Where have I been?
It’s been a longtime between posts, well, since november 2009 for that matter. Back then, my solo album The Pursuit Continues was released.
Since then, alot of stuff has been going on so be prepared for a big post with some answers to some FAQs I’ve been receiving.
How many people have downloaded “The Pursuit Continues”?
3000. I never would have expected that when I released the cd. I guess it just goes to show that putting it out there for free was a good idea. I had my album featured on many websites where the cd was warmly received by the website communities.
Have you had many reviews?
Yep, it’s been really great seeing people review my music. Doing a simple “google search” has found some reviews from all over the world. I had a review from some website in philadelphia where she states that she only listened to it casue of the band name!
I’ve also had some other reviews. Here is one from the The Stu Reid Experiement which also features a clever image.
I was also featured on 2 podcasts from The Brown Couch Of Leisure. You can listen to the first one here, and the second one here. The tracks featured were Villains and The Bank Robbery.
Also don’t forget the fantastic review my brother-in-law Stuart Grant did on the Turkish Grants In Bulgaria Blog.
Finally, someone also uploaded The Bank Robbery onto youtube!
Is there a new album, if so when?
I’d definately like to make another cd, and there definately will be a follow up to The Pursuit Continues. The question is when will I have time to record it. Well, unfortunately it won’t be happening anytime soon. I’d like to at least have some songs and rough recordings done by 2012.
Will your music change direction?
Yeah, I guess it will. There’s no point doing the same thing again. There’s a tonne of possibilities. I wouldn’t mind using some real drums, and real drummers. There’s also more chance that I’ll get other musicians to feature too, I think that would be more fun and add more to the creative pot. However I’d still like to keep some core Giraffe Incognito ingredients, I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.
Will you ever play live?
At the moment, no. In the future? Maybe but probably not. The best thing about making the cd was that I didn’t ever have to think about performing it live. Hell some Giraffe Incognito tunes would be rad live, but I just don’t have the time or resources (musos) to pull it off. If I was going to play live, it would probably be a collab of some sort and we wouldn’t be playing Giraffe Incognito tunes.
So the follow up album is not being rushed, and you’re not playing live, so what the hell are you doing with your time?
Ahh, well you see last year, during the recording of the album. I was only working full time (I was recording at night time and on weekends). Now, I’m back at university and still working full time. That’s where all my time has gone. I’ve also been told by alot by my friends and family that I should chill out a bit.
But surely you’re not just relaxing?
Well no, I’m also taking on design work as well. Just incase you didn’t know, I designed this website, my album art and also put my album up on the web in various places. I want to get better at this type of stuff, so I’m actively looking for new clients to take on. So if you’d like a website design, myspace design, wordpress theme, web banner, album art and basically anything else design related done then just let me know.
I have a website for my design stuff, it’s
http://william.rainbird.me
What? You have another website?
Yep, I made the decision to seperate my personal/design stuff with Giraffe Incognito. Giraffe Incognito is solely for the music and that is all. If you want to know what I (William) is doing, then check out this blog.
You can also find me on twitter.
Anything else?
Once again, thanks heaps to everyone who downloaded and listened to my cd. That’s why I made it. I’m really blessed with the reception I have received and never expected it. That’s why and why I will make another CD in the near future.
Other than that, stick around here for Giraffe Incognito news and also check out my personal blog.
Peace, William AKA Giraffe Incognito
Giraffe Incognito – The Pursuit Continues
It’s finally here!
So, what do you do now? How do you get your hands on one of these?
Well I only printed 50 Digipak Copies, so if you want to grab one – please send me an email.
However, you can also download the album. I’m offering it under the pay-what-you-want- scheme.
You can download it for free, or pay $1000. I won’t lie to you – a $1000 dollars would be nice, but that’s not my aim. I put alot of effort into making this cd so I want YOU to listen to it. I don’t care if you don’t want to pay for it – in fact I actually encourage you not to.
released 31 October 2009
Produced, recorded and mixed by
William Rainbird
Mastered by Paul Fox
at Indie Masters
Album art created by William Rainbird based on
the “Nighthawks” painting by Edward Hopper
This project would never have
been complete without the
help and support from these
awesome people:
Taryn Barbary
Sam Rainbird
Phillip Rainbird
Paul Fox
Mathew Dobson
Fred Rainbird
Michael Stocks
Nathan Beavis
Damien Clarke
Ben Morling
Joshua Spry
Adam Bottega
Tait Brown
Jason Yim
Tj Ramadoss
Silas Haysom
Bill Myers
Chris Tan
Stuart Grant
Eloise Grant
Brenton Cleeland
Josh Hesketh
Paul Rigby
Spencer Skey (performs the vibra slap on villains)
and Mum
and everyone else, you know who you are!
Giraffe Incognito Has A Makeover
Hey guys,
If you’re using an RSS reader or are just plain lazy – I suggest you check out Giraffe Incognito as I have just “pimped” up the website to give it a new look and feel.
Why? Because I want the website to be cohesive with my album art, which was designed with black, white and grey colours as well.
So what do you think?
The Finish Line
Hey crew.
Picking up the Master C.D. on monday.
Sending off to the printers next week – all album art is ready to go.
I’ll be printing off 50 copies – and also posting it up for free download online – hopefully by the end of the month but most likely November first.
Thanks for keeping up with my blog and showing interest, really looking forward to you guys having a listen.
Big things to happen in the upcoming weeks!
My Whole Album In Just Two Minutes And Twenty-Three Seconds
Hey guys, sorry for the lack of attention made to the blog. But I’m almost there. I should be looking at getting the tracks mastered this week, I had Paul from Indie Masters check out all my mixes, and after some general feedback, I was suprised I had little polishing to do on my songs.
