Tuesday, March 27, 2012

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

Monday, March 19, 2012

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.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

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.

Friday, March 2, 2012

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!

Monday, February 20, 2012

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!

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Cool Rainbows Pre-Orders!



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!

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

One Million Views - An Essay On Achieving Internet Hype in 2012

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;



The Brony Scene;



a number of covers;



and copy cat videos.



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.