I’m considering how to release my record. After doing the sums, it’s going to be too hard to do a run of CD’s. I’ve decided to release it online, on my site, as mp3’s. Just do CD’s for those who ask. Maybe do a few Geraldine singles, if the pressing plant is still going.

Is this the end of music as we know it? Perhaps we’re just seeing the end of ‘pro’ musos and stars versus ‘the audience’, and seeing a new type of music structure made up of prosumers, with small audiences and day jobs, but the ability to put together music themselves . . .

Well, theory aside, most of this prosumers tracks are mixed now, I just got a batch from John Guy Howell in Auckland, and are going to finish the last couple of tunes in Dunedin with Stephen Stedman (who recorded the thing back in the dark ages.)

I’m having a bit of trouble placing the record in the scheme of things. I’ve been listening to rough mixes for so long I’m not sure what I make of it.

One of my favourite mixes is the track that I’m going to have as the opener ‘Coasting’ which is an instrumental. Download here, it’s under three megs.

It was a good recording, just me playing guitar and bass and Piers on the brushes. John’s done a great spacey mix and I’m feeling quite happy about it.

The track itself was inspired by thinking about when I was growing up, in the small village where I came from called Warrington, near to Dunedin. I wanted to capture the feel of the quiet, long beach here and the marram grass in the summer sun. We’re on the main railway line here, and I always associated this place with the trains going through, which is why I got Piers to do the ‘train rhythm’ on the brushes.