The Dawn Collective

They say the end of the world is coming? I was recently asked what my greatest fear was and without blinking I said the end of the world. Death is a heavy subject but the step beyond that into the realm of post apocalyptic brings a shiver to my soul. Whatever your beliefs are: UFOs coming back to reclaim the pyramids, peak oil, climate change, divine retribution, the second coming, Armageddon, the rapture, the Mayan calendar, nuclear fallout, Lord Zishnu assuming his tenth carnation, zombie uprising, midget uprising, hobbit uprising…it’ll be a shame to see this all go.

They say the end of the world is coming? And I’m sure it will happen at the most inconvenient time. UFOs destroying humanity while you’re on the way to the airport to travel the world with the money you’ve been saving for years or Jesus returning while you’re having a shower. Alanis Morrisette would call it ironic. I wouldn’t. Also, think of the events that you’d miss out on. That concert you bought tickets for ain’t going to happen. That football team you love won’t get a chance to make it to the finals.

They say the end of the world is coming? And it’ll be a drag. It’s important to let you know a couple of years ago we did a residency at the Hopetoun Hotel. Every show was unique. Set lists beautifully manicured to build and show the different dynamics and personalities of The Dawn Collective. Sometimes subtle and beautiful and surreptitiously revealing a part of life that love offers; and then pounding love’s mistakes in a face melting heavy purging experience. There are two sides to every coin.

They say the end of the world is coming? I urge you to come along to The Dawn Collective’s new residency at the Hopetoun Hotels on Sundays in August (9th, 16th & 23rd). Apart from hearing some good live music it will also be the only chance to grab a preview disc of some new songs. We’ve been busy writing and recording in the studio and are excited to reveal a couple of new songs. At any of the three residencies come up to the merch desk and grab one. It’ll be the only place these songs are available (for a little while at least). I’m not a prophet but if the world was going to end in a few months time you probably shouldn’t miss out on The Dawn Collective at the Hopetoun in August.

Things I have always wanted to do in an empty house:

1. Play laser tag or hide-and-go-seek at night.
2. Make an amateur horror film.
3. Camp ‘in’ for the night with friends, pretending to live in a post-apocalyptic world - eating food directly from cans and talking about all the things we would be doing if They hadn’t dropped ‘the bomb’.
4. Film and record some acoustic performances in a lovely checkerboard-tiled room garnished with Christmas lights.

As much as I love horror, children’s games, and dystopian role play, the band opted for number four on this occasion.  One evening a few weeks back, after Greg had cleared his previous residence of belongings, we decided to capture a few acoustic performances of songs from our debut album Save a Place for Us. We know we have not ventured too far into the world of internet vlogging as yet, so we thought it was time we start getting as much of our faces as possible into your face. FACE!

I am constantly amazed by how much is at our fingertips these days. We can vlog confidently from the safety of our lounge rooms, we can make studio-quality albums in our kitchens, and now that ’shaky camera’ indie films are at the height of cool, every person with a hand-sized camera can upload videos without fear of criticism of their technical skills. This is quite comforting as it seems that people these days seem to be more curious and want the raw, freshly-mined sound and look of the world. People are happier seeing their internet peers posting their unedited quirks with infallible confidence. I am not trying to undermine what we think is quite a super attempt at capturing some acoustic performances; I am simply saying that I am happy that people’s viewing needs have changed.

Last year Greg and I were interviewed on FBi radio. In this interview Greg mentioned that albums can inadvertently become a soundtrack to one’s life experiences. I share this feeling with Greg. I am more than happy on request to rattle off many albums or songs that have become the soundtrack to important moments in my life. Recently, when I sing Eat, Drink, For Tomorrow We Die, it reminds me of the way it was captured in these acoustic sessions. It reminds me of Greg’s house in Chippendale and how it was constantly encircled by police sirens. It reminds me of the times Greg and I had promised to work hard on new material in his room and instead found ourselves milking a bottle of Jameson. I liked that house. I liked spending time in it and I thoroughly enjoyed the send off.

