Our music video for the song GOODBYE has finally been released, we are really happy with it. It was shot in November last year and has been in production since, the video produced by Magic Hour Productions in South Africa...
Here it is:
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Between you & I, London & Toronto..
We're sitting here in a house in a suburb called Wellington in London, Ontario; the band and I. The reason we are here is because we linked up with these people during the Canadian Music Week festival in Toronto two weeks ago who have access to one of the most amazing recording studios in the country which also happens to be one of the most prestigious sound production universities around called Fanshawe. During these two weeks here we have managed to record (in 5.1 surround sound) all the drums for our 11 songs, the bass for 3 of them, and we have one track which is completely recorded with guitars & vocals and has been mixed down quite beautifully, it just needs to be mastered. This track is called Hold On and is one of our harder songs, a short punchy, almost punk, rock anthem and from the version we heard last night, is sounding fantastic. This will be the first release, and as soon as it's been mastered will be sent around to various interested locations, companies & labels around the world. I'm sure it's going to open doors, just like the recordings we did back in South Africa did (which you can listen to on the side-bar of this blog, under PARKLANE).
Our live show at the moment is becoming an attraction, the energy released at each show seems to bring the people back to the following gigs, the power of momentum is revealing itself quite re-assuringly.
5 Days of interviews, shows & Easter chilling...
I'm back on the road with Ryan, Daniel & Mitch from our Easter chill-out with the Gangnons just outside London Ontario, now en-route in Mitch's Buick SUV to Toronto to meet with our friend Terry to organize a possible tour to Ottowa. Damo is meeting us there, hopefully, after having had his own chill session in Hamilton with his friends Rex & Zoe.. We all needed some time apart just to rediscover a sense of self, living in each other's faces for over two months now.. I hope everyone is ready for action. I believe I am.
Thank God for my mac & the headphones..
My favorite thing to do at the moment is when climbing into bed at night, to put the headphones on & listen to John Frusciante's new album, The Empyrean. It fills me with those necessary frequencies that bring back the soulful unconditional understandings I crave, to feel at peace with myself & my surroundings. Rediscovering Radiohead lately too, In Rainbows..
Thank God for music.
My other favorite thing is big stages...
Our live show at the moment is becoming an attraction, the energy released at each show seems to bring the people back to the following gigs, the power of momentum is revealing itself quite re-assuringly.
5 Days of interviews, shows & Easter chilling...
I'm back on the road with Ryan, Daniel & Mitch from our Easter chill-out with the Gangnons just outside London Ontario, now en-route in Mitch's Buick SUV to Toronto to meet with our friend Terry to organize a possible tour to Ottowa. Damo is meeting us there, hopefully, after having had his own chill session in Hamilton with his friends Rex & Zoe.. We all needed some time apart just to rediscover a sense of self, living in each other's faces for over two months now.. I hope everyone is ready for action. I believe I am.
Thank God for my mac & the headphones..
My favorite thing to do at the moment is when climbing into bed at night, to put the headphones on & listen to John Frusciante's new album, The Empyrean. It fills me with those necessary frequencies that bring back the soulful unconditional understandings I crave, to feel at peace with myself & my surroundings. Rediscovering Radiohead lately too, In Rainbows..
Thank God for music.
My other favorite thing is big stages...
Monday, April 06, 2009
Dream Sequence..
I am luminescentranslucent naked paralleloman, and with glowing electric blue eyes I see creativity as the driving source of existence. I see that my lungs drive my huge white wings. As I inhale I lift them high above me and lean into an exhalation which lifts me into the atmosphere and with gentle ease I breathe throughout the night sky, the cool air returning the favor. I lick patterns into the clouds. Far below a black ocean meets a soft pale beach, behind some steep dunes a twitching jungle begins and stretches back into the distance. I relax and fall towards the beach, I reach terminal velocity and hook a wing into the wall of wind and begin to arc into a parallel with the beach. I watch my shadow race along-speed, climbing & dropping up & over the wind-carved beach-scape below. The blur focuses as the centrifugal pace eases back into memory and I soon see the tall shadows of some people sitting around a fire, hand-gestures flickering on the moonlit sand tell stories of totem-poles & past-lives. I breathe around just above silently listening, silently recording.
