Small Faces

There is now a Plastic Section Facebook page, which is updated more frequently than this blog.. If you'd like to sign up for the latest updates and info, please visit here. Cheers!

Frantic!

Happy New Year! Plastic Section released a new album online called Frantic! to welcome the Year of the Snake, get it while it's free!

Frantic!

New music and gigs gigs gigs!

It's been a while between posts - just got back from a groovy trip to Japan with some nice whisky and even nicer records (Magic Sam, Pussy Galore, Guitar Wolf and Pizzicato V).

As soon as I got back I recorded two new songs, and added two recorded earlier in the year for a new Plastic Section EP called 'Off the Rails' - get it free here!

In other exciting news:

Plastic Section have four gigs coming up:

Thursday November 8 at the Robin Hood Hotel, a nice pub opposite Emporium on Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok. The night is presented by the great Popscene crew, so it's gonna be a good one.

Friday November 9 at the LUSH music and arts festival, being held at the very groovy Train Night Market in Bangkok's Chatuchak  district (near the famous Chatuchak weekend market). It looks like a great festival, with lots of bands, art events and performances. Details here.

Saturday November 10 at Harmonica (one of the best venues in Bangkok!) on Sukhumvit 39, with Little Fox, Before Champ, EICO and headlining the great guitar experimenter from the US, Dustin Wong! Check it out.

Saturday December 1, playing at 2 pm at the Stone Free II festival - a completely indie festival from Panda Records and The World Will Never Know crew, over three days with about 50 brilliant bands. In Saraburi, about an hour from Bangkok. Details here.

I'll be playing some different songs at every show, including some new ones from the upcoming new Plastic Section album. The multi-talented Bank Redtwenty will be on drums for most (all?) of the shows.

Gig on Sunday!

Plastic Section will play at Harmonica, Sukhumvit 39 in Bangkok this Sunday night, August 19, supporting the excellent Summer Dress. Starts around 9pm, 100 baht entry fee. See you there!

Plastic Section Rock N Roll!

Back to Motorcycle Emptiness

Plastic Section will be performing at the funky Motorcycle Emptiness Bar in Bangkok, near Town in Town. Come and have a beer and hear some of our new songs!

Plastic play on Sunday

This Sunday, July 15 Plastic Section are back at the groovy Harmonica on Sukhumvit Soi 39, Bangkok. Also playing is Plastic Plastic (seems to be a common theme here...) and Achi & Co. It should be a fun night of very diverse sounds, only 100 baht to get in which includes a drink. See you there!

Photos from recent gig..

Here are some nice photos taken by Kik Wongchalard during Plastic Section's recent performance at the Popscene night at Dickinson's Culture Cafe in Bangkok. Bank Redtwenty on drums. It was a really fun gig, broken strings and all!

Next Gig - 07.07.12

Plastic Section will play a Popscene Live event this Saturday, July 7 at Dickinson's Culture Cafe in Bangkok. I've never been to this venue, but the Popscene Live events are always great, as are Plastic Section's performances! This time with the multi-talented Bank Redtwenty on drum drums. We should hit the stage around 10pm. It's free. See you here!!

Free songs

There are quite a few Plastic Section songs that can be downloaded for free at Bandcamp. here's one of them:
Train Train Train

New Harmonica Gig, Friday June 29

On Friday June 29, Plastic Section will be playing at Harmonica again (one of Bangkok's coolest venues, on Sukhumvit 39), opening for rock band Zero Hero and rock and roll / rockabilly band The Keylookz - two of the most interesting bands in the Thai indie scene. I'm a late addition to the bill so my name isn't on the poster, but I'll be playing probably around 9pm. Should be rockin' see you there!

Sol Space

A Part of Me, A Part of You at Sol Space was a big success - great music all evening! Here's a photo by Tokin Teekanun taken during my brief set:

Robin Hood

Thanks to everybody who came along to Harmonica last night, I had a great time playing with Harmonica owner Put on drums - we'd never played together before but it's rock 'n' roll so it's easy! It was good to play some new songs too..

