Refreshing
Mmm holidays – delicious, and indeed refreshing. There’s nothing like waking up at 1 in the afternoon to remind you that for all the crime, corruption and disaster in the world, good still prevails. It’s also refreshing to be writing a blog post again, now that I think about it. And now that I think about me thinking about how refreshing writing is just then, part of the reason why we’re feeling so refreshed is probably because we’re writing new music. Did that sentence confuse you? Well, me too. But the absence of a squiggle means that Bill Gates followed along quite nicely. Thank you, Microsoft.
(If you thought “Refreshing” referred to refreshing this website in order to receive new blog posts and are feeling disappointed, I’d like to apologise. I’d also like to apologise for the immense strain your keyboard must have taken refreshing this page over and over for the time we were away.) (more…)
Joe Berg
It feels good to be back in civilisation. As you might be aware, myself and Jason spent the last two weeks in Johannesburg and have returned mugged, hijacked and dead. Not really though, don’t worry. We actually had a spectacular time, learnt a few things and gained a few skills.
Without name-dropping the whole list, we have the best friends on earth. Brad, Dev, Shane, Roxie, Shan, Dan, Tayla, Chloé, Roy and everyone else we saw for less time, you’re great. From letting us spoon and occasionally sleep in their houses to taking us to Gold Reef City, taking us quad biking and jet skiing, feeding us, teaching us mad drinking games, ice-skating, dancing on the highway, bowling, arcading, driving us around, jolling, letting us braai badly and play with their kittens, and showing us to their families – thank you guys. We will never forget the experiences you gave us, except for a few involving copious amounts of alcohol. Much luvvies. (more…)
Greeting from the silence
Awe
Hey there. Long time no see, sadly. I thought it’d be write of me to hit up the internet again, so here I am. Yes, that was an attempt at a pun. Everyone is crazy busy at the moment, but that isn’t really an excuse not to give you delicious blog nutrients. After all, we did promise to keep you fed. I’m halfway through the toughest exams I’ve ever had to write and I’m taking time out just for you. We do still care.
People have been saying to us “Forefront, when are you playing again? We’d really like to see you play again soon”. My usual response to this is yelling “My name isn’t Forefront”, before rushing to the bathroom in tears. In truth we have been out of the loop for quite a while now, and it’s starting to get to us. We like playing for you, really we do, and we should be playing again regularly quite soon.
Now, and don’t get mad when I tell you this, we actually played on Friday. Please, I asked you nicely – calm down. We couldn’t invite all you lovely people because it was a private function. I won’t tell you how fun it was, because that would be a little rude, but we did enjoy ourselves quite a lot. I won’t even tell you how awesome it was setting up and playing at a street party. The good news for you is that we remember just how fun it is to play and have been encouraged to do more of this performing thing soontimes. (more…)
Wowzors
It’s been a while. A few whiles, even. But don’t worry, we’re still alive, we’re still playing music and stuff, and I still have a moustache. And some new shoes. But that’s not relevant, so I won’t bring it up. Right. A fair amount has happened in our absence from the land of blog-posting, but we return home once more with goodies from our travels.
The main reason for our absentness has been the ol’ recording thing. By now you must be thinking “will I ever hear these recordings?” or something along those lines. I must confess, until recently similar thoughts had plagued my mind. But I was put at ease by Jason who kindly allowed my ears to feel some of the stuff we’ve been working so hard on. The sensation was incredibly pleasurable, I assure you. I had to flick my hair out of my face afterwards (like in a shampoo ad) because it had landed there in my glee. You will have your shampoo moments too, I promise.
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Thesdhei
Soliek, time flies, and stuff. The term ends tomorrow. Fame is done and dusted. My hair’s grown a bit. Crazy stuff. I’m really looking forward to a little break, cozliek, busy bee and whatnot. But an idle bee gathers no pollen, as they say, and honey is a beverage best served while the iron is hot. Or something.
In the spirit of all that, we’re kicking off tracking next week at long lastly. This is good, because it means music. Our music, specifically. It’s a step closer to your ears, and we’re quite happy about that. We’ll undoubtedly keep you updated with pictures of Taylor on his phone, or other important steps of the recording process.
We’re also meeting up with the very awesome members of Soldier today. Hopefully we’ll be taking the stage together soon for a show with more of our kinda vibe to it. I’ll keep my puns to a minimum for the meeting, apparently it’s bad for PR. JK lol, that’s not happening. Puns are like water, and I’ll be dammed if I stop letting them flow. Teehee.
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Soup People
Soup people
I’ve got chills, they’re multiplying. Might be the extreme cold, or the excitement for Friday. I’m going with a combo. Aww. Yeeeah. If you aren’t sure what I’m on about, take a look at this link:
https://www.facebook.com/events/343329272416035/
Unless I’ve managed to mis-copy or mis-paste, that should take you to the event for Friday that everyone (literally everyone on the planet) has been talking about. For the TL:DR among you, here’s a plot synopsis:
This week Friday (yes, tomorrow). Mercury. Bands playing. Forefront playing. At 10 (pm). Along with other kewl bands. The Dollfins. The Man Motels. Free entrance.
See why we’re excited? See you there, pear. (more…)
The Voice
“Hey, hey man.”
The raspy, evil voice calls out from the darkness.
“Hey, don’t act like you can’t hear me.”
I know this voice.
“Your time is up, my friend.”
Cruel, demanding. I know I can’t get away.
“You’re mine again.”
This is the voice of calculus.
