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2014 - A Year's Review of SDP

29/12/2014

Well, hello there everyone! I hope you all had a pleasant and safe Christmas break. We're still on ours, but as promised, I have returned today for the recap of what we've been up to for the past year (or in this year's case, since March). This will not be as detailed as the previous recap blogs, but will merely serve as a reminder of how 2014 played out for us.

Let's begin!

MARCH

The site is launched.

I give a few food-related blogs that aren't "Trying Stuff"-related.

Forbes delivers a handful of Black Sabbath album reviews, while I give a movie review.

The first of Forbes' online stories is added.

APRIL

More Black Sabbath reviews, plus the first of my own album reviews.

n-Somnia continues to prove its worth via NumberOneMusic.com.

Forbes' first story concludes this month.

MAY

The follow-up story by Forbes is released in its entirety throughout the month.

Our current YouTube channel is created as plans to move our video archive from the old one commences.

The long-awaited release of our "Comic Wit" video is announced and the date is revealed, trailer and all.

Another of my short films, "Pilgrim", is made available on the website.

JUNE

Footage from this year's Armageddon Expo is made available.

"Comic Wit" is released at long last.

Hints towards a special n-Somnia-related event are revealed without spoilers.

Blogs about spam via text messaging, and a very important one about escalator safety.

JULY

"Trying Stuff" makes a brief return with 5 episodes filmed in a single day, which would be released gradually over the following 5 months.

n-Somnia finally reveals and takes part in the first radio interview this month. A recording of which is available for streaming online.

Forbes and I started working on the so-called "Gosney Tapes", leading to the creation of several albums of previously unreleased material. The first Gosney single to be released in years at this point was also released.

AUGUST

Forbes becomes more active in his "Weasel Words" blog entries this month.

The next of Forbes' stories, "Angels & Demons - Rebellious Nature" commences.

Gosney's first album since 2009 is released this month.

In 2 separate blogs, Forbes and I remember Robin Williams as we mourn the loss of such greatness.

The first recap blog appears this month.

SEPTEMBER

Forbes continues his blogging, particularly with a politically-themed series.

Gosney releases its next single.

The "Angels & Demons" story concludes.

For the first time anywhere, the "Expressions Talent Scan 1998" concert video is released via our website.

The Memes page is added.

About halfway into the month, we split our blog posts into 2 separate pages to avoid any confusion amongst new fans.

We both post a blog about the end result of NZ's general election.

Forbes blogs some info on the Gosney project.

OCTOBER

n-Somnia continues to do well on NumberOneMusic.com, while Gosney releases the follow-up single and album.

Forbes introduces us to his next story, "An Unusual Case".

NOVEMBER

After a bit of a delay, the follow-up single from Gosney is released.

n-Somnia's success continues.

Gary releases a video of him trolling some seagulls with his food while inside his car.

"Trying Stuff" concludes for 2014.

DECEMBER

"An Unusual Case" concludes and puts Forbes' stories on hold until 2015.

n-Somnia reveals new material is in the works for a 2015 release.

I typed a lengthy blog about our high school project, Swede, and the intentions I have in giving it a proper conclusion in the coming years.

Our official SDP merchandise store opens.

Forbes posts only 1 blog this month.

We take a break for Christmas/New Year.

So, there you have it! We didn't do too badly for about 10 months of the website's existence. Here's to the remainder of the site's first year, and to many more!

That's all from both of us this year. Our next posts won't happen until 2015. Have a safe time celebrating, wherever you are and whatever you do. Happy New Year, folks! God bless.

Christmas/New Year Break!

20/12/2014

Hello everyone. It's December 21st now in New Zealand, which means that we have reached our cut-off point for 2014 when it comes to new material. I think we've done enough this year to have earned a bit of a break.

There won't be any further recordings or writing sessions from us until January (probably the 4th...maybe?), but I'll still be posting the final blog of the year on the 30th (too busy on the 31st) giving a brief summary of what's been going down since we launched the website in March.

