Sigh. Apologies for the delay of this blog/blogging in general – crazy times with holiday celebrations, moving house, oversea visitors (Welcome back Katie!!) and plane trips (right now I’m somewhere above Victoria on my way to Hobart for MonaFoma madness). Anywhos SOMEWHERE in all that we managed to steal 2 weekends to go on bandcamp (no flute – real men use trumpets…*paaaarrrp*) and write some more ditties for this album number Duo. And some sparkly ditties there are indeed, full of flashing LED lights – seriously for one of them Jimmi turns on ALL the LEDS ever. It’s like an evil field of disco mushrooms.

So a lot has been happening although we’ve been quite under the radar. Mike has his new synth rig sorted (with twice the LEDs as before), though his ol’ MS2000B is still out there somewhere, Jimmi fractured one ankle and severely bruised the other (“bend the knees!”) and has just reentered the ocean after loosing his feet to that great concrete tiger many moons ago. Danny has rekindled his trumpet (*paaaarp*) to which his kit has taken offence and burst into flames. And Eric is about to be a very busy fellow indeed – as we’ve learnt he cooks probably the best steak ever (key is in the lurve and tenderiser…tender meat of joy…

(*cough*) and demand he cooks all of the food ever.

And of course some dot points:

“Rooney roo-neh roo-neh.” P.E.S. Marathon.

Nickleback have billboards up in the north. Yup. We entered Chad Kroger territory…

“Tarantulas halt cane toad expansion”. Headline in Bundy paper. Not sure if this is a good thing…hmmmmm…..

Here’s some long (lost) footage!?

Album teaser:

Jack Sprout was a lonely white boy lost in the jungle of [underwater fish-people inhabited ed. Eric] streets that is Harlem Meer, recounting the shallow high’s that led him to have a short-lived grand romance with a un-named cat he referred to as “brackets.”

So that wraps it up for another blog. HAPPY NEW YEAR AND EVERY OTHER HOLIDAY EVER. Here’s our annual greeting card. So festive we’ve put it twice!

Love Love,

MFers

A bit of a sad blog this week – many of you know already but for those who do not, Mike’s much loved synth was stolen from our jam room (as in rehearsal room – not storage room for large amounts of conserved fruit) two weeks ago…so far we’ve been warmed by the response from the local music communities right across the Eastern seaboard but alas there has been no sign of it yet…so…if you see it…let us know? More information about it can be found here:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=273169336039745

Join the search! It’s a very rare synth so shouldn’t be hard to recognize – just contact us if you see one about the place! We will reward with delicious treats! Of the sound variety!

In other news – thank you to those who came to see us the other night at X & Y for the Trophy Kids launch (at which we couldn’t play Trophy Kids due to having no synth…so we jazzed it up instead). Annnnnnd that’s about it really – most of the last two weeks has been spent trying to track down Mike’s keys while figuring out their replacement (looking quite exciting and Soulwax-esque – LED lights included)…but to brighten the mood here’s an unedited text conversation between Mike and Danny post-Trophy Kids launch around 2a.m:

M:Biatch you stil out?! Aaaaaaight?! Don’t judge me *throws glass*

D: Mustang bsar.

D: Bar.

M: Out…side…thing

M: Oh shit. Wait. Mustang? Farrrrrrrrrrrrrrk that

M: Mustang bear. Band name. Swish.

D: How did I know?

M:Physics. Trianglulation theory. Pythagores. Beer.

D: You know the smart, and that’s why I like you.

M: Can math home

…..as Danny said the next day “you know…maybe…maybe there was no point to that conversation…”. We’ll let you guys decide that…

Also a massive big ups to our great friend Fred AKA Impossible Odds for being pure awesome at everything. His debut album has just dropped and here’s a little taste!

Until next time. Don’t you open that trap door.

Love love

MF

Ok so – we meant to get this blog out to you guys 2 weeks ago…since then major things have happened in the MF camp that have left us all busy trying to work with and we’ll update you guys about that next week. Don’t fret don’t fret – but if you do happen to see a Korg MS2000B synth lying about or someone suddenly brings one to your local jam – please let us know…Mike needs sleep at night…more on this next week. For now, we go back to the future as in past woosh………..oooshhhh….oosh…….sh……

Okay okay so maybe by a blog a week we meant an average of one a week…even though that makes the current average…half that…but we’ll make it up! Because we can math! Even Danny! Though he needs math put in relative terms – for example using XXXX Golds as currency (sigh…we know we know mehmehmeh not proper beer mehmehmeh well he brings it and is generous with its distrubution so there).

