Hey there,

sorry for the lack of updates. There was a lot going on throughout the last weeks, and mainly there are several videos i’d like to share.

At the end of november, we played a great show in Vienna with Astpai together with The Arteries (UK), The Slow Death (US) and Mikey Erg. My girlfriend Vicki filmed nearly our whole set with my iPod and you can check it out right here.

As you may have heard already, we where busy the last months writing the new Astpai album which will be called Efforts And Means. On December, 10th, we presented all the new songs at the annual Neustadtpunk Network Party. Aul of BHF put some videos of that evening, which can be found here:

ASTPAI – Biting Dogs Don’t Chew
ASTPAI – Give Us Today Our Daily Bread, Cars And Flatscreens
ASTPAI – Stalactites Of Heart

But not enough! I’ve got even more videos today! :)

Our whole recording session is being filmed and documented by our friends Bernd and Matthias as they’re currently working on a short documentary about the history of Astpai.
Here’s a short teaser for what’s going to be coming up along with the release of “Efforts & Means”:

Oh yeah, speaking of releases.. We’ll bring out a 7inch-split with Ants from Graz, Austria in January.
  The record will contain brandnew material of both bands and it will be part one of a 7inch-split-series out on Schall und Rauch Platten from Vienna.

The really cool thing about this is that we’ll be playing two release shows next year (Jan 31st, Arena, Wien / Feb 01st, Musichouse, Graz) and every visitor gets a free copy of the record at the door!

That’s it for now i guess.. Expect some more studio-updates very soon!

Cheers,

Toni.™

Hey,

some cool videos from our tour in September:

Tour impressions:

 

Performing The Flatliners’ “Meanwhile In Hell” with Astpai @ Arena, Wien:

 

The Flatliners performing “Liver Alone” @ Arena, Vienna:

Upcoming shows:
- 2011/11/22 @ Wien, B72 w/ Astpai
- 2011/12/10 @ Wiener Neustadt, Triebwerk w/ Astpai
- 2011/12/17 @ Timelkam, Gei w/ Astpai
- 2011/12/23 @ Feldbach, Glam w/ Astpai

Hey,

I know it’s been a while now since the last update. I actually wanted to post a short review about our tour with Astpai last month, but I still haven’t got the pics George did, and I really wanna add some photos to my review, so you’ll have to wait a little longer.. Yeah, I know it’s my fault for not getting into touch with you, I’m sorry George!

What else happened in the last weeks? Well, we played our last show with Sommerregen last friday, mostly due to the fact that Walli, Martin & me decided to end this chapter to make room for other musical projects we’re all spending time with at the moment..

Furthermore, we spent the last days pre-producing with Astpai, and we managed to go through 80% of the songs in the week before Marco and Zock left for the Netherlands and the U.S. So, we’re perfectly prepared to hit the studio, which is scheduled for december. You’re not gonna here any new songs for some time up here, but we’re already planning a pre-recording album-”presentation” to keep you guys up to date. ;) More on that soon!

Peter Wonsowski, who helped us out last minute with creating the cover for our Astpai/ The Flatliners 7″ Split, recently posted the whole artwork in his blog. There are also a lot of other great works up there, so check it out!
Oh yeah, I remember promising a photo of the 7inches once they arrived. Well, i still didn’t manage to take any, but I found this nice pic on the web (i think this guy did it, but I’m really not sure since google finds a lot when you look for “dustin gerrett”. But anyway – thanks, Dustin!):

Astpai/Flatliners Split

If you’d like to have a copy (we’ve got a few left) just e-mail me! For everybody who would rather spend his money on better things, we’ve uploaded our version of The Flatliners‘ “Meanwhile, in Hell…” to Astpai’s Bandcamp-Page for free online-streaming!

That’s it for now. No upcoming concerts in a while..

Cheers!

Hey there,

I’m sorry there weren’t any updates, but it’s just not that easy to find internet access on tour, especially when your macbook battery broke down and you’re depending on a power outlet somewhere near.

Anyway – tour has been great so far! We’re in Arnhem, Netherlands, right now, stagetime 23:00. I’m excited to play since I finally found a perfect replacement for my cracked 20″ zildjian avedis medium ride, which i used as a crash for the last two years: We visited that 2nd-hand music store near St.Pauli-Stadion, Hamburg, and i got myself a Tosco 20″ cymbal (can’t figure out if it’s supposed to be a crash or ride, but it does a great job anyway..) from the 70ties. Sounds superawesome!

We’ve already uploaded two videos, the first shot in Graz, the second one in Hamburg (performing a brand-new song), so feel free to check them out:

That’s it for now! Expect a bigger update once I’m back home!

Cheers!

Hey,

can’t wait to go on tour again, finally. Our Astpai/ The Flatliners-Split should hopefully arrive tomorrow. It’s not the first time the new record is finished last minute.

Anyway, i’ve got some packing to do. As always, i’ll post some updates on twitter.com/tonimagpie or right here every now and then!

Cheers!

Hey,

my page isn’t perfect yet, i’m still not really confident with the whole layout and stuff, but it already works at least. Only if you try to view a single post or wanna comment on something, the whole thing get’s really messy, but i’ll hopefully be able to figure that out within the next days.

