Bring your signs. Bring your friends.
Speakers include Greens and environment groups.

The Labor Government is once again doing deals with the Shooters Party. Labor has made an offer to allow hunting in 13 national parks in exchange for the support of the two Shooters Party MPs in the NSW Upper House to help pass government legislation.

Tell the government that you won't stand by as they sacrifice our national parks to blood sports. Shooters are not conservationists. Killing native wildlife is their form of recreational pleasure. Only the power of public opposition will remove this legislation from the negotiating table.

National parks preserve our native animals and our heritage. They deserve the highest order of protection. The Shooters' Party is only interested in protecting its own interests, not conservation or the greater public good.

Please email the following MPs and express your strong opposition to any deal that would allow shooting in national parks:
Premier Nathan Rees - thepremier@www.nsw.gov.au
Environment Minister John Robertson - office@robertson.minister.nsw.gov.au
Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell - LOP@parliament.nsw.gov.au
Shadow Environment Minister Catherine Cusack - catherine.cusack@parliament.nsw.gov.au
Christian Democrat, Fred Nile - F.Nile@parliament.nsw.gov.au
Independent, Gordon Moyes - gordon.moyes@parliament.nsw.gov.au


For more information contact Lee Rhiannon's office - 9230 3551 or lee.rhiannon@parliament.nsw.gov.au

Finally we have dates set to go into the studio to begin work on the debut album with the amazing Magoo of Blackbox Studios fame. Magoo has worked with many amazing acts such as Regurgitator, Spiderbait, Shihad, Gerling and even Midnight Oil... the list of great Australian acts he has worked with is endless and almost as long as the list of ARIA nominations he has received!

We begin tracking at Blackbox on the 21st of July. We hope to have all the tracking completed by August and then mix with Magoo soon thereafter.. We are shooting for the release by the end of this year...

We'd also like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank and show our appreciation to Phil McKellar who produced both of our EP's. Phil has moved on to a new permanent position in the industry which is a sad loss for independant bands, but great news for Phil. Phil McKellar is an amazing producer, having launched such greats as Grinspoon, Silverchair and many more - even having had the honour of recording Nirvana live during their Australian tour.

We feel priveleged and honoured to have had these opportunities and are very excited about the upcoming recording. Anyone who is in a band knows the value of working with great producers. Anyone can record a track, only a handful of people really know how to make a great track sound amazing.

Speaking of which, it is all about great tracks and in the midst of writing you can become so lost in the process that it is hard to gauge how good the songs are... who are we to say anyway! But the new songs all feel really strong, better than anything we have done before - I think ... I never really know till about a year after I hear the final mixes! We have about 13 tracks which will grow to 15 and then be whittled back to ten or so for the album.

We also have some really exciting news regarding getting our Myspace and mailing list friends literally involved with the album, but we are keeping it under wraps at this stage. If you really wanna know and want to get on board just send us a message and we'll fill you in! Or at least make sure you are on the mailing list and that way you will be informed - you can join the mailing list on our Myspace page..

More soon!

Chris

Yeah well I guess you could say the band is just a little bit excited (!!!!) about being added to the lineup for Splendour 2008. We received the call about 3 weeks ago and had to keep it under our hats until today, so sorry to all of you that we have been strategically avoiding answering the question, we were not allowed to tell anyone..

The best bit is we are playing The Supertop (main stage), we are still not sure which day (hopefully Saturday so we can party from there on in!!!). And party we will.. hopefully with all of our friends that have helped us get here by supporting us, coming along to gigs and spreading the good word!!

We thank you all greatly once again!

Watch out, got a feeling it could be a lively one ; )

Just a quick note to let you all know that The Black Stars  are in the process of signing to Brisbane indie label Sugarrush who will take care of international distribution. Check out the awesome new SugarRUSH website and all the the other great artists on the label at www.sugarrushrecords.com 

More soon!

I've been vegan for more than 10 years now (and please don't think you're the first to call me 'Regan the vegan' lol...).  For many of these years I've also been a huge fan of the Cruelty Free Shop.... and coming home to a box jam-packed with all kinds of vegan treats!  Every month there's a new product, so its fun to keep an eye out for the recently-disovered non animal-tested, non animal ingredient foods, cosmetics, cleaning products and pet things.  My pups Sid Vicious and Megsy (both rescued from pound accomodation) love the vegan dog food and the macadamia pistachio nougat is sensational.

  Meet Sid Vicious! 

Even more sensational is getting to play and support the Cruelty Free Living Festival in Sydney on Sunday the 2nd of November 2008. Happening for a few years now, the idea behind the festival is to educate people about animal cruelty issues and show them how they can avoid supporting cruelty to animals by making simple changes in their everyday life. Not to mention, inviting them to sample a huge range of vegan foods.... Can't wait for a huge vegan pig-out after the gig!

Its going to be in Belmore Park, right next to Central Station in Haymarket so no transport excuses!

Jessica Bailey from Animal Lib is the brains behind this beautiful beast - and she's hoping on a couple of well-known bands to headline the festival.  This would be awesome - to drag a few more people out to hear great music made by great people committed to spreading the cruelty-free message.

Check it out!!!

Regan

The Black Stars just received the phone call to support HELMET at The Great Northern in Byron Bay on the 25th of April.

The band is over the moon as they have always loved HELMET and were especially stoked to hear that they are playing MEANTIME in it's entirety!

See you all there!

Hey thanks to all who have subscribed, you should have now received an email with details on how to get your free copy of Money Or Your Life./

If by chance you didn't - drop us a line!

More soon!

xxx

The Black Stars

After a couple of mammoth final nights finishing up tracking everything for 'Tales From The Killing Floor', finally the band hits Sydney today to begin mixing with Phil McKellar at The Vault.

Lots of fun to be had by all and the studio sounds great. A bit of free time in the studio means a bit of time to explore and experiment with new sounds, but who knows what will make the final mix! Not too many mishaps (thus far : ), we've only blown up the synth but that might have been a good omen??, we're still standing! All going to plan we should be mastering and printing towards the end of August...

The deal still stands for a free copy to those who have signed up to the blog!

Where's my bed?

Cheerios

Diabolical