I first met Dave on Sounds Like Sunsets first tour to Brisbane when the whole band dropped into my workshop on their way to the show. Despite not knowing them or their band we nerded out over gear and music and quickly realised we had something special connecting us.
After getting a copy of Saturdays, their first release I was hooked. It, like their second release Invisible 4 years later in 2005 was both seemingly harder to get than they should have been considering the sheer quality of the content. Why weren't these records available everywhere? Why weren't they being played everywhere? That's another entire blog about easy going band members and the record industry but suffice to say, these were amazingly special releases that spoke directly to me.
Life and an ostensibly disinterested audience had put the band on a relatively sparce engagement although whenever they played a show, people would come out and feel like they were experiencing something special.
I'd text Dave and we'd talk every so often, as much as useless men do anyway, and we'd catch up whenever they were in town. When I started my label in 2012 SLS hadn't released anything new since Invisible. Out of the blue Dave asked if I'd be interested in putting something of theirs out on my new label. I was truly honoured.
We did a split 7" and the band did several instores including RSD2014 with the Hard-Ons. Not long after that instore we released the We Could Leave Tonight LP which I consider to be one the greatest albums to ever come out of this country. Dave's ability to mix noise and layers with pure, perfect melody is as good as anyone has ever produced. The songs are amazing and Daves beautiful and vulnerable voice offsets the full, almost overpowering racket perfectly. This album sits at the very top of the field as a perfect record in a world of almost perfect records, and I will forever feel privileged to be able to release it to the world.
You had so much more beauty to bring to this world and you will be greatly missed my friend.
"I'll put you first if it's the last thing I do"