But! With these amazing math skills we present blog album no. 2 no. 2! So enjoy the following pics we took while demo tracking in the Batcave – 3 fresh new ditties that have claps and everything! Even if they were overdubbed by hitting the SPUD (SPDS) with a wooden cooking spoon! That’s called initiative and it gives that rich earthy tone – much like an old boot ala Mighty Boosh style (yes yes plagerism…or postmoderism? Yeah take that copyright people! If GirlTalk gets away with being postmodern then so can we although we haven’t done anything wrong and I swear we never used that Bee Gees bass line honestly…*cough*…end rant).

Sooooo sans rant – here’s a few sayings and mind contemplations from the day:

New sayings:
‘Ye old sea slug’ (???)

‘That’s what mike said’ (this was implemented by Eric and Danny to replace the ol  ‘that’s what she said’ innuendo. So far it’s failed at every attempt by Danny laughing and I quote “hahahathat’s what she saiDAMMIT….mike said…”)

‘One day you too can wear a knitted top like that – and get allll the ladies. And cats. But don’t trust them! They only want you for your wool…’

And as it was the Batcave of course we were treated to the highest of visual treats (past experiences have included the Hammer collection of vampire films and the fantastic FrankenHooker): today being the beautiful screenplay of ‘Bride of Dracula’ (vampires. With breasts!!) and ‘Re-amimator’ (HP Lovecraft’s tale of super killer cats and decapitated heads living a life of debauchery).

Next week we promise a bit of footage. Of something. It may be an excerpt from FrankenHooker with commentary from Danny…even we don’t know.

We leave you with the wonder of the English language with words that are spelt the same but mean different things. And a homage to Harvey Birdman (homage spelt correctly thanks to the wonder if jouralism Andrew Bolt style…being Google….sigh…):

Windy wind wind. Wind? Or wind? Windy wind? Not there! Their! Not there! They’re! Their! There! Not there! They’re!

Love love
MF

So…that was a blog from a bit behind the times. We’ll keep them up to date from now we promise – starting on Monday next week! OHTHEEXCITMENT!

I sit at Brisbane airport. It’s not the same (or sane – thanks predictive text) without the three other curly haired men that comprise this band. I alone do not possess enough curls to turn heads nor receive the common statement (and in the case of danny finger hair twirl) “are you, like, in a band?”. Sigh. Here I sit clouded in mystery. Like a clam in a sea of jelly.

But enough of that! (cue ritz! Glamor! Showtunes!) Showtunes indeed! We have been writing like madmen over the last two months and we now have a swag of new ditties that we can’t wait to unleash….on the clams!

Here’s their working titles so you can read too much into them and make wild unfounded claims about the phonetics and their relation to the timbre:

Pam / Harlem Meer / Stars (shallow highs) / Slow Push / Cats / Funk drums (wtf?) / Jungle~Monkey / Streets (st vinnies rd) / Le Grande Romance

So we’ve decided to keep all you kids happy we’d start a weekly blog with pictures/footage and bits about this lovely journey to album two.

We also swear to limit the Dad jokes and alluring photos of Danny to one a week…for now…

But that’s enough for today. Next week we’ll bring you some info on the new toys we’ve been playing with! One goes bleep bleep weeeoooooeeeeooo and/or dum chh du-dum chh tikitiki. How could we say no to that!?

Clams!?

Mike Fiction – currently flying over some kind of land thing somewhere.
Sent from his intelligent fruit related consumer product.

As they say all good things must come to an end. In this case we just needed to give our livers and other respectful internal organs a rest from the insane ten days we just undertook. So…let’s just continue the story so that I can get back to my jetlag and leftover Easter eggs:

When we last left you, half of us had just returned to the L.A. house in a quite lovely Cadillac (Danny had apparently scoffed at the original choice of a Toyota Prius, though his man-blood had to be reigned in from driving home a Humvee) that had all the trimmings including sun roof, seat warmers and great sound system for blasting top forty auto-tuned pop. As we now had transport we thought we’d go on a little adventure to Venice Beach – with Danny’s fro’ in full character behind the wheel, we cruised the streets of Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive, felt a bit out of place, and continued on our way to catch some west coast sunshine. Well, after five days of not seeing a cloud and thirty degree heat, about ten minutes out things started to change – by the time we arrived a fog was drifting in, a bitterly cold wind was up – it was a beach in England really (the amount of English pubs out that way made us think it must be like this all the time). The place was amazing though – a strip of little shops, cafes, bars and street perfomers/artists/buskers as far as the eye could see in both directions. After stopping in for a bite to eat and a few beers we thought we’d best get back as the next day we began…

The exodus to Las Vegas baby! There’s nothing quite like cruising down an eight lane highway in a Cadillac, watching the great desert hills and mountains roll past, passing street signs to places like ‘Death Valley’ and my personal favourite ‘Zzyzx’ – the town with no vowels. Four hours later we crested a hill and saw the first signs of gambling country – two massive casinos that mark the entrance to Las Vegas. Sure enough, a few minutes later we sighted the strip far in the distance. So to keep with the natural environment, we threw on the Killers, and cruised down into the craziest place on Earth.

