So of course no better director to make the music video than Simon Ward (& Co) - self proclaimed Sci Fi and pop culture nut who has made some incredible videos already for the likes of Golden Axe, Disasteradio, & Fistful of Gems, not to mention Lawrence Arabia's latest clip.
Classic sci-fi like the Alien trilogy (minus Alien III), Planet of The Apes, Battlestar Galactica & Star Wars always seem to bring up important questions about Humanity, God & Science - and often have a strong biblical undercurrent.
We're super excited to tell you that on the 28th of January 2013 we will be releasing the Ruby Suns 4th album, Christopher. Ryan McPhun has always been something of a musical wayfarer, collecting sounds and styles from his travels around the globe, so that each album is a sort of musical passport, and Christopher is no exception. This time round Ryan's found inspiration in Scandinavia, where he has been living for much of the last two years. Here's the cover:
To give you a taste of what's to come here's the official video for the first single, "Kingfisher Call Me":
The video was filmed in Sweden and directed by photographer and filmmaker duo Frode & Marcus (Lykke Li, El Perro del Mar). It was shot over two days in sub zero celsius temperatures and involved burying a volkswagon and digging it up again. While finishing up with some shots of a lake a moose family happened by purely by chance to make it extra awesome.
It's the time of year for drunken office party interaction, awkward family encounters and if you're lonely a greater focus on your bland existence. It's a sad fact that more suicides occur now than at any other time of year...still a novel subject matter for a 2 minute pop hit if you ask me.
The Eversons have been tinkering away in the studio the past week coming up with this gem in time for the festive season. Unfortunately not in time for a live performance at Christmas In The Park but hey, maybe next year.
Ever since we started the label we've been throwing these end of the year shindigs and they have provided some magic moments. NZ musicians blowing off steam, throwing rubbish bins, making out, strangling one another, red hot chili pepper only sing alongs over a bonfire of treated wood...this year should be prove equally as memorable.
This year we are going to host it at the Kings Arms. Fancy. This way all the bands will be able to play without fear of noise control shutting us down.
Bands are going to start at 8 so don't turn up at 11 and complain you missed someone fool.
Today we are releasing our first tribute album (well, EP). On it various artists showcase the brilliant songwriting of the Eversons fused with their own respective styles. Also it's a free download so make sure you check it out here.
The opening track features Lil' Chief chanteuse Princess Chelsea backed by the Eversons themselves. The result is a very Ronettes inspired rendition of "Kick Him Out"
Also on the EP, excellent local artists Street Chant and Matthew Crawley, Jonathan Bree of the Brunettes makes his first appearance flying solo, and Boa Constrictors a great band from the tough suburbs of Orange County.
Today is a big day for Lil' Chief in that we are releasing our first internationally distributed title.
We have teamed up with Cargo to release Princess Chelsea's Lil' Golden Book throughout the UK and Europe.
In the past Lil' Chief has physically released in New Zealand only and big time kool indie big boi labels like Memphis Industries and Subpop have released our artists in their territories.
Across rock music history there is a rich tradition of people writing songs about messy breakups.
Imagine a world without Blondie's "One Way Or Another", Carly Simon's
"You're So Vain" or even Alanis Morrisette's "You Oughta Know"?
Sometimes, however, these songs can be a little too personal, and it
seems that we've crossed the line with the release of The Eversons'
digital b-side "Harlot" this week.
Lil' Chief Records
unreservedly apologises to the person that the song has been interpreted as being a personal attack on, and to all others who were offended by the lyrical content
of said song. Our initial impression of the song was that it was a love
song to a sex worker, however we should have realised it's potential to
hurt an individual and now recognise that it is both sexist and misogynistic and that we failed to screen it properly.
We understand that our
handling of this affair may be seen as unsatisfactory by many, and for
that we apologise too. This is new experience for us - in 10 years of
business we have never experienced
a strong negative response to a release, and within reason do not
believe in censoring our artists. We will now certainly be more mindful
of the possible impact that our future releases may have, whether they
be A-sides or B-sides.
