the general timeline of being in a rock'n'roll band nowaday's appears to be thus:
attend a course in popular music development at a college of higer learning
then
attend small business course
then
attend seminars geared to your development within the music industry
then
create a 'strategy' identifing target 'markets' and defining 'demographics' etc.
then
record album for no less then $20,000
then
apply for nzonair funding for video budget between $5/10,000
then
make video
then
partake in cross country tour of 'main' centres 4 shows should suffice, fly everywhere

as usual the eastern got it all ass backward and we made a video kids...500 shows,one album and two e.p.'s too late...for the princely sum of one $673 bar tab (four bottles of jamiesons, one of johnny walker not includeed), a bucket of good will and four homemade pizza's...

you can find it on the front page of this very myspace site...

all our friends came they dressed up real pretty and we thank them( but we did get them all drunk), apoligies to everyonewho was behind the cameraman, your dancing was perfect but being the eastern we demanded close ups...

it was a swell party makin' the thing...
cheers for sharing your bandwidth with us if you check it out
yours
mcgrath

Well a thankyou with kindness to all and sundry who found their way to the floor of goodbye blue Monday last night our hearts were lifted by you good folks, dancers singers yellers and kissers alike. To the young fella in the cap who told me drum and bass was dead to him now and he liked that we all broke a real sweat, thankyou and to all who I hugged covered in that real sweat I say sorry.....

Today was a sweet one; friendships and home, uriah heep and loungeroom cinema, coffee and slide guitar, popcorn and cake. Subtle kicks but kicks none the less. I’m sure the world is on fire somewhere but at least today I feel safe and calm. I hope you do to.....

Aswell as a show to remember last midnight, the day gave us thrills a pleanty with a natter and some singin’ on the national programme (does anyone still call it that?)...

When I was a kid national radio listeners were viewed with suspicion, or even derision. “She listens to the national programme” my mum would say as if this act may indeed be grounds for expulsion from any future cup of tea get together amongst the woman of my street. Our house was 3zb all the way, radio avon if we were feeling dangerous or maybe 3zm if my dad was home from the fishing boats. Once my mum won a record off 3zb but was horrified to discover it featured the screaming meemees, I smoothed the waters by winning foster & allen’s to mother with love next mothers day (not that punk rock I know but shit I was only six, give a kid a break). Now however my faith in the world is restored by 675am on a daily basis, and to get to play our songs with jim mora in the afternoon? Well I felt like a kid getting’ a certificate at assembley, embarrassed and proud all at the same time. So cheers jim for takin’ and interest…....

But perhaps what made my old heart flutter  the most was a wander down the halls of the studio towards the rnz c-city archives, 78’s and acetates apleanty, a lack of dust but an obvious abundance of care. Curator John was kind and deserves a beer brought for him every night for his appreciation of these often neglected treasures. ....

In the states I spent a fullsome afternoon once with poppa joe bussard, his cigars and the worlds fatest cat, digging his mega collection of ‘78’s (black patties and Robert Johnson test pressings among them), I think of him often and kindly and hope to find him again someway up the track. If your ever passing through Frederick, Maryland look him up in the phone book and don’t be surprised to get an invite over. It’s a gift from the gods hangin’ with this guy eccentricity and heart to spare. Anyways it sure was good having a similar (albeit brief) interaction with some noo zeeland treasures and little histories.  Fuck the therapsist’s and the future kids hang onto the past, talk with people with real lives share their memories and nostalgia’s no matter how small or insignifigant, the gift is immeasurable…I’m never lonely when lost in memory (mine or otherwise) hopefully you won’t be either…....

 ....

Yours....

McGrath....

p.s.

the uriah heep video was posted by someone called 'pegasuz warrior'...fuck yeah!

 ....

After some deliveries to the eastern complaints division (which surprisingly were different than the usual “way to loud”, “why don’t you guys play pearl jam?”, “can you play some real country music, like Kenny rogers or something”, or my favorite from some fella from the band shapeshifter “what is this hillbilly shit”-sorry buddy I guess we should hunker down with a symphony orchestra or something to hammer out some real music-) it has been duly noted that yes we are very lazy when updating our blog so we will endeavor to do that a little more (as well as investigating kenny’s back catalogue first edition through to the branson years, and am currently setting the time machine to munt factor five in order to embrace all the popular nineties ‘rock’ covers that we have been instructed to learn, and yes we promise some songs by that band live for you more sensitive types)…....

 ....

Right now every floor of the eastern industries building is humming preparing for the release of our new e.p. “Oh Mystery” on oct. ninth, the marketing division have just been given a rousing pep talk on the meaning of team, the cyber fields dept. have just jacked into the mainframe in order to present ourselves to every social networking cliquedom that will have us, down in the basement parking lot mechanical are working night and day to get the eastern convoy of semi-trailers, air conditioned tour buses and private planes ready for the upcoming arena tour, and the band are ratcheting up our personal exercise and well being programmes in order to hit the stage running like a combination of bon jovi and midnight youth…kickass!...we hope to shift many ‘units’!!!.......

