Day #2 of “TVD Down Under”…and boy is my jaw tired. (I kid, I kid…)
But hey – Scotland, Ireland, England…step right up for your theme weeks, emm kay? Publicists/promoters get in touch…
…anyway, now where were we?
“We are the five piece band called Special Patrol. We come from a little town in the deep south of Australia called Adelaide. The isolation down here makes for some mind numbing drives. The nearest city to us on a national tour is a nine hour drive and the next one after that, Sydney is sixteen hours away. With five members plus a sound guy in a car one can lose their mind quite easily.
We have been making music for years and the process is one that we enjoy like nothing else… apart from being tickled under the arms… man that tickles! We started making music in high school and have now made three albums and two EP’s. We are just gearing up to release the third album recently named “The Stranger’s Dozen”.
Our favourite record store is a tiny store in the town of Adelaide called Big Star Records. This store stocks all the local bands plus a great selection of national and international artists, has creaky floorboards and home made record shelves. If you are ever down this way come and say hi.”
Special Patrol – New Years Eve (Mp3)
“The Paper Scissors (TPS) play rock music that borrows from all of our favorite songs and styles from the past 50 years, and tries to consolidate these into pop music. We come from Sydney, Australia which is a big pretty city, but doesn’t have the healthiest of music scenes, there is definitely room to move and play shows and get known, but a lot of the time people are too busy barbecuing or dining al fresco to go and see music. We don’t really consider ourselves a part of the scene because we don’t really exist as just musicians, we are all pretty chilled – dorky actually – exchanging cooking tips, talking about David Lynch films and drinking tea.
Sydney is a great place to live and write, but you need to escape as much as possible. Our music is usually based on groove and simplicity, but then layered on top of with lyrics and melodies that strive to be memorable and universal- personal stories from cathartic times that have enough ambiguity that people can still project themselves into the story. Sonically though, it usually takes this catharsis and turns it on its head and into something that has elements of fun and joy that hold hands with the darker noisier bits.
We made an EP in 2006, an album in 2007 and just released The Howl EP in July 09. Howl sees us evolving and growing up and is a good snapshot of where we are heading. Our next release is going to be our first vinyl, we are planning on doing a 7 inch single later in the year which is fucking exciting.
My favorite record store in Sydney is Red Eye Records in the city – Red Eye stocks a lot of good vinyl and they have 2 stores- one for new and 2nd hand, and the other one is just 2nd hand. They have in-stores and I love going there to trade, giving them old shit I don’t listen to anymore and getting store credit in my hot little hands…”
The Paper Scissors – Howl (Mp3)
