Hey everybody.

What I really want to tell you all is that, despite our relative quietude lately, we're all actually pretty busy.

AFOM has a couple of cool gigs in the next month which you can read all about on our profile (you were there a minute ago).  We have been recording hours of improvisation lately which are becoming the cornerstone of some new material.  Strange new sounds that see us rocketing to the pit of oblivion with a rhapsodical, reckless abandon that will no doubt alienate us ever further from our peers.  Awesome.

We are also all working on respective other things.  Did you know we all had a shitload of other projects on the go?  Well we do.  Here's six of them.

POOR PEOPLE http://www.myspace.com/poorpeoples
Featuring the amazing Erica Dunn on vox/gtr.  Myself (Pat) bass.  Llod (ex-AFOM guitarist) on gtr.  Jon Chapple (ex-Shooting at Unarmed Men frontman) on drums.  A strange, interesting mix of psyhedelia, garage, blues.  We're doing a Wednesday night residency at the Tote this month - call me biased but I think it's worth coming to.  For more info see the page.

CRASH MAT http://www.myspace.com/crashmatband
This a duo (a duet if you will) between our Davd and Jon "Shooter" Chapple.  Picks up the anger where Shooting at Unarmed Men ceased to be.  Only this time with a nice bed of electronic beats and chunky riffin'.  They're working on a home made record that sounds astonishingly good.  They may never do a live show, but will nonetheless keep making great music.

ZOMBIRDS http://www.myspace.com/zombirds
This is my new indie/folk rock band.  I like to think it's like if Pavement covered CSN&Y and made it good.  Harmonies, finger-picking, nice songs.  Have done one gig so far, will do many more.  Working on some demos now, and should be online by the weekend. 

JOE FORRESTER http://www.myspace.com/joeforrester
The newest member of AFOM, Joe Forrester is the enigmatic, overshadowed, secretly the most talented, dark horse of the band.  This is his acoustic solo stuff.  It's nice.

FUCKED GUTS http://myspace.com/fuckedguts
A doom/noise/grindcore/goth band featuring every member of AFOM on a different instrument to normal.  Great?  Stupid?  I don't know.  We'll play at your party.

CHERRYWOOD GUNS http://www.myspace.com/cherrywoodguns
Chris has been drumming with these country/rockabilly/punk type guys.  They too have a residency at the Tote this month, on Saturday arvos in the front bar.

Oh hey. Yeah, not bad. Just uploaded a new video for "It's Okay, I'm A Cop". Y'know that song with the big ending? Na, not that one, the one with the bit. Yeah. That's the one. It's about us going on holiday and getting murderously murdered. Na, we're alright. Cool, you too.

Gday folks,

Lloyd "Llod/Rock Llodster/Llodo/Papa Briggsy" Briggs has left AFOM, citing musical differences.  He's also a severe drug addict and he sexually abused us.  But the split was, nonetheless, amicable.

Joe Forrester has joined...  or, rejoined, as he was in fact in the band for a few weeks several years ago, just long enough to coin the band's name and leave.  We're just about to get started working on material for our next album.  He's not joining as a full-time guitarist (although for the time being he'll be filling in Lloyd's parts in the current set).  Joe can play any of the instruments so we'll be doing things a bit differently from here on in.  It'll be cool.

"God Mode" was very well-recieved... except for about 10% of the feedback, which was mostly hateful, bizarre and a terrific read.  And we've now probably been compared to at least thirty bands we've never heard or liked.  Cool.

We have a few shows coming up, including a Weekender gig at Ding Dong (July 11th), which will be our first with Joe in the band.  Hopefully we'll have a new song or two to show you.  Also doing a couple of shows with Perth's tough, uncompromising rock machine The Leap Year later that month, and this Saturday night we're doing an extremely brief set of covers for homeless starving orphans in Sierra Leone, who probably have it worse than anyone in the world.  I can't guarantee our set will be a good one, but i can guarantee that it is for a good cause.

Good night, and keep safe.

Patrick

G'day g'day.

We've now got our new video clip for "Heroin Sheik" up on youtube. If you didn't notice it on the front page, have a look here:






If your internet's fast enough, watch it in HQ cause it looks way better that way.

Albums out on Saturday! GO GIT IT! GO GIT IT!

We're playing lotsa shows, maybe even in a town near you.

Have a great day.

reviews of AFOM usually fall into one of two categories: "this is totally off the wall genre-hopping stuff and i don't know what to say about it", or "it's grunge.  they're a grunge band.  they play grunge."  the latest single got a lot more of the latter.

A Friend Of Mine
One Trick Pony (A New Entity)
A Friend of Mine play quiet, loud, and pounding through the middle, shifting about on a bed of jungle drums from bruised and unassuming vocals in the verse to a chorus that evokes Nirvana or Alice in Chains - all things grunge that are now scheming for revival.  Good, solid song craft.
Beat Magazine, 4th Feb 09

“Their single One Trick Phony is actually quite an interesting blend of genres and ideas…There’s a very obvious intelligence to One Trick Phony that warrants a second or third listen.” - Drum Media Jan 30th 09


> stereophony
A FRIEND of Mine have a sombre, shy aesthetic.  Their One Trick Phony single creeps up on you before launching into a Mother Hubbard guitar lead.  It rates, mates.
Herald Sun, Jan 29th 09