So, to the videos…

In the caliginous glow of the fairy lights you see The Dawn Collective, minus a Stacey. I can reassure you that she is still with us and well, just not available for this exclusive closed-off film shoot. *Brushes his lapel.*

Greg had been busy. Not only had he been through a moving transition, he had also been busy with his day job, like most people in the world. So considering his recent schedule, he deserves a golden star for turning up to track the audio for the videos. We all had a bit of exhaustion about us that night but I think this helped relax the scene a little, as we could unwind and do what we enjoy. As we played, I couldn’t help but think of days back in Wollongong. I remember rehearsing the early tunes of The Dawn Collective, armed acoustically, huddled into one of our lounge rooms whenever we could find the time. Jamming in a lounge room or empty house is a bit harder in the big city – houses are closer, walls are thinner, and, if I may speak subjectively, neighbours are more inebriated and uncompromising. So it was a delight to be in Greg’s cleared room, stripping back the songs to resemble their origins.

We have been releasing these videos one at a time and there are still a few more on the way. Please, check them out on our Facebook and MySpace pages or track them down on YouTube. Leave plenty of comments from fake handles, listing all the ways you could have done them better, or preferably encourage us with ‘Keep it up guys’, ‘That’s the way’ or ‘Your use of space and clouded lighting resembles an early Gus Van Sant!’.  In response, we will tip our hats to you in the street and involve ourselves in light conversation at our future shows. The Dawn Collective’s honour.

Now that The Dawn Collective are busy digitally cutting the defense of the vlogging world with our virtual pick and roll we would love to hear what you, the fan, would like to see more of. I could talk shop till the crippled cows come home but maybe you want to know more about our personal endeavors or how Rob keeps his beard looking so lovely. Set us a challenge! Honestly, anything at all; just leave a comment!

In other news, we have been busy recording demos that might make an appearance on our next release. So it seems as though it is a good time to reveal these acoustic tracks and start our exploration into the great beyond. *Cue: Theme from 2001 A Space Odyssey*  You will start hearing these new tracks filter into our live shows and hopefully you will enjoy them as much as we have enjoyed creating them.

Till we see you, take care!

Last Saturday morning many of you were no doubt enjoying a sleep in, or perhaps grabbing some breakfast out somwhere. We were trying to work out the logistics of getting five people and their instruments into Surry Hills without having to worry about finding a car park at the other end.

Of course our first thought was to jump on a train, but once you start counting the number of drums, pedal boxes, guitars etc etc that needed to be carried, and compare that to the number of arms available to do so, the maths doesn’t look good.

However Rob and I are always up for a challenge, and we had some willing friends assisting, so we set off - cello on my back, pedal box in one hand, chair in the other (yes, I take my own chair to gigs - too many times I’ve turned up somewhere and asked for a chair, and am offered a bar stool miles too high for me to use). Rob’s drum were stacked up on a trolley which made things quite a bit easier, but having carried that up and down a few sets of unavoidable stairs does make me feel for those people in wheelchairs and parents with strollers.

Having arrived at Central our merry band of travellers joined the long stream of people heading into the festival. Didn’t take long for us to find the Green Stage (it was conveniently covered in green flags), and we were able to offload our gear and go for a bit of a wander around.

A few traditional lemonade and hat purchases later, we were back and setting up. One of our regular mixers Henry was on duty out the front, which made us very relaxed as he’s quite familiar with our songs, and from all reports he did an excellent job. We only had a thirty minute set, which seemed to fly by. Thankfully the gathering storm clouds held off (I’m sure the audience were even more thankful - we at least were undercover). Our cover of Space Oddity made a rare appearance, and was well received, though I think it may have been a little loud judging by the young kids who walked past the front of stage with their hands over their ears. Sorry kids.

