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Self – Released October 4, 2013

Another gig from the late 90s; Kitten licks had been out for a while and we were basically touring all the time. This one was recorded via 2 live mics into a DAT player. The sound isn’t fantastic, there’s a bit of crowd noise, but the set has some good selections.

This gig was supporting Will Oldham (Palace Bros) at the Great Northern, on 13th Jan 1998. We decided to tone down the set a little, although you can’t really tell. Our “softer” songs such as Turn Over, Made of Stone, Low, Olive and Numb all got a look in. I think it was the first time we’d played Turn Over in more than 6 years. We closed the set with Monster, from Burn out Your Name, another very rare song in the set by then.

Enjoy~!

Live sound / recording by Jon Gardner, Great Northern Hotel, Byron Bay – 13th Jan 1998.
Performed by Tim Kellie and Dean.
Mastered and compiled by Tim.

Sound quality: C // stereo live mics // moderate background noise. Performance: B

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Self – Released October 4, 2013

We toured a lot in the 90s. Often we’d plug a DAT player in and record the gigs straight out of the desk or via live mics. Usually we’d have a listen in the Tarago afterwards and all cringe at our mistakes.

Listening back now the gigs sound pretty ok and we sound like a band who knew their songs reasonably well.

This was a fun gig, it was pretty relaxed – it was in during the long limbo period between Kitten Licks and Rocks on the Soul. Rocks.. songs Olive and Mr Tuba were already in the set. Right before Hi Cs came out as a single, it was also our first public performance of Triple Hook (and you can hear what a disaster that was).

We played other new songs too – Short Sighted and Too Bored – which never made it onto an album at all. Rarities Fooferon and Low made it into the set. We played an odd version of Dart – with no signature opening riff. We’d been touring so long and hard, and were so bored of Dart and Static by then.

The gig opened with Who’s Counting and Down The Drinker – these were unusable unfortunately due to the DAT disintegrating over the last 15 years and digital distortion wrecking those tracks.

This was Screamfeeder at the height of their touring career, still as a 3 piece, and we hope a good snapshot into the sound and vibe of the band in the late 90s.

Enjoy~!

Live sound / recording by Jon Gardner, Corner Hotel Melbourne, 9th Jan 1998.
Performed by Tim Kellie and Dean
Mastered and compiled by Tim.

Sound quality: C+ // stereo live mix. Performance: B

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Self – Released November 11, 2013

In late 2011 Dean announced he was going to live in England indefinitely. We decided it was important to play a last big hometown show with him, seeing as it was also 20 years since the band started. We called our buddies Violent Soho and Tape/Off who were into joining us for the gig, booked the venue and started rehearsing.

We chose a long and varied setlist, including a lot of songs we hadn’t played for over 10 years. We organised recording of the show and filming of a couple of songs. It was all a bit of a whirlwind but in typical Screamfeeder style it all came crashing chaotically together on the night.

There are a hell of a lot of mistakes in the performance. We left them in. Technical perfection wasn’t the aim of the night – we possibly should have rehearsed the old songs more however. Hopefully we made up for it by harnessing the energy and spirit of what the three of us are about as a band, as music fans and as people.

Matthew Dever recorded the gig for us on a pro tools rig by the side of the stage. It was chaotic – a lot went wrong. Some things we fixed, most we didn’t. Microphone stands kept falling over, there was a lot of spill between tracks, instruments went down from time to time. Kel’s bass cut out for ages. Dean’s snare mic fell off for a few songs; Matt replaced it in the mix. Darek’s guitar mic was lying on the ground for the entire section of the set he joined us for – from “Ice Patrol” onwards – we had no choice but for Darek to re-record it while mixing. He played it pretty much one take. There are two points where Tim overdubbed short sections of Kellie’s bass while mixing, but that was all the fixing-up we did. We could have cleaned up mistakes, fixed wrong chords, notes, lyrics and timing errors, but – we didn’t. This is a very warts-n-all recording, perhaps not for first time listeners of the band!

What we also did was to chop out long sections of guitar tuning, instrument swapping, and boring or inaudible banter. We’re doing you a favour, it’s not good listening. We also left out the part where we drew the winner of a raffle: we’d organised raffling a one-off screamfeeder “Bunny” distortion pedal, made by our friend Sylvain. Tim from Tym Guitars drew the winner (and donated the money to charity through his website). This wasn’t particularly good listening either. About 20 minutes of crap was chopped out altogether.

We were joined on stage by lots of guests, who sang on “You and Me”: Madeleine Paige, Branko Cosic, Amy Bennett, Nathan Pickels, Luke Boerdam and Seja Vogel. We were also joined by Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg (ex Pavement dude) who played guitar on our last song “12345”. A huge heartfelt thanks to all these people, as well as those who worked with us on the night or in the run-up, and everyone who braved the torrential rain on a Thursday night and came to the gig. Massive thanks also to Violent Soho and Tape/Off.

This sounds like a pretty crazy gig. But it was crazy in all the right ways. It felt like we’d done what we set out to do, it was super-fun, there was a lot of great energy in the room, a lot of smiling, sweaty, hi-5-in’ people.

Thank you everyone, we had a blast, we hope you did too.

To finish the story, Dean’s UK visit was cut short, he returned 6 months later and resumed his life in Australia. Like any band who announce they’re wrapping things up, we’ve inevitably started playing again. 

Screamfeeder: Tim Steward, Kellie Lloyd, Dean Shwereb, Darek Mudge.
Mixed and mastered by Darek at The Shed, October and November 2013.
Live sound: Dave Nolan
Lights: Greg Dux
Guitars: Phil Usher
Photography: Stephen Booth

Sound Quality: B+ / Stereo multitrack desk recording + live mics, some sound & technical limitations. Performance: B-

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Self – Released September 4, 2013

We played at The Zoo, in Brisbane on March 8th 2013, supporting Bob Mould (and band). It was a great night – our first proper band gig since 2011’s “last gig ever”.

This is a multitrack recording from the desk, including some sound from stereo live mics in the room. It was recorded by Murray Paas, and mixed and mastered by Darek Mudge. We’re very happy with the sound – and the performance isn’t too shabby either. Broken Ladder hangs on by a thread, and Needles has a hilarious period of slippage in the middle but overall it sounds like we know the songs pretty well.

Some bands are all polished ‘n shit.. and some bands make mistakes, play too fast, sing the wrong words, sing a little off key, don’t have in-between song banter prepared, and generally emphasise the feeling of the song and the energy of playing together in the moment over the technical perfection of a performance.

We’ve always been one of those bands. What you see is what you get – Tim, Kellie and Dean, live n loud; no tidying up – except for some short periods of incomprehensible mumbling – no edits and certainly no overdubs.

Enjoy~!

Sound Quality: A / Performance: A-

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