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 19/04/2013 - Odd Times, Odd Places... We are proud to announce that our new album Odd Times, Odd Places is ready and available! It's going to be online for digital download and physical purchase around the world soon, but if you live in New Zealand you can order it through our website on the Discography page. The release party was last night and we would like to thank everyone who came along and made it such a special night! Big thanks to Fiona Pears, Tim Sellars, H Kaa, and Georgie & Nicole for doing the door! During our successful tour with Fiona Pears last Summer, many people asked us if we had a record together. Perhaps at some point we will produce a whole one, but Odd Times, Odd Places gives us two tracks to present with Fiona to you - Django Reinhardt's quintessentially French "Nuages", and Chick Corea's "Spain". Cheers, Robbie & Burke 18/01/2013 - What 2013 brings us...Wishing everybody a happy new year is perhaps a little late now, but worth it nonetheless! We had a reasonably relaxed New Year period this year, didn't go away and had a great time enjoying the wonderful (and unusual) Christchurch holiday season weather. This year is bringing us exciting things! Our new album is due out in a couple of months, stay tuned for more info! It will be featuring a host of guests in an eclectic mixture of genres, and some new burning arrangements we've been playing at our gigs recently. We've been joined on our regular gigs at The Brewery recently by some great friends of ours, and amazing percussionists Tim Sellars (Mukhlisa, Anna Whitaker) and H Kaa (Merchants of Flow, Soulsystem). If you haven't checked it out, come down on most Sundays and have a beer with us! Robbie is taking a break through May-June, but we're keeping busy until then, so head over to the gig diary to check out where we're playing next. Cheers, Robbie & Burke 25/07/2012 - So much to say...Happy late 2012 to everybody! I thought it's about time I wrote a new entry, so here's the run down - we spent a couple of weeks in Australia (Sydney & Brisbane) over Summer, beautiful time. We played at the OzManouche Festival in Brisbane, The Upfront Club in Maleny and at The Illawarra Folk Festival in Bulli (south of Sydney). We had an absolutely awesome time everywhere, and would thoroughly recommend anyone travelling or touring to goto/play these places! Highlights were meeting Andreas Oberg (Sweden/USA), and some totally rad cats called The Woohoo Revue (Melbourne) - watch out for these guys, their balkan gypsy swing jazz funk combination is killer. Recently, all of my P.A. equipment and my guitar was stolen from a car outside my house the night before our trip up to Wellington for some gigs. If anybody wants to keep an eye out for it (which is MUCH appreciated), check out the Facebook page here. Exciting things coming up are The Jazz Verses with the Christchurch Youth Orchestra, August 4th at The Aurora Centre. This gig will feature us on a couple of gypsy tracks that I've orchestrated and it's shaping up to be an awesome night, make sure you book your tickets! Posters are up all over Christchurch and the internet, keep an eye out! We'll be working on a new album to be released in 2013, which will all be collaborations with other NZ musicians of different genres, not gonna name names yet but it'll be eclectic to say the least. Also, we're heading up to Wellington again for a couple of weeks in mid August, so keep an eye out for us up there! Oh, and we've got out tickets booked already for Tommy and Frank. Saaweeeet!
Cheers, Robbie 18/12/2011 - Touring... or trying toWe've been having a reasonably busy end of 2011 so far, doing gigs in Christchurch and touring a little bit. We went to Brisbane in November for the annual Australian Gypsy Jazz Festival OZ Manouche where we played a set, met some really cool people and had a great time. We also took a wee trip up to Maleny to play at the Upfront Club which was also really cool (cheers Danny!). More recently, we've done a small South Island tour, initially planned to be a split bill with Nadia Reid which didn't eventuate. Some might call this the tour from hell... We had to cancel our Picton, Nelson and Blenheim shows due to being crashed into by some Canadian tourists who failed to give way and caused a three way accident. We played The Brewery on the Sunday though... Wednesday took us (from back in Christchurch) to Takaka to play The Mussel Inn where we proceeded to arrive in Takaka and get stuck there with all access roads blocked by the floods. Thursday took us to Greymouth to actually play the first gig of the tour, which worked out nicely with people dancing and me getting my sweat on. Saturday took us to Timaru (Arthur St Cafe) and Dunedin (Chick's Hotel) which both had small yet appreciate crowds. No rest for the wicked - bed by 2.30am, up at 7.00am to be back in Christchurch by 12.30pm for a daytime Brewery gig. All over now though... Things to keep an eye out for: La Petite Manouche NZ Tour (Feb 2012), top secret classical/jazz fusion project (Jun 2012), a new album (Aug ish 2012) and an Ireland tour (2013ish). Cheers Aussie - NZ let us down this time, so we'll see you again in January. Robbie 02/08/2011 - Legacy video...Firstly, we filmed a video for Legacy in a combination of the Port Hills and Arthur's Pass in the South Island of New Zealand. Check out the video... Secondly, in a couple of weeks we'll be heading up to Martinborough for a weekend of jazz concerts with some fellow Jazz School groups, and playing a show with Fiona Pears on the