At sunrise I change my frequency back to life as man on earth. I pack away my wings and wipe away the translucence to open my eyes. I am standing in the middle of a tarred road winding down one side of a mountain covered in tall pine-trees. I'm holding a long skateboard, tail on the tar and nose in my hand. No cars. I drop the nose to the ground and ease the collision of rubber & tar with my foot on the tail. The front wheels meet the ground and I stand on the wooden board and I lean into gravity. The wind against my face gathers strength as I engage with the downhill, the rubber wheels begin to purr. The road cuts through the trees & mountainside boulders down towards the ocean. Corner after corner I carve at a comfortable pace. After a certain while I reach a bend in the smooth road which is peppered with loose gravel. I skid through the sand & stones & lose control of my ride, and I roll into the roadside verge. I stand up & look around at where I am, which is about halfway down the mountain. Before me is an open flat area with no trees, just tall dry grass. It seems to come to a cliff on the other side so I decide to go explore the view. I walk through the grass and eventually come to an area where I imagined the cliff might be but as I get a bit closer I realize a patch of rocks & boulders block my view. After some closer inspection I discover there's a large crack in a little corner of the obstruction. I can see some light shining through the cracks from the inside which suggests it might have an opening with a spectacular view of the cliffs meeting the ocean.. I climb inside and navigate my way through the natural tunnel which after a short time begins to look weathered by years of footsteps. I follow the light and seek out my imagined prize view. I corner a few rocks and come to an open cave which pinholes a bright sky blue on the opposite side. As I approach the opening the darkness of the cave tracks backwards revealing a certain degree of majestic magnificence: towering rugged mountain cliffs crashing splendidly into a deep blue sea. Seagulls and rumbling surf caress my ears. I sit down and begin to embrace my surroundings..
I snap out of it and decide to continue exploring this path that seems to continue past this viewpoint.I follow the path through many such viewpoints. Eventually the path thins & leads up to an old wooden door which is slightly ajar. I push it open and find what looks like the inside of someone's house. I walk through the dark corridors on a maroon carpet with black & gold symbols sewn into the design. The house seems empty but lived in, however it's as if no one has lived there in a long time, I can smell old furniture & musty cabinets as I lightly walk past a number of dark entrances towards a particular doorway which has a beam of sunlight once again beckoning me in. I go inside and find an empty red wooden chair sitting in the middle of this stream of sunlight crashing through the middle of this room. I feel compelled to sit in this chair and take in the blinding ocean view before me, so I do just that. A bright afternoon sun reflecting off a smooth brittle ocean with steaming surf pounding against steep soaring rock cliff-faces on either side hits me square in the eyes. I close my eyes to relieve the stunning light, and as I do I begin to sense a presence on either side of me.
I open my eyes to find a brightly colored wooden mask lean forward out of the shadows of the room into the sunlight, I spin around to find the same thing happening behind me, I lift my arms to defend as hands appear and figures approach into the sunshine, walk slowly to me and lift me by my hands gently out of the chair, my eyes adjust to the light and I see the figures are the friendly faces of an unplaceable past. The shadows recede revealing a room consisting of a number of people all of whom seem quite familiar, but I can't figure if I know these people. They whisk me off to a bar in the deeper end of this house that I'm now realizing is carved into the side of this cliff-face. We drink and socialize like old friends, but I still can't place these faces; who are these people? Sunset time-lapses into night, a blur of drunken scenes: Smoking, laughing, hugging, kissing and loving.. Sunrise skies through merlot red stained-glass windows, deep purple & brown down blankets & gold satin pillows. The warmth of a sleeping lover. I implore sleep to soul music alone ..on fruit shandy & water for ten days.
I walk outside and there he is. He is an icon of supreme creativity, and somehow he is my friend. He confides in me and his latest project layout, a film. He describes the finer details of his design and sends me to investigate for myself. I walk up a dirt-road along the verge of a forest to find identical strips of artificially produced forest, intended as sets for this film I presume. Each strip has subtle differences, as frames in a strip of film. I continue up to the last strip and walk through it, investigating the craftsmanship. As I approach the end of the frame I hear her surprised voice, "Darin!"