"Harlot" has been removed from
Bandcamp at The Eversons' request, and will not be reissued in any
other way in the future. (If it was a physical product, it'd now be as
rare as one of those "butcher" cover Beatles albums.)
Songwriter Mark Turner issued an initial apology on Wednesday concerning the lyrical content, and the band and Mark have released a further apology today.
The core response to the song can be found here on the The Eversons Facebook page, while further discussion can be found on the Lil' Chief Facebook page and here.
We've learnt a lot from these comments over the last few days, and so
would encourage anyone that is interested in learning more to have a
read or contribute.
On a side note, we have been
dismayed at how nasty and threatening some of the comments have become,
including threats of physical violence towards some comment makers. The song
has clearly sparked an impassioned debate, but we ask that the small
number of people using it as an excuse to air personal grievances and
make physical threats, even when made in jest, refrain from doing so as
this does nothing to help the cause but rather blurs the message.
How exclusive are we!? Four weeks ago we celebrated this single and music video with an awesome release party in Auckland, yet we didn't actually release it. Obviously our intention is not to deprive the rest of the world the opportunity to actually experience this offering so today we are going to release it for free download and unleash the visual assault version as well.
"Terminally Lame" is a re-recording of the song as it appears on debut album Summer Feeling. The video was made by Trophy Wife Productions, the team behind the band’s first video for ‘Could It Ever Get Better?’
Lil Chief Records has just received the tragic news that Voom founding member, Mac MacCaskill has passed away. He was an integral member of the group for over a decade and contributed to many of their well-known tracks. We are greatly saddened to hear of his passing. Here is his family's obituary from the NZ Herald:
"MACASKILL, Andrew Scott (Mac). Aged 49 yrs, passed away in the company of his darling Leisa on Thursday 13th September 2012 after a short illness. Most treasured son (Scamp) of Trish and Stuart and dearly loved brother of Grant and Helen and Ian and Sandie. Adored Dad of Sophie and Nic and the coolest Uncle Mac to Ella, Callum and Lewis. His loving nature and wonderful free spirit will be greatly missed by us all. A service will be held at 3:00pm Tuesday 18th September at the Purewa All Saints Crematorium Chapel, All Saints Rd, Meadow Bank, Auckland. Our sincere thanks to the Doctors and Nurses at the Mercy Hospice for their compassionate care of Mac and family. Donations please in lieu of flowers to the Mercy Hospice, Ponsonby, Auckland."
Here's a track from Voom's first album, Now I Am Me, with Mac on drums...
Princess Chelsea has a new video out for her song 'Overseas'.
The video is made by Jonathan Bree who made and starred in The Cigarette Duet music video.
Overseas features the vocal talents of James Milne aka Lawrence Arabia - he is somewhat of a New Zealand indie prince and is currently touring in the states and Europe with his wonderful band! His old band The Reduction Agents were one of the first Lil' Chief signings and are still an underground favourite amongst kool New Zealanders, often played at trendy parties or arty cafes.
For those of you from Auckland - Princess Chelsea is playing her last show for quite a while tonight (Friday 14th September) at The Kings Arms with The Eversons alongside local comedian Joseph Harper.
To celebrate the release of their brand new single ‘Terminally Lame’, The Eversons will be joined by a few of their most attractive friends for a night of playing and partying at Auckland's King's Arms.
‘Terminally Lame’ is taken from The Eversons’ debut LP, Summer Feeling, which has received high critical praise since it was released earlier in the year. The Sunday Star Times reckons it, “brings the warmth,” while and the Dominion Post awarded it four stars, “You can’t help getting caught up in their summery harmonies”. The album has also received praise from crazy famous celebrities like Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, who “love[s] the lyrics,” and Sam Scott of the Phoenix Foundation, “Yeah he was really, really intense. He made quite an impression because he made me a bit scared. But then I went and checked out their music a bit more and realised, 'No they're really good'".
