After an extended period of time towards the end of last year, during which I spent most of my days (and nights) in the studio, This year I've hit insane levels of non music related activity that has cut any studio time down to an absolute minimum. What time I have spent behind the desk has been mostly devoted to finalising mixes for 'The Mother Back to Strong Down' and re-writing the string parts for down to daisy (done behind the desk because I use a sequencer to allow me to hear the arrangements as I work). This material is for my next release - a compilation featuring diverse recordings made between '95 and '07. Work on the new studio album mentioned in my previous diary note has been temporarily put aside to allow me to finalise the former project before continuing with the next. This project hasn't been forgotten though - and I have been, from time to time, listening to the working mixes.

As I've mentioned before a particular highpoint of these sessions was working again with Nev Messent, who was for several years the drummer for GB Band. Listening again recently to the rough mixes of the tracks we did together has reminded me of a quite remarkable aspect of those sessions. To put it simply, once we got into the studio and started work it seemed like the last 7 years just disappeared. We were straight back into our old working style - what seems to me to be an instinctive understanding of where a piece of music is leading and what the other is thinking. It really was quite remarkable. I've experienced band situations before where you've all been playing together for so long that you become locked on to each other - 'tight' as they say - and I have once jammed as a bass player with a drummer who seemed to be uncannily on the same wavelength as me, but to be sitting in the studio as a producer of my own music and to have someone I haven't played with for 7 years walk into the drum booth and lay the perfect drum track over my guides is quite an experience. Maybe this is why so many bands do reunion tours, bury the hatchet and go back on the road, and maybe why acts like The Stones, The Who and even Zeppelin are still out there doing their thing.

Just a thought!

Gav.

It must be quite obvious by now that I don't have time to update this page all that often. If I did it would probably mean I would have nothing to talk about anyway. So what's been happening for the last year or so? Well quite a lot actually!

Recent happiness and joy has been generated by giant steps on all fronts. I've been working in the studio on a compilation of various recordings based around the 'Forms Of Escape' project as well as being well on the way to completing an entirely new album project (my inner circle have already heard a number of tracks from this and all seem suitably impressed). For this project I've kept pretty much to myself and just worked away consistently at Sasquatch. I've brought in Murray Loveridge for bass guitar on a few tracks, and Nigel Bateman on drums - plus a real bonus was my old band-mate Neville Messent travelling down from Hamilton to play drums on four of the tracks. So watch this space! It's sounding great so far and there are already finished tracks in the bag.

Meanwhile, the Wanganui compilation, 'Water Under The Bridge' is nearing completion - and has grown to include a book documenting the history of our local music scene and the bands involved.

And yes I did mention another compilation of my old material. This is almost finished as well - delayed only by desire to get my string quartet arrangement of 'Down To Daisy' onto the CD. Unfortunately on the only occasion that this has been performed to date it was not recorded p- so I hope to be able to arrange a recorded performance soon.

So there you go!

Gav.

Live: I'm about to play my first gig in two years! Since the motorcycle accident that crushed my left hand back in late July 2004 I've had to lay off playing, but fortunately the healing effects of time have come into play and although I'm a little 'rusty' compared to the way I was playing prior to the accident there seems to be no long term ill effects. So after picking up my guitar(s) again to lay down some tracks in the studio, and working with David on some of his projects as well, he and are going to knock out a few numbers at the FOTO benefit event coming up this weekend. Even more auspiciously, the event is being held at the Duncan Pavilion, which is the same venue at which I played my last gig in my home town - back in 2002 (or was it 2003 - the memory is a little hazy).

Wanganui Music Project: In the studio I've been working away on a number of projects. Since coming back to Wanganui I've been rediscovering some of the talent located here, and consequently have begun a project to collect and archive recordings by local musicians. The first stage of this is to compile and release a CD and short written history of Wanganui music from 1955 until today. With the assistance of various local organisations and enthusiastic support from the music community this project is now well underway.

