HARM TIMARU Hey There Fran Rose thanks so much for your valuble comment,I should appologise for not giving any mention to Warryn and Radiant Records,Warryn is so passionte about the niche market he has created ,hell knows I have collected so much obscure music from radiant(and when it was called rhino records) over the last decade and it is so sad to see the doors close ,losing radiant is a great loss to the community down here, Did you see the infamous "tape man" ???? was so cool seeing the shop packed out with locals to support the live music when it came, also was a great place for ice cold coke (out of a glass bottle Yum!!!) and kick ass coffie too> actually Warryn is a really good magician too, Thanks Fran cheers
Russ :-)

Ok its bitch session time and I love having a rant,(must be that time of month) yep guys get it emotionally I believe, How many of you out there in la la land have been to Timaru? or even know of the towns existance? I have been here for ten years(shudder) Originally I spent ten years in CH-ch and had the priveledge of seeing many great bands perform live, I used to revel in the metal scene there in the early 90"s, I saw PUNGENT STENCH play at warners way back in 93,kicked around with the boys from human etc. It didnt really matter what genre I was going to see it was the pleasure of seeing bands perform live and it still has a happening scene to this day,at first when I came to Timaru and we formed HARM, the live music scene was cranking, there where 3 or 4 good live music venues with regular gigs happening from local bands,-Polar,empathy,the muff divers ,in recent times Bald mother, shimata,code,The LOADED HOG in Timaru was( the) live music venue and they brought a lot of good bands to the town ,sterio gram,foamy ed,pluto,the feelers,elemenop,8 foot sativa,king kapisi,shihad,grinspoon but to name a few,the HOG closed down a number of years ago now and that was a sad day, a lot of the venues stopped having live bands and the whole scene kind of crashed,BAR EXCEL took over getting a lot of big names through Elemnop,the bleeders, pluto but to name a few ,attendance to these gigs was appaling with such few numbers turning up to support these performers,Last year I was approached by an electronica group called REALITY COMPOUND and DJ ROMANTECH via the HARM myspace page,we exchanged words ,I had a listen to there tracks and told a lot of local people that this was going to be a great show,and it was a great show for the group of about 5 of us that attended,REALITY COMPOUND and DJ ROMANTECH and the other djs had such a diverse show it F**ken went off big time what a mix of brilliant performances electronica,drum nbass spoken poetry over ambient electronica(SHANE HOLLAND) but where was the support it was free to watch as well,such a dissapiontment but for us 5 that did go it was fantabuloso,Its so Ironic in Timaru as people will go to work here and listen to the edge or port FM(local radio) that plays repetitive run of the mill tiolet paper music all week,THEN COMES the weekend ,people get pissed and rock into town and go to the bars and clubs and the D.JS play the same shite that has been heard on the radio all week,and folks love it,I will give credit to long standing resident DJ ROSCO from BAR EXCEL for his abillity to be able to read a crowd and mix it up playing genres to suit all the punters right accross the board, hip hop to roots reggae,rock to nu-metal,dance and electronica, to hard house and trance etc. I was out last week at a local club and the dj repeated the same crap hip hop song like 7 fricken times through out the duration of the night,what is up with that shit!!!!, as the live music scene has dwindled here in Timaru a few remaining bands that are still alive here are generally put off by playing in town, hence GADGET and CAUTION to local bands played just recently,I missed them play(bummer) but the venue where they did play pulled the plug on them, all because next door at the douf douf bar, punters where piling in to hear there favorite radio song,Hence the 40 odd people listening to the live BANDS were soon listening to F**ken britney spears and the bands had been kicked off stage by the bar owner and people left!!!!!!! AAAARRRGGGHHHHHH!!!!! what a fricken joke like, I would like to give credit to the team at SOPHEEZE catering services as they have a live music venue set in the caroline bay park its a great venue they have bought such bands as BLIND SPOT and DEJA VOODO to the region with reallly good turn outs,last xmas we organised a live music night with local bands SHIMATA,BALD MOTHER(now Queenstown residents) us HARM and our good friends from CH-CH SEUDE ARCADE it was a huge success with a great attendance it went off with a bang approx. 