The show will also feature fellow Lil Chief artist and internet meme-queen Princess Chelsea. She’s just returned from a tour of the UK and Europe, and her video for 'the Cigarette Duet' has garnered over 5 million views on YouTube. Rounding out the bill will be Joseph Harper, award winning comedian (Best Newcomer at Fringe Festival 2012), and Pikachunes, who will keep the party going well into the night with his DJ antics.
Don’t miss out on a good time now. The Eversons have been celebrated for their live show, with Lawrence Arabia saying he has never seen them make a mistake. Not even the one.
The ‘Terminally Lame’ single will be released in September. The single is a re-recording of the song as it appears on Summer Feeling, and will be accompanied by a video created by the team behind the band’s first video for ‘Could It Ever Get Better?’, Trophy Wife Productions. 'Terminally Lame', and its accompanying B-side, 'Harlot', are currently receiving exclusive airplay on bNet stations nationwide.
Cool Rainbows have just released a brand new music video and single from their debut album Whale Rocket. The track is "Reality and A Clue" and the video was made by Newfoundland Tack.
The digital single is also available here with an exclusive b-side "Lights"
This month sees the launch of the film "How Far is Heaven" by the director, Chris Pryor. We here at Lil Chief wanted to pass on our congratulations to Chris since he was one of the earliest directors to work with some of the bands on Lil Chief Records and was especially helpful in the days when we absolutely zero budget for music videos.
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His first effort was the video for "Bedroom Exotica" by the Tokey Tones. It was a fairly crazy track to choose as a single, but the music was a perfect accompaniment to his super-eight images of the Warkworth rodeo. Warkworth certainly isn't Texas, but this small-town in New Zealand certainly does it's best to get it's cowboy on ... at least, during rodeo season. Amazingly the video was shown on television repeated times and gained the Tokey Tones a reputation for being a band who valued artistic merit over pop stardom...
Chris was also a great help during the creation of the first video for the Ruby Suns, "Sleep In The Garden". Now he shouldn't take the blame for the crazy idea behind the video - it was my own foolish idea to film all of us in the band throwing vegetables at lead singer, Ryan McPhun, while he tried to mime his way through the song. And I think we can firmly blame the little dance routines on James Milne, who was caught up in the bizarreness of the concept and decided we should take it even further. Of course, it was too much for Ryan, who kept breaking into laughter as tomatoes continually hit him in the face. The footage ended up being fairly unusable, so I had the bright idea that we could dump the whole lot on Chris and see what he could come up with. His odd editing choices turned our craziness into something that's actually pretty entertaining to watch.
Things to note - the guitar that Ryan is playing was signed by two members of Bon Jovi. It was later painted black and smashed in half during a show by the Conjurors. And doesn't this song sound great, even after five years have passed since its first release...
Chris's movie is a beautifully shot documentary that looks at a group of nuns that live in small town New Zealand. They continue to live in a traditional fashion, whilst also having to deal with the impositions of the outside world and the wildly varying culture of the largely Maori population that lives nearby. To find out where Chris's film is showing then follow this link.
Today The Eversons are releasing the first single and video from their debut album Summer Feeling. The song is 'Could It Ever Get Better?', and the video was made by Trophy Wife Productions. These are the same crazy geniuses that have animated puppets for The Brunettes and paper and cardboard for Voom. This time they have turned their hand to stop motion felt animation.
The single is also available as a free/name-your-price download with exclusive b-side ' I Don't Wanna Be Your Friend' via Bandcamp.
Could It Ever Get Better?:
01 Could It Ever Get Better?
02 I Don't Wanna Be Your Friend
Today we are proud to bring you the first ever Lil' Chief Records 7" (we're not counting the almost mythical first release by The Brunettes). Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's for the insanely catchy The Cigarette Duet by Princess Chelsea.
Pressed on beautiful opaque blue vinyl and with a drawing by Harlequin Jones on the cover, it's limited to 300 copies, however we have just 100 copies for the web store as the band will be offering the rest on the merch table at their shows.
You can have a listen here [Bandcamp], or here [SoundCloud], or at the bottom of this post even. The digital version comes with a bonus radio edit of The Cigarette Duet (you get the digital version when you buy the 7" anyway).