The album that just doesn't want to be made: On a less happy note, and the latest in a string of complications with this project, a catastrophic failure (or possibly finger trouble on the part of our computer tech) has resulted in the loss of a large part of the multitracks for the 'Forms Of Escape' album. In effect all work done on the project since 1999 is unrecoverable. We do however have what we thought were just working mixes of the entire project. Four of these were original demo mixes dating from the original sessions at Sasquatch in the late 90s and have already been released on the 'Sasquatch Sessions' EP (which is available on CD from our shop at gavland.com), and another four will now appear, tweaked and tweezed to the best possible standard, on a new GB compilation, along with live tracks from our gig at the Whangaehu Festival in 1997, some live solo tracks recorded at Bluenote Bar, and two new studio tracks. An earlier version of one other song, 'Hero' is on the 'Demo's & Jams' album, and the other three tracks will be re-recorded and included in other pending projects. Whilst this doesn't preclude me revisiting the 'Forms' album at a later date I feel its time to move on to newer material at this point.

Once again I haven't posted here for a while. Same old story - busy with other stuff. the good news is I've been busy organising new product for the Gavland sales site - and recording some of my own stuff as well. Right now I'm back working at Sasquatch - where everything started in the mid 90's - and it looks like the Forms of Escape album will finally be completed right back in the same room where it was first concieved. I've also got a track on a pending compilation we're producing at Sasquatch - and there's an old Top Secret track on there as well. In between all this I've also found time to start demoing material for the next Album (tentatively entitled 'All About Girls"). You can hear a demo of one of these tracks, Down To Daisy', by going to the Sample Audio page. Enjoy!

Hey! We're almost ready to launch Gavland's distribution and warehousing arm - so check out www.gavland.com over the next few weeks. We should start listing product as 'in stock' by the end of November.

Stuff people have searched for recently using our site search option has included: .....my hairy belly, green nappies, brown panties, pink fish, smelly brown stuff, womans apparell.... We just thought we should let you know we're watching and that we know who you are!

Well, it's been a while... Nearly a year... what a shocker. Anyway, finally I've got time to do some more updates - and here everything is back up and running on the new gavinburgess.com site. The Gavland site is now just for the studio and I have my very own space to be as egotistical as I wish and damn the consequences. Really the reason for all this mucking around with the sites has been because it became apparent that the Gavland site needed to be just for the Studio and Label and so all the brag stuff about me had to be moved - and here it has found it's new home.

But what about some gigs? My last diary entry said that my last Indigo gig would be my final solo gig (although I did have plans to play a few dates in Asia and Europe) and little did I know how true that was. A motorbike accident only a few weeks after that fateful statement was made resulted in my left hand being badly crushed. I've picked up a guitar again recently and it's all coming back but it's going to take time. I'm still experiencing a lot of pain but it will come right. In the meantime I worked on vocals for the album, some writing projects, visited a few interesting parts of the world (Thailand, Finland, Russia, Germany et al.), started up a few entrepreneurial ventures and got married. In short I haven't been wasting my time.

The album? All I can say about this is that it continually inches closer to completion. I've been saying 'It will be out next year.' for the last ten years so I'm not going to put any more time frames on it - except to say that I want to be back in the studio full time from the end of July and want to be finished by the end of September. To be carrying this project for ten years has been a burden at times and with so many new songs (enough for 3 more albums) waiting to be recorded you can believe me when I say I just want it to be done!

So, enjoy the new site - with the old pages - sorry about the odd link that doesn't work - and the lack of back buttons in places (This is because our original site used frame pages and all the links were in the frame). I'll get on to these as I can. I also want to add some more video clips from GB Band, Under Construction and Top Secret - soon I hope.

Enjoy!

Gav.

