To make it up to you, here is a poem about what I’ve been up too. Off the cuff, could be quite dreadful. Here we go…

Recently, as recent as,
just last week,
I was invited to play,
at another bands gig.

It was at a jazz venue,
Which rather concerned me
Three wrong notes makes jazz
The others soon reminded me

It was Otam’s gig
I love his songs!
Ziam played bass
Jajah hit the drums

We played two songs of mine,
Ragdoll and Meatmarket,
I played my acoustic for once,
Some people said my songs were nice.

This is quite unusual,
normally people say;
Epic, awesome or cool,
(Or stupid crap or gay)

I was quite excited to see
The food at No Black Tie was japanese
So I ordered the Unagi
But it didn’t compare to Tanuki’s

And the green tea came
with a teabag in it
And wasn’t free
No it cost 8 ringgit!

All in all it was a very fun night
My first show in Malaysia,
It went all right

Still playing a bit of acoustic guitar, working on some new stuff and some old. Fired off a few mix notes for Nosferatu the other day, hope to get that finished and done with soon!

Wanting to to a website upgrade after a conversation I had with Abby from Etch mag just before Christmas. Need to get a computer before I can do that though. Also want to finish sorting out some merch stuff I’d started on last year. Moving countries has disorganized me quite a bit!

Kicking myself that it’s halfway through January already. Must get more done already!

And on that note, I shall return to my guitar.

Keep in touch,
<3 Kristie. Xxx

I’m in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Have a ground floor apartment in a complex a short LRT ride from the city where I’m living with my fiance Matt and my son Joey. The weather here is much warmer than NZ though thankfully the burn-time is slower, I can actually go outside without being an instant lobster!

It’s pretty different here than NZ apart from the equatorial climate. Getting used to using public transport (I miss my car!), another language (I’m really slow at learning Malay), a whole new world of food to explore (awesome!!!), and of course being so far away from friends and family.

Not having proper net access is driving me a bit batty but I’m sure I’ll get that sorted. In the meantime I’m relying on my phone. When I get net and computer sorted I can have more of a proper listen to the first mix of Nosferatu, put together some mix notes for Dave and hopefully get that moving along towards something you can listen too.

2009 was a pretty good year for me, Transit of Venus released first EP, first music video, and of course doing music for first silent movie which was a big undertaking in it’s own right. Two days into 2010 I’m not sure what this year holds in store, but I’m sure it will be awesome!

Take care, keep in touch.
<3 K xxx

I am hurriedly trying to get a bunch of stuff done before I relocate to Malaysia in 20 days.  Mr Tory Staples is working hard with Jester Underground and is now playing drums for Decortica, Mat Boshers awesome band.  Mat is, um I dunno I haven’t seen him since the show.  Same with Marcel who is probably doing something really interesting that I don’t know anything about.  I imagine it involves his band Battle Circus and their upcoming album.  Plum Green is working hard making amazing things happen for her band. Plum Green and the Dandy Men have a gig at the Dogs Bollix on the 19th of December, you should come along!

Michelle Klaessens from The Rock Factory did an awesome job of recording the audio from the Nosferatu show (at the same time as doing a great job as soundie!), and it’s now in the hands of Dave Edtmaier (Miscreant Recordings) for mixing.  I’m really excited to watch this along to the movie when it’s finished as I’m sure watching and listening is a completely different experience than watching and playing.

Transit of Venus Project has a new mailing list thing going on. You can sign up on our website www.transitofvenusproject.com I’ll send out an email about once a month, not too often to annoy anyone but often enough to keep everyone informed of anything they might need to know. This is the list you need to be on if you want a free copy of the Nosferatu audio recording when it is ready.  Also, when you sign up you get sent a link to download a free copy of Meatmarket.  This list, is the list you need to be on if you want to hear only the important things without sifting through all the babble I write in blogs and on twitter.  You know, the bits about toast and toenails and other such rubbish. Ok, maybe I lied about the toenails. But you know what I mean. The parts where I just start rambling on and on and on about whatever thoughts happen to pop into my brain at the time.  Like, you know, today I made these beautiful perfect delicious poached eggs for brunchternoon-tea. The whites were firm and non-slimy, the yolks were congealed gold on the outside but the inside was filled with orange hot melty awesomeness that poured out onto the toast when I cut into it.  I had just taken the first bite when the phone rang.  I won’t say who it was, but lets just say that by the time I managed to extract myself from the conversation my fantabulous poached eggs were stone cold and I was very very sad about this.

I think that is all I have to report today.  Hope you’re not all going mad leading up to the festive season, enjoy yourself, drive safe.

<3 K xxx

Tory Staples, whom I’ve worked with on and off for the past five years, amazing drummer, amazing friend.  This project wouldn’t have lasted five minutes without his enthusiasm and support.

Marcel Bellve whose music I have always admired, it’s been a fantastic experience working with someone from one of my favourite bands!

Mat Bosher – our last minute life saver! Did an incredible job of getting everything together with such short notice and such good humor.

