Royal Chant – Minor Crush

10 years. That’s how long Royal Chant has been in existence. I’m not 100% certain of the exact date we played our first show as “Royal Chant”, but it was sometime just before Easter in 2009 when we opened up for a band called Benjalu somewhere here in the local(ish) area before heading into Albert studios in Sydney to record our first singles with a proper producer.

It’s hard to tell what has changed over the years other than the many, many band members that have come and gone. I can’t tell if it’s everything, nothing, a few things, or just the little things. I can’t tell if still going means we’re doing it right, or doing it wrong, or if it means anything at all. Maybe that’s the wrong question to be asking, and meaning is just a made up word to keep us tied up in knots.

Anyways….here it is, Minor Crush, the 6th LP from a 2-piece band of nobodies from a small town of nowhere.

These songs range from very old and unreleased to a few that were meant for the last album but decided to re-record, while the rest were brand new compositions that came about as they normally do: a collision of accidents and good intentions.

This was recorded at Music Feeds Studios in Sydney, which is sadly no more after shutting its doors earlier this year. Now that it is no longer in existence I can publicly and proudly declare my gratitude to the studio and specifically its owner, Joel King, for allowing us record for free over these last 4-5 years. I’m sure you can imagine what a difference that makes to an indie band. Of our 6 LPs in existence (or 7 depending on how you count), 4 (or 5) were recorded at Music Feeds. It was very much one of our haunts, where I always felt at home, and now that it’s gone of course it feels like the earth has shifted beneath our feet just a little bit more. It happens.

My fav track? (I know you didn’t ask but I’ll pretend like you did).“Hearing Voices Movement”. Any time you can capture the sound in your head you have to consider it a win.

[music video by James Carthew and his fancy-pants code]

Fav track title? “Motivational Speech Impediment”. Sometimes I get stupid lucky when I stumble on something like that.

I started poking around with the Prelinger Archives and came up with this marvel of modern music videos.

And here’s the clips for the opening bangers for those of you still here wasting company time.

film clip by Greg Perry Another DIY film clip because of course

5 clips for 10 songs isn’t bad, but certainly feels like another DIY failure in comparison to the 7 clips for the 7 songs that made up Pride & Poverty. The indie OCD-completist in us is a hard voice to staunch.

And….here we are. Largely off the radio with a few exceptions around the globe, a few shows up our sleeves but nothing too drastic, and overall just pondering what to do, where to go, and how it all falls together in the end.

10 years, and not much has changed.

Thanks for reading, thanks for listening xoxo

New Music T̶u̶e̶s̶d̶a̶y̶ Wednesday

“New Music Monday” sounded waaaaay better, but that didn’t happen, (nor the night after), so this is the best effort from the B squad coming at you. Since it’s not always about me me me I thought I’d share a few tunes from the unheralded underground that exists outside of Australia’s predictable pay-to-play hype-machine.

First up…

“Mantras For A Failed Academic”
–Sad Hill (Perth, AU)

This is a new song from a (forthcoming) new album from a new band called Sad Hill. They’re coming in hot with a stellar pedigree, with at least one member (and possibly/probably two but can’t confirm coz they’re so new that info is hard to track down and it’s raining in Port Mac at the moment so the internet is playing up weird), being drawn from the ashes of former WA indie hard rockers Emperors, which means that their entry into the Australian music scene is basically a retread of Lester Burnham applying for a job as a cashier at Mr. Smiley’s. Trust me: they definitely have fast food experience.

They were recently named Band Of The Day (#146, to be exact), over at UK blog Overblown, to which we immediately thought “Oh, good for them!” [Also: “Hey, we’re jealous but gonna a smile through the pain & envy, make it a double thanks.”] Any press is good press, for realz, but they also described the single as “Some very lo-fi and chuggy punk that seems to be inexplicably mixed with Iron Maiden“, to which we internally replied…wait, what? Is this what we’re calling lo-fi these days? Damn. I don’t even want to know what counts as hi-fi then. They also threw us another curve-ball by listing the band members listed as

Jonathan, Anton, Simon & Elias. Charlie Lopez – Drums, 2011-2014

…even though there are only three people in the band pic and I know that my mate’s name is Greg (unless they are operating an entirely different Andy Kaufman-level and I’ve been left out of the joke). But, that’s the sort of new-band hijinx that warms the heart, really. Check it if you like things on the slightly heavier side but still like to use a thesaurus now and again. “Intelligent rock” is probably loaded with negative connotations, but it shouldn’t be.

We’d like to now direct your gaze to our favourite haunt of Sydney, and apologize now for being a few weeks late getting the word out about the latest from Whispering Jackie. This is “Fast Life”, and I knew this song fairly well before I ever heard the recording after doing quite a few shows with them last year. [Full disclosure: yeah, we did quite a few shows with them last year.]

