Our V48hour film festival entry from earlier this year…

Music Video made on last trip to Malaysia for Sashi C Loco and Moe Nasruls song Bintang that I played guitars on…

On Friday I returned from a short visit to Malaysia, where I caught up with some of the friends I met living there last year.  The night before I left we shot a music video for the song Bintang, which I played session guitar on last year.  The director just posted up a teaser-trailer of the video, here it is…

Bintang Music Video Teaser from Nazri Ishak on Vimeo.

V48hours 2011

This weekend, jumped in (jet-lag and all) on a 48hour Film Festival team at the last minute and did my first real attempt at acting.  Also made some contributions to the soundtrack of our short film. Can’t show you anything from that yet, be patient. It’s pretty cool

Lighthouse Keepers Lunch

Previous to my trip to Malaysia I have been ‘pianoing’ in a play for children called The Lighthouse Keepers Lunch, based on a popular kids book that I remember reading when I was a kid. You can read a review of the play here http://www.theatreview.org.nz/reviews/review.php?id=3906

Often at the start of the year, I like to write about what my new years resolutions for the previous year should have been (though scrolling back I see I haven’t really done this properly since 2007, busy past few years? According to my blog, kinda. LOL).

So 2010 my new years resolutions with the benefit of hindsight were…

1.  Visit two previously unvisited countries (Thailand and Singapore)

2. Play some music overseas (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia baby)

3. Get bitten by a snake

4. Learn to swear in another language.

5. Read more than 100 books (Classics mostly, old stuff out of copyright that are free as e-books)

6. RIDE AN ELEPHANT! (lifelong dream!!!)

7. Learn to like beer (this was a New Years Resolution I really truly  made at the start of the year and not just made up at the end. There is a story behind it but it’s one that is probably more interesting if I don’t tell it at all.)

8. Discover the joys of hanging out at a mamak at 3am with good friends. Many of my dearest memories of Malaysia seem to involve this

9. Get the worlds most awesome job ever on returning to New Zealand! I’m dead serious, I really like my new job working for recording studio and event production company The Rock Factory

10. Don’t fall apart when everything around me falls apart. I don’t know if I kept this all year long but in the end when push came to shove I’ve managed to swim rather than sink. So far.

So what does 2011 hold? Lets hazard a guess, though really I’m usually so wrong with these.

1. Finish building the GUITAR OF DOOM I really really want to do this! (yes it’s really not finished after all these years, most of you probably don’t even know what I’m talking about…)

2. Play some mean shows (I’m already hearing rumours I’ve put a new band together for Transit of Venus and that the first NZ gig is booked in March…?)

3. Finish an acoustic album/EP.

4. Overcome my dentistry phobia and get my damn wisdom teeth out.

5. Try to be less awful with money.

There ya go. Hope to catch you at a show this year my darlings! xx <3 K

Jansens recently asked me to pick an amp from their store to review. Having an acoustic show or two coming up I thought I’d go for something I could use for acoustic as well as electric. I picked out the Egnater Renegade from the website initially because I thought it had a cool sounding name. Renegade. I’d play through an amp called ‘Renegade’. It’d be badass.

The Egnater Renegade 212 is a 65 watt combo with two different 12” Celestion speakers in the cab (a vintage 30 and a custom voiced Elite-80), two independent channels, 6 12AX7s in the pre-amp, 2 6L6 and 2 EL34 tubes in the power amp. It’s a smooth and sexy hunk of amp in cream and charcoal, with the many controls hidden away on top rather than spoiling the front panel.

I was genuinely and pleasantly surprised with the Renegades versatility. I could see myself covering a lot of bases with this amp, especially thanks to the dial that allows you to blend and choose between cool 6L6’s and warm creamy EL34 tubes on each of the two channels.

I also especially liked the ability to switch between 65 watts and 15 watts, allowing you to get a good sound out of it in the bedroom/lounge as well as on stage.

The clean sound was clear enough to run my acoustic through (which I did at a gig and had no problems), and both channels sounded amazing back home with a Tele and pretty darn nice with my old Ibanez Roadster. The reverb is really natural sounding. Overall my impressions were of a warm sweet beautiful sounding amp that was probably a bit out of my price range. Turns out I was wrong, at $3000* it’s ridiculously affordable considering how good it sounds.

So here I am singing the praises of the Renegade, you may be wondering what’s in it for me? Not a free amp sadly. So here are the things I didn’t like about the amp:

The first I should probably be a little embarrassed to confess. I wasn’t able to bring it to my one of my gigs because I couldn’t get it down the stairs of my flat on my own. It was just too darn heavy.** (Admittedly if I actually owned the amp I would have bumped and slid it down without worrying about a few knocks…)

The second thing, the noisy cooling fan got on my nerves a little.

The third thing, the colour. I would have preferred it in pink. Bogans might prefer it in black, but they might want something a bit more ‘metal’ in the first place. It’s hard to imagine someone playing Metallica through this, though I did try it and it sounded legit.

I give the Egnater Renegade 212 four and a half cookies out of five cookies. It’s sound quality, versatility and affordability are fantastic. It has a cool name. Someone should buy me one for my birthday.

*Apparently on special for $2500 at the moment…

Above – pencil sketch,

below – finished off on computer

View Larger Map

The caves are natural limestone formations, a bit like Waitomo caves in New Zealand with monkeys instead of glow worms!  The caves have been a place of worship for over a hundred years and are now populated with ornate hindu statues.

There are 272 concrete steps leading up to the main cave.  It can be a bit of hard work for an un-acclimatised tourist on a hot day but shouldn’t cause too much trouble.

Hanuman? the monkey god is very cool.  But watch out for the little macaque monkeys at Batu Caves. They will try to steal your food and shiny things!

Kamadhenu the mother of all cows is possibly the cow people mean when they say ‘Holy Cow!’. This one is definitely my favorite.

I recommend bringing…

An umbrella for either rain or sun (it’s always one or the other!).

Hand sanitizer because the bathroom facilities are pretty gross.

Best not to show too much skin, don’t wear short skirts/shorts or shoe-string singlet tops that don’t cover your shoulders.

The above is a picture of a breastfeeding monkey I took at Templar park a while back.

And this is a waterfall in Templar park… Testing how it posts a large picture.

That’ll do for now….

A quick update for those who are interested, I moved to Malaysia at the start of 2010.  I am playing in a band over here called The Velvet Aces as well as continuing with Transit of Venus with a new line-up here in Kuala Lumpur.

Broke down my home studio for the big move so I’m not taking on any more game music contracts at the moment, unless the budget is big enough for me to change my mind and go buy the gear I would need

Writing in this blog seems a little awkward. It’s been too long haha.

Today I finally got around to updating this website.  While it’s been over six months since my last blog here I have been blogging quasi-regularly at www.transitofvenusproject.com with news of the latest happenings of the band.

On the game music side of things, the popularity of the iPhone has provided the opportunity for me to write for a couple of iPhone games. I can’t give you any details (NDA’s!) but I will let you know as soon as the games are released.

It’s almost 2am and I’m worried that this post is not going to make great grammatical sense so I think I’ll call it a night and write something a little more substantial tomorrow.