Substation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Substation can refer to:

• Electrical substation
• A police substation (a mini police station with limited services)
• The Substation, a Singaporean contemporary arts centre

Substation is an New Zealand 80's psychadelic Rock band, formed on May 25th, 1999.

The name was formed in 97 in Wellington when Marc and his friends used to get drunk and listen to music. Having a huge interest in making music but having no instruments to play they used to make noises ie Air Guitar and drum sounds etc. As Marc recalls "One day sitting in Buddy Fayens lounge, we were thinking of band names and I looked outside the window. There was this big old concrete building. I asked Buddy, "What is that?" "It's the Substation", he replied.

Marc soon moved up to Auckland where he attended MIT. The birth of Substation was about to hit.

Marc " The Boris" Becker and Eddie Jones first joined forces in 1999 after meeting at MIT - Manukau Institute of technology, the first source for their lyrics and passion against Niggers. The song Save the World relies heavily on ideas and events they endeavoured during their time at the Institution. Substation main source of inspiration has come from bands such as Metallica, Iron Maiden, Tool, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd among others.

Substations visions have always been to 'have fun'. Their simple-catchy yet amazingly original structures have keep listeners coming back for morwa.

"It's simply amazing that Substation have only 2 members without no musical training!!. I mean listen to the song 'Young Boy' and 'Blazing Demon' and tell me that's not outstanding, even for a 5 piece". Rolling Stone Magazine 2002

Early Days

The first years of Substation was nothing more than an electric guitar and computer generated drums using the progarm computer program Presto, or as referred to by Becker, TAB TAB E or later shortened to just TAB TAB. The early sound produced by the drumming was said to have an 80s pop feel to it, much to the disgust of Becker, this was put to rest by the time Save the world was released with a much deeper harder hitting sound.

Many hours were spent hammering out songs and as Eddie said "In the Early Days everything seemed to flow, we would make hit after hit". Of course their latest song Blazing Demon, is very much a more sophisticated song but took 3 times as long to create.

Breakthrough

The early days of Substation didn't bring with it much success or mainstream recognition until the hit song Herpes was released in September 1999. Written whilst having a kick around with a football at a local school, the initial phrase, "spreads diseases worse than coughsa and sneezes" was coined and later the song was written about local girl Sam Green, who socialized with the same crowd as Becker and Jones, after it was found she had contracted the STD herpes and spread it through many of Jones and Beckers close friends. "The term she spreads diseases worse than coughs and sneezes" summed her up quite nicely quoted Jones. Herpes was an instant success and was praised by first time listeners as an instant classic.

The next breakthrough hit for Substation was the song Save the World , not as readily accepted by the local critics due to its constant use of racial slang and homophobic tendencies the simple yet grunty main riff and chorus where the songs main attributes along with the mind blowing keyboard skills of becker which were later translated into drum kit form.

Anothoth lead guitarist Paul Andrews who later accompanied Substation by playing Bass commented, "its just a groovy song, i love to play it, guitar or Bass, youve gotta love it."

Photopages and Xtra – morning jams and Bob Ross

In 2003 Jones start to work from home for a company called Photopages and with Becker working night time shifts at Xtra this meant for more consistent jamming sessions. Long time friend Bob Ross would accompany the sessions and recording time was at a premium. It was during this time Dreams of Death was written, a dream encountered by Jones in which he was placed inside a glass tank with a glass lid shutting off his escape, the tank was filled with water until he could no longer breath then the water was flushed out and the process repeated, the final time Jones ran out of breath he awoke gasping for air. Becker wrote the lyrics to the song Dreams of Death after being told of the incident and penned the guitar riff along with Jones. The main chorus referring to the dream, “ I had a dream last night, I was to be executed, lying in this icy tank as they filled it up water” still sends shivers down my spine quoted Jones.

During this period, Young Boy (also known as Juve in Italy) was written, bootlegs such as the kids in East fukkin Timor and Dr Reynolds may be found.

Becker gets drums

Up until 2004 Becker had relied heavily upon the computer program Presto to generate the drumming sound, in 2004 he purchased his first drum kit and the rest as they say is history. Known for his highly polished symbols and enthusiastic double kicks, the future looks bright for the talented drummer from Taita.

2006

Midway through 2005 Becker joined forces with long time companion Paul Andrews. They formed the group Anathoth with Tricky Ricky. Paul Andrews became a regular at Substation jamming sessions and has been involved in the evolvment of the latest masterpiece Blazing Demon, a sub culture epic with deep riffs and punchy a punchy bass line. Since then Save the World and Zues have been re recordied with Andrews taking on Bass duties.

Tracks

1. Herpes

2. Save the World

3. Young Boy

4. Dreams of Death

5. Blazing Damon

6. You come when they Call ya

7. Who the fuk are ya

8. Zues