June 2011: Farewells and Hellos

Loz here... (deep breath)

Well guys, I guess it's time to break the news on one of the worst-kept secrets going around. Tom Cruise is gay. Closer to home, I have the bittersweet task of announcing that after 8 years of singing with Suade, our good buddies Roy and Een have decided to move on - Een to focus on his flower arranging, and Roy because he is pregnant.

These two guys have put in an amazing amount of heart, soul and hard work to build Suade into what it is today. 8 years is a pretty significant time in our young(ish) lives and I guess in a lot of ways we've grown up together and learned a heck of a lot in the process. The departure of these two irreplaceable friends left the rest of us with a tough choice: should we wrap this band up for good, and get our social lives back, or fight to rebuild Suade again?

Chris, Robbly and I had a good hard think about it, and decided that we all felt the best was still ahead of us on this journey. Suade is busier than it's ever been, we're earning more and more opportunities both in Australia and abroad - in fact, this accelerating schedule was the major factor in Roy and Een's decision. So with so much ahead of us, we decided to retool and move forward. And these are our new tools:

:

Luke and Sava. Click to inspect them more closely.

Meet Luke Stevenson and Sava Djukic, our new countertenor and bass. Luke is a music nerd of the highest order, a jazz-obsessed, pitch-perfect, falsetto-singing oddity in skinny pants that accentuate his twig-thin legs. Sava is a six foot four, rugby-playing, gym rat music teacher with infectious enthusiasm, big energy and an even more tightly packed scrotum than Roy's. Put them in the same room and they seem like the perfect metaphor for the odd combination of talents that make up Suade.

For the last four months these two guys have been working their butts off to get up to speed with the Suade show - hence why we've been quiet of late - and we're proud to say the new lineup just completed a very successful short tour of Korea last week. Luke and Sava have earned their stripes, and we're confident that with the new energy they're injecting into the group, we're ready to take this thing further than we've ever gone before.

Click through to read personal messages from Roy, Een, Luke and Sava about the changeover.

At times of upheaval like this, it's important to party, and party hard - and that's just what we plan to do. We thought it would be fitting to throw a Goodbye/Hello show to give Roy and Een a chance to go out on a few big notes, and introduce you guys to Sava and Lukey.

Farewell-o show

So I guess this is it. A farewell-hello show - it's your last chance to catch Roy and Een on stage with us and share what will probably be a fairly emotional night, followed by what will likely be some fairly heavy drinking.

We've chosen the Revolt arts space in Kensington, close to the Melbourne city centre, for the show. It's an amazing venue with a great team. A bit hard to find, but well worth your while, it's an old converted woolshed with a history as long as your arm and a pretty amazing future ahead of it.

The details:

Farewell-o show: end of an era
Friday, July 1st, 8pm
Revolt, 12 Elizabeth St, Kensington
http://www.revoltproductions.com

More details in the Suade events calendar.

This is a big one, folks. We'd love to see you there. You can't book tickets just yet, but that'll come online soon. Stick it in your diary and we'll let you know as soon as bookings open.

Other shows in June/July

We've been doing a lot of shows out of town and internationally lately, and we're aware some of our Melbourne peeps are starting to feel a bit neglected... So we're hitting Melbourne with a vengeance in June/July... Here's what's coming up, click through for full details:

Sunday 19th June
Vocal Australia: Get Vocal: Lazy Sunday (with our buddies Blue Notion and the Nymphs)
Penny Black, Brunswick

Wednesday, 22 June
Vocal Australia: Get Vocal: Winter Harmony Showcase (with Harambee, DeCaf, Bacchanae, The Candy Stripes and the Vocal Agents)
Bella Union, Trades Hall, Melbourne

Saturday 9 July
Suade live at the Treble Clef cafe/lounge - a strictly limited $90 per head dinner in this fantastic venue out at Chirnside Park. 6 tables of 10 maximum, so be quick!
Treble Clef cafe/lounge, Chirnside Park

Tuesday 19 July
Melbourne Cabaret Festival: Opening night gala
South Melbourne Town Hall

Fri/Sat/Sun 22/23/24 July
Suade: For Adults Only - fans of 'Never seen my face before' and 'Underpants' will enjoy this show - we're doing all the borderline and dodgy material we can't get away with when we're representing Australia or entertaining corporate clients. Part of the Melbourne Cabaret Festival.
South Melbourne Town Hall

Sat 30th July
Suade live @ Firbank Grammar - three 30-minute sets and there's rumours of a man-meat auction at this annual fundraiser event.
Centre for Creative Arts, Firbank Grammar, Brighton

Sunday 31st July
Afternoon show as part of the Glen Eira City Council Winter Music Series.
Glen Eira Town Hall, Caulfield

Click on the dates for full information and booking details, all these shows are now on sale!