I may not be able to post much this coming week due to the last-minute Christmas planning, etc, so just in case that doesn't happen, on behalf of 'Team Stuff' (Forbes, Aliesha, Gary and myself), have a very merry and safe Christmas. With the exception of my final blog on the 30th, we'll all see you again soon in 2015!

Blessings to all!

Official SDP Merchandise!!!

19/12/2014

Want to own an official Stuffed Duck Productions mug, stein, hoodie or cap? Well, now you can! Click on the link button below to check out our merchandise store at PropellShops.com!

Official SDP Merchandise

n-Somnia NumberOneMusic Chart Update

19/12/2014

The Swede Legacy - An Introduction & Announcement

18/12/2014

Greetings to you all! It's been a while since I last posted a blog about anything other than updates, new releases, etc, and since the end of 2014 is nigh, now is a good time to do something about that!

I would like to share a few things about a little (understatement) music project that Forbes and I attempted to create back in high school. There is a reason I'm bringing this up now. That reason is because in 2015 close to August or September, it will be 20 years since it all began in 1995. Technically, this makes it the longest incomplete and unreleased project we've ever done.

A brief history of a band we once named Swede...

At first, Swede was my own doing. For a few years building up to its conception (mentioned above), I would listen to my music collection (which was quite small back then, especially compared to my recent list...that's another story), and as I would lay there (or do something else while it was in the background), I would imagine (or daydream) that I was one of the band members playing the song I was hearing, while I would picture one of or a group of my friends as the other bandmates. During this, I came up with a vocal trio (much like The Bee Gees or TLC) with me as one of the 3. The other 2 would be a couple of my school friends (bear in mind that none of these other people knew about this). So, as I would listen to selected albums, I would imagine the 3 of us were performing the tracks. I even 'assigned' certain types of song for each member - myself singing the ballads (I had a major crush on someone at the time), friend #1 singing the breakup songs (as he had someone, but lost her), and friend #2 would be in charge of any songs I didn't really like as much as the rest (cleaning up the scraps, you could say). Because some of these albums I'd listen to had songs by female vocalists as well, I even came up with a female equivalent of my trio - my crush singing the ballads (open for duets!), friend #1's ex singing the breakup songs (would make an interesting duet, for sure), and a third female filling the same role as friend #2 (this role had more than 1 female fill it as I didn't know if friend #2 liked a particular girl, so I picked her at random...more than once).

All of that took place in primary school, so as I got into high school it would change ever so slightly. By this time I was getting into a particular band called Roxette. Their biggest hit, "It Must Have Been Love" was on one of the compilation albums I would play to death while imagining I was in the trio. After having the song grow on me so much, I got my first Roxette album (their 1992 release, "Tourism"), and - while referencing a Roxette song to help tell the story - things would never be the same. The days of the 2 trios were no more. I decided to keep my imagination flowing by merging the 2 together and forming a single band, assigning certain people with instruments. My role emulated Per Gessle, the male half of Roxette, while the girl I had a crush on at the time was to fill the role of Marie Fredriksson, the female half (obviously). Taking my role seriously, this lead to me considering taking guitar lessons. This didn't take place until sometime in 1995, my second year of high school.

By the way, Swede was named after the fact that Roxette are Swedish...

For a few years by this time I had been imagining myself in a music group performing cover songs. But one night in either August or September in 1995, I was reading a book called "Love & Marriage" by Bill Cosby (and if you want to know what my thoughts on his recent news stories are, here's the short version - "Where's the proof? It's yet another celebrity witch-hunt"). In this book, I came to a passage that would change the direction of my musical fantasies forever. I can't remember at the top of my head how it goes, but it contained the words, "Overnight Arrival". This became my first song title.

It wasn't long after "Overnight Arrival" appeared when I suddenly had a flood of other song titles, such as "Time Traveller" or "Do You Have to Go?" It seemed that Bill Cosby's book had opened a new door in my life, and it wasn't even relevant to the book's subject. Life is weird like that sometimes.