This is the voice of physics.
This is the voice of some-other-stuff-that’s-less-fun-than-being-on-holiday.
And it’s calling for me.
Well, it’s calling for me and Jason, but it sounds worse if we’re on our own. Let’s say it’s calling for each of us individually. That’s more like it.
Yes, university starts again on Monday. That means we’ve been off for seven weeks already. It doesn’t really feel like it’s been that long. It’s mad. It’s crazy. It’s mad-crazy. But we’ve gotten a lot done in our time off. Photo shoots, recording, writing, fart jokes, arranging gigs – the lot.
I know all the kiddly-winks have started already (on Monday, I believe), and a bunch of other universities too. It’s hard to get back into things. Back into routine. Back into working. Back into the grind. But keep in your mind the image of the dancing orang-utan, and you will get through. You will overcome.
If that fails, you can keep checking up on us for good news. We’ve got EP recording and mixing going on, we’ve got gigs in the pipeline, and we’ve got puns aplenty. Just because two of us will be getting edumackation again, doesn’t mean we’ll stop giving you the goods. We can multi-task like that.
In other news, we’re working on being musical. No, wait. We’re working on playing a musical (the very one Taywee is singing in), which means reading scores and scores of, well, scores. As a classical guitarist, I’m quite acquainted with the treble clef (the one that looks like a fancy G). Unfortunately, the bass part is written in, you guessed it, the bass clef. Other than that slight irritation, my only problem with the musical so far has been that the ad lib slap bass solo (yes, you read that correctly), which I was very excited about, has been cut. But I might sneak one in somewhere else.
Don’t forget that you can hit us up if you have any questions or anything in particular that you’d like to hear about. Just drop a comment thingy down below, or Facebook us, or Tweet us, or (if you’re feeling old-school) just ask one of us when you see us.
Remember the orang-utan.
Rous
For the record…-ing
Today is Monday. After a fairly atrocious week (for me at least), things managed to pick up this past weekend in the joy and accomplishment departments. If you’ve been following up on us, as I hope you have been, you’ll know that I’m talking about our time spent in studio on Saturday and Sunday recording tracks for our EP, First and Foremost.
This paragraph was going to be about recording, but now it is about me passing my driver’s, which is what happened earlier today. Breathe in deeply. In your mind’s eye, imagine a strategically shaved orang-utan in semi-formal clothing break dancing. This is as close a mental image of me after my test as it is possible to have. Cherish this image. Keep it close to your heart and call upon it in times of hardship. This is my gift to you.
This paragraph is going to be about recording. Thanks to our homie4life Kenneth Burnell (AKA Kenni), we were able to spend some more time in SAE’s Neve studio. Haven’t heard of it? It’s pretty underground. Legitimately. Around two stories, I’d approximate. The Neve is one of SAE’s finest and largest studios, and we’ve grown somewhat of a soft spot for it.
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Charity Drive
Good morning
*Afternoon. How I do enjoy being on holiday. I’ve decided to get up, at last, and do the write thing by making this post. By like, writing it.
Today is Thursday. I know this because yesterday was Wednesday. And because I just checked. Tomorrow is Friday, and we’ll be practising one last time before Cause4Paws this Sunday. For those of you who don’t know, Cause4Paws is a charity event being hosted by The Russian to raise money for The Lucky Lucy Foundation. It will be featuring a line up of 13 bands performing from 14:00 – 20:00, including us. For those of you who don’t know, The Lucky Lucy Foundation is an organisation which looks after abused and neglected animals. They cover rescue, treatment, rehabilitation of the animals and help to find loving homes for them.
It feels great getting involved in an event like this. Yes, The Russian is in Durbanville. Yes, that is mildly inconvenient. But it’s about much more than that. Seeing the amount of sponsors and bands that have gotten involved, seeing the effort being put into the event and the passion people have for the charity, and getting involved yourself, is worth the mild inconvenience. Seeing what people can accomplish if they’re willing to put in effort is inspiring. After all the effort that’s already been put in, the least we can do is overcome the mild inconvenience and support this event. (more…)
So It Begins
Wassup, yo
Ohey, it’s me again, the red one. I have good tidings, tidings of freedom and of celebration. And stuff. Yes, and stuff.
Today is Thursday, which is nice. It’s also very cold, which is also (in my opinion) nice. Aside from being a cold Thursday, today is also the last day of exams as far as band members are concerned, which, I dare say, is VERY nice. I was tempted to use a word other than “nice” there, but I thought “nice” would suffice. Twice. With rice. No dice? I’ll stop.
As you can imagine, we’re rather happy about this. Because in the same way Summer follows Spring, June follows May, and Taylor follows rugby scores; holidays follow exams. It is the natural way of things. And that, now that Zorba too has finished with exams, naturally leaves us squarely in the holidays and squarely in the being-more-productive-days too. Which is very nice indeed.
Welcome, welcome…
Welcome, welcome. As you can see, we’ve made it “all up in the interwebs”, as some other popular South African artists might put it. We now have a page, and despite my suggestion of naming it ‘Jimmy’ being shot down, we’re all rather pleased with it.
So, the internet then, how does it work? I haven’t the foggiest, but thankfully Jason does. He also knows how design works, along with a great deal of other things, which is really convenient. From what I’ve managed to figure out, he designed the page and then summoned the mystical and majestic internet unicorn to carry it back to internet-land. Obviously there were more steps involved, but I’m pretty sure that’s the gist of it.
Forefront Band 