But now to the important things:

September is here, which means that we’ll be on tour with Astpai next week. I’m so much looking forward to playing some shows, meeting Flats again and being on the road with Zock and Marco as well as Bernhard, who joined the band recently and is definitely a huge personal gain in all aspects of a band’s every day life.
So here’re the dates:

09/08 – HU – budapest – óbudai próbatermek w/ Brackets Closed
09/09 – AT – oberwart – oho w/ Brackets Closed
09/10 – AT – linz – ann & pat w/ Brackets Closed
09/11 – CH – basel – sommercasino w/ The Flatliners
09/12 – DE – munich – feierwerk w/ The Flatliners, Brackets Closed
09/13 – AT – vienna – arena w/ The Flatliners
09/14 – AT – graz – music house w/ The Flatliners
09/15 – CZ – prague – 007 w/ Slates
09/16 – DE – berlin – so36 w/ The Flatliners
09/17 – DE – münster – café lorenz
09/18 – DE – hamburg – hafenklang w/ The Flatliners
09/21 – NL – eindhoven – kafee aloys w/ Mark McCabe
09/22 – NL – arnhem – willemeen w/ Mark McCabe
09/23 – NL – utrecht – acu w/ Mark McCabe
09/24 – DE – naumberg – tank w/ Tackleberry, Cobretti, From This Day On

As you can see, we’ll also play the first few shows with Brackets Closed. Sadly Stefan, our drummer, and Martin, our guitar-player, didn’t have time to play, which means that we’ll be playing those shows with Zock on drums (= 3 guys in both BC and Astpai… could get weird at some point, haha) and Andi on guitar, a long-time friend of mine who helped out on drums on the BC-Tour in April and is now playing the same songs on guitar.. great guy, great guy! :)

We’ll also be playing a show with Astpai tomorrow in my hometown together with Soey and Reizend – should be fun.

Oh, speaking of Soey. They’re leaving on a west-europe-Tour tomorrow, equipped with their brand-new super-awesome album “Headwind“. Please check out www.soey.at – they have a free album-stream online as well as all the information about the record and all the tourdates!

That’s it for now. I’ll be working on my page the following days and will probably post another update sooner or later, at least to upload some pics of our Astpai/The Flatliners-7inches which should arrive here on tuesday.. ;)

Cheers!

Hey,

you may realize that some things currently look weird/ don’t work etc. – this is due to me trying to fit my website into a wordpress-blog to make updating a lot more easier.

As you can see, the basics are done; I’m currently just messing around with layouting headers and content, sizes and margins and all that stuff.

I’m sure I’ll be able to get everything back to normal very soon.

Stay tuned,

Toni.™

Hey there,

I’m again sorry for the lack of updates. We had a lot going on the last month, so I’ll try to give you a short review of everything:

 

New Astpai Release on LaserLife Records

We already announced it some days ago: We’ll release a split 7inch vinyl with Astpai together with The Flatliners from Canada.

It all started some months ago when I asked Chris if they’d like to bring out a 7″ on LaserLife Records for their upcoming Euro-Tour. Flats loved the whole idea, so we decided to bring out a split with Astpai and having every band cover a song of each other.

We kept in touch, finally went into the studio, got the whole thing mastered and sent our songs to the pressing plant some weeks ago. We’re really, really stoked about it and can’t wait to finally hold the finished 7″ in our hands.

Here’s how it will look like:

Tracklist
The Flatliners – Southwards (taken from Astpai’s “Heart To Grow”)
Astpai – Meanwhile In Hell (taken from The Flatliners’ “The Great Awake”)

This split will be available at all Flats/Astpai Euro-Tour shows in september only!

- 2011/09/11 @ CH Basel, Sommercasino
- 2011/09/12 @ DE Munich, Feierwerk
- 2011/09/13 @ AT Vienna, Arena
- 2011/09/14 @ AT Graz, Musichouse
- 2011/09/16 @ DE Berlin, SO36
- 2011/09/18 @ DE Hamburg, Hafenklang

 

Astpai Recording @ S.T.R.E.S.S.-Studio, Graz

We recorded the song for the split in june at almighty Tom’s S.T.R.E.S.S.-Studio. I haven’t had the chance to record drums in a studio that often before, and never in such a proffessionally equipped one.

Working together with Tom was great from the minute on whe arrived in Graz. Part of the drums where already set up and tuned, all i had brought were my few cymbals i knew i want to use (hats, my hybrid crash, my z ride), the rest was chosen out of stuff Tom has in his studio. It took us some time to decide between all those snares with different skins and all those cymbals, but in the end we came up with an awesome sounding and well-rounded set:

Drums:
DW DRUMS Collector’s Series
22″ Bass Drum w/ Remo Powerstroke3
12″ Tom w/ Evans Genera G2 Coated
16″ Tom w/ Evans Genera G2 Coated
14″ Tama Snare w/ Aquarian Modern Vintage Medium

Cymbals:
Zildjian Avedis New Beat Hi-Hat 14″
Zildjian Custom Hybrid Crash 19″
Sabian HH Duo Ride 20″
Zildjian Avedis Custom Rezo Crash 19″
Zildjian Z Light Power Ride 20″

I had the idea to use three crash cymbals instead of two quite some time ago, but had never really played a set that way. With the combination of the two Zildjian Crashes for accents and the Sabian Ride for crashy hammer-through parts, however, i was more than happy and felt comfortable with really fast.