After more and more titles came to me over time, I got into a new musical idea - creating album tracklists. "Time Traveller", one of my first titles and the first song to actually have my own lyrics, would be the name of the first of these fictional albums. Little did I know in late 1995 how much larger the list of 'albums' would be over time...

Jumping forward to the crossover period of 1995/96, Forbes learned about my intentions in the music scene and offered his assistance. Keen on getting things started as soon as...yesterday, he was basically hired on the spot. Together we would create something so big, almost nobody knew about it. Either everybody was blind or our marketing skills sucked. On a serious note though, we were far from ready in 1996. I was still a beginner with the guitar, which was more than I can say about our vocal skills back then...

The original line-up of the 'band' before Forbes came along was very similar in structure to Roxette (intentionally). After he tweaked it a little bit, the end result was a 5-piece pop/rock band consisting of myself on vocals and guitar, Forbes on vocals and bass, 'Woody' (we won't use real names) on keyboards and backing vocals, 'Bob' on drums (trivia: I originally had him listed as a second guitarist), and 'Toad' as the trumpet player...yes, you read that correctly. The only reason I enlisted a trumpet player was because he was the only other person I knew who could play a real instrument. I'm not joking about this. I was 14 going on 15... Stop laughing!

Only 6 months into the year, Forbes and I had a falling out. Swede as we knew it back then was over, but not out for the count. In Forbes' absence, I continued writing for the project until I joined a real band, Supertrip, in late 1997. Eventually in 1998, Forbes and I found ourselves placed in the same class as each other for one subject. With the hopes of making the year a pleasant one, we decided to bury the hatchet that very moment. We had 1.5 years to cool off, so it was pretty easy. At that particular time, we had no desire to resurrect Swede. Besides, I was still with Supertrip then.

Sometime in 2001, Forbes made a phone call to me one night. He had this idea that would give Swede a proper ending. This, of course, is funny in hindsight, as the band never really existed in the first place. But I went along with the ideas we discussed that evening. Little did I know though, this 'brief' reunion wouldn't be as short as we'd planned. More ideas came to me, and history tells what happens when that occurs. Meanwhile in 2005... Yeah, I was still going.

My inspiration for Swede-related titles/albums has been quiet since the mid-2000's. This is mostly because of my involvement with Kingrow and n-Somnia, as well as our Ducksel Comedy projects. But Swede would always be in the back of my mind saying, "These songs need to be made. Do eet!" In the meantime, I would make numerous attempts at writing a fictional story about the 5-piece band from Christchurch, but compared to Forbes, I'm not that much of a novelist. If I'm to tell a story, it's through either videos or songs. The latter of which is the only way Swede can truly exist. So, I came up with a plan...

In the last year or two, I decided that time is ticking on and there are many songs going to waste in my overweight archive. It was long overdue to do something about it. The 20th anniversary of Swede is approaching after all, dang it!

Which is why I've come to this particular blog post. You may be thinking by now, "What's the point? That's old history. Why make me read all that stuff?" A single statement should settle the argument right here, right now...

As of Tuesday 16 December 2014, the first recording for what will be called "The Swede Legacy" has commenced!

That's right, I have started recording some of the Swede material dating as far back as late 1995, and I intend on making them sound as close to their age as possible as well. It's time to get this thing over and done with!

I also said 'some' of the material. That's because there's so many titles I've come up with over the years (trivia: I counted more than 600 titles once, and that was in 1997...), and also the fact that a lot of them weren't that great (ask Forbes about "Grimace - The Big Purple Thing" and "Fruit Salad"). Therefore, I came up with a plan to make no more than 5 albums in total. Only 1 of them will have enough songs to fill a single CD. The rest may be capable of filling 2. Neither of which will actually be released on CD, as I'm kind of exclusive to Bandcamp.com these days.