Sometimes all we need are close friends to bounce impulsive, ludicrous ideas off- in the same way we subconsciously place ourselves in detrimental situations to experience the high of a bounceback. Some weeks this works, although there are occasions when surfaces to bounce-back off are scarce, leaving us naked in a very messy apartment…

For me, the silly season provides time to perform some emotional de-grouting.: whether this is through doing more work or taking more time to relax, it is a process that I look forward to and enjoy every year! My close friends will be able to tell you that I generally don’t work in a linear fashion: never ask me for directions; and do not under any circumstance, rely on me to memorise any kind of list. So, after this disclaimer, on we go…

Musically, this has been a huge year for The Dawn Collective. I have never been behind the release of a full length album before, nor worked with such well respected professionals. I am seeing more of Australia with the band than I had ever seen leading up to its birth and we are enjoying travelling with our music. We are nice kids and we take to the road well together. I don’t want to be kicked in the face next time I head to Melbourne, but I really preferred our time in Queensland this year. The weather and scenery were beautiful and we were lucky to be under the watchful eyes of old friends who now reside there. One of my favourite nights of the Queensland leg of the album tour was in Coolum on the night of my birthday. There was wine, Magnums (i.e. ice cream- side arms were checked at the door), swimming, sing-a-longs, a great game of kill the dill with the pill and the evening finished off with a ‘Best of Beck’ dance party in the guest house. Even though we had to get up quite early the next day to travel to Byron for another show, we had been blessed by the gods of fun and bad dancing - there was no way to stop.

Aside from the fun and games of the tour, it feels like ‘band admin’ has taken up a lot of our time this year. Band admin is the work that rock stars never tell you about when you are young. They never tell you that after a huge night rockin’ and mackin’ wid tha ladies that they have to get up early the next day to lodge their APRA return or send invoices to the venues they’ve just played. How about telling you that after drinking half a bottle of Jack and laying down a few guitar tracks in a studio full of cocaine, they then have to fix the HTML layout of their Myspace page, head to Office Works for a new printer cartridge and then come home to work out the monthly expenses on MYOB. Rock ‘n’ roll lies, lies! LIES!! Unfortunately, band admin has been the reality of many self managed indie bands throughout the years. I am hoping that after divulging this information we still have some mystique-although this may be a new way to break the ice with any indie musician. Have you ever wanted to talk to a muso after a show but felt you had nothing to say? Why not start with ‘So, been to Office Works lately?’ You may be surprised to see the ease that washes over the musicians face. Go on, give it a whirl!

I wanted to explain a little bit about the origins of our Christmas release ‘O, full of scorpions…’ but sometimes trying to explain your own song is like trying to describe a platypus to a foreigner: ‘you know, it’s like a duck kind of otter thing that is kind of … you know… It’s… It’s just a platypus, man!’ I think I have problems with over explaining things sometimes. I blame music class at school for this, and the many hours ripping apart some of the most brilliant songs in history to find abstract meanings for the sake of abstract meanings. I am not saying that some of the most brilliant writers had no purpose in their explanations of life and all concerned, or that their expressions are as ill thought out as belly flopping into a baby pool of jelly, but honestly, the greatest expressions in our world come as easily as talking to a close friend. Sure it may be a long and emotional conversation but it should be effortless communication with the medium: out it flows without restraint or too much thinking. So in short, I prefer not to over explain the songs. I would love you all to feel what you will when hearing our Christmas dirge and I encourage you to let us know what you think.

One thing I wouldn’t mind explaining though is the general tone of the Christmas song and the return to the previous comment of emotional de-grouting: my thoughts each year simply need to be summed up and cleaned out. I never want to get rid of everything; I just love the idea of having room for new experiences. The spring cleaning of hindering thoughts is a pleasant one, which is why the songs that are written around the Christmas season seem to be a little less snowy and a little more on the sootier side. Think of it as the old, boxy, mustard yellow Volvo station wagon spluttering and backfiring before we take off for our semi smooth journey into next year!