We were immediately distinguished as out-of-towners upon our arrival in Vegas – along with many destinations in our wonderful travels – with our big hair, big jackets & skinny jeans – not to mention the sound of James’ boots resonating through the massive corridors of stores, bars and casinos. Danny’s hair proved a talking point to the many police cars, bar staff, 1800-hot-girlz-now card spruikers (or ‘lovely little people with pretty cards’ as he defines them) and passing cars – one example occurring when we were strolling down the strip at 7pm and hearing a mad yell of “BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE! (pause)…aw nothing happened…” from a passing car. The man at least gave Danny good luck – he was four from four at the roulette tables before the Bellagio shattered this dreams.

Anyway, with the hair and James’ boots we kind of made it pretty hard not to get noticed by the thousands of tourists, bar staff and street performers we came across…which is the perfect case scenario for anyone wanting to get their rocks off in the desert locked city of Las Vegas! So be it eating a ‘Fatburger’ on the strip at 5am, running amuck through the streets of ‘Paris’ (le gambling table, le toilet, le eatery, le ‘where are you now’ sign), realizing the previous night we walked 2 miles each way on the strip guided by the shiny light of the Luxor, pulling Danny away from gambling tables as he tries to convince the staff when he said ‘red’ he meant ‘black’ and it was the language barrier caused by the Australian accent coming to grips with speaking ‘English’, or just chillin at the pool (“Just finished breakfast. Bloody Mary included. About to hit the pool. It’s vibing down here. Reach for the stars. I’ll take you there.” Sent from Nick at 9am the second day) – Vegas is an amazing place. But note – no matter how many neon lights, flamingos, lions, fire or large phallic fountains you have in a city, it still feels like a dolled up cheap prostitute. Las Vegas, you took our souls and we want them back.

Right now, James, Danny and I are trying to overcome jetlag in Brisbane, Nick is handling a similar task in Melbourne…and Eric is off exploring New York, so his pain is still coming. There really is nothing quite like three planes, seventeen hours of flight, eleven hours in airports and no sleep to make you feel alive with sunshine, happiness and rainbows. The last ten days has been the most amazing experience – not only individually but also together as a band. Keep tuned – over the next few weeks some video from our trip will be posted as well as from the showcase. The friends we made, the places we saw, the guitars we smashed across two states – to you all for reading this, we salute you Vegas style!

Flamingos for all!

Love Mi_Ke, Jimmi and Danny.

*cough*…

Hillary Clinton is staring at me. To be more precise – a rubber mask of Hilary Clinton is staring at me. That was purchased by Eric. From a homeless street vender.  For $2. With a departing wink, wry toothless smile and phrase “you have fun with my Hilary now…”….mmmm seedy feeling. But then we are in the land of the free, and hey, what Eric plans to do with Hilary on his own time is his own gosh-dang-nammit business. Health care reform?

While Danny, Eric and Nick (not sure if we’ve introduced Nick – everyone say hi to Nick! HI NICK! Nick is our lovely and amazing manager man. He weighs 67KG, has brown hair, enjoys long walks in the twilight and has a soft spot for books about trains) are out risking their lives driving around the streets of L.A., myself and James are using the time to relax from what has been a whirlwind few days (such as making forty phone calls to radio stations around the country from our publishers office to thank them for giving the album some high rotational spins). Where to begin…

It was a brisk night…which was nice seeing as everyday here has been Brisbane summer hot but everything is made of concrete, there’s no shade, and no ‘wetness’. Or clouds. We haven’t seen a cloud since we flew in on the plane – and we’re not even sure they were clouds…aaaaannnndd back to the story – the night was brisk. Five dapper young lads walked up Sunset Boulevard (pronounced BOWEL VARD in AUS-SIE language)…which we walked behind because hey,  we wanted some of their dapperness to rub off on us. In any case we were on our way to showcase at Musexpo (or with the lighting on stage – to showcase for either Muse or Sexpo). We got there. We played. End. Yayyyyy clap clap clap clap clap. But I suppose you’d want to know more…so here’s a wee snippet:

DELETE THIS LINE BEFORE BLOG. IF YOU DON’T THEN I APPEAR AS A FOOL AS THIS IS ON THE BLOG. NICK. DELETE. THIS LINE. ASSHOLE. THIS IS WHERE WE PUT UP A SMALL 2 SECOND SNIPPET OF FOOTAGE. BECAUSE WE, ARE, ASSHOLES. INSERT VIDEO HERE.