The 12" pressing of Lil' Golden Book on gold vinyl sold out, so be careful that you don't miss out this.
Oh, and you can also download a free Princess Chelsea track via the recently released Lil' Chief Records mixtape - These Shaky Isles.
The Cigarette Duet (European Tour Edition):
Side A:
01 The Cigarette Duet
02 Positive Guy Meets Negative Man
Side B:
03 Goodnight Little Robot Child
Digital Bonus Track:
04 The Cigarette Duet (Radio Edit)
Since one of our artists in particular has been getting a lot of attention lately we thought it would be a good time to introduce folks to some of our other artists, who are also quite great. So...
Today we have a music present for all of you lovely people: These Shaky Isles, a mixtape of Lil' Chief moments spanning our (almost) 10 years of trying to look like we know how to run a record label.
The sweet artwork comes from New Zealand artist and designer Baly Gaudin.
These Shaky Isles is totally FREE and you can download it here (or else listen and download at the end of this post). If you enjoy it please share it with your friends!
These Shaky Isles:
01 Pikachunes - Just a Boy
02 Princess Chelsea - Frack
03 The Eversons - Could It Ever Get Better?
04 The Ruby Suns - Haunted House
05 Voom - B Your Boy
06 Cool Rainbows - Fake Tattoos
07 The Nudie Suits - Inheriting the Stereo
08 Wet Wings - You're Not
09 The Gladeyes - Honey Pie
10 The Tokey Tones - The Observatory
11 The Brunettes - The Record Store
12 Shaft - Pacific Ocean
13 Pie Warmer - The Motorway
14 The Reduction Agents - Waiting For Your Love
The Princess Chelsea and Pikachunes tour of Europe is official underway, starting in the beautiful city of Prague!
Miles Loveless, aka Pikachunes and bass player for Princess Chelsea, has started a diary to write about his experiences on the road, which should be of interest to fans of both bands.
You can find the confirmed tour dates here, however there are some more shows that are still to be announced.
If they are coming to a town near you please come and say 'hello' - they have travelled a very long way to be there!
Today we proudly release the debut album by The Eversons - Summer Feeling.
Like their previous EP, it's a classic pop effort that captures the pep of their live set rather than something built on prog studio trickery (wait for album number five maybe for the dubstep nu celtic fusion).
The album title “Summer Feeling” ( inspired by the Jonathan Richman song of the same name ) is very apt. In a similar manner album opener "Could It Ever Get Better" is an anthem for youth while at the same time a forewarning for the times ahead.
Ultimately this album is a party. A celebration of being a young New Zealander and all the shitty things that means.
We recommend getting along to the album release shows coming up in Auckland and Wellington and picking up a copy of their limited edition surf green vinyl!
Pictured: An Eversons scrapbook moment, post Record Store Day performance and seeing Summer Feeling on vinyl for the first time.
Auckland Album Release Friday 27 April with Cool Rainbows, Princess Chelsea, Ghost Wave, Poor Me Poor You Whammy Bar / Wine Cellar, Entry $10
Wellington Album Release Saturday 5 May with Cool Rainbows, Wet Wings MIghty Mighty, Entry $5
The artists on Lil Chief Records are a creative bunch and have produced some remarkable videos over the years. Obvious examples are the self-produced effort by Princess Chelsea, which made her song “The Cigarette Duet” into a viral hit. Equally effective was The Brunettes’ video for “Her Hairagami Set”, which also had a great run on YouTube. However, there have also been a number of great videos produced by bands on the label, which have sadly gone under the radar. Therefore I thought I’d take the time to put the spotlight onto some of them.