One of my favorite creatures in the world stands before me and I melt with affection and hug her. I ask her what she is doing in this movie and she tells me she lives here and has her own scene a little further down the dirt-road. She takes my hand and we walk and talk. After a short while I see in the distance on a rocky outcrop, the silhouette of two cats. I know these cats and call them by their names and they walk towards us. As they reach closer I watch them change, they stay the same size but begin to look like baby tigers. They still come up to us and affectionately rub against our legs, as your cat would do. We stroke & play with them, she talks to them like they can speak English, as she does. After this brief indulgence we continue to walk towards her scene, the tigers join us and walk alongside, growing larger as we travel down the gravel road cutting through the scenes. We reach an open plain where more tigers are lazing about in-between trees and tall grass. We walk around the tiger scene and watch them closely. They notice our presence but continue to lie around grooming themselves. We eventually reach her scene where a white house stands alone in the tall grass just before another cliff overlooking the sea. As we approach the house I see that there are identical strips of land with a house each in a row behind the first. She opens the door and I watch as she disappears into the dark of the house, I follow her inside and we walk through a dark carpeted passage. She opens a door to a room that has a beam of sunlight streaming straight through, I walk in to find an empty red wooden chair casting a long shadow across the carpeted floor.
At sunrise I change my frequency back to life as man on earth. I pack away my wings and wipe away the translucence to open my eyes. I am standing in the middle of a tarred road winding down one side of a mountain covered in tall pine-trees. I'm holding a long skateboard, tail on the tar and nose in my hand. No cars. I drop the nose to the ground and ease the collision of rubber & tar with my foot on the tail. The front wheels meet the ground and I stand on the wooden board and I lean into gravity. The wind against my face gathers strength as I engage with the downhill, the rubber wheels begin to purr. The road cuts through the trees & mountainside boulders down towards the ocean. Corner after corner I carve at a comfortable pace. After a certain while I reach a bend in the smooth road which is peppered with loose gravel. I skid through the sand & stones & lose control of my ride, and I roll into the roadside verge. I stand up & look around at where I am, which is about halfway down the mountain. Before me is an open flat area with no trees, just tall dry grass. It seems to come to a cliff on the other side so I decide to go explore the view. I walk through the grass and eventually come to an area where I imagined the cliff might be but as I get a bit closer I realize a patch of rocks & boulders block my view. After some closer inspection I discover there's a large crack in a little corner of the obstruction. I can see some light shining through the cracks from the inside which suggests it might have an opening with a spectacular view of the cliffs meeting the ocean.. I climb inside and navigate my way through the natural tunnel which after a short time begins to look weathered by years of footsteps. I follow the light and seek out my imagined prize view. I corner a few rocks and come to an open cave which pinholes a bright sky blue on the opposite side. As I approach the opening the darkness of the cave tracks backwards revealing a certain degree of majestic magnificence: towering rugged mountain cliffs crashing splendidly into a deep blue sea. Seagulls and rumbling surf caress my ears. I sit down and begin to embrace my surroundings..
I snap out of it and decide to continue exploring this path that seems to continue past this viewpoint.I follow the path through many such viewpoints. Eventually the path thins & leads up to an old wooden door which is slightly ajar. I push it open and find what looks like the inside of someone's house. I walk through the dark corridors on a maroon carpet with black & gold symbols sewn into the design. The house seems empty but lived in, however it's as if no one has lived there in a long time, I can smell old furniture & musty cabinets as I lightly walk past a number of dark entrances towards a particular doorway which has a beam of sunlight once again beckoning me in. I go inside and find an empty red wooden chair sitting in the middle of this stream of sunlight crashing through the middle of this room. I feel compelled to sit in this chair and take in the blinding ocean view before me, so I do just that. A bright afternoon sun reflecting off a smooth brittle ocean with steaming surf pounding against steep soaring rock cliff-faces on either side hits me square in the eyes. I close my eyes to relieve the stunning light, and as I do I begin to sense a presence on either side of me.
