Recording vocals

The venue was the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, home of the Pacific Artist in Residence - who this year is Tanya. So the foyer has excellent acoustics and creating music amongst the art works of NZ's most respected Pacific Artists was a choice way to acknowledge the Centre's support to Pacific Arts in the world.
So Dale Cotton and Hiliako travelled from Dunedin, and Pos set everyone to task to complete Tanya's lead vocals, and background vocals for 8 songs from the album, with 2 songs to complete later this week with Matt Ioane.
Good to have on vocals Pos, Hemi Lesatele, Hiliako, Talia-Rae, Josephine, Ella, and from the Pylat programme Gase Faletolu and Chris Faletanoa'i, Becs Thompson, Sunia Feleti's nephew Semo who was in transit from Dunedin to Auckland...hehe. Tanya's lead vocals are all done with the support of Pos, Dale, Chris Searle and the Mavaega girls and of course the 18 Thursday team Pip and Hiliako. Recording Song for Grandma for the second time since written 17 years ago, but this time with Grandma just passed away at the age of 100 years old, proved difficult, and exhilirating at the same time (first recording of the song was for PU's Landmark CD)
So by next week all recording will be complete with Rob Payne, Pos, Matt and Tanya and then it's mix-down and master...can it be that simple though...there's still the release show, and artwork to sort...hehe...

...through the aftershocks...

The progress of the Island Summer CD is on track.  Led by Pos and the 18 Thursdays team (see below) we started again, with some re-recording taking place in Dunedin - in McAndrew Bay at the fale of Hiliako Iaheto and Pip Laufiso at the Purple Church; in Christchurch at our Wattle Drive in Pos's studio and at Rob Payne's house in his studio and in Las Vegas at Andew Sione's studio over there.

In Dunedin with Dale Cotton  - engineer of 'Koile's newly released EP Te Hua we recorded from Thursday lunchtime until Friday 4am in the morning...so for Pos and Chris Searle on drums and me with guide vocal - a straight 16 hours. Pos played all of that time with Hemi Lesatele flying in on Thursday evening to play in his parts.

During this session we were facebook-ing Andrew Sione ( Pos's right hand guitar player for this project) who was in Las Vegas, to let him know we were missing him. He messaged back to tell us that he won't make it back in the planned time-frame to record with us, so by the end of the weekend we'd hatched a plan with him. He was working off 'Pro-Tools' too in a studio where he was staying, recording an album with his group over there. So we were able to use the website 'You Send It' to upload the files of what we'd recorded in Dunedin, so he could use them as a guide, record his parts and then upload them back onto the 'You Send It' site for us to download again. Amazing.

A month later (and only a week ago) Christchurch was hit badly by an earthquake - 7.1 on the Richter scale http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/videos/4096608 
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/canterbury-earthquake/4119875/Canterbury-quake-Everyones-a-journalist

Thankfully no-one died, and for us we had no damage, loss or injury. It freaked us out and stopped us in our tracks, but by the next few days we were able to continue with the planned recording session with Seta Timo. Seta Timo was bass player with PU from 1999 - 2002, and has since joined us in the Island Summer shows when-ever possible. Pos, Seta and I headed down to Rob Payne's place and there they recorded Seta on acoustic bass, with 3 songs to complete in the next few days.

Seta on bass and Pos listening in

18 Thursdays

18 Thursdays TEAM - Tanya, Hiliako, Pip, and Pos
with Chris Searle in the middle

18 Thursdays is the project inside the Island Summer CD project.  With the many twists and turns of the Island Summer CD - long-time Dunedin collaborators Pip Laufiso and Hiliako Iaheto sat down with Pos Mavaega and offered their services to see the completion and end of the Island Summer CD project.

Pip and Hiliako had spent a night in Christchurch after being delayed overnight in transit form Auckland to Dunedin.  We'd spent the weekend together at Artspeak the CNZ created Pacific Arts Fono, and had all left from Bill and Teremoana Urale's house on Sunday, after meeting together with Pati Umaga and Mesepa Edwards also.

So on Monday 28 June, Pip mapped out a plan between two significant dates - they are the anniversary of Pos's mum's passing  - 8 July, and Pos's upcoming birthday - 4 November.  Both dates happen to be on a Thursdays and 18 weeks apart hence the name '18 Thursdays' - it's goal that by Pos's birthday he will be holding a complete CD in his hand.

So 18 Thursdays is the collaborative effort of Pos, myself, Pip and Hiliako to see this CD complete.  The release event has been set for November 6, 2010 and to be held at Nga Hau E Wha National Marae in Pages Road.