Merry Christmas everyone and safe travels!

Drum Media reviewed our album today…I think they said some nice things, but you can decide for yourself:

The Dawn Collective
Save A Place For Us
Green / MGM

The cover of The Dawn Collective’s Save A Place For Us draws you in and lets you ignore the old “can’t judge a book (or record) by its cover”. It shows a cluster of trees growing on a bleak hill, shot on grainy film with an almost sepia tone. It’s both unsettling and beautiful, yet strangely hopeful. The music within matches these impressions.

The music, as the press guff notes, is hard to categorise. At its core it’s indie-folk, but there are flourishes of traditional Eastern European music, splashes of jazz and streaks of progressive rock. A Russian Trilogy is bombastic, galloping and soaring like Muse. Eat, Drink, For Tomorrow We Die is a gravely singalong and A Handful Of Moments is a pleasantly off-beat country dirge, while Stop This Worry is a raucous, hysterical alternative rock track that unexpectedly veers into a lovely bridge before crashing violently into a brass section.

Producers Tim Whitten and Tony Dupé have done an exceptional job, particularly Whitten. The album has an epic, expansive feel to it. The crescendo of penultimate track The Art Of Longevity is thrilling, as strings shriek over a beat that sounds like the thundering hooves of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Save A Place For Us is not an easy album. It languished in the stereo for weeks before I really understood or even liked it. But save a place for The Dawn Collective on your album shelf. With time, this release proves itself to be a grand and glorious piece of dark, orchestral folk.

Liam Casey
Drum Media Issue 932 - November 18th 2008 

Does anyone else feel that there is some kind of cosmic coincidence that their favourite tracks on some of their favourite albums tend to be 3, 6 or 9? Some people have that slow burning track 7 that becomes the highlight. For many, all they need is track 1 and 2 and they have had their fix. On a subconscious level, there must be a natural energy drawing bands to track their albums the way they do. The High Fidelity generation will swear that there is only one way to arrange the track list, and for those who are ‘background’ listeners- track lists are obsolete.

I have a new favourite album and my favourite tracks are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10! BEHOLD! Our debut album Save A Place For Us will hit stores on Saturday the 20th of September (tomorrow!) and you are now able to have a sneaky preview of the track list ahead of time. Oooooh, don’t you feel special!

Save A Place For Us – The Dawn Collective

1. All Those Pigs And Enemies
2. A Russian Trilogy
3. Ghosts Shod In Steel Shoes
4. Eat, Drink, For Tomorrow We Die
5. A Handful Of Moments
6. Numbers Are The New Alphabet
7. Stop This Worry
8. Shadow Friend
9. The Art Of Longevity
10. Hold Your Breath

It has taken some time to gather these songs together and think about them in the context of an album for release. The way you perform songs live can be very different to the way they communicate through people’s stereos, so we wanted to take the time to really work through this, but not weigh ourselves down with over analysis. What we needed was a simple and effective way to tell a good couple of stories.

When we started tracking the album over a year ago, we all felt that All Those Pigs And Enemies would be a great opener. The ambience which stirs into the growing intensity felt perfect to use as an introduction to our sound. The lyrics seemed to start an unsettled story that would float and swoop through the rest of the album. Great! Track 1 was locked in. Where to next? Well, this was the hard part…

As individual musicians and contributors, we have all grown to love each song for different reasons, so the natural flow of the album was quite a task. In the same way we were happy with the position of track 1, we felt that the song The Art Of Longevity - the climactic coda of our live sets - would be a great way to bring the album to a close. In the end, we felt the humble Hold Your Breath would be the perfect acoustic sign off.

The bulk of the album changed quite a bit and after playing way too much switcharoo, we contacted one of the album’s producers, Tim Whitten, to give us his unbiased and educated opinion. It was strange hearing an outsider’s ideas on the flow of the band’s material. In a way, I felt like I was finally listening to the album with fresh ears, receiving my first pang of excitement! The curse of being in a band and writing the music you love, is that you often see too much of the process to feel the magic of a first listening. Honestly, the fresh track listing got me pretty close to the magic and it felt natural to lock it in.