Sorry to drop such a bomb on you, with a bit of luck we'll be able to perform more regularly around town and around Australia in the next 12 months.

All the best

Loz
...and the Suade lads (old and new)

ps. if anyone wants to write Een or Roy directly, you can get them at een@suade.net and roy@suade.net.

December 2010

Hey everyone!

Lozzo here. We're back safe and sound from the Asia 2010 tour, and we're happy to announce that it was a great success.

Six weeks on the road is a heck of a long time for us, but at the same time it's a great privilege to be able to support a trip of this sort of size doing what we love and representing the Aussie singing scene.

The main focus of the trip was the Korean international competition - and we put together a killer set for the night. We took 'Best Stage Performance,' but third overall, behind Germany's Niniwe and Korea's MayTree. Still, the work we put in was noticed by no less than the Australian Ambassador to Korea, who has invited us back for a show in Seoul on Australia day... So we'll be back in January!

Other highlights of the trip included:

- A performance in Singapore's old parliament house - the very room in which Minister Mentor Lee Kwan Yu forged today's Singapore through the sheer strength of his iron will and iron fist.

- A new Suade record of seven gigs in one day in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

- Singing the first ever performance in a beautiful, brand new concert hall in Gyoung-Ju, Korea... Followed by a brutal 5-hour ride back to Seoul with our knees around our ears in a tiny tour bus with other groups Niniwe and One The Full.

- A trip to the famous 'Modern Toilet' restaurant in Taipei, Taiwan, where they serve you turd-shaped foodstuffs out of miniature toilets. Classy!

- Looking through the glass floor at the observation deck on the 97th floor of the Shanghai World Financial Center, the third-tallest building in the world. Being afraid of heights, I nearly chundered.

Loads more stories to tell, and plenty that can never be told, but we'd prefer to tell them to you in person. But when?

VOCAL AUSTRALIA SHOWCASE

How about this Wednesday night? We're doing a set as part of Vocal Australia's Melbourne vocal showcase. It'll be us, plus Ginger & Tonic, Blue Notion, Key Change, Soul Serenade, the Vocal Agents, Voicebox and Mood Swing, down at the Trades Hall building in Melbourne. And only ten bucks for the lot!

Details:

When: Wednesday December 1, 2010, 8:00pm
Where: Bella Union, Trades Hall, Cnr Lygon and Victoria Streets, Melbourne
Bookings: www.bellaunion.com.au or 9650 5699

C'mon down!

HAVE A BEAUT CHRISTMAS

We're not singing any of the big Carols shows this Christmas, so we'll probably catch most of you in the new year. We've had a pretty amazing 2010, who knows what 2011 is gonna be like?

Oh, and if you're still looking for chrissy presents for somebody, we've got a fresh batch of 'Cuddles for Christmas' CDs out in the shed - since we sold out of them last year. So get in and grab a few copies to stuff yer stockings with!

Merry happy jollies to the lot of ya!
Ho ho ho
:)
Loz
...and the Suade lads.

AUGUST / SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2010

Hello dear friends and welcome to a special Suade tour-edition newsletter, guest edited by me (Ian). :)

APOLOGY

Firstly, an apology.

We know it's been a while since we've written and we're sorry - we've just been really busy! Between touring Victoria, Loz and Cheng getting married, and planning the Asia tour we haven't had time to scratch ourselves but we promise to be more… ahem… regular from now on.

Mention this apology next time you see one of the boys for a free high five.

WE'RE IN ASIA

Did I mention we're in Asia? Well we're in Asia! I'm typing to you from my cosy hotel bed in Ampang, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We will update details on our gig calendar as we get them in terms of public shows - we're just finding it a little difficult to extract information accross the language barrier!

