick it up at the other end. But it appears in New Zealand. You definitely can.

So when I rocked up in Wanaka a couple of days later to play my show. I detoured to the bus Depot where there was a very nice man called Barry waiting for me, with an amp by his side. We talked about the weather and briefly about my life in music and his in Bus the world of transient buses; and then I went on my merry way wondering what the hell this Rock and roll life style was really all about. But still I’m on course with massive thanks to the folks at Rock shop in Dunedin (Bob and Robin).

Also massive thoughts and thanks must go out to my good friends Lora and Marc who not only housed me in Dunedin but also came to support me in Queenstown and housed me there too.

You rock guys!!!! 🙂

By this point I am 10 shows into the tour and have fully adapted to the more relaxed pace of life in New Zealand. A far cry from the craziness of Japan.

My highlight of the recent stint has to be my second show in Wanaka which was  full of folks who had seen me play the night before and had returned with others to catch my second show in town. I’ve heard many industry professionals advise not to play too many shows in one area. But my Wanake experience reinforced that when you are trying to build up your name. Playing as many times as possible often pays off. Not least because you earn more but also because folks can bring others to see you if there is another chance.

Anyway that’s the serious bit aside.
*In over dramatic voice over* (US Drama style – with generic racy background music once more)

“Stay tuned for more exciting Stuart tours New Zealand adventures”

Sit boo boo sit

Stoo

0 I’m on a F*#%@^g Boat!!! (Well ferry to be precise)

Yar me hearties!

For the first time in me career this land lover will be making noises out at sea. I will be ratteling my strings on the Interislander Ferry which travels between the North and South Island of New Zealand.

I will play two sets on the trip which will take 3 hours from port to port.

Plus more NZ shows announced. Get to my shows page now.

This land lover be very excited.

YAAAAAR!!!!!

0 LAST MIN NZ SHOWS ADDED!!

Hey All,

Just a quick message to say here have been a few more dates added to the South Island leg of my New Zealand tour.

One is a real last min show in Franz Josef (This Friday) as well as date in the earthquake capital of the world right now Christchurch.

More shows will follow shortly aswell as all the dates to follow for the North Island.

All in good time 🙂

Until then keep well and if you haven’t already fell free to check out my latest music vid on you tube:

All the best,

Stoo

0 New Zealand Tour Blog (Part 1)

OK,

Sooooooo after an epic 4 planes from Tokyo later I arrive at Invercargill at the very bottom of the South Island of New Zealand (The most southerly city on the planet).     I am met by my wonderful friend Sandy who is lending me her Van for the tour and has helped me greatly along the way.

I play my first show in NZ at the Gluepot and I meet and make a whole host of new friends. Special thanks and mention must go out to Ester, Phil and Ellen for playing awesome support spots that night; also to John for the promo assistance and Jordan for the sound assistance. 🙂 I got to perform some poetry amongst the songs. A first for a while as Japanese audiences tend to not know what you’re on about.

Infact it’s quite refreshing to be back in an English speaking country because you can hear gem quotes like the following:

“Free Piss, Good Shit” (A delighted reaction by a drinker upon receiving the news of a free beverage)

“The best solution is to just give it assholes” (A unique detailed description of how much pressure I should apply to the throttle in order to climb a steep hill)

So anyway first show down and I am now ready to Leave Invercargill and hit the dusty open road once more – Or am I?  It’s about here that things start to go horribly wrong. In my first 2 hours out of town I break down 3 times on route to Dunedin. When I finally arrive at my destination, I’m feeling a little down trodden but ready to persevere. However the next day, I make it to my venue and then my PA equipment (which I had shipped from England) starts to chuck smoke out into the venue during sound check. Then it breaks down all together.

Thankfully the guys at the local music store (Rock shop) jump to my rescue and lend me a temp amp whilst they try to address the problem.

Then the venue underpays me 😦

Touring Musician Lesson 1:  A guarantee is never a guarantee despite what the dictionary definition of the word may imply.

So I am in an unfamiliar city with a barely working Van and a broken PA. At this point I would have been ready to throw in the towel on the whole tour had it not been for the help and support of Adam Fitzgerald – a Viking metaller (Yes that’s right Viking Metal); and Matt Hall (A random dude who is studying medicine but was a full time mechanic). Adam provides a sofa to crash on and a place to use as a base (with a whole host of Bill Hicks DVD’s :); and Matt takes time out of his schedule to try and get to the bottom of the vehicle dilemma.

In the mean time I carry on playing shows in Dunedin. Most notable of these was the show at Refuel with the awesome supports from Matt Langley and Hana Fahy.

The crazy drunken Kiwi students are a wonderful contrast to the uber polite clapping of the Japanese. Not too often I get a mosh :D.

And so one week and a few hundred bucks later I’m informed that my Van is as good as she can be and my PA gear is newly mended. All just in time for me to venture off to my next show in a place called Milford Sound (About 5 hours drive away).

Fingers crossed I make it 🙂

Stoo

 

Giving it some guitar drumming in New Zealand