October is my goal, and even though it’s already hit the fabled month – I still have until November to finish it yeah?
But, because I know you guys are waiting (the whole 4 of you who check my blog!), I’ve decided to give you a nice little treat for being so patient.
It’s my whole album, every song, in just under 2 minutes and 23 seconds! I will note, that the full album is 53 minutes. So if you think about it, you’re listening to some sort of percentage…
Cupcakes and Mixing
I wish I was mixing in something like this:
However I am not.
So for the last few weeks, I’ve been really getting into making my songs sound as best as I possibly can. This has been quite a timely process, as I’ve been real anal and am aiming to make all my songs stand alone.
I’ve had a go at EQing all my songs. This is something that engineers take 20 years to learn. So when I dived into the deep end I’ll be honest I didn’t really know what I was doing. I hit a few forums and got some advice.
Basically, EQing is making sure that there aren’t too many instruments in your mix clashing. E.g. you want to make sure the bass drum and the bass guitar sit really well together, like in a pocket. You also want to make sure that the frequencies that the lead guitar are using aren’t clashing with the vocal track.
Doesn’t really make sense does it? Well put it this way… You have made heaps of cupcakes, but you want them to sit together nicely. So you don’t just throw them all willy nilly into the box. Otherwise when people see the box they’ll be like “OMG, there are like cupcakes on top of one another and icing is like going everywhere”.
However, if you were to place the cupcakes nice and tidily into the box, you can open the box and people can see all the cupcakes in all their glory, and know exactly what each cupcake represents and how good it will taste.
If my music was a tray of cupcakes, I’d like it to taste pretty damn good. Get it?
Montgomery is REAL!
Ok, so for those of you who don’t know who Montgomery is, let me tell you something:
At university last year, one my subjects required me to create a flash animation using characters that had to have narrative. My idea was to create a story based on a giraffe and a bird. The giraffe was called Montgomery, and the bird was called Ferguson. The story of the animation involved Montgomery setting sail to New York City in his hot air balloon.
But, I don’t need to give you a full plot sypnosis, because the animation still exists! In fact I have a link to it right here! So why don’t you go and check it out:
Animation: The Adventures of Montgomery and Ferguson
Ok so that brings us to the second part of this story, as I’m not just going to post about an animation that’s a year old now…
I was adventuring about St Kilda town today, and found myself discovering this beauty in a shop (I can’t even remember the name of the place). It was some sort of concrete kinda thing I guess for kids to have on their room, or like on a mantlepiece. At first I didn’t see the connection of it, I just noticed the giraffe. Then on the second look, I was like “Oh shit, it’s Montgomery from my flash animation”, this was followed by a few air claps and a few hops about the joint.
So I took a picture of it, and here it is! (pretty creepy huh!)
I wonder who was first? Random giraffe on concrete slab or Montgomery?
It’s gotta be Montgomery, he’s really old and wears a really nice hat so he must have been around for a while.
Introducing a little “Tumblr” Sidebar
As we all know, I like to surf the internet, and when you do so you’re bound to find interesting things.
Now, if I was to blog about everything I saw, this blog would turn into a sushi train of just crap that everyone has already seen.
So I’ve created a tumblr, and am basically going to post funny, interesting and random things. The latest three entries will show up on the right-hand side of the page.
I’m going to keep main blog posts on this site about my music and other more substaintal happenings in my world.
So, what do you guys all think?
Progress – It’s keeps getting deeper!
First things first, how awesome is this picture! It was by a guy named Jan Oliehoek, and he’s done some really cool photo manipulation work – you can check out some more of his works here
Haven’t posted for a while. But hey – been busy getting this nasty little cd completed so you can hopefully get your dirty mits on it by the end of … september (realistically).
I’ve been awaiting feedback from several reliable sources and am now going to give my music to the mastering dudes for some more feedback, so that’s all starting to looking promising.
I’ve also started work on my album art, this is one of the main reasons I wanted to make a cd in the first place! So it’s been really fun playing around with ideas.
I don’t want to give anything away but here are some teasers – it will most likely be black and white, be a font lovers paradise and there will be hidden giraffes for you to find!
As for the title of the album – I haven’t chosen it yet – and no it will not be ‘the prototype’ (that’s what I wrote on the draft cd I gave to people!).
Have a good weekend.
Inglourious Basterds
This is the first time I’ve actually been waiting in anticipation for a Tarantino flick. I was too young when films such as Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and Jackie Brown were released. As for Kill Bill, I don’t think I saw them until a few years after all the hype.
A large coke and a classic Tarantino title credit scene to start the film, things were looking good. This wasn’t classic Tarantino in the way that he cuts up the plot and throws it about randomly throughout the movie so you have no idea what timeframe you’re in. Sure there’s a little bit of it, but the film take you through chapters, which I thought was a really cool idea and was a good way to seperate some fairly intense scenes.
It starts off with quite a few accents slapping you in the face, but once you get over Brad Pitt’s ridiculous accent you get used to the fact that it’s no monotone film and that dialogue between languages gel together smoothly.
Whilst I watched the film, sure I laughed, but I was mainly caught up in the suspense, especially towards the latter half of the film. But now looking back on it, you could almost class the film as a comedy. I guess you could say it will have the same replay value as Pulp Fiction, it just grows on you humorously the more you view it.
To wrap it up, acting was great, I thought the film wasn’t too long and that it’s definitely worth seeing, even if you aren’t a typical tarantino fan. Another big win for me was the soundtrack, but that’s something you expect with a Tarantino film, he chooses great music.
One last thing, why is Diane Kruger getting so much media attention for being ‘that woman’ in the film? Yes she’s attractive, but Mélanie Laurent takes the cake in this film (pictured above). Much more interesting character too…