Okay, first I’ll get to the point. We have a new song to listen to slash download at our extravagant new website - www.tonoandthefinancecompany.com

Almost exactly a year ago, I had to move out of my Grey Lynn flat. It was a nice flat - no stainless steel kitchen top, but it was homely and cluttered, with a record player and wooden floors and a patio to get bitten by mosquitos on, and busy flatmates who had stores of advice and wine and habits that hadn’t had time to get annoying yet. I was new to Auckland, feeling a little needy, and those flatmates gave me all the attention of a month old puppy.  But as the song tells you, we had a mean landlord, and in less time than it takes to prepare 2 minute noodles, I was homeless again.

It all worked out okay of course. I moved in a few houses around the corner. I’m still moonlighting with the middle class, and living in a beautiful, warm part of a pacific island, surrounded by cicadas and swimming beaches. But at the time it caused some pain. And that pain turned into this song, and people liked it.

Months later, I was back in my hometown of Dunedin with the Finance Company, nervously trying to record the song in a freezing old community hall with Tex Houston. It was a tense experience. The band had been going long distance for about a year, and if you’ve ever tried to rekindle a relationship after a year apart, you can imagine how the musical reunion felt.

The last parts we did were the lead guitars and the vocals. Logan Valentine skill-sawed through four improvised guitar parts in an hour and told us we weren’t allowed to remove any of them. We thought we weren’t going to find someone to sing the high note in the chorus (none of us could pull it off) until Paul Cathro snuck in while we were getting food, layed it down in 5 minutes, and left because he didn’t want us to see his new haircut. I was nervous. I thought we’d blown it, everything sounded unstable and broken.

But when Tex sent me this a month later, I was stunned. Yes, it was nervous, it was full of jumpy timing and mistakes. But I loved it. The tense, nervous energy in the studio had translated into something ambitious and dangerous. It was an attempt at a big, hooky pop song, but the way we played it had either made it a disaster or something great. Most likely, this all had little to do with us, and a lot to do with the painful process of mixing Tex had put into the mess we’d given him. But either way I was really proud of it. Of course, you might think differently!

We had a really exciting thing planned to release this song in November last year (hence the rush to record it) but it didn’t work out - sometimes these things don’t. So, as we’re about to start recording, but I can’t say what will come out or when, and as I don’t want to sit on this song any longer - The one year anniversay of my deportation from Northland St seemed like an appropriate time to put it out. Enjoy.