A year in retrospect:

As I glanced down at the corner of the computer screen it dawned on me that we have reached the first day of the final month of the year, so before the holiday season truly begins what better way to wrap up a year than to sit down and reflect on what has been an absolutely fantastic 2009, and look ahead to what is shaping up to be a huge 2010!

We kicked off the year funnily enough writing what was to become our debut album, finding rehearsal spaces here and there (at one point there was a stint in Little Dan’s parents’ garage) which, despite the occasional evacuation caused by the numerous, extremely threatening looking wasps, was actually quite a good little space. And saw the birth of the track Nothing on T.V., which as you all know now is the title of the album.

We then farewelled a perfectly healthy, happy Big Dan for a two week period in the states, and were exchanged a Big Dan who now had acquired from his travels a blood clot in his brain that was the size of a golf ball… a scary period for us, but everyone bounced back and straight into the Big O Tour, where we got to play alongside some truly inspiring acts, namely The Music, The Fratellis, Ben Lee, Yves Klein Blue and Bluejuice. That was definitely one of the best and most thoroughly enjoyed touring experiences we’ve had.

So then, leaping from one social extreme to the other (that of being social to completely UN-social) we delved into pre-production for the album with none other than the notorious Michael Di Francesco (he’s not really notorious… other than perhaps for his ridiculous synth sounds. But that may be more “reknowned”) either way this was a fantastic experience, we spent 2 weeks with Mikey working on all the songs before producer number 2 jumped on board, the infamous Richard Wilkinson (this is fun, it sounds like we have super-villains working on our record) We then shut the door of Sony studios and locked ourselves away for the next 3 months.

For people who haven’t had the chance to record an album I’ll give you an idea of what it’s like. Drinking double/triple shot coffees just to keep awake and working, average of 16 hour days, a lot of youtube video watching, occasionally putting on music that ISN’T yours at a very loud volume just to get some perspective, sushi for dinner most nights, a brief infatuation with Super Nintendo and all Mario related games, losing any significant pigmentation to your skin and getting used to very cold temperatures and dim-lighting. Cabin Fever – bickering about pointless topics, telling the same stories over and over, making very inappropriate jokes to keep your sense of humour in tact. And it does not help AT ALL when one of you gets sick, because it just gets passed back and forth and around and back again, in fact Katrina had a throat infection and major nasal issues for the entire of vocal tracking, which is a testament to her amazing vocal chords that we could walk away with something that actually worked!

But out of it all, an extremely personal and emotional experience. If a band can last this experience without wanting to suffocate their band-mates in their sleep with a pillow, or just simply never wanting to talk to them again then they have done very well. And I think we did very well, in fact it made us a lot closer.

The only respite from the studio came this year when we were asked to join Ms Lily Allen on her Australian tour, which we graciously (ah what the hell) excitedly accepted, and by the end of it we were able to tick off a few more milestone boxes that remained on our list including *Play the Hordern Pavilion = amazing.

Returning to the studio with such fervour that had not been present in the few weeks leading up to the tour we dived into the last half of making and mixing the album and we were all wrapped up by early July.

We farewelled our producer/engineer/mixer extraordinaire Richard in fine fashion celebrating the last day with drinks, many drinks… actually too many drinks, in fact admittedly I was only able to stay coherent until the entrée arrived, at a dinner with none other than our brand new manager and his wife to be exact (our A&R at Sony!). Titus, Courtney I am still sorry about this.

It’s hard picking up your life after the experience of recording an album, but what better way than to jump right back into touring. This time with our mates Grafton Primary, which was infinite amounts of fun. We played to some great crowds at some great venues and made some friends along the way. It was an educational tour as well, it taught us the value of grass-roots touring and exactly how much it can do for artists. And it’s more than likely that it taught GP that when you offer a Cassette Kid your rider… well, boy! That Cassette Kid (and occasionally… or.. very often that Cassette Kids sound engineer, not to name name’s but it rhymes with manapole) is gonna take you seriously!

But all rider theft aside, I think both of us walked away having really enjoyed the tour. So much so that we got our new found mates Hey Now to remix our free download single Freaky Sweetie, and they did such a phenomenal job that we chucked it on our brand new Lying Around EP.