So, here we are - a day before it’s finally released. We all feel very happy and we hope you will be happy too! Dynamically, there is a lot to digest. For those who like to whack on headphones in the quiet of their rooms trying to hear the recording space and its natural quirks - you will find this recording a treat. There are lots of awkwardly beautiful quirks hidden throughout the frequencies. You will learn a lot about us too! For example: one of us can tap dance; we like to mic up badminton games; we like to yell and smash metal drums with thongs and bricks; and we can create quite the make shift kitchen percussion section.

Thank you all for your support over the years, we sincerely hope you enjoy this album and we will see you soon!

In this age of mp3s, do people really care about a CD’s artwork and packaging? Well I certainly do, and having spent the last week finishing off the design for our album, I hope that others feel the same. We’ve been throwing ideas around for the last few months, trying to work out what we’d like, and what we can afford. Sadly the burgopak (I’m serious, it’s really called that) was out of our reach, but we decided to splurge a little and go for a six panel digipak.

Of course packaging is just one part, it’s also about what you put on it. We were quite drawn to the idea of an image that would wrap right around all the panels of the case, though what that image might be wasn’t quite clear to us. There was however a consensus that photography was the way to go, and after the success of our last band photos we thought our friend Lucky could be right for the job, and thankfully he was happy to help.

Thus began the process of finalising what we going to shoot. From a desserted old house, to a dinner party in a forest, to digitally manipulated armies of people running over hills like something out of Lord Of The Rings - we certainly weren’t lacking in ideas. But in the end simplicity won out, and we started hunting out for a landscape that would fit the mood.

Whilst out one day I happened to drive past a cleared forest, and caught a glimpse of a group of remaining trees. I thought it could perhaps work, but I needed a few more opinions. Next time I was around the area I was with Rob, and attempted to show him what I was thinking, though in the pitch black of night it perhaps lost some of its impact. Time was not on our side however, as our deadlines were fast approaching, and we decided just to give it a go.

So, early one Sunday morning I met Lucky and drove him out to the site. He liked what he saw, and after scouting around for the best location he started snapping away. Well not so much snapping, as carefully calculating the angle and alignment of each shot. It was all a bit of a gamble, as we really didn’t know what the finished product would end up like. I anxiously checked my email that night, waiting for Lucky to send through the first rough proofs. I needn’t have worried - the results were fantastic.

After a few days of tweaking, searching for fonts, proof-reading and still more tweaking, the final design emerged. And so, I present to you the cover of our album Save A Place For Us. To see the rest you’ll just have to wait (like I am) for the CD. Not long at all to go though.

Our Hopetoun gig last week got reviewed in Brag - in case you missed it here it is:

The Dawn Collective
Hopetoun Hotel, Surry Hills
Thursday July 31

Nothing reaffirms the reality of the Sydney music scene like a Thursday night show at the Hopetoun. It’s not all flash and pizzazz; sometimes it’s about solid songs played in a regular pub by regular people. And sometimes, the lights don’t even work.

…

For some reason, I’ve never seen The Dawn Collective before. And judging by the half-full Hoey, their reputation hasn’t spread around the music-loving public of Sydney, either. Which is a shame, because as much as this sounds like a dross line from a press release, these guys really are one of this city’s best-kept secrets. Sick of the vacuous, hollow bands that pride style over substance? Check out The Dawn Collective. Their music is hard to pigeonhole: it’s got the austerity of The Frames but guitar aggressiveness encroaching on alternative-rock territory. Marry that with melancholic cello lines, and it’s a sound that beautifully and effortlessly traverses territory that other bands wouldn’t dare tread.

They’re releasing an album later in the year, and I hope that it won’t be passed over as a throwaway disc from a small-time independent act. There’s a depth and substance to the music of Dawn Collective that demands attention.

