SUGAR ARMY

Are we done yet? Can I move now?

The past month has been fairly tedious but also extremely interesting in the Sugar camp. We have for the first time produced and directed a video by ourselves, a learning experience to say the least. Why? Well there are a few reasons. The first being, I think all this time in a band has definitely had an effect on our combined mental health. It seems the harder something is, the more we’re drawn to it… If something seems straightforward or easy then we automatically dismiss it or question it and assume it isn’t that good. Which of course is untrue and frankly just plain retarded. But alas, that’s how we roll.

The second being our distant friend money, whom occasionally pops in to say hello but never stays long and leaves without a second glance. Anything to do with film is ridiculously expensive, as anyone involved will tell you. This idea in particular would have cost a packet had we hired a bunch of professionals to do it; due to the time it takes just to shoot one shot. We decided to try our hand at stop motion photography and for those who are uninitiated, it is literally like watching grass grow, or in this case, a tree being pruned one leaf at a time. Riveting stuff!!!

The main reason though however, is that we generally quite like the process of putting the visual element together. It’s a fairly involved process but a cathartic one and we see it as being just as important as writing the music. Putting it in the hands of someone else can yield tremendous results as we’ve seen in the past, but it is often hard (from our experience anyway) communicating our ideas visually, and the results end up different to what we had first imagined, as it is essentially someone else’s take on our music. To put it simply, if we do it ourselves we can do whatever we want without anyone having influence on it.

We did however enlist a few good friends who are involved with film to help us out with some of the technical aspects of the process, so it at least looks like we have some clue as to what we are doing. This has been our second attempt at a video for ‘Hooks For Hands’ and hence why it’s taken so long to get one out. The first attempt had its moments but we didn’t feel excited or in love with the overall result so we had to can it, which was not an easy thing to do after a bunch of work had gone into it. The pressure to get this one right has been building steadily throughout filming, but we are confident we have a strong idea and this one will end up a winner. So fingers crossed.

We’re just in the final stages of editing now and will have something to show you very, very soon.

We would like to specially thank Sam Price, Pierce Davidson, Josh Rampling, Tim Sommerville and Iestyn Williams for helping us out. These hidden gems gave us their time, professional advice, sarcasm, dirty jokes and selflessly endured immense boredom to help us achieve a result we are now very proud of. We would also like to thank Dom Pearce and Rob Woods for all their help in the lead up to this shoot.

Pat

Some ideas on ideas

I feel like I’m in a damn loop again. I’ve arrived back in a state that sort of won’t me out, or rather I won’t let me out. It’s like every thought falls down a mini rabbit hole, on a path to detail over detail over detail, then a dead end… just back up a little. 

It’s like working in a void with magnificent ideas floating down out of space into your head, you see it, grab it and then feel cool about it. Even twist it round a little to see it’s other faces. Fantastic glimmers of clarity and solutions to ideas pass by but the gap from there to reality feels so great.

These last months have been intense, hard but somehow fun. Gearing our heads into alignment and seeing something through from start to finish is a long process. There have been failed attempts at ideas, and good learning curves travelled but I still am scared of the abyss between that inspired thought and making it reality.

Technical solutions are one thing that gets me excited, things that can be done to make an idea pop out but there’s always something standing in your way - is this self created or somehow purposefully placed there to make one learn? Ah, I’ve completely gone down another rabbit hole again!

Delving into ones thoughts again, how arrogant of me that I should put it on here and think that maybe someone would read this!!

Best,

J.

You should probably get that checked out…

Hooks for Hands: This song somehow reminded me of a time when we were staying in Sydney’s finest backpackers - The Billabong Gardens. Its one of those places you stay when you first start out and everyone is literally crammed in on bunk beds in the same room. One night we’d been out to our favourite Italian restaurant (We always sat at the same table and ordered the same dish) and after a few drinks we all walked back to Billabong.

Somehow on the way back, after a slight detour through a local playground, I noticed something was not right inside my left shoe. Once we were back I took off the shoe only to notice that my middle toe was overlapped on top of my foot and kinda facing an odd direction. We couldn’t work out if it was broken or dislocated so we decided to visit Steph (Manager) who was staying with a friend across the road. As we’re showing Steph and her friends the damage, all of a sudden one bystander starts carrying on. “You need to get that checked out straight away!” he said firmly. We all looked at each other puzzled as he repeated “You need to go to the hospital now!” We all started giving him odd looks, before he finally said “That happened to me a couple of years back and look at me now!” He lifted his trousers only to reveal he has two prosthetic legs. For a few moments we all thought  he was serious, but then broke out in a cheeky smile and chuckle. The guys erupted into laughter, while I was still kinda freaked out I was gonna get my leg chopped off all because of a dislocated toe. It was a good trick. We ended up calling a friend who was a medical student. We were told to simply yank it back into place. Jamie did the honours i was left with a very black toe (this may be on youtube somewhere). So for the rest of the trip this is a hot topic and forms part of our peripheral thought.

All of a sudden we start to notice many colourful and interesting characters walking around Newtown. Maybe Hooks for Hands spawned from this early trip to sydney? I don’t really know, but somehow the song slightly reminds me of this story. 

Todd