Jason Devlin at Te Manawa re-opening

One of TurkbyTone Rekkids' recent signings, Jason Devlin, was pumping out classic rock riffery with his new band at the re-opening of Palmerston North's Te Manawa museum/gallery complex on April 30th. It was great to see local good-time rock bands getting a chance to present their wares to a local audience on a sunny day! Stay tuned for details of Jason's CD, which is being recorded now. Right now. Yep, as you're reading this. Oh wait, I think he's stopped for dinner. Now he's recording again. Cool.

Speaking of which, I have on my computer 8 of the completed songs for the Bing Turkby Ensemble CD Summon Forth The Mangonel! Now that it's all coming together and I can hear the songs in a row it's really rather exciting. Not only that, I've been working on cover artwork! I wish I could show you but Jim K would kick me in the gluteus maximus and that would be sad.
You'll just have to content yourselves with grabbing a free download of one of my old albums. How about The Bing Turkby Ensemble meets Moslem Sa? A classic from the vaults, featuring old singalong favourites like Baby's Drinking Whiskey and Oil Tanker, in their original forms.

Edit: I've just realised it was on Bandcamp for $5 - now it's "Name Your Price", so you can pay whatever you like, or download it for free. Sorry for the mixup - I'll call Jim K now and tell him of my displeasure.

Archival project

Howdy!
Since a lot of the old Turkby CDs are no longer available, TurkbyTone Rekkids is undertaking a digital archives project. Over the next few months you'll see all of Bing's oldest releases becoming available at http://turkby.bandcamp.com.
To make up for the fact that you can no longer get 'em in physical format, the downloads are on a "pay what you want" basis, so if you just want to try a song out, go for it! You can decide how much you'd like to pay, or take it for free - no pressure!

So I've had my last gig playing acoustic bass with The Passengers covers band, and a lot of people have asked what I'll be doing now. Well, two people have asked. And one of them looked like he was expecting me to say "nothing"...
But actually I do have some things planned, and you'll be among the first to know about it when I start announcing stuff! Remember, it's TurkbyTone Rekkids' 15th anniversary this year, so it will be marked appropriately. And aside from that I have a few things up my sleeve that I'll shake loose eventually.

Keep watching this channel!
Bing

Free shopping!

Those of you who heard the BTE interview on Access Manawatu the other day will have been taken on a trip down memory lane, as the song "The Shop : An Opera in 2 Bits" was played. This is a pretty strange old track and one that has even been performed as a play in front of an audience of tens.
To help you relive the magic, TurkbyTone Rekkids has agreed to make the track available for free download, for a limited time (maybe a year? You never know with Jim K.)
Fill yer boots by clicking here to get it from Bandcamp.

I've also got it for free at CDBaby
I've never done free tracks through CDBaby before, so have a go and tell me how you get on!

Cheers to the Zornians for organising the gig at the Cabana in Napier last night. A few enthusiastic supporters turned up, and one happy punter walked away with the thumb-dancing prize of a lovely piece of tacky vinyl. Cheers to Roy and co. for having us.

The recording gear from Hotbox Studios has come back from repair this week (aka Slapskins McBOOOm's Macbook) so it's entirely possible that our mammoth recording stint is finally over. Once we've added in a ton of interludes and designed a suitably Turkby-esque cover, you'll be able to enjoy the new sounds of the newest incarnation of the Bing Turkby Ensemble in your living room, lavatory or laboratory.

I've just reviewed Matt Langley's album Featherbones for the New Zealand Musician magazine.
Here's an excerpt: Matt Langley is a one-man Wilco. 'Featherbones' is part Country Honk, part Chris Isaak, and all extremely catchy.

TextToaster

The mad scientist Jim Keltnenhausen has come up with a great new invention - the TextToaster!
A toaster that receives your cellphone text messages then burns them into a piece of bread! Mmmm... yummy messages.
I can see this being quite a money-spinner for TurkbyTone Rekkids.
The TurkbyTone TextToaster - tasty treats that are good enough to read.
I'm not sure if we'll have that ready before our gig with Zorn at the Cabana in Napier on Friday (see details) so you might have to wait a little while, but you'll know it's ready when you go to breakfast one morning and a message pops up!