The Eversons - Summer Feeling Released Today!

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

Lil Chief's Best Unloved Music Videos

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)…

Princess Chelsea + Pikachunes UK / European Tour Dates

Princess Chelsea is going to be touring the UK / Europe in May.

Here are the first round of tour dates for 2012, with more to come soon!

Thu 3 May Jazz Dock Prague, Czech Republic

Sat 5 May Budějovický Majáles Festival (main stage) České Budějovice, Czech Republic

Mon 7 May Comet Club Berlin, Germany w/ Pikachunes

Tue 8 May Molotow Hamburg, Germany w/ Pikachunes

Wed 9 May Studio 672 Cologne, Germany w/ Pikachunes

Fri 11 May The Haunt, 3.15pm, The Great Escape Festival Brighton, United Kingdom

Fri 11 May Psychosocial Ground Floor, 8.00pm, The Great Escape Festival, Brighton, United Kingdom

Tue 15 May The Castle Manchester, United Kingdom

Wed 16 May Start The Bus Bristol, United Kingdom

Thurs 17 May Water Rats London, United Kingdom w/ Pikachunes

Fri 18 May Heebie Jeebies, Liverpool Sound City Festival Liverpool, United Kingdom

Sat 19 May Chavase Park, Liverpool Sound City Festival Liverpool, United Kingdom 


Wed 23 May Paradiso Amsterdam, Netherlands

Thurs 24 May Madame Moustache Brussels, Belgium

Fri 25 May La Fleche D'Or Paris, France


Tues 29 May Circolo degli Artisti Rome, Italy w/ Pikachunes


Thurs 14 June Klub Fléda Brno, Czech Republic


Fri 15 June Wilsonic Festival, Design Factory Garden Bratislava, Slovakia


Sat 16 June Poke Festival, Drienovská Nová Ves Košice,  Slovakia


Mon 18 June L'escalier Cafe Liege, Belgium

Cool Rainbows 'Whale Rocket' released today!

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.



Aucklanders, make sure you head along to their Auckland album release, this Sunday at the Wine Cellar, with special guests The Porch Singers.

Eversons Pre-Orders + Who Are The Porch Singers??

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.

Princess Chelsea Colouring Books!

A special run of 50 Princess Chelsea colouring books are now available for a limited time from the Lil' Chief online store.

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!

New Princess Chelsea Music Video

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!