This month has seen a bunch of behind the scenes stuff come together including the radio stream now being fully functional at high and low bit rate. I've also played another final solo gig at Indigo, and this one really will be the final one (at least in NZ). On top of that the CD, Radio and Gavin Burgess sites are now hosted on separate URLs; gavland.cd, gavland.fm, and gavland.co.nz respectively and by the time you read this I should have added a few more photos to the recent page, taken during studio sessions and at Indigo.

Work in the studio is coming along well with Neil Maddever roped in for mixing and mastering duties so all that long awaited product is finally about to be launched.

...so, in the middle of all this industriousness we're taking another break. The studio will be back in action in October and expect all product to be ready for Christmas. In the meantime enjoy the radio stream and the rest of the site(s)!

Gav.

It's been interesting watching traffic on the site this month. Since we've added the search function to the site we've found out just how oddly peoples minds work -and it's amazing who can be identified by what they search for. Some one out there was looking for a hat. Someone else typed in VF100OR- now I'm pretty sure I know who that was and I'm pretty sure he knows that there ain't no motorbikes here! And my good old mate Nev gave his presence away by searching for his wife's name. Well she ain't here either. Or maybe Ingrid herself was the culprit. Perhaps she's trying to find herself??? Anyway, for the sake of all you guys all the things you searched for are now mentioned right here for you to find next time.

I've just finished adding a heap more MP3s to the radio stream- mostly off my diverse collection of New Zealand Vinyl. A lot of this stuff has never been re-released on CD and there's some real gems amongst it- as well as the good, the bad, and the ugly! We've also had a prototype 128k stream up and running. I've updated the links but the high quality stream will probably be up and down for the next month or so.

Gav.

Well we're into the full flow of New Zealand music month and to celebrate I'm playing a final solo acoustic gig at Indigo Bar. After four years of these solo performances and a whole new bunch of songs I'm starting to look for new outlets -hence the likelihood that you'll see a new band come together in the near future -and with a slightly new direction as well. The solo years have been great for building up performance and playing skills. It's a big ask to stand up with only a guitar and your voice and attempt to create a sound which will draw in and hold an audience. As those who've been at the gigs will know, some days I managed to do just that -and other times we just didn't quite get there. Sometimes that's just the way it goes......

Well if you're here reading this you've probably noticed that the site has changed quite a bit recently -in fact it's getting huge! It's been a mission to get to here and we've still got further to go but we're pretty excited about the whole thing. I hope you enjoy having a good look around......

Gav.

We're back in action and flat out finishing product and planning promotions. With a whole bunch more product to add to the sales site we expect to launch this aspect of our business real soon. Thanks to all those who have emailed and are patiently awaiting the availability of product. Look for some big changes on the site soon! You'll notice I've finally fixed the icons too and a new home page is close. Enjoy!

Gav.

We're on holiday! Gavland Studio will be out of operation until February to accommodate my overseas travel. This time I'll be taking in Brunei, Thailand (again) and Laos. We'll be up and running again in March with brand new premises and with our sales site operational soon afterwards. In the meantime enjoy the samples we've just posted and have a great Christmas and New Year.

Gav.

p.s. People keep telling me the icons are too big. Yes, I know! It'll be fixed in the next update.

Due to a bit of a disaster with our server we've been running on a skeleton site for a few weeks. Now we're back with a vengeance and with a whole lot more stuff added too. So what's lost? Well, as you can see six months or so of diary entries are gone. I figure that's no biggie! I tend to go on a bit much anyway. The only other things which may be a bit different are the photos in the "recent" section of the gallery. New things this week are an improved video section (which I hope to add some historical clips to soon) and the audio sample section being almost complete. The structure is all there if you want to have a browse and the actual samples will be uploaded soon. Next we'll be working on the three doorways to the site; that's the pages you see when you search on Gavland .co.nz, .cd or .fm. Each will end up being a different doorway into a different part of the site. Look forward to seeing those pages soon! In the meantime you can check out our video clips and the ever changing New Zealand music stream. Enjoy!

Gav.