 ....

Of course really I’m in my little Lyttelton shack listenin’ to the birds springing it up in the cemetery at the end of my garden, watchin’ the harbour all gentle and still in the sun spinning soft machine records with the door wide open and trying to make sure theres a bar or two around the country that’ll spring for some drinks in exchange for some singin’ and maybe just maybe some of you kind folks’ll like to listen to our new little record and hopefully come out and join us in the aforementioned bars and we can celebrate that at least for that night none of us dead, none of us are stuck in a desert with a gun in our hands, none of us has to suffer the eternal damnation of being a minister in the national party, that we are not Michael laws, that we can turn off the t.v. and come down the bar and shake it down or at least sit in the corner and throw a few back, that we can live and love outside our jobs, that we can argue long into the night about stereo vs. mono and remember that we are alive and bold and bound for glory if we want it…....

 ....

Yours ....

McGrath

p.s. 

last night mike chunn (one of the good guys) from the band split enz told jess he liked the way her elbows moved...come see the elbows yourselves kids on the upcoming 'oh mystery' tour!

 ....

so i'm gettin' my work done tryin to shake a cough that wakes the dead hitting words and type on my desk and decide to put a record on I choose volume five of the charlie parker yard bird memorial series...my copy is forty five years old but absolutely smooth...I got the whole set from some old jazz fellow who was gettin' on and movin' on but the man kept his records tight and pristine... when I look and play them I hear half a century of love and heart and i feel so bad about all the records i scratched and drunk over in my punk rock days drinking, dancin' and screaming the night away with elvis, the misfits and new values by iggy pop...some of those records fell through my hands played out and beaten, some made it...I guess the real surprise is that i'm still here spining and dreaming just like i always was and although the sound pitches up and down, my mohawk grew out and my beard got longer the grace and thrill is still the same...parker steals my breath and makes the night want to come on dark like coffee no cream...and although i ain't listened to the anti nowhere league for a lot of years i think of them kindly and every last piece of magic that has graced my turntable in the years passed on and I shake when i think of every next record to come in the next...

I've been guessing for at least three and half months that I shoulda filled this blog to bursting with observation and rhyme, photos and film, a collection of mental and verbal snapshots all pasted together and let those who cared and maybe some who didn't know what was up and when as the eastern flung themselves across the world, against the sea and sky all the way to the land of redwood and sun...but alas I never did...somethings are more important than blogs...hearts and great loves, the sinking of beer in the sunset on into the sunrise, the shaking of hands and slapping of backs while guitars strum soft and sweet around, they all count and not always do they need documenting...maybe their telling is apparent in a simpler fashion, they way we move when we return home, the gentle smile warming on your face as you watch missed friends and family walk towards, the bold satisfaction in knowing your home is still here and little has changed in your absence and that your specialness is in exact proportion to the amount of that sameness..i.e. you left but the world never ended, the neighbourhood kept singin' and slingin', your passing and returning was just another moment in a long unending stream of the damn things...yet although your stripped of specialness your gifted with place and purpose in the role of the day and that knowledge is quite wonderful...and is always there if you go again, to bring up if you need a little confidence, a little swagger, just that understanding that sits in your guts that your part of something bigger and grander than you could imagine but also sweeter and simpler than all of your bullshit fantasies made into one...
I love my fuckin' neighbourhood...this little town on the rim of a dead volcano, full of misfits and everyday soldiers...I know I should talk of our travels and traverses but whats there to say when its all bursting in your heart...what I can speak is that i'm happy to be home...even when i'm jetlagged, cold and whiskey warped stumblin' up hill at four in the morning lonely in the mist of the harbour...I'm happy...so thankyou lyttelton i hope i can hum your tune forever...

this is what we did today... http://www.koin.com/content/mediacenter/default.aspx?videoId=8356@koin.dayport.com&navCatId=129&articleID=8356 next week we sing about the resingnation of perez musharif and its meaning for pakistan on 60 minutes... do you have a political event that requires a song? call us on 1-800-musicalpunditry or not... love the eastern

the eastern were interviewed and played a couple of songs this week on plains fm...which they have uploaded as a podcast for those of you still asleep or tuned into classic hits... head to www.plainsfm.org.nz and then go to the podcast page and you can listen or download to your hearts content...hear jessie and adam function on little sleep and a a couple 'o cups of joe...

we made a new e.p. its called crow river...it's to tide us over till we get back from the northern skies...some of the songs are free to download..so take 'em and do what you will...,we'll still be in the bar playing for tips and beer so we'll see you up the way...
love
the eastern

while making our first record we stumbled across some songs we thought we could put together, package and hustle into your hands for cash, backslaps or whiskey...its called
get right...
it features five songs and will be available from now...
feel free to download four of the songs for free from here or throw coins across a baroom floor and we'll give you one with a cardboard cover...
yours
the eastern