Which brings me to what happened next *daydream sequence fadeout* so when you record an album, professionally. You come to realise exactly how little music actually has to do with it, or rather I suppose, that there are pieces to the puzzle that have to intertwine to make a release cohesive. This is, photography, video, artwork and multi-media material for those little distractions from work (myspace, facebook, twitter, youtube.. you name it) so we spent a good month looking for the best up and coming photographers, artists and directors and after many creative meetings we made a video for our first single Lying Around. This could not have gone better if we could have asked, we worked with Pierre Toussant who is a great fashion photographer and who can now also tick the box “accomplished film clip director”

We released Lying Around with a cautious optimism but what we received was nothing short of incredible for us, the song was playlisted at Nova, the film clip on Rage, MTV, VideoHits and Channel V and it also brought in some excellent overseas attention, getting featured on influential blogs/sites such as PopJustice in the U.K.

To celebrate this, we hit the road yet again and have spent around the last month playing some fantastic festivals such as Fat As Butter, the Macquarie Uni Conception day and the Open Arms Festival in ....Coffs.. ..Harbour...., as well as playing our own headline shows along the East Coast of Aus.

Which literally brings me right to this moment in time, reading over the schedule for 2010… a lot of which cannot be announced as of yet, but what I can tell you is this. Expect to see us at Pyramid Rock on NYE, expect to see us the very day after at Field Day in the Domain. Expect to see a brand new single and film clip early in the new year. Expect to farewell us to get our passports stamped in foreign lands, and expect to see a WHOLE LOT MORE of us on stages around the country and expect the album!!!

As previously mentioned, this year has been an epic one. But we’re coming at 2010 harder and faster and better than ever before.

I’m not closing off for the year, we still have 30 days left, and if I have learned anything over the past year and a bit, it’s that 30 days is a LONG time. So what I will say is this, thank you so much to every single one of you who has gone out and bought an EP, a single, watched a video, come to a show, given us encouragement, given us criticism, shared a beer and a chat or anything else that has helped to make every second of this year equally exciting and fulfilling. Keep it up and we’ll keep it up right back at you.

Love, as always.

Cassette Kids

-Jake

Hey guys and gals,

Just wanted to fill you in on everything that’s been going on in the world of the kids.

For those of you that follow us on twitter and facebook you’ve probably been reading the updates but we have been on tour for about the last month and a half with the lovely boys from Grafton Primary… honestly it should be illegal to have this much fun on tour. The shows have been fantastic and the crowds even better. A couple of definite highlights were Tasmania, that was our first time visiting there for touring purposes and we had such a warm welcome, so all other bands take note: there IS an audience waiting for you down there!! Another highlight was the Metro in Sydney, this is always just good fun playing to all ages crowds, we realise that you guys don’t always get a chance to see bands that you like live so you go extra mental when you do get to, so keep doing what you do it makes it all the more fun for us on stage (and trust, we were all doing the exact same thing at 15,16,17!)

We also made a few of our own stops on the road and played some headline shows, we were taken by surprise and were so pleased by the amount of you who were able to make it out to these shows, namely the gold coast and Adelaide were so much fun, and it was great to meet a lot of you and share a drink and a chat afterwards. That’s always one of the best things about touring.

So it has been a busy almost 2 months but it is all coming to a close this Thursday night at the Mean Fiddler in Rouse Hill, which is sort of a hometown show for us so that will be a great way to wrap up this tour with friends and family and any of you guys who can make it along!

On the album front, which I know a lot of you guys are keen to hear about (because you told me so at many of the shows on the tour!) I will happily fill you in.

We are now in the process of pulling together the visual concepts for the album, which is all of the fun stuff because it goes hand in hand with the recording itself, one couldn’t exist without the other and it’s always interesting building an overall aesthetic. We have photo shoots for the next couple of days and a film clip shoot for the first single in the next 2 weeks, which WILL be released toward the end of October. So consider Freaky Sweetie the entrée with the main course yet to come!

It will still be a while till you will be able to get your hands on the album itself but there will be a couple single releases coming up so hopefully that will wet your appetite (man I need to get away from this food analogy… maybe that’s my brain telling me to eat!) until album release time!

Oh and... keep an eye on the calendar, there may just be a headline tour coming very soon!
So that should just about bring you up to date, as always remember to join our facebook www.facebook.com/cassettekids and/or follow us on twitter www.twitter.com/cassettekids and as for me, I’m off to grab a bite to eat!

Love,

Jake – Cassette Kid