2009 Year In Review >

22 December 2009

2009 has been a big year for Matt Finish and we’d like to thank everyone who has supported us including fans, friends, families, colleagues, venues and the media – bravo!

The past 12 months have seen the releases of the re-mastered classic albums Short Note, Fade Away and Word Of Mouth, plus rediscovered studio and live recordings culminating in the release of the Flight Case 12-disc box set, Matt Finish's most ambitious project to date.

A very special thanks to my friend and brother Rob Prior for his ongoing enthusiasm and guidance as executive producer of Flight Case, for writing the article in the Flight Case book, for researching and compiling the band’s history, for initiating Wikipedia pages on Matt Finish, Matt Moffitt, Ian Moffitt, Short Note, me and the extensive Matt Finish Chronology. He also maintains the band’s mailing list, sending newsletter emails to fans and responding to incoming emails.

Appreciation and admiration to Mr Glenn Bidmead who joined the band in March, invigorating performances with vast wells of spirit and musicality. We’ve only played twenty-something shows together over the year plus a dozen rehearsals and writing sessions, but we’ve had an enormous amount of fun. We’re excited about having enough new songs to record an album, so the next step is to lock-out a few consecutive days and record the band playing live here at my studio in Erskineville with variable acoustics, valve mics, valve pre-amps, valve compressors and valve eq through Apogee Ensemble converters into Cubase on the G5.

Glenn and I would like to thank the fine musicians who have also played with Matt Finish in 2009 including David Adams, Harry Brus, Tom Ruki, Kim May, Les Rankin, Russ Nelson, Glenn Kleesh, Victor Rounds, Dieter Kleemann, Rohan Cannon, Parrish Muhoberac, Andrew Morris, Dennis Val and Tim Gaze.

Many thanks to Pete Townshend, Peter Garrett, Rob Hirst, Tim Gaze, Wendy Matthews and Andy Partridge for imparting some quotable quotes about Matt Finish for our book and website – encore!

As you can imagine, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time on the Mac in the Herman Miller producing the box set, designing covers, packaging, arranging manufacture and delivery, maintaining websites, managing the band and practicing along with my favourite drummers on Youtube, so I should really thank my physiotherapist Efram Bunguric, who is also a keen drummer.

2010 is shaping up to be another busy year with dozens of shows confirmed in Sydney, Wollongong and Newcastle, including residencies at Hotel Clarendon Surry Hills and the Bald Rock in Rozelle > more shows to be confirmed soon.

Thanks to everyone who came to our shows in 2009 - see you again next year.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

John Prior