Plum Green – The cheesecake, the false mustache, the beautiful voice! And of course all the invaluable girl talk and moral support.

And special thanks to the behind the scenes crew…

Anthony Corban doing all that projectory stuff and generally helping outwith anything that need doing urgently

Michelle Klaessens from The Rock Factory was our fantabulous hard working sound girl and recording engineer for the night

Tyle Burke was there doing wonderful things I didn’t really know much about. Herding film students, jumping behind the sound desk when Michelle came on stage later in the evening.

Tim and Rilland made us a great pair of emergency last minute ushers hehe

The TAPAC crew Scott and Calvin who helped out on the night

And of course thank you to everyone who came along and watched the show!

It’s two days after the show now. I’m totally at a loose end, taking a weekend off to catch my breath before I get stuck into work next week.

What the show was like for me…

I was very worried leading up to the show, because I had never done anything like this before. Kinda a big deal to me.  I probably got a little stressed out (ok a lot) over all the things I had to remember not just in the playing of the show but the organizing and responsibility.  I guess the most accurate way to describe it is that I was terrified out of my wits that the show would be a failure, things would go wrong, no one would show up, and all my hard work would have been wasted.  Luckily that was not the case!

We started at about 11am that morning, met up at The Manor rehearsal space to work on a couple of things.  ”The curse of Nosferatu” has reared it’s ugly head in the form of incessant scheduling nightmares for this project.  We gave practice our best shot with which ever band members were there at the time.  By the time we had everyone in the same place at the same time it was halfpast three and time to load out! We got all our gear to the venue around four and began to set everything up. I had been almost in tears because I thought I had lost my box of leads, turned out I hadn’t and then I felt like a complete fool for over reacting. Set-up and sound check must have taken us through till about 8-8:30pm, I had been running off during sound check to put my make-up on and get dressed because I didn’t want to get caught short of time.  The whole time I was on edge and the adrenaline was causing me to bounce about the place and burst into nervous giggles, or snap at people for no real reason.  I had managed to not have any ushers arranged but thankfully a couple of friends stepped into the role. I had no one organised to open the curtain (first gig ever with a curtain you see!) so my Dad was dragged backstage to do that job.

It was almost nine o’clock, miraculously the band were all onstage behind the closed curtain. Matt and Marcel began playing some atmospheric music and I suddenly realized in my panicky forgetfulness I hadn’t lit the candles on my piano. I waved frantically at my Dad to not open the curtain while I tried to quickly light them.  Got that done, sat down, the curtain opened and the show began.

As I played the nervousness started to fade and I began to enjoy myself. It is nice getting to perform without having to put on a performance. The movie provides the visual side of things and you just get to concentrate on the music.  By the end of 84 minutes my arms were ready to drop off! Playing for that long with no stops was quite an intense experience, at times I couldn’t hear the rest of the band over my piano and just had to hope and trust we were playing the same thing.  The show itself seemed to fly by. 84 minutes was over so soon but I was so exhausted.

After the show I came and said hi to friends and family who had come along. All the feedback I heard was really positive which was nice after all the work that we had done.  When we’d had enough of a break and a few drinks we went back on stage for a jam and played to the few people who didn’t have to work the next morning.  This was a really fun part of the night. Michelle got up from behind the sound desk and jumped on keys, I stole Marcel’s guitar and we played some Amperzahn songs and some ToV songs, some with Ant on bass some with Josh, then Marcel jumped on Matt’s guitar and Tim jumped on bass followed by drums and played Doing OK (with the drum battle), I don’t know how Tory survived, he is such a hard out drummer! And then 2/3rds of AntiVenom were there so dragged them onstage and I jumped on drums for a song.  Admittedly I’m not the best drummer in the world (ok ok I suck!) but it was awesome fun!

Eventually the fun had to end, we said goodbye to the last few people to leave and then began the pack-down and load-out process.  This is the part of the night I hate the most. When all I want is to relax after the show, but instead I have to disassemble pianos and roll up leads and put my sneakers back on for  heavy lifting! I ended up with big bruises on my knees from toppling over climbing in and out of the loading dock.  I got home by 2am, tired and grumpy, but woke up feeling really pleased with how the show went, and feeling kinda silly for being so tired and grumpy towards the end of the night.

Pene from AntiVenom took a few photos during the show… here ya go!

I have exactly 10 minutes to write a blog.

Things have been hectic. This is probably a good thing, there is nothing worse than boredom, give me stress and rush over boredom any day thanks.

Last minute rehearsals, last minute ticket worries (worrying we’re gonna sell out one minute and worrying we’re not gonna sell enough to cover costs the next). Last minute wondering what to wear. Last minute text spamming all my friends, I don’t want them to miss out on tickets if we do sell out.  Last minute putting a “turn your phone off” sign up at the start of the movie. Cramming all the last minutes with productive things.

Eating on the run, sleepless nights and early mornings, split nails and tired hands from practicing, awful hair from just not having the time to do anything with it!

<3 K xxx

Here’s a bunch of random pics from lately… Imagine your own stories to go with them if you like!