We spent the last week in Singapore and those of you who know we well will know I can get a little excited about things - especially when they involved travelling to new countries.

So, here is a list of my top five favourite things in Singapore (in no particular order):

1. Avocado and coffee dessert. You read right. Think avocado smoothie drizzled with a shot of espresso. AMAZING.

2. SENTOSA - where some of us got terribly sunburnt on Siloso beach (Singapore's "Hippest Beach"). Activities also included a couple of luge runs and checking out the local scenery. And they had Segways. SEGWAYS.

Also, during our post-swim pizza, we were treated to some overhead manoeuvres by a couple of F18s and an army helicopter. And who can blame them? I know I'd do the same if I had a few million dollars worth of government firepower to throw around.

3. The Swiss School. There is seriously something special in the water over there. Every child and teacher in that room was BEAUTIFUL and it was SO lovely to walk onto the stage at our gig on Friday night to find so many familiar faces staring up at us from the audience. Thanks guys!

4. Cosplayers. We visited Funan - technology heaven in a shopping centre - and I'd seen photos of Cosplayes on the web but never before seen them 'in the flesh.' There's even a Cosafé (Cosplay Café) where all the staff are dressed as their favourite Cosplay characters. (If you're not familiar with the term or want to know more about Cosplay(ers), head to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosplay

5. Hwa Chong Institution. We spent two 7-hour days at Hwa Chong as part of the student's sabbatical program running "A Cappella Essentials" Workshops. Although the students could have chosen other exciting activities such as balloon sculpting or wind surfing, around thirty of them chose to brave the ominous world of a cappella singing and they were FANTASTIC. For kids who claimed they'd never sung before in their lives they picked it up like ducks to water and we hope to hear of a couple of school a cappella groups to compliment their already well-respected school choir.

TOUR DIARIES

A tradition appears to be emerging of recording video diaries while we're on tour. In fact we've already done one for the 2010 Asia tour and you can check it out here:

http://www.youtube.com/suadevoices

Now that you know all about Segways, here's an article from wired.com about Segway CEO James (Jimi) Heselden who recently died after riding one of the contraptions off a cliff: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/09/segway-death/

We'll be sticking more tour diaries up on YouTube over the next few weeks so you'd better subscribe to our channel to avoid missing out.

SOCIAL NETWORKING

Don't forget that we're on nearly every possible social networking site so make sure you 'Like' us on as many as you can so you can be kept up-to-date with all our goings on. Head here for links to all our pages.

If you're already a fan, why not suggest us to your friends? We firmly believe the world could benefit from regular doses of Suade-y goodness.

Rory especially reckons that being a fan of Suade makes your life more "impactful."

VOCAL AUSTRALIA

The Colonel's other venture, Vocal Australia, is thriving in the increasing interest in a cappella in Melbourne and recently held a very successful Social Harmony Showcase featuring Aluka, Blue Notion, D'Caf, The Nymphs, The Vocal Agents and us.

It was so successful in fact that they're running another on Wednesday, December 1, at the beautiful Bella Union in Trades Hall. Full details on the Vocal Australia website above or you can call Amelia (Meals) on 0438 800 738.

Be in touch soon.

Lots of love,

Ian and the boys.

July 2010

Just a quickie this month guys!

New Single

Our latest song is finally finished - Lionel Ritchie's All Night Long - and you can listen to it for free at our BandCamp page.

You can download the track for just $2 (PayPal or credit card) - or throw in a couple extra dollars if you want to help us get overseas in October. All proceeds are going into the Asia 2010 tour fund.

It might not sound like it, but the track is completely vocal! :)

Melbourne Cabaret Festival

There's still tickets left for our two shows at the Melbourne Cabaret Festival next weekend...

Dates: Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th July 2010 
Time: 9.30pm 
Tickets: $33 Full, $30 Concession (+ transaction fee) 
Venue: The Ballantyne Room at the South Melbourne Town Hall 
Bookings: Book here or 1300 273 896 (a higher transaction fee applies for phone bookings)

- we'll see you there!

We're already working on the next single... Here's hoping we knock it out quicker than the last one!

Love and big hugs
Loz
...and the Suade lads.