300 people (and thats big numbers for Timaru),I cant help but get annoyed when talented local musicians and artists are shunned away from playing live here in town and big names from the rest of the country go, OK think we will by pass Timaru and go straight to Dunedin,there is not much insentive to play in Timas when the support is not there ,I fear that the small minority that do appreciate the live music factor are a dying breed and that is truelly sad ok thats my rant over and done with ,feel free to comment or drop me a message regarding this here blog,cheers thanks an all
Russ the singer from HARM rocksteady and be-bop yall!!! :-)

YEAH!!!!(say it like a bad ass gansta rapper) NZ music ,what can I say,Im down with the sickness,Ok well to introduce myself I am the singer of a six piece alternative rock band from little TIMARU,our style of music covers many genres -punk,country,progressive rock,funk,ska,roots reggae and metal,originally started as a 4 piece close to ten years ago now,We are about to release our debut album this may 2007 and gotta say im fizzing out the bum about it,we have had a lot of hiccups along the way,and have learnt valuble lessons about the recording process,probably the biggest lesson learnt is that it dosent have to be painfull,well it was for us,so a word of wisdom makesure ya eat ya weet-bix and do ya home work especially homework on the recording process,HARM have come a long way,with all the procrastination put aside and some of the boys venturing overseas we have stuck together and kept the harm life raft a float,with a bucket load of south Is. gigs under our belt its time to get out and say HELLO to the rest of NZ,it has been hard trying to get gigs in the north Is.,but we are persistant sheep shaggers and we dont give up that easily,like fred dagg ill keep my gummys on,Bands that we have played with over the years include,cripple mr onion,new damage,foamy ed,sterio gram,but to name a few,we have been recently playing at the dux d lux in christchurch,and for us being lucky enough we have been able to structure our sound to sneak in to any gig weather it was playing our dark heavy shit at the jet set lounge with Human,beltaine,with out constraint and resurgence to poking our noses into Greymouth and playing with young local band the thrills,Its always so difficult (unless your a felching psychic vampire ) to get ya bloody sound out there its a funny pattern that I have observed over the last ten years and we all know that opinions are like bung holes,everyone has got one but ill throw my 10 cents worth in, funny that a lot of bands make good music and they play some pub gigs and people are a little scared to acknowledge ya cos ya don thave a single on the radio or a video on C4 so until you have, or you go over seas and then come back ,people are like"yeah bro I saw them on the tele or I heard them on the radio" so that makes them (scene)and gives them status so its ok to like them now,failing that ,maybe we are just shit!!! HA HA HA LOL I dont know man its an opinion and like I said opinions are like bung holes we all gots them Aye!!! :-) But none the less I havnt perservered 10 years worth of bollocks and to many spliffs and beers at practice to have not come this far,and for as long as i got me wellies on I will keep singing stuff, We have got 2 gigs lined up in Queenstown for june, 1st gig is for the Queenstown winter festival Mardi Gra on the 26th of june and then Bar revolver Queenstown 28th of june and we all know how much queenstown kicks ass!!! not to mention the lovely english and brazil ladies GRRRRR!!!(down boy get in behind!!!) Yeah so I thought Id just pop on in here and say some stuff which I have managed to successfully do,If anyone actually reads this guff and ya wanna have a listen to our music feel free to drop by on MYSPACE we are under harm/rock harm/music check out our profile or alternatlly check out www.muzic.net.nz and you will find us under the letter H for Harm that is ,Ya know we always thought that comming from a south canterbury district where there is so much rural community that we could change our band name to FARM ,yeah I do talk some bollocks especially when its like 2:55am Shite time to get some shuteye nice one cheers an all.
Kia kaha
Russ the singer from HARM not FARM over an out till next time (yawn/stretch) time for sleep.