On Thursday June 21 I'll be playing for Popscene Live at the Robin Hood pub on Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok (almost opposite Emporium shopping centre) with Bank Redtwenty on drums. Also on the bill are the great The Standards and Class A Cigarettes - it'll be a good one!

Live video

Thai artist Tokin Teekanun filmed part of my set at The Space in Bangkok last weekend for his The World May Never Know project. You can see some of Jasper Haynes great photos in the background (including a great shot of Andy Worhol that he took as a teenager!). The songs I perform in the clip (a rare acoustic performance for me) are "Rose Coloured Windscreen," written by Australian underground rock legend Kim Salmon, and "Train Train Train" and "Burn" written  by me.

see it here

A Part of You, A Part of Me

In an earlier post I mention a project I'm involved with by Thai artist Tokin Teekanun called A Part of You A Part of Me. The idea was to get different musicians and songwriters to create a piece based on something personal, then get different artists and filmmakers to make videos to accompany the music. There will be two live shows for this project and it's an event not to be missed if you're in Bangkok! Plastic Section is performing on June 9 at SOL Space gallery, listed on the poster and Ben Basement Tape.

For the project, my song "Clumsy" inspired a video made by experimental filmmaker Namfon Udomlertlak, who also starred of the amazing Thai indie film Eternity.

Solo Plastic

I will be playing the The Space next to the Chao Praya River in Bangkok on Saturday night, April 28. The night is presented by Panda Records and will also feature performances by amazing Thai musicians My Post Life (Pok Stylish Nonsense), Bear-Garden and Gene Mahasamut จีน มหาสุมทร, as well as the closing of an exhibition by renowned photographer Jasper Haynes. For more details, visit: here 

Swing!

Earlier this year I did some recording with Pok Pongprayoon (from amazing Thai band Stylish Nonsense) on bass, Benji from German band Beeline on drums, and an amazing European musician based in Bangkok named  JD Cailouet on keyboard. We recorded live (including vocals) direct to 4-track cassette, with Pok engineering the recording, and the results sound great!
One song was one I've been kicking around for a couple of years called "Dream Song," while the others were all new numbers. They include a tribute to New York Latin soul legend Joe Bataan (called "Joe Bataan"), a song called "Swing" about October 5, 1962 (Love Me Do and Dr No released on the same day!) and a track called "Venice of the East," about the  dirt, desertion and disaster brought on by last year's catastrophic flooding in Thailand (get ready for 2012!!).
All in all we recorded about six songs in one day, and I hope to get together with some of the guys again soon to record a couple more for the next Plastic Section album. Watch this space for some exciting new sounds!
Here are some beautiful photos taken by Kik Wongchalard during the sessions..

Live EP

The Plastic Section album has a couple of tracks recorded live at Nospace Gallery in Bangkok with Bank Redtwenty on drums - but there was a whole bunch of other stuff recorded at that gig, including some songs that weren't included on the album in studio versions. I decided to put together a 4-track EP with unused songs from those sessions, available for free here!: Plastic Section Live at Nospace

Sound!

The Sound Project website gave a nice mini-review of Plastic Section's latest release:

http://www.thesoundproject.org.uk/

Live photo

Here's a nice photo taken by Pattrayu Wattanapanich during our recent gig at the groovy Harmonica in Bangkok.

"Bob Dylan" revisited..

March 19, 2012 was the 50th anniversary of the release of Bob Dylan's self-titled debut. Even though it's a straight folk album of mainly traditional songs, I always thought it somehow had a rock 'n' roll feel to it - you could tell that not long before becoming a folkie that Dylan had been bashing out Little Richard and Link Wray numbers.. I got hold of Bob Dylan when I was about 12 years old, quickly learned all the songs on it, and have played many of the songs in many different bands and contexts over the years, usually in punk blues renditions.. I hadn't heard the original album for a long time, but decided to record a kind of tribute, or 'version' of the album for its 50th birthday. Check it out here! Another Side of Bob Dylan