I open my eyes to find a brightly colored wooden mask lean forward out of the shadows of the room into the sunlight, I spin around to find the same thing happening behind me, I lift my arms to defend as hands appear and figures approach into the sunshine, walk slowly to me and lift me by my hands gently out of the chair, my eyes adjust to the light and I see the figures are the friendly faces of an unplaceable past. The shadows recede revealing a room consisting of a number of people all of whom seem quite familiar, but I can't figure if I know these people. They whisk me off to a bar in the deeper end of this house that I'm now realizing is carved into the side of this cliff-face. We drink and socialize like old friends, but I still can't place these faces; who are these people? Sunset time-lapses into night, a blur of drunken scenes: Smoking, laughing, hugging, kissing and loving.. Sunrise skies through merlot red stained-glass windows, deep purple & brown down blankets & gold satin pillows. The warmth of a sleeping lover. I implore sleep to soul music alone ..on fruit shandy & water for ten days.
I walk outside and there he is. He is an icon of supreme creativity, and somehow he is my friend. He confides in me and his latest project layout, a film. He describes the finer details of his design and sends me to investigate for myself. I walk up a dirt-road along the verge of a forest to find identical strips of artificially produced forest, intended as sets for this film I presume. Each strip has subtle differences, as frames in a strip of film. I continue up to the last strip and walk through it, investigating the craftsmanship. As I approach the end of the frame I hear her surprised voice, "Darin!"
One of my favorite creatures in the world stands before me and I melt with affection and hug her. I ask her what she is doing in this movie and she tells me she lives here and has her own scene a little further down the dirt-road. She takes my hand and we walk and talk. After a short while I see in the distance on a rocky outcrop, the silhouette of two cats. I know these cats and call them by their names and they walk towards us. As they reach closer I watch them change, they stay the same size but begin to look like baby tigers. They still come up to us and affectionately rub against our legs, as your cat would do. We stroke & play with them, she talks to them like they can speak English, as she does. After this brief indulgence we continue to walk towards her scene, the tigers join us and walk alongside, growing larger as we travel down the gravel road cutting through the scenes. We reach an open plain where more tigers are lazing about in-between trees and tall grass. We walk around the tiger scene and watch them closely. They notice our presence but continue to lie around grooming themselves. We eventually reach her scene where a white house stands alone in the tall grass just before another cliff overlooking the sea. As we approach the house I see that there are identical strips of land with a house each in a row behind the first. She opens the door and I watch as she disappears into the dark of the house, I follow her inside and we walk through a dark carpeted passage. She opens a door to a room that has a beam of sunlight streaming straight through, I walk in to find an empty red wooden chair casting a long shadow across the carpeted floor.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Canada, the first three weeks..
On the third of March Ryan, Daniel, Damo & I, being the South African rock band PARKLANE, crept up a tunneled stairway leading from South African tarmac to the belly of an iron pterodactyl headed for Canada. Since it was a Lufthansa flight everything was in German, not to mention the eight hour layover in Frankfurt. The flight took 28 hours in total & was a time-warp in itself. As we flew over Toronto in that last hour a sense of accomplishment mingled with a nervous excitement of some sort softly in my stomach. From above this city looked massive, but also dry & flat with little mounds of white stuff packed neatly into the corners of every car-park & road.. I believe that stuff is called snow. We were met at the airport by our prospective new manager, Lindsay, in a stretch hummer limousine & spent our first night in this new city in a deluxe hotel called The Grand. We were too cold to test out the jacuzzi on the roof..
After that first night we went to stay in Lindsay's friend Phil's basement to set our game plan in motion. We played a benefit festival in that first week at a venue called Rock & Roll Heaven which went really well. There was a massive lineup with bands playing from Friday through to Sunday. We rocked it so fantastically on that Friday that the event organizers asked us to end the festival off on the Sunday which was an honor, not to mention a good sign being our first show in Canada!
The next week the Canadian Music Week festival started, which is the reason we came to the country. We were the only South African band to be officially invited to play, we were invited as one of the 35 feature bands, showcasing with the Bunkrock Entertainment bands on Friday the 13th March at a nightclub in Queen Street called The Reverb. So our first week went by with us trying to get used to living with this guy Lindsay as our manager. He didn't have much experience in the field of band management but showed great enthusiasm towards the band so we chose to give him a chance to prove himself, unfortunately he didn't really come through with the shows & it seemed like he had no money, and we didn't come to Canada to support anyone so we had to end that relationship. This transpired in the middle of the Canadian Music Week festival which was a tad stressful as we had so much pressure on us at the time, now we had to deal with this too.