The snare we used was an old wooden Tama Tom bought for 60€, a little deeper then the one i’m used to play, but sounding great, especially because Tom had put one some knew hoops. We used an Aquarian skin which I never used before; it didn’t feel any different than the Remo skins I’m used to play, but I wasn’t really that convinced by the sound, although in the end-mix it turned out great.

The drums itself were a blast! Tom told me that they are borrowed from a friend who ordered his custom set directly at DW – I rarely had so much fun behind a set.

Here are some impressions:

Brackets Closed Recording
Yeah, we hit S.T.R.E.S.S.-Studio, Graz, again last week to record drums for a new Brackets Closed album. It’s about three years since we recorded our last (and first) album Roadside Billboards, and it was a lot of fun to get back in studio and get some good old Punkrock on tape.

After three days Stefan, our drummer, and me drove home with 14 awesome-sounding drum tracks, and we’re more than happy with them.

I’ll post some more news on that on our Website when I have time. Furthermore, expect some regular updates every now and then on the recording-process and the finished album somwhere around summer ’12!

 

Last show with The Liberation Service

So, I already told you that I decided to leave the band some weeks ago, and last week I played my last concert with my dear friends in The Liberation Service @ B72, Vienna. The venue was completely crowded and the show was a lot of fun; and I found myself both laughing and trying to not cry at the same time throughout the whole set. Althought I played in this band for six months only, everthing turned out quite emotional in the end, and i was more than happy when Cis came up to me after the show and told me that they would probably need me again to help out at one or another show in the future.

Once again, a big “Thank you!” to Verena, Cis, Bernd & Flozi for 21 great shows within the last year. I had some good times with you guys!

w/ The Liberation Service @ OHO, Oberwart, 2011/07/01Well, that’s it for now.. Expect some more news within the next week, assumed I’m not too lazy. ;)

By the way… I’ve added a “contact”-page (at the bottom of the site) some weeks ago, so you can finally get in touch with me! :) I’m sorry about the mail-form with captcha and stuff, I know how annoying it can be, but you can also imagine how annoying it would be for me to get tons of spam-mails. That’s why i prefer a form instead of simply putting my mail-adress online. Hope you understand.. However, once you got in contact, I’ll write you back and we can communicate with pure e-mails, exluding captchas. ;)

Please feel free to write me if you have any questions, remarks or suggestions for improvement! I’ll gladly receive any mail from anyone!

Cheers!

Yo,

just came back from tonight’s show with The Liberation Service. We played a small open-air festival and it was fun, with quite a lot people showing up.

Sadly, there are some bad news to announce: It was some days ago when i decided (and yeah, it was a f***in’ hard decision, believe me) to leave the band, mainly due to lack of time, which consequential lead to a lack of motivation within the whole band. As much as i enjoyed every second on stage with those awesome dudes, it was really hard and stressful for me to make some time for rehearsals and shows.

It took me some time to realize that that band could do a lot more (and do it a lot better) if they had a drummer who’d be willing to put some more time and effort in it – so when i told the guys that I feel like it’s time to quit and end that chapter after 6 months and all in all 21 shows (if i remember correctly), including one awesome week of touring throughout the european mainland, everybody seemed fine with that decision and could see my point.

I’m glad that I had the chance to share several great moments with Verena, Bernd, Cis and Flozi, who are all 4 great musicians and where really inspiring and influental in so many ways over the last months.

There’ll be two more shows to celebrate, so make sure to be there!

- 2011/07/14 @ Vienna, Aera (+ Oil&Water)
- 2011/08/02 @ Vienna, B72

So, there’s actually not much to say anymore, apart from: Thank you! Thank you, for all the good times we had together, and i hope we’ll meet again in another place, time and band, since i really enjoyed and appreciated the chance to “work” with such great musicians; and i’d be pleased to jam around with you once again somewhere in the future.

Please feel free to follow The Liberation Service by having a look at theliberationservice.net every now and then..

cheers.

Hey,

i promised some news, right? Well, here they are: We finally found our new steady bass player for Astpai. I’m superglad to have Bernhard (you know him from Brackets Closed, a long-time friend of mine, on board for the adventures coming up next year.. :) read the official announcement at astpai.org.

Expect some more news on upcoming Astpai-Releases that year within the next days!

Vicki and I managed to finish the artwork for Jack Holmes‘ EP just in time; you find the 3-track EP on jackholmes.bandcamp.com and can download the whole thing for free, including the whole artwork and an awesome special “poster”.. ;)

Upcoming Shows this week:
- 2011/07/08 @ AT Fürstenfeld, JUZ w/ The Liberation Service
- 2011/07/09 @ AT Pinkafeld, Stadtfest w/ The Liberation Service