This is a very fast & catchy number, with a chorus in 6/4 that keeps you slightly off balance but still in step, plus lyrics that somehow manage the impossible feat of directly quoting Neil Young yet leaving the listener feeling better, not worse because of it.

Whispering Jackie have become not only one of our most beloved bands to tour with, gossip over drinks with, and generally be part of the scene with, but they are definitely mates and I don’t use that term lightly (coz I’m not actually Australian and am probably using it wrong anyways.) Everything this band touches turns into furious garage-pop gold, and I am envious in so many ways.  Top stuff.

I’ve been meaning to write about Fingermae since our last show together in 2017 at Vic On The Park (ed: it was last May. Damn, I am slow]. I saw a few days ago that they had a new song out called “Not Racist But”, which immediately made me seethe with envy over the title alone.

WordPress is being a dick about embedding certain music players coz of blah blah blah I don’t know I’m old and tired and have been trying to finish this post for three days, so instead of embedding a proper music player from Fingermae’s Triple J Unearthed page I had to scrounge up this YouTube clip.

You get the idea.

I can’t say enough about Fingermae’s frontwoman Sally, as she is staple of the Newtown music scene, and thanks to her role as booker and soundie at the Town Hall Hotel in Newtown she has probably single-handedly done more to keep my own band going than anyone, including myself. Beyond that, Fingermae have hit upon that one style of music that no one ever does and no one ever even thinks to do: anti-folk.

Their self-styled description alone ticks all of the boxes for me:

“We call it Jazz Punk; there’s lots of chords with unreasonably long names played fast, heaps of sarcasm, adult themes and beats that will compel motion.”

This was literally me for so, so long, and now I want to go back. I remember having so much to say, and it all needing to come out, and watching & listening to Fingermae just makes me straight up…happy. Stupidly, ridiculously happy.

There’s a surfing adage that “the best surfer in the world is the person having the most fun”, and I always think of that when I see Fingermae’s drummer Lauren on stage. Her irrepressible joy behind the kit makes me jealous. I ask myself, “have I ever had that much fun? HAVE I?!?!?”

I honestly don’t know.

We’ll say good night and leave you with a new clip from our mates Wasters, who have joined forces with our fav US director Matt Clements to bring you their new clip for “Keep Me Waiting”.

Again, I cannot say enough good things about this band and their music. They have been great tour mates & given me much food for thought over the last 4-5(?!?!) years we have been kicking around together, and this is another gem in their ever-expanding quiver of impeccable pop-punk hits. Check it.

That’s all from the front lines for now. Blast these loud and show them some love if you feel so inclined. As easy as it can be to get so jaded about music and whatever scene you’re in, trust me: your voice always matters–make yourself heard.

Call/Shout/Complain/Preach/Annoy/Demand Better

xoxo

Inventing Colloquialisms

So….Royal Chant have a new single out, because of course we do. It’s called “Shooting Sparrows”. One student hanging around at school asked me what the title “Shooting Sparrows” meant, to which I promptly replied, “I don’t know”, which is, of course, the only answer one should give when asked about the meaning of anything.

We all have our pet peeves (some more than others), but as a songwriter, telling someone the “meaning” of a song rather defeats the point of writing it in the first place.
Don’t. Do. It.

Singer/Songwriters are probably the most guilty of doing this, as they often perform in small, intimate settings, often in venues devoted to acoustic music or in “songwriters in the round”-type settings, where basically you have to get up there and talk about your songs or share some funny story or explain the irony or witticism behind the title, or whatever: it’s just a shit show.

The 90s probably made things even worse, with everybody getting “unplugged” and the Indigo Girls, Shawn Mullins, Alanis Morissette, and Jewel not only setting their diaries to song but going out of their way to explain what everything means in a helpful pre-song presentation, just in case you got confused and decided to use your imagination.

The term “Shooting Sparrows” doesn’t mean anything that I know of. I think I was trying to lean on some Southern flavour in a “To Kill A Mockingbird” kind of way, but I’m not even sure if they HAVE sparrows in the South. The original line was from another song I wrote over 10 years ago that went:

I’d sooner shoot at sparrows than be kept away from you

That song wasn’t all that good. Maybe this new one isn’t much better. I have no idea, but I invented a phrase that has no meaning but sounds like it might, and that will do for now.

Of course you can hear this meaningless colloquialism of my own invention everywhere and in every way that people are still doing the music thing these days. Downloads, streams….anything but an actual record.