The week leading up to our showcase on Friday the 13th we spent at the Fairmont Hotel (the festival headquarters), networking ourselves inside-out, meeting all sorts of music industry heads, media & bands, and attending various seminars that were an amazing source of information on the music industry. It was fantastic, I loved every minute of it. We met so many people, even had a moment with Gene Simmons - the guitarist from KISS!! There was this one seminar we went to where we created a stir, it was a massive auditorium filled with hundreds of young people, mostly other bands that were playing at the festival.. with a panel of record label executives up front giving information on the ins & outs of the music industry.. anyway, we got in there just after it started found some chairs at the back & parked ourselves for the talk. We sucked in all the info as best we could but the whole time we were sitting there wondering how we could get our cd's into the hands of these record label people.. At the end of the seminar there came a time when the speaker announced that there was time for one question, out of the blue Damo (switching to present tense for effect) stands up. Now u must know this hall was PACKED and Damo, our soft-spoken drummer often battles getting his words out.. Ryan, Daniel & I are gobsmacked wondering how this is going to go.. Everyone turns around & stares at this short mohawked South African, he grins & starts mumbling his question from about 200m away but no-one can hear him so they tell him to go upfront & speak, so up he waddles through the crowd to the stage where these industry heads are luring down at him wondering what on earth he's going to ask. So he spits it out, "What happens, right, if you're a hardworking band from the other side of the world, done the gigs, done the tours, got the fans, got the songs".. he looks each one of them in the eye, then holds up a cd & says "Who do I give this to" then grins. A classic moment. By the time everyone had filtered out, each of those record label representatives had a PARKLANE CD in heir hands.
Eventually Friday came around and we played our showcase with the Bunkrock bands, we were to play at midnight, the last band of the evening. We absolutely ROCKED that show. We had 5 cameras rolling around us the entire duration of the show filming a live DVD.. by the end of the 2nd song we had all the people up front by the stage, by the end of the set everyone was jumping around singing our songs back at us clapping & grinning at us, it was amazing! Thanks to our efforts and all the heelpful people we met, there's now a lot of talking going on about Parklane in Toronto.... Things are seemingly positive in terms of achieving the goals we have set ourselves.
A few days after the show we left Lindsay's basement & moved to this friend's place closer to the city-centre (Dan's young friend, a lovely girl called Leigh), her parents made us some nice big meals & let us stay there for 2 days while we made some other plans.. During the festival we happened to meet this team of 2 guys and a girl who study music industry & production at Fanshaw University in a town 2hrs from Toronto called London & we met with them to check them out & see if they could be our management team... After a short while we all realized meeting them was a godsend as these people, Perry, Jef & Camille ended up being perfectly suited to the job. So we decided to go stay with them in London for a bit & record an album at their studios which is now where we're at. We have our own basement in this little house, the guys cook for us, organise gigs & are recording our album, we have so far laid down all the drums for our 11 songs, yesterday we laid down the bass, guitars & vocals for our first single which will be the song Hold On. It sounds amazing, Perry, Jeff & Camille are excellent in the studio. We may have the massive honor of having Kevin Doyle (of Allanah Myles, Black Velvet fame) work his magic on the mixing of all of the tracks.
So far we have a few paying gigs lined up for the next while, we're going to finish recording this album first so we have a complete product to sell when the ball starts rolling. Our accommodation is sorted for the moment & we have a fridge full of food as well as a bunch of record labels watching every move we make. People here LOVE our music, there's no bands making the kind of rock we're making, and they love the fact that we're from South Africa following our dreams. It's been the hugest roller-coaster ride of my life so far, the happiest ups & the most depressed downs I've ever been exposed to... Am so grateful that I'm here doing this with the band. I love it :)
After that first night we went to stay in Lindsay's friend Phil's basement to set our game plan in motion. We played a benefit festival in that first week at a venue called Rock & Roll Heaven which went really well. There was a massive lineup with bands playing from Friday through to Sunday. We rocked it so fantastically on that Friday that the event organizers asked us to end the festival off on the Sunday which was an honor, not to mention a good sign being our first show in Canada!