One of my personal favourites was Voom’s music video for “We’re So Lost.” It’s a beautifully haunting song and it was one reason why we as a label initially considered compiling two separate albums out of the material that the group brought to us – one album to capture their well-known fuzzed-out rock and another to capture their emotionally-direct slower numbers. The video was created by Trophy Wife, who also made the video for “Her Hairagami Set” and who are currently producing one for The Eversons. It’s a slow-paced piece, which is probably why it only achieved a couple of showings on television before disappearing off the radar. However, we see it as our version of “Watership Down” but with guinea pigs instead of rabbits…
Next up is “Bright Lights” by the Nudie Suits. It’s surely one of their finest efforts and is well-matched by the black-and-white video that was created for the song by their former bass player, John Paine (you might also know his name from his time in legendary Auckland group, Hallelujah Picassos). Unfortunately, Mr Pain was a little too talented and ended up being snapped up by a company in Singapore, but at least he left us with this great video…
It’s got to be said that producing black-and-white videos is pretty much suicidal if you want to get shown on music television (unless you’re Adele, that is). Though the Nudies Suits weren’t our only group to roll the dice. The Ruby Suns’ video for “Tane Mahuta” did manage a decent swag of views on YouTube (around 60,000 over the three uploaded versions), but it hardly got a look in on local television, despite having a couple of remarkable pieces of digital trickery. The director of the piece was Marco Viduarre, who has always been a great supporter of the group (and our label generally). He made this video while working long days helping create the weta-like creatures that populated the forests of King Kong (and his video for “There Are Birds” was done, despite days spent working on Avatar). But anyway, here’s the video … btw, I’m the one in the horsehead…
Moving forward to the present day, I’d also like to include “Hyacinth Girl” by one of our newer acts, The Eversons. This group has actually achieved a good deal of interest online and their career is only just getting started, so it’s probably not quite right to list the following video as “unloved.” What's more, their next video is being made by Trophy Wife (who did the Brunettes and Voom videos mentioned earlier in this piece) and the new Eversons album is due out very soon (more info next week!). In the meantime, hope you enjoy this great little piece of film-work...
So there you go. What a great set of videos, huh? Well, I like them a lot, anyways! And hopefully one of the other peeps from Lil Chief will post some of their favourites here soon. But while I still have control of the blog, I may as well take the chance to push one of the videos that I actually made myself … Funnily enough, it was actually during a trip as a member of The Ruby Suns that I made both two videos for my former band, The Tokey Tones - the video below and the one for "Juxtapose" (made at the Melbourne Aquarium, which I recommend if you’re ever down that way). If you look carefully at the start of this video, then you’ll see the sleeping forms of two members of the tour party - Mark Stebben (original Ruby Suns bass player) and soundguy extraordinaire, Bevan Smith (Signer)…
Cool Rainbows debut 'Whale Rocket' is now available in stores, or direct from the Lil' Chief online store on cd, digitally, and on limited edition blue vinyl.
We are very excited to announce that The Eversons debut album "Summer Feeling" has just come back from the pressing plant, on green vinyl.
The album is due for release on 23 April but because only 300 copies have been pressed you can now start securing your vinyl preorders today.
CD and digital presales are also available.
The Cool Rainbows album is also available for preorder (CD, Blue Vinyl, Digitally) and is released this month, on 19 March.
The Porch Singers will be supporting Cool Rainbows at their Auckland album release at the Wine Cellar on the 25 March. And exactly WHO are the Porch Singers?
Well apart from the strikingly obvious clue on the gig poster, I can tell you that they are comprised of members from a flagship Lil' Chief band that plays only rare performances, and are certainly not to be missed!
If you need more strikingly obvious clues, it's original Tokey Tones members Scott Mannion, Gareth Shute and Nick Buckton, plus a bunch of generation one Lil' Chief dudes like Ryan Mcphun, James Milne, and Jonathan Brunette performing hits from the albums 'Caterpillar' and 'Butterfly' plus unreleased classics like "A Capella Loves The Country" from the sophomoric Tokey Tones release which after nine years we are still hoping is going to be finished one day.
They are performing as The Porch Singers, because founding member Li Ming Hu will be overseas and unavailable to play with the band.
Truly a band ahead of their time, they were aligning themselves with indie cats in music videos well before it made sense in the marketplace.
