Written by our very own Dean "The HAMMER" Zig

Tucked away in the industrial area of Moorabbin are a few bars that you’d only know about if you knew about them. Lucky 13 Garage is one of those that has bands every weekend and hosted by Andrew from The Hard Rock Show that plays on Channel 31. HammerCan’s second gig was late notice (3 days to be precise) but we were ready to take to the stage whenever we’re required. 

Opening act of 4 for the night was an acoustic version of Shadowqueen, drummer was absent for this gig so they were down to a duo and sounded powerful. After them was No Stairway, a funk style band with some very cool riffs, great singer and a sax player. The small crowd let the bands know they were doing something good, they were right into it. We were third up and played a 9 song set, cutting 2 from the previous gig due to the time constraint. This time around we kept the intro shorts and just pumped out song after song. Great vibe at this cool venue and the punters were impressed. Rob’s bass cut out, as did Jerry’s guitar at one point, and Rob stepped on Dean’s tuning pedal momentarily muting his sound, but the show goes on and things get fixed as we play – professionals! City Sharps closed out the night and they have the stage presence of an experience band, very cool vibe and sound. Another great night.

Gig reports come courtesy of Dean "The HAMMER" Zig our resident reporter on the ground.

Our first gig as HammerCan, the official launch for Flying Into The Sun. We sold 1 CD that night, most of the people who came were friends and colleagues who already had the album! Nikki had the CDs out looking like a stand at a record fair, well displayed.

First up iSolation took the small stage and with their band of 5 they sounded great even if they struggled to fit everyone on the stage. After a short change over Turn South took to the stage, a bunch of young guys with the drummer who is our Rob’s housemate. They had a lot of energy and ripped it up. Around this time the crowd had settled into the night with a few drinks under their belts, but not rowdy, just keen to hear some rockin’ tunes. A few of our friends were out in the front bar missing the action, only here to see HammerCan, no offence to the other bands of course! We created an intro CD of a few choice songs cut into 2 and a half minutes followed by the old classic Tequila, a fitting tribute with the first song being Tequila Time.

We played 11 of the 12 songs from the FITS album clocking it at just under an hour. A couple of the songs had longer than normal intros to give a sense of a show. Dean, Jerry and Rob thanked everybody for coming during the night, we were pleased to see a decent crowd for an “unknown” band play their first gig. A little bit of banter and song introductions sprinkled throughout the set but we were really here to just play our new songs for the audience. The set was well received and everyone had a great night!

So how are HAMMERCAN going about recording their new album?

HAMMERCAN are using Garage Band (https://www.apple.com/au/mac/garageband/) recording software on a Macbook Pro. Garage Band software is standard on all new Mac computers. This is a home recording project.

All audio is recorded through a Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 (http://global.focusrite.com/usb-audio-interfaces/scarlett-6i6).

Drums are sequenced for 80% of our new album using a program called Easy Drummer (http://www.toontrack.com/products.asp?item=7).

A Rode NT2-A (http://www.rodemic.com/mics/nt2-a) and Shure SM58 (http://www.shure.com/americas/products/microphones/sm/sm58-vocal-microphone) microphone have been used for all vocal and guitar tracks.

Guitar parts have been recording using Fender, Gibson and Status guitars through MI Audio amplification.
http://www.fender.com.au

http://www2.gibson.com/Gibson.aspx
http://miaudio.com

Bass guitar parts have been recorded using an Ernie Ball OLP.

So what about the music? Well, each song has it's own unique story but in general most songs have been selected from a back catalogue of old songs both of us had written in the past individually or with others. For some songs instrumental tracks were the starting point and in these cases lyrics were selected from a selection of pre-written songs and adapted for the new song. Some of the songs for this album have been recorded a number of times in the past. The HAMMERCAN version will now become the definitive version of each song and the version we will play live in 2014 whilst on tour.

Thanks for tuning in and stay tuned for more updates on HAMMERCAN!!!