The next week the Canadian Music Week festival started, which is the reason we came to the country. We were the only South African band to be officially invited to play, we were invited as one of the 35 feature bands, showcasing with the Bunkrock Entertainment bands on Friday the 13th March at a nightclub in Queen Street called The Reverb. So our first week went by with us trying to get used to living with this guy Lindsay as our manager. He didn't have much experience in the field of band management but showed great enthusiasm towards the band so we chose to give him a chance to prove himself, unfortunately he didn't really come through with the shows & it seemed like he had no money, and we didn't come to Canada to support anyone so we had to end that relationship. This transpired in the middle of the Canadian Music Week festival which was a tad stressful as we had so much pressure on us at the time, now we had to deal with this too.
The week leading up to our showcase on Friday the 13th we spent at the Fairmont Hotel (the festival headquarters), networking ourselves inside-out, meeting all sorts of music industry heads, media & bands, and attending various seminars that were an amazing source of information on the music industry. It was fantastic, I loved every minute of it. We met so many people, even had a moment with Gene Simmons - the guitarist from KISS!! There was this one seminar we went to where we created a stir, it was a massive auditorium filled with hundreds of young people, mostly other bands that were playing at the festival.. with a panel of record label executives up front giving information on the ins & outs of the music industry.. anyway, we got in there just after it started found some chairs at the back & parked ourselves for the talk. We sucked in all the info as best we could but the whole time we were sitting there wondering how we could get our cd's into the hands of these record label people.. At the end of the seminar there came a time when the speaker announced that there was time for one question, out of the blue Damo (switching to present tense for effect) stands up. Now u must know this hall was PACKED and Damo, our soft-spoken drummer often battles getting his words out.. Ryan, Daniel & I are gobsmacked wondering how this is going to go.. Everyone turns around & stares at this short mohawked South African, he grins & starts mumbling his question from about 200m away but no-one can hear him so they tell him to go upfront & speak, so up he waddles through the crowd to the stage where these industry heads are luring down at him wondering what on earth he's going to ask. So he spits it out, "What happens, right, if you're a hardworking band from the other side of the world, done the gigs, done the tours, got the fans, got the songs".. he looks each one of them in the eye, then holds up a cd & says "Who do I give this to" then grins. A classic moment. By the time everyone had filtered out, each of those record label representatives had a PARKLANE CD in heir hands.
Eventually Friday came around and we played our showcase with the Bunkrock bands, we were to play at midnight, the last band of the evening. We absolutely ROCKED that show. We had 5 cameras rolling around us the entire duration of the show filming a live DVD.. by the end of the 2nd song we had all the people up front by the stage, by the end of the set everyone was jumping around singing our songs back at us clapping & grinning at us, it was amazing! Thanks to our efforts and all the heelpful people we met, there's now a lot of talking going on about Parklane in Toronto.... Things are seemingly positive in terms of achieving the goals we have set ourselves.
A few days after the show we left Lindsay's basement & moved to this friend's place closer to the city-centre (Dan's young friend, a lovely girl called Leigh), her parents made us some nice big meals & let us stay there for 2 days while we made some other plans.. During the festival we happened to meet this team of 2 guys and a girl who study music industry & production at Fanshaw University in a town 2hrs from Toronto called London & we met with them to check them out & see if they could be our management team... After a short while we all realized meeting them was a godsend as these people, Perry, Jef & Camille ended up being perfectly suited to the job. So we decided to go stay with them in London for a bit & record an album at their studios which is now where we're at. We have our own basement in this little house, the guys cook for us, organise gigs & are recording our album, we have so far laid down all the drums for our 11 songs, yesterday we laid down the bass, guitars & vocals for our first single which will be the song Hold On. It sounds amazing, Perry, Jeff & Camille are excellent in the studio. We may have the massive honor of having Kevin Doyle (of Allanah Myles, Black Velvet fame) work his magic on the mixing of all of the tracks.
So far we have a few paying gigs lined up for the next while, we're going to finish recording this album first so we have a complete product to sell when the ball starts rolling. Our accommodation is sorted for the moment & we have a fridge full of food as well as a bunch of record labels watching every move we make. People here LOVE our music, there's no bands making the kind of rock we're making, and they love the fact that we're from South Africa following our dreams. It's been the hugest roller-coaster ride of my life so far, the happiest ups & the most depressed downs I've ever been exposed to... Am so grateful that I'm here doing this with the band. I love it :)
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