These are limited to 50 eight page copies that are designed, hand sewn and numbered by New Zealand based artist Harley Jones. The illustrations are from a photo shoot Harley put together with Chelsea as well as stills from her music videos.
Harley Jones is an artist currently based in Dunedin, New Zealand. He most commonly creates large scale outdoor paintings, collaborating with artists in Dunedin, Wellington and Auckland. Recently he has been more focused on illustration and concept work for bands / poster art for local shows. Coincidentally, he also designed the poster for the Eversons + No Aloha show at Cassette Bar in Auckland tonight!
Princess Chelsea has finally dropped the music video for Yulia, an anthemic & visual masterpiece sure to appeal to the myriads of people who are into cats and having tumblr accounts.
Princess Chelsea & Her Best Friends will be playing a special show this Sunday 26 February, at the Wine Cellar with Boycrush and Guts. In keeping with the slightly incestuous Lil' Chief vibe, Boycrush is the project of Alistair from the Ruby Suns, and Guts the project of Bradley Artesque, former TeenWolf colleague.
A special run of handmade magical princess themed colouring books made by Harlequin Jones will be available at the show!
With the imminent release of Cool Rainbows debut 'Whale Rocket' on March 19 - Pre Orders are now available on the Lil' Chief Website for both limited edition Blue Vinyl and CD formats.
Cool Rainbows Auckland album release will be on Sunday the 25th of March at the Wine Cellar with support from surprise guests, possibly on the Lil' Chief Roster. Stay Tuned!
Well today a song I wrote called ‘The Cigarette Duet’ has hit one million views on Youtube.
To blow my own trumpet, after I had finished writing it on the Roland E-20 I used to play in Teenwolf (a keyboard which for some inexplicable reason appears to have a large bitemark taken out of the 3rd A key) I decided it was a catchy and good pop song and was fairly convinced I’d written an indie hit. I began to suspect that I’d written an indie crossover hit when early on my parents leaked it to a number of Jehovah’s Witnesses who gave them very positive feedback.
Turns out I was somewhat right.
Like a lot of independent artists everything I do is made on a shoestring budget, although not necessarily by choice.
However, as of today, the music video for 'The Cigarette Duet' has more views on Youtube than for instance, all of Six60's and The Midnight Youth's music videos, combined (two top 40 artists in New Zealand).
This is extremely encouraging. It is encouraging because in the music video I am wearing a swimsuit, which means people must generally agree that I look attractive and cute in my swimsuit / quirky wig.
Possibly even more encouraging though, is that this also indicates that the power of a good song can transcend limitations in funds and resources, and still go on to connect with people all over the world, and on this occasion surpassing the results of even the most structured and high budget marketing campaigns. (In Lana Del Rey's case the combination of these two things has proven to be phenomenal).
In a chinese whispers scenario, much of the online interest surrounding 'The Cigarette Duet' has been simply due to people from all walks of life passing links around via websites like facebook, tumblr and most certainly not myspace.
The slightly controversial subject material has probably helped too, sparking a number of intellectual debates via the comments section of Youtube.
Of course there has been support from the fingerboarding scene;
If the resulting sales continue at their current trends, and one in every 15,000 viewers orders a Lil' Golden Book LP then I am very excited to be able to pay off most of the vinyl shipping costs in the next few months!
Of course there are other angles to examine. As an artist, I am aware of the danger of becoming pigeon holed as 'the hipster girl from the cigarette duo'. Perhaps it will be that not one percent of youtube viewers will care about my sophomoric album, which is going to be, naturally, a concept opera concerning our perception of each other on the internet.
However I could almost be happy to settle for these consequences having garnered the knowledge that even if people don't pay for a good song these days, they most certainly will listen to it.
Lil' Chief Records is a boutique New Zealand based indie pop record label and musical collective, formed in 2002, and releasing the best music in that genre from these here shores. Our HQ is in Auckland, a city built on a dormant volcanic field...
This blog is where a bunch of our artists will post stories, pictures, videos and mp3s. Join in and say hi!
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