That’s how we do it in Vegas xoxo

I Get A Kick Out Of Being Kicked Around By You

Nobody pays, nobody minds
Everyone’s game every once in a while
You radium girls, that’s quite a smile
Nobody came, and nobody tried

I gave you my heart and you gave me the boot
I get a kick out of being kicked around by you
I get a kick out of being kicked around by you

What would you trade to taste it all?
We got a day to waste and a bottle of panadol
What would you pay for some piece of mind?
Nobody came, and nobody smiles

I gave you my heart and you gave me the boot
I get a kick out of being kicked around by you
I get a kick out of being kicked around by you

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Good morning,

I should be out surfing, being the holidays and all and given how much I complain, but it seems a bit on the cold side, so I’m going to wait just one more minute, just one more cup of tea. I’m gonna go, I swear.

While I’m in this holding pattern, now is as good a time as any to let you know we’ve got another new single out, and it’s short and sweet and doing about as well as most Royal Chant singles seem to do (read: not well enough).

Our bassist, Adam Murray, came up with a film clip for it using old Super-8 footage from his parents and violá: we have another small piece of noise to add to the monstrosity this is, has always been, and always will be the “music industry”.

 

As usual, you can grab it for free from Bandcamp…

Or maybe SoundCloud is your thing….

Or, if you wanted to be a super trooper you could hop on over to our Triple-J Unearthed page and get it that way. If we thought it would work we could try and bribe you into leaving a review or rate it to help us keep up with the young whipper snappers (let’s face it: Royal Chant ain’t exactly a collection of Spring chickens anymore, if we ever were in the first place), because HOLY HELL HAVE YOU SEEN HOW MANY PLAYS AND LIKES AND REVIEWS AND SHARES THESE YOUNG BANDS HAVE?!?!?! I’m so happy for them I stand in awe, then shame, then quietly sneak out while everyone politely looks away.

https://www.triplejunearthed.com/embed/5860751

And that, as we say in the business (claps hands), is how it’s done.

We’ve got some more dates to keep us busy until the end of May, and then it’s time to rest, collect our marbles, and get the record ready so we can do it all again.

.:: Royal Chant Tour Dates ::..

Saturday, April 22 – Meatstock Melbourne
Saturday, April 22, Retreat Hotel, Melbourne
Sunday, April 23 – Meatstock Melbourne

Friday, May 5 – Vic On The Park (Sydney) w/Fingermae

Saturday, May 6 – Meatstock Sydney

Sunday, May 7 – Meatstock Sydney

Saturday, May 20 – Ric’s (Brisbane)

Friday, May 26 – Town Hall Hotel (Sydney) w/Wasters
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

That’s all the news from here. Remember: nobody pays, nobody minds

xoxo

-M

OMG! Are you on Facebook? coz we’re on Facebook, and we should, like, totally be friends.

the Yada Yada Yada….

So yes of course it’s been ages since I wrote and yes of course I feel guilty and yada yada yada…

And yes of course that is the name of the new Royal Chant single. Yada Yada Yada.

Although it’s not part of my normal vernacular it used to come up from time to time in my stage banter.  Some of the lyrics I poached from a previous song that never got finished, and the chorus, is, of course: Yada Yada Yada.

We’ll see what Australia thinks of it, but if previous performances are any indication it’s probably safe to assume…we have no idea. Probably not much.  You can get your hands on it through all the usual.  Some folks really like bandcamp….

While others prefer to get their kicks through SoundCloud…

There’s always our Triple-J Unearthed page where you can have your say by leaving a rating or review, but we’re not Spring chickens anymore and the youngsters have really changed the game. If I sound jealous, don’t worry: I am.

And yeah, that’s how we roll. We’ve got a stack of tour dates kicking off on Australia/Invasion Day, and then we’ll see if we’re still in one piece at the end of it all.

And lastly, just so I don’t lose sight of my roots…

See you out there xoxo

..:: Royal Chant – Yada Yada Yada National Tour Dates ::..

Thursday, Jan 26 – El Grotto, Scarborough WA

Friday, Jan 27 – The Fly Trap, Fremantle WA

Saturday, Jan 28 – Babushka, Perth WA

Saturday, Feb 11 – The Factory Theatre, Marrickville NSW (Elliot Smith Tribute show)

Saturday, Feb 11 – The Town Hall Hotel, Newtown NSW (midnight show)

Wednesday, Feb 22 – Lass O’ Gowrie, Newcastle NSW

Saturday, Feb 25 – Meatstock NZ, Auckland

Sunday, Feb 26 – Meatstock NZ, Aukland

Friday, March 17 – The Pier, Port Macquarie

Saturday, April 22 – Meatstock Melbourne

Sunday, April 23 – Meatstock Melbourne

Saturday, May 6 – Meatstock Sydney

Sunday, May 7 – Meatstock Sydney