Sunday. For more info, check out our gigs page. 26/06/2011 - Weekend in Wellington...We've just got home from a weekend away from the shaky city of Christchurch. We spent a rainy, cold Thursday 23rd in Picton at Le Cafe where we had a very appreciate (yet small) crowd of listeners. Even a couple who were escaping Christchurch as well! Friday 24th and Saturday 25th were spent in Wellington. Our trip away was based around performing for Alliance Francaise Wellington at their annual Fete de la Musique evening, which was held this year at Southern Cross. The night was great, and the venue was awesome. With a lineup of seven bands, all who sounded great, we were stoked to be part of the evening. Friday 24th took us to Mojo's Bond St shop in central Wellington, where we played to an appreciative audience and caught up with some Christchurch friends who had migrated North for the earthquake season. We met an awesome group of people from Timaru, Christchurch and the West Coast on the ferry on Sunday morning. Always impressive to see a group of people drinking jugs of beer at 8.30am on a Sunday morning! We're looking forward to seeing you again in December when we are touring the South Island! Cheers Wellington! Robbie & Burke 25/04/2011 - Canterbury Folk Festival...Easter weekend was spent in the picturesque area of Waipara, North Canterbury, at the Canterbury Folk Festival. We spent three beautifully sunny days playing music, listening to music, chatting to people, and playing a serious amount of foosball with our roommate Daniel Champagne, an amazingly talented Australian guitarist/singer, and his Canadian road-buddy Pierre. The atmosphere at the festival was great, always interesting and fun, and always an interesting person to talk to about something. Jam sessions went late into the night, with instruments of all kinds joining in. We did a workshop on jazz guitar on Saturday morning, which about ten or so people attended and (hopefully) enjoyed! And lastly, congratulations and thanks to all who bought a copy of Legacy from us this weekend! We hope you thoroughly enjoy it! See you again soon Canterbury Folk Festival! Robbie & Burke 11/04/2011 - Addington Fair... We had a busy day on Saturday, with the Riccarton House Market in the morning, Addington Fair in the middle, and Caesar's Restaurant at night. The Addington Fair was put on by Addington Action, Gap Filler and music organised by proactive parent Richard Hensby. It was a great day for it; heaps of sun, heaps of people, great atmosphere to be in! It was great to hear the Acapellago World Music Choir, The Eastern and The Haze perform as well. We heard that Mark Humpage rocked the stage also, but unfortunately we arrived late and missed his performance. We are thoroughly looking forward to the Canterbury Folk Festival in Waipara over Easter weekend! It's a great festival, heaps of fun and there's always a stack of great music to be heard. If you haven't got anything planned for Easter weekend, make sure you register and come on up to the festival! It's about an hour north of Christchurch, and the registration prices were cut after the February earthquake, so there's no better time to come and check it out! See you there! Robbie & Burke 22/03/2011 - The tour's over...Well, we are back from our New Zealand tour, promoting our new album Legacy. The tour was a great success, we had appreciative audiences all over the country, tons of people that liked our music and we even sold a few albums to top it off! We played at all kinds of venues over the country. We learnt a lot about the ins and outs of organising and putting on tours, and how different venue operators run their businesses, which was incredibly valuable for the future. We met a huge range of people, from friendly hippies living under bridges, to fancy looking business owners, friendly to unfriendly, young and old. We stayed in a huge array of different places, but most of all, we experienced a great level of friendliness and hospitality from everybody we worked with and met along the way! Promoting Legacy was our main goal for the tour, which was a great success. There are copies of Legacy spread far and wide throughout New Zealand now, with heaps of different people. We made some great contacts, and most of all, we had HEAPS of fun along the way! Our favourite gig of all would have been at Salut Bar & Brasserie in Whangarei, where Sean and his team made us feel right at home, we got to spend two hours before the gig listening to the incredibly talented Jesse & Rogan perform their music, a Rodrigo y Gabriela-esque fusion of flamenco with popular tunes from the likes of Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and The Cranberries. The crowd at Salut was great, incredibly keen on the gypsy music, loving every minute of it, taking photos and cheering... It's a shame that we had to start our long drive back to Wellington straight after the gig, otherwise we would've been keen to play you guys the fourth encore! I swear! Thanks heaps to Pa for helping us out on the door that night too! As most of our upcoming gigs and resident gigs were in Christchurch, our good friend Mr 6.3 has seen that our gigs are spread wide and far between for a wee while now. We will be playing for the Addington Fair on April 9th with The Haze and The Eastern, which is a initiative put on for the local residents to help out during earthquake season. Come on down if you have nothing else planned for that day! And if you do, cancel them and repeat step one! Cheers! Robbie & Burke |
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