Dom Alessio

The Brag Issue 273 - August 4th 2008

There’s a quote by French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau “Patience is bitter, but the fruit is sweet” which has been very fitting to the process of releasing our debut album. The album which we began tracking in late 2006 and finished mixing close to a year ago is one step closer to being on the shelves of stores and scattered throughout the net. The album is finally mastered! And the fruit of our labour is oh so sweet.

We enlisted Don Bartley to do the job. He’s quite good at the mystical art of mastering albums. He’s mastered a lot of albums. So it was a pretty easy day for us. Don did most of the work. We just sat back and enjoyed hearing the mixes come to life with extra presence and punch. There are moments on the album which when polished up feel like a warm hug and then moments that smack you around the face and leave you crying like a little girl on the ground. We made the decision to keep a lot of the dynamics in the mix, to keep it breathing a bit. There were also a few anomalies that we needed to fix up. One was this low rumble whenever Andrew was singing in one of the slow songs. The assumption was it was vibrations picked up off the mic stand. Don fixed this with some magic eye looking application which is a graphical representation the energy of certain frequencies. Gotta love technology. There were also some clicks of me turning pedals on and off at a point of a song. It’s the catch of tracking nearly everything live. You end up with some unique “performance related” sounds in the mix. We did end up keeping in some little surprises but you’ll have to find them for yourself when the album is out.

Much discussion was had about the word “shod” which is part of the title of a song on the album Ghosts Shod in Steel Shoes. Turns out that shod is the past tense and a past participle of shoe. I did not know that. And to be unshod is to be barefoot perhaps. With the track listing written out we realised how long some of our song titles are, which is diametrically opposed to Pearl Jam’s Ten which consists of mostly one word song titles.

The tracks came up well and the challenge of sorting out segues and the gaps between each track was next. It’s always a tricky thing as the mastering studio feels like a bit of an artificial listening environment. A few transitions were quite easy and natural, some required a bit of agonising but you want to get these things right so there was a purpose to us being pedantic.

Overall, we were really happy with the flow of the album. It’s so satisfying to hear it done. Now to focus energies on all the other jobs that need to get done and things that need to be in place for the release of it. Thank you all for being patient - it’s great to finally be able to say it is not far off now! We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed creating.

Note to self: next time you’re heading to Katoomba, take a beanie.

Last Friday we headed up into the Blue Mountains for our first gig in Katoomba. We’d been invited to play with some local bands (Stop Hard and Olivine) at the Carrington Baroque Bar and Nightclub - a rather long winded name, but a rather nice room. It felt a bit like The Heritage in Bulli - chandeliers, lounges, polished floors, red curtains - just the sort of place we like.

We’d left the city early in the afternoon to beat the traffic, so ended up having quite a bit of time to kill. And of course, when in Katoomba there’s one activity you have to do - see The Three Sisters. We dutifully drove down to Echo Point, and wandered over to the lookout just as the sun set. Quite lovely, but the cold was starting to get to us, so we didn’t stay long. After a brief detour for a bit of local wine tasting, it was back to the Carrington for sound check.

Well not quite - the other bands were still setting up, so we decided to grab an early dinner. There’s nothing much better on a cold day than a bowl of soup, and the roast butternut pumpkin soup on offer hit the spot perfectly. Naturally there was some rather deep pre-gig dinner conversation happening (which Batman movie really was the best?), but once we’d settled that it was back to the venue and on with the show.

Playing in a new venue can be a little worrying. On one hand you’ve got a new crowd, which is normally a good thing. On the other, you have no idea what the sound will be like. Thankfully the crowd were lovely, and there weren’t any problems with the sound either, which made for a very enjoyable gig.

Once we’d left the stage the DJ took over, so we packed up and weaved our way through the dancers back out into the cold. Heaters on full, we drove down the mountain to a soundtrack of Sarah Blasko, and a view of distant city lights - not a bad way to end the day at all.