Well it's been a while since I've added to this page. Although it was never intended to be a daily, or even weekly entry it may be that I will endeavour to add entries a little more often in the future. Whilst this page is just an excuse, in some ways, to hold forth on what the hell I like it can also, I�m sure, serve to inform, entertain, amuse or whatever. Judging by some of the emails I�ve received in response to the site it has so far achieved all three. At the end of the day the success of any website is all about content so I make no apologies for filling the site up with information. Whether the viewer finds it interesting, informative, boring or banal is, I guess, totally up to them.For those with a rotten.com mentality I suggest you just move on. O.K?
Sour grapes aside, what the hell has been going on at Gavland? Well we�ve been talking with two very exciting acts. Roddy Sheridan has just completed recording a new EP in Edinburgh, Christchurch and Wellington and we expect to have that out later this year. We also spent an interesting day and night filming a music video for the title track, �Useless Generation� which is shaping up to be stunning, as is the track itself. Our other new act is Saviamantra from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Saviamantra have two CDs out which we will be releasing for them in New Zealand later this year. Although this is somewhat outside of our New Zealand Music Focus this stuff was just too good to pass up.
We�re also working, as you can see on getting the various parts of the site up, running and complete. Although there have been delays for a number of reasons we're now moving forward again. With the studio pages almost complete my focus is now moving to the Video clips page whilst Gavin L. is working hard on the radio server. We expect to have this up on the internet, and shortly afterwards as a FM broadcast, in the near future. In the meantime, enjoy what�s here. Contact us if you�ve something positive to add to our world, and have a great life!
Gav.

For someone starting out with a very modest and flawed talent the dream of writing and performing to a high level of musicianship can seem to many to be little more than a pipe dream. This said, I've on many occasions observed those to whom musical talent comes easily making little use of their talents or using them in a lazy and half hearted manner. I've often wondered whether those of us who have to work hard to reach our dreams may not achieve far more in the end, both in life and in our own personal satisfaction. I hope for myself that this will prove to be the case. As I write this, with the launch of Gavland the studio, Gavland the label and Gavland the website imminent, I find myself on the verge of achieving goals I have struggled towards for the last ten years and yet much more than being at an end I have merely reached the end of the beginning.

We seldom realise how much small actions can affect the course of another person's life. Time and again over my lifetime as a musician it has been the actions and encouragement of others which has enabled me to continue on a course which has seldom been an easy one. To all the guys from the various bands I've worked with a big thank you! I've learnt something from every one of you. To every person who's ever taken the time to express their appreciation of my songs, thanks for listening. And to the individuals who have, sometimes with large helpings of "the benefit of the doubt", assisted in ways too numerous to mention, you guys are the ones who really make things happen. A few deserve special mention: The various line-ups of the Gavin Burgess Band who have toiled in practice rooms and studios for long hours with very little monetary return. Neville Messent and Neville Whitlock who have both slaved away during the construction of the studio. Gavin Legge for the same plus technical support and ongoing blunt advice. Greg and Shona Burtenshaw for all the food and moral support. Edwina Thorne for encouragement and opportunities during my exile in Auckland. Gary Warlich for encouraging me to carry on writing. My sister, Viv Burgess, for, at her own insistence, being my biggest fan. My Mum, Jenny Burgess for never quite understanding but supporting anyway. To my kids for keeping me real: "What's your favourite band, kids?" "Your band, Dad ... and Steps!"

Site search sponsored by Freefind

gavinburgess.com

Gavin's Diary

Site designed by and (c) 2001-2008 Gavland Creative Ltd. Unauthorised reproduction of all or part of www.gavland.co.nz is prohibited by international copyright law. Site Last updated 4 November 2008.

Site designed by and (c) 2001-2008 Gavland Creative Ltd.
Unauthorised reproduction of all or part of www.gavland.co.nz is prohibited by international copyright law.
Site Last updated 4 November 2008.