The first album will be "Time Traveller", respectively, and will feature 'most of' the songs from the fictional version, but adopting a few from another one to fill the gaps. Album #2 will be called "The L Word" (disclaimer: the TV series of the same name was made many years AFTER we came up with the music album concept). This album will be a collection of ballads I wrote between late 1995 and mid-1996. Both albums up to this point will be pop/rock. Album #3 will be called "Revolution". This is my collection of guitar-based rock songs I wrote (along with a few collaborated songs with Forbes) written in 1996. Album #4 is to be called "The Dark Ages". Forbes and I refer to the time period we weren't talking to each other as The Dark Ages, and this album represents the songs I wrote during that time. Finally, album #5 will be "The Return of the Time Traveller", which is one of the concepts we came up with in the mid-2000's and is a sequel to the first album, which will make a good conclusion to the project overall.

For those interested in which song I started off with on Tuesday, the song of choice was... "Visitors" ... not the title you expected, right? This track was one I wrote for the fictional follow-up to "Time Traveller", called "Didn't See You Coming", so I guess the song is living up to its parent album's name by being the first instead of "Time Traveller" or "Overnight Arrival". The song is currently in its 'demo' stage, and will probably stay that way until the new year begins.

These are exciting times and I can't wait to have this chapter of my life complete. It's taken long enough!

Sorry this blog has taken longer than expected, but I feel that context is important and you needed to know the backstory of the project before you could fully understand what's in store for 2015 and beyond. In saying that, if you're a fan of my solo project, n-Somnia, I'm still doing that! Bear in mind that I even started the next EP for that project recently as well. But now, I suppose, you understand why I'm doing a solo EP instead of an album this time.

Time for me to go. It's late as I type this, but it wasn't when I started...typical.

Ciao!

"Retribution" (album) by Gosney.

13/12/2014

The "Retribution" album by Gosney is finally up! Go to the link below and buy yourself a copy for Christmas!

This will be the final Gosney release for 2014. On January 13, the next release shall be unveiled.

Buy "Retribution" by Gosney.

"Retribution" single by Gosney.

12/12/2014

The first of the final 2 Gosney releases for 2014 is up! Today it's the single for tomorrow's album release, both of which share the same name... "Retribution".

Click the link button below to buy the single, and come back in about 24 hours time to purchase the album!

Buy the "Retribution" single!

n-Somnia Chart Update (N1M)

9/12/2014

n-Somnia Update

9/12/2014

Hello everyone. Just thought I'd update you all on what's going on with my solo music project lately.

As you will have seen, I've been posting screenshots of e-mails I've been receiving from NumberOneMusic.com, one of many sites where I promote my material. It seems I've been doing well with some of the tracks from my second album, "Urban Decay". I've also seen some similar activity on Reverbnation.com, which I posted directly onto the n-Somnia Facebook page.

The main reason I'm giving you all an update on what you should already know is actually regarding n-Somnia's future. Only a day ago, the first recording of my next project had commenced! I posted some photos on the n-Somnia Facebook page as a surprise announcement. This blog makes it more official because it's on the SDP website. The photos can be viewed at the bottom of this blog also.

Some more information on the upcoming project, without too many spoilers, of course...

The third photo in the images below gives a sneak peak at the title of this first song I'm working on (that's right, it's not finished yet). It's called "The Only Race is 'Human'", and it will indeed be a promotional track.

This song will be a part of a 6-track EP. I'm hoping it'll be released by the middle of 2015, but anything's possible. There is a chance that a total of 3 songs from this EP will be promos.

The reason I'm only doing an EP this time around is because I'm planning on working on a bigger project with Forbes. A project based on an idea for a band that we had back in high school. More will be revealed on this in the new year.

That's about it for now. Keep a close eye on the blog for more on n-Somnia and other things, and don't forget to like the appropriate Facebook pages (found on our Links page), and follow us on Twitter while you're at it.

Ciao!