26 | piano tuning

I have always wanted an upright piano but the good ones are seriously expensive. Last weekend though my partner came across a real bargain at a local second hand shop. An upright from Berlin, age unknown, a few keys not playing and a bit out of tune... For the bargain price of $25. Yes you read right! So last week I fixed the keys that weren't playing and also the ones that were sticking.... Not too hard a job, just some minor adjustments on the mechanisms on the dodgy keys. Job 1 done! I've been thinking all week about how I might tune the thing without the right tool??? A drum key fit but I couldn't give it enough pressure to turn under the massive weight of the strings... So I broke my drum key. ;) no biggy. But now I had to come up with something else. Pictured is what I've ended up doing... A piece of a sprocket set (not the right piece mind you), a big ass shifting spanner to turn the thing and my iPhone with th guitar tuner app on it. It's very clunky and very easy to overtune it, with one not so tiny turn of the massive spanner, but it works! So 3 hours later I have turned the bottom half of the piano and it sounds great! The top half to go... Or should I say worst half to go... Who's idea was it to make the higher notes 3 strings each instead of one????? Some ye oldie folk I guess? Well he was a bastard! ;)

So I am hoping, all things going well, you might hear my new piano on a 26 recording very soon!

Nick | 26

Play that funky iphone, whiteboy!

It's very safe to say that we're not a normal band. Whether that's to our detriment is up for debate, but that's how we like it. So when we were asked to do a cover for ABC radio, we spent longer thinking of what to do, than doing it. We settled on our beloved blur. But not famous blur, obscure blur. We did a cover of Out of time off their Think Tank album. For my money, and I think Nicks, it's their best album. I am sure the Song 2 and Parklife people will argue that, but FUCK YOU! This is my blog, so Think Tank stands as king.

So we now have a track, but want it to be different. We only had a weekend to work it up, so it was challenge enough as it was. We were thinking of programing soundscapes and odd percussion etc, but it would still only be a very rough version of an awesome song. Then I got a call from nick.

"What about if you download a piano app, and play it at the studio?" said nick.

"Fuck yeah!" said drew.

So I downloaded the app, and away we went. To add to the phone theme, nick took his phone and recorded some shakers and a xylophone, then played the mp3 in the studio for us to play to.

Sound odd enough?

It was only really made a bit special when it came time for my solo. For the most part, I just played passing notes and chords, which wasn't too amazing. It wasn't till the solo that it made it a bit special. As I had an octave to play with, I was able to duplicate the exact solo of the original track, except for one note. So with a tiny tweek, the solo came out awesome. And it made it all look and sound a lot more fancy.

We know we are not the first to do this sort of thing. Not by a long shot, but we didn't just want to go into the studio and bang out an acoustic version of a metal song. As with everything we do, we strive to have a talking point. In this case, it was our phones. It then led onto conversations about technology and the band, which then lead onto the bands ethics and ideals, which is the exact kind of thing musicians like to bang on about. We hate questions like...

"What's your favourite pizza topping?" or best yet... "if you were an animal, what would you be?"

What a wasted opportunity to talk to someone! If you started a pleasant conversation with an attractive woman in a bar, would you then interrupt it with "If you were a deep fried Chinese entre, what would you be?" Ridiculous!

Back on topic, Drew! Back on topic!

Thankfully, the interview and performance went very well at the ABC. The presented loved it, played 2 more tracks of ours, and seemed to talk for ages. Nick and I now want to record it properly with better sound levels and no 'fat finger' mistakes. All in all, it was great fun.

Here is the link to the ABC website. Will post the re-recoded version when it's done.

www.abc.net.au

A New Beginning

So a new year is coming around. 26 are experiencing a few "New Beginnings". We are touring "the world" for a good chunk of the first 6 months of 2010... we already have shows and festivals booked for Canada, USA, UK & Hong Kong... it all feels pretty crazy. We are also rereleasing "Births, Deaths & Marriages" through our new US & Canadian label "C12 Records". The weird thing I have found over the years of playing music is that just before something huge happens in your music career it feels like you are stagnating! I have know idea why. Call it calm before the storm... call it what you will but it is an unnerving feeling. I always have a horrible feeling this time of year anyway because it has always felt like life has been put on hold for a month or two... especially since I started working for myself about 6 years or so ago.

I'll be on here much more next year.... I hope that the other guys will too because it looks like we have much more to report from now on. I hope you are all well, I hope you haven't got a terrible hangover today and I hope you have a great year next year! I am sure 26's year will be full of high highs and low lows but I am looking forward to them all and looking forward to meeting some new people around the world.

Cheers
Nick | 26

26| Seeing great shows

Seeing great shows from people you respect (or even people that you don't really respect) is always really interesting. I have been finding inspiration from a lot of female artists recently. And what female artist do is always going to be different from male artists.... I don't know why it just is. But anyway I am moving away from my point.

My point is.... as an artist you always learn a lot from other artists if they are great performers.... I learnt a lot from seeing Clare Bowditch last night... not sure what , or even if it applies to me but it was a lesson all the same. Thanks Miss Bowditch.... if I figure out what you taught me I'll credit you on the next cd sleeve. ;)

Nick | 26

26 | Ego & Insecurity

I have recently been thinking about the relevance, or more to the point irrelevance, of our blog being about the recording process of our project 26x365. 1. Because it is hard enough to finish the 3 songs every 3 months little own make a blog entry both informative and witty. And 2. It seems to me that the blog has become more about "A Day in the Life" of 26... highlights, lowlights, rabbits in headlights etc. That led me to the thought... what do we do with this blog once or if we finish the project?. It would be a shame not be able to keep on talking about what we are doing and where our heads are at on any given day.... maybe not for the interests of whomever might read this but maybe for us... Nick, Drew Ross & Iain. A life diary, mainly concerning the band but maybe concerning our lives outside the band. Who cares.... as the hippy's in my neck of the woods would say "go with the flow.... man."

So I had another thought.... "wow more than one thought in a day?" I hear you say. I have been playing music with people for quite a while and the recurring theme I have always witnessed with artists, and I am no exception to the rule, is they all have a element of ego mixed with an element of insecurity. It may not be just artists that have this but I think it's fair to say that artists have this in some sort of over hyper exaggerated way.

So what I am getting at is this..... I say we keep the idea of 26x365 being the "A Day in the Life" idea and add a slight "subtitle" element to our blog. So Drew...I put this to you. (Oh wow I should be a songwriter or something). How about you rework the header for our blog to be titled and subtitled....

26x365 - ego & insecurity

and then it can become a chronicle of our ego & insecurity.

Drew, Ross & Iain.... if you think this is a shit idea then you can go and get fucked! Actually.... I hope you don't think it's a shit idea... do you don't think I am shit? ;) You see what I did there? Clever hey?

Ego & Insecurity.

So here is my promise to you.... a new and improved, sometimes witty, always honest and definitely badly written blog about 4 people that are in a band that happen to be called 26.

Love Nick
xo

Qsong picture & sizzle real.

We finally got a picture from the QSong awards. None of us stopped to think 'hey, maybe we should take a photo'. Also a little sizzle real from the night. I know there has not been much posting lately, but we are charging ahead with exactly 11 trillion things. Bare with us.

Part_2 [DONE]

We finally took a deep breath, and let them go.

Hear them at:

26theband.com
myspace.com/26theband

We are still waiting on iTunes approval. But will let you know when they are available.

Enjoy
26