The Verlaines with Tono and Simon Comber

Seminal Dunedin band The Verlaines are pleased to announce they will be playing around the country in March this year, ably supported by Simon Comber and Tono.

1980: 30 years ago The Verlaines formed while at Logan Park High School. A young Graeme Downes gets together with some like-minded individuals having heard the Clean, the Same (Chills in Embryo) and began a writing career that extends to nine studio albums and many other singles and EPs.

30 years later: its 2010 and Graeme is writing prodigiously ( a new album has been penned over the summer for recording and release this year) and playing a combination of both old Verlaines material and brand new songs from recent albums such as Potboiler (2007) and Corporate Moronic (2009).

www.theverlaines.co.nz
www.facebook.com/theverlaines
www.myspace.com/theverlaines

Tono (Anthonie Tonnon) wrote his debut EP Love and Economics as an attempt to define what it was to grow up in the 'Rogernomics generation,' but the EP took on new meaning
when it was released in the midst of a recession in 2008.

Tono and his band The Finance Company (Chris Miller, Andrew Straight) are set to release
a new untitled EP, recorded with Tex Houston, that leaves behind the old themes, and the
Beatles‐esque pop of the last, but retains Tonnon's emphasis on character, his ironic wit,
and post-modern attitude to songwriting. The lyrics take on a darker, sharper edge, and the
rhythmic, grinding guitar- ‐based music owes it's sound to some of the Verlaines'
contemporaries.

www.tono.co.nz
www.myspace.com/tononz

Simon Comber's first album Pre-Pill Love introduced New Zealand to a songwriter of quiet insight and shrewd economy. His sophomore release 'Endearance' has for the most part traded acoustic for electric guitar, and is in some ways the folk-rock counterpart to his folk-pop debut. Despite more amplification, his love of narrative songwriting remains, with new songs like The Jaws of Life and Please Elvis staring down the barrel of the darker side of human relations with equal parts candour and compassion.

Recorded at the Masonic Lodge in Port Chalmers, Comber enlisted the help of Dale Cotton (Conray), Darren Stedman (The Verlaines) and Tom Healy (The Low Spark) to contribute engineering, drums and bass respectively and help bring his new songs to fruition. The result is a brooding electric folk-rock album of great beauty.

www.simoncomber.com
www.myspace.com/simoncomber

Event listed by The Bedford

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