*A FRIEND OF MINE – One Trick Phony*
*(Green/MGM)*

Each week Mine's On The 45 pretends to know what's good for you. "Ooh,
listen to this, it's so rad." "If you listen to this crap, you're crap."
"Buy this single if you want a picture of Ricki-Lee sticking her bum out."
So judgemental. But when it really comes down to it, you can still listen to
what you want, and we're fine. For instance, you can listen to Melbourne
band A Friend Of Mine's new single One Trick Phony all you want. If you want to listen to their sullen, grudge-holding moping while you're working out and feeling bitter in the gym, you can! If you want to sad-rock out to their soft/loud sounds of post-grunge while you're feeling bitter and doing the gardening, help yourself! If you want to drown in the sound of dudes
wallowing in self-pity while you're driving to work, planning the bitter
deaths of your colleagues, well, it's a free country! It's no problem, we
can still be pals. Just because you enjoy listening to a group of guys who
sound like they decided to form a band because they had, in order of
importance: (a) been dumped, or possibly left off the cricket team; (b)
electric guitars and pedals which makes it go all fuzzy; (c) bad feelings
about the world; (d) heard how people like Kurt could make misery sound
cool; (e) an idea to outpour all of their resentment into a song; and (f)
the intention to make up the melody later; that's cool. Don't stress it –
One Trick Phony's not going to make or break our tight relationship. I would
never delete you off Facebook. But I may hit the "Hear Less About..."
option.
- some tosser, Rave magazine, 27th Jan 09


(listen to Poor People - www.myspace.com/poorpeoples .  check it out)

Yo!

We've got a new single. It's called One Trick Phony. It's off the new album we're working on with Chris Thompson. It'll be out Marchish next year with the help of A New Entity. It's pretty fuckin sweeeeeet. The only way to get the single is from here. Have a listen and tell everybody you know in the world to listen to it too.

Have a bloody good day.




NEW SINGLE - "ONE TRICK PHONY" - ONLY AVAILABLE HERE!











NEW FULL LENGTH ALBUM OUT MARCH 2009

Download the new single to receive updates.

We are due to record our album with Chris Thompson in late November.  He is very good and has won Arias and stuff.  Davd and I have a long standing agreement that, should AFOM ever receive an Aria, one of us - probably me - will shove the thing up his arse instead of making an acceptance speech.  I just checked google images, it looks feasible.  Good thing they're not a Logie cos I doubt the TV bit would fit in.

Anyway.  That's the scoop.  We are playing the songs lots and lots trying to get it very tight.  Tighter than my arse will be after we win that Aria.  We're also trying to get an album track listing sorted out, which is an arduous process, but a sufficiently nerdy one to be kind of fun.

The album we are to record is as thus follows henceforth like so:

Dust Storm
Heroin Sheik
File Under Fail
Get Out*
Epic Sad*
Church
Your Dog Is Waiting For Me To Die
Co-Host
One Sided Paper
One Trick Phony
Madame Swish
It's OK, I'm A Cop
(* awful song titles that must be changed.)

Think of a track listing for us if you like.  Not that you're familiar with the songs or anything, but it'll give us something to work with.


All the best
P-Friend

so we recorded 10 new demos at chris's farm in may. we then set about trying to convince some label somewhere to release the finished thing... still working on this part. this side of things on the whole is not very enjoyable. some labels were lovely people who said they had received + really got into these demos. on the flip side are the aloof scenester pricks who give off the impression that you're wasting their time even though YOU ARE THE REASON THEY HAVE A FUCKING JOB IN THE FIRST PLACE and they just say they'll make a note for some boss or other to call you back and of course they never do. now i think about it i'm really amazed so many time wasters can get so far in the world.

then we were thinking about all the new songs we have written that have never been played. the vaults are overflowing with a backlog of material newer than our current live set (which the farm demoing essentially was). they're easily as good; i would say better. all the usual epicness, beats, feedback, etc, but think more synths, 3-part harmonies, acoustic guitars with distortion on them, instrument swapping like never before... a real departure.

so yeah that's what we're up to, just rehearsing and refreshing. hence the quietness on the gig front (but we're apparently doing a last-minute gig next week at the arthouse with the Jacks. dunno what day yet... just heard). we've already got 4 new songs in the last couple of weeks.

at this stage the general album plan is to get heaps of material ready and record absolutely all of it. i look forward to really exploring recording techniques, spending a lot of time on it, and make a really atypical album. so i suppose that means we're gonna have to get some money from somewhere.

Got Money? Why not give it to A Friend Of Mine? Visit www.afriendofmine.com.au for more details.
Remember... a Friend of Yours... is A Friend Of Mine.

Lloyd. new member on gtr/bass. our sound has maximised. He has been in Zeroes, Harmonilehre, and She Spits Macabre.

we have a new album. we've recorded it once, just as a test. we want to record it in the excellently rustic, slightly creepy house at Chris's farm. so as not to waste our cash on a lousy recording, we went for a test run first. we got live takes of all gtr/bass/drums, with vox/sampler/etc afterwards. they weren't perfect takes but the feel is there. i can honestly say the real thing will sound beautiful. BEAUTIFUL.

we spent 4 days on it. some bands would finish it in that time, but if you're us you spend ages making all these difficult parts work, for when recording approaches, suddenly we have more ideas for synths, samples, random files gathering dust on our hard drives suddenly get remembered, lyrics suddenly aren't good enough, etc. this was a "preliminary jist assessment", not a recording, but most kinks have been ironed on the way, saving pain later.

the process is already a LOT easier than our EP, a two-year dirge-slog that caused nothing but PAIN and ANGUISH (and a good CD, i guess).

the new stuff sounds more like a band than a studio project, developed live, and has more flow and spontaneity. the recorded sound is, to me, like where late radiohead and albini meet (not comparing us, just saying).

the need for the 4th member started with fear of having too much of that power trio soft/loud thing. simple, fine. boring, not. it had to be more interesting than that. even Nirvana needed another guy live.

so we're jamming hard to get our now-4-piece sound down. the songs have this extra layer of Lloydness that make it so much cooler.

in july, we record!