To sum up – it was a thirty minute strobe sensation of wonderment. As quoted in the Musexpo blog – we killed it (for those of you without the slang with the kids on the street. It meant we did good). Everything went according to plan so watch this space for proper videos being uploaded in the coming week – if a picture speaks a thousand words, a video has sound…?. We were also fortunate enough to see fellow countrymen Dan Parsons (+ Supergroup of boaties, Steve Brady et al.), British India and Kids of 88. All were incredible.

The night didn’t end there though, as, of course, being in L.A. we ran into Brits – in the drive through at McDonalds at 2am, making car noises. They turned out to be a well proper  group of lads (and lass) so we took them home, got them drunk, and even let them use our shower the next day (5 days in an RV – it was the least we could do). Tonight we’re going to head down to Whiskey A Go Go to check out PINT SHOT RIOT – being that’s the band they are.

Now that we’ve mastered ordering a chicken burrito at 1am from Tacobell – in fluent Spanish mind you – we feel it’s time to return to our heritage and have a good ol’ BBQ. So that’s what we’re going to do. And also tip ourselves. So we don’t offend each other. Paper money for all!

Ya me despido.

Que te vaya bein.

Me la pasé bien.

Hasta luego.

Mi_Ke and Jimmi

p.s. Danny, Eric and Nick have just pulled into the driveway behind the wheel of our Vegas bound Cadillac… sun roof open, Kanye West smashing out ‘all of the lights’. Ahhh L.A. baby…

“Well, tame for me would be two girls to one guy and a Tonka truck….wait six girls to one guy and twin Tonka  trucks. That’s tame. For me.” These are the words out of Danny’s mouth as he sits, half naked, eating an all cheese pizza on a couch, while he answers my question of how to describe the level of romance scenes in cinema (hey we are in Hollywood). To the left of me are Eric and James, trying not to nod off, the afternoon’s rehearsal taking its toll…wait a second are we even in LA? Ah…yep, there we go. My gaze just dropped onto the brutally ravaged remains of an acoustic guitar – its head stock shoved into the sound hole, cramped into the fire place…surrounded by a shrine of Corona and Budweiser bottles – a shrine to the god of rock. Or debauchery.  Or both.

Welcome to the LA household – half log cabin/half 1920’s chic – home to five often drunk, loud and excitable young men. Since getting here 4 days ago, it’s been pretty easy to fall in love with this place! Most of people here are even stranger than the members of this band, and proof is just by watching any TV over here. Mainly the ads (although some guy just walked passed the house and screamed MOUSE!). “Got gas (not the petrol kind)?  Want to trade in your wealth for gold nuggets (spoken to you via that bald guy from Law and Order)? Bullying – ‘Hey KID! SPEAK UP! YO! EAT A DOUGHNUT!?”  Over five hundred channels of crap.

But I digress….why had we even turned on the TV in the first place I’m not sure…but the city – well…it’s big (as in huge, as in 20 million kind of huge) and kind of dirty, in the way that Eric just walked out in some hot pants about to go for a run. The sunshine is all messed up here to – the morning feels looks like the afternoon and the afternoon like the morning – it’s now 6pm and looks like 10am back home…the sun is also brutal – no shade no matter what time of day, and only concrete. Miles and miles of crazy backwards-driving-beeping-dinged/broken-expensive cars (well back home anyway. On that booze is amazingly cheap:  at the supermarket – oh yeah! – Barcardi? $10. Jameson’s 1L? 20. Gin? 7. Dollars) that, although constantly cutting each other off and yelling abuse are way more courteous to pedestrians then back home. Bizzaro world….

The people are very friendly though – just the other day we were walking  to Melrose to go for a shop and popped into a small bar for one drink – next thing we knew the pair next to us are buying us round upon round of beers. That said, even in a city this huge we can’t get away from Brisbane – be it running into Sophie Monk (twice?) or a large group of Brisbaneites on Santa Monica Boulevard – we just can’t shake ‘em,  even with Danny jumping on a table screaming “F*CK YOU I WON’T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!” in a karaoke lounge at 3am in the morning. He has jet lag.

Anyway, it’s time to get suited up for another night of cocktails and showcases. Apologies for the about rambling….I have jet lag….

Mi_Ke

Traveling at 890km per hour at a height of 35003 feet, a mere 8134km from home, 3367km from my destination… it is a balmy -51 degrees outside and I’m sipping on a G&T while listening to Mozart’s Symphony No 38 in D. All a tad surreal really… especially when I consider why we are sitting on this jet plane – and what conceivable adventures lay in wait for My Fiction’s maiden voyage to the foreign shores of the United States of America.

Mike got the window seat and seems quiet happy curled up in his corner… playing PAC MAN and randomly pulling faces at me. James sits surprisingly quiet on my immediate left in the infamous middle seat… (i hate middle seats!!) God only knows how he fits his long legs in??? He does however have this amazing ability to violently grab/shake the seat in front of me every-time he launches over for his regular runs to the bar. The poor old guy in front of me hasn’t said anything yet but possibly he is waiting for our arrival at LAX where he will most probably pull out a concealed weapon and proceed to kill us all due to lack of sleep and mostly thanks to Jimmi’s love of free in flight booze (no Danny I said in flight booze!).

Now to my right on the otherside of this narrow isle is a man wearing a dashing pair of beige socks, this is complemented by grey tracky dax and finished off with some well worn Kung Fu shoes… Earlier in the flight he was vigorously punching away on his Mac book but now he lays drooling fast asleep in manager land bliss. Beside Nick is Danny… Yes this lovely chap gave up his isle seat for me. He never seems to sleep?? With the entire cabin in complete darkness all that can be seen is the glowing halo of his massive fro illuminated by the inflight entertainment.

I’m sure you want me to continue with more exciting details regarding what is on the menu for break fast, does Nick realise that drooling is not socially acceptable and has Mike top scored in PAC MAN…

But sadly you shall never know as my eyes are stinging from looking at this bright little screen surrounded by a cabin of darkness – hundreds of sleeping people bound for Los Angeles. Maybe I should lay off the G&T’s and try and get some sleep considering we are arriving in L.A. at 7.20am.

Eric

Xx

We are now only one week away from jumping on a jet plane for MUSEXPO in California. Before your friendly Fictions do the dash for the U.S. we are throwing a massssive farewell party at The Zoo this Thursday night – April 21 (public holiday the next day don’t forget

Joining us for this special show is a smoking line-up of Brisbane favourites including Re:enactment, The Baby Seal Club & Moon Jog. This farewell gig will be a chance for us to say thank you for all you undying your support, which is part of the reason we can’t wait to play this Thursday! Many new tricks, gadgets and things that go BOOM! can be expected…

Tickets available at oztix

MUSEXPO & THE ZOO

A fond hello to our virtual friends,

Especially those we have met along the our merry way while journeying along the shores of the QLD coast! It is a pleasure to announce that your friendly neighborhood Fictions have been asked to showcase at this years MUSEXPO held in sunny California! The album has already soared across West Coast radio in the last few weeks and it seems as though LA could certainly do with a healthy live dose of our energetic rock ‘n roll!

While we pack our bags, check our effect pedal output compatibility, rehearse a thundering set, etc. we can’t help but think of our sweet Brisbane roots and have decided to hold a special show at the gracious Zoo with none other than local brilliance from The Baby Seal Club, Moonjog and Re:Enactment. This is all in the hopes that our ears are still ringing with our home town’s mighty growl while we set flight for the land of The Hills and Dr 90210… Maybe Mike could finally get his operation to swap his vocal cords with that of Patrick Stewart! Jokes aside, it would be fabulous to see all out favourite Brisbane ‘pants dancers’ heat up the dance floor next month for our last show before our international cherry gets well and truly popped!

THE INTERNATIONAL SONGWRITING COMPETITION (ISC)

Some may have heard the announcement that a tune from our album, ‘Fire! Romance! Fire!’ has been nominated for an ISC award in both the ‘Rock’ and ‘Unsigned’ categories. Our fate now lies in the creative hands of Tom Waits, Jeff Beck, Timbaland, Ben Folds, Robert Smith, Peter Gabriel, Kings of Leon and many more! We will be up against Aussie lovelies Gyroscope, Children Collide, Dappled Cities and The Chemist, and will be hoping every chance we get to bring this baby home!

We would also like to add what an incredible acknowledgement this is for us, considering how much this song means to all the members of this force called Fiction. We’re overwhelmed that it has been given the chance to make such an impact abroad and so grateful to everyone that has supported our songs since they’ve had their first spot on national radio!

Much love to all our friends in web land, it’s been quite frantic in the Fiction tent and we’ll be sure to keep y’all updated with our movements. Until next time, don’t forget to signup/like/add our online networks for live updates, music, photos and Danny’s inner monologue… if a tre falls in the forrest, does it make a sound? If no one is there to witness the tree, does it exist at all?

Thanks again fine people!
MY FICTION xo