David Yetton - Blow Out Your Candles
Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 6:31 pm

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Singer, songwriter, bass player and founder member of The Jean-Paul Sartre Experience - signed to Flying Nun Records in 1986. JPS Experience released three albums and two E.P's, toured the U.K., Europe and America, won Best Film Soundtrack at the New Zealand Film and Television Awards and released the top ten album Bleeding Star and top ten single Breathe before their demise in 1993. In a subsequent post-mortem the band was shown to have died due to an allergic reaction to the music business.

In 1997, with help from members of The Muttonbirds and JPS Experience, Dave released the self-titled album The Stereo Bus. Largely a solo-record under the guise of a band - this album of self-penned tunes went on to win Album of the Year at the first ever b-Net music awards and was nominated for Album of the Year at the grown-ups New Zealand Music Awards. By this time Dave, and his band The Stereo Bus, had become a live entity and as such were honoured by nominations for Most Promising Male Vocalist, Best Live Act, Most Promising Male Fox, Best Live Promising and Most Live Male.

Despite being executively produced by Neil Finn the second album from The Stereo Bus "Brand New" got fuck-all awards ... none-the-less it was a great record - moving a young journo at the New Zealand Herald to a five-star-review-frenzy ... proud owners of this "difficult second album" still swear by it... and it garnered a nomination for the song "Birthday" in the 1999 A.P.R.A. Silver Scroll Awards.

The Stereo Bus took some time off ... mental exhaustion, stage-fright, road safety campaigns - all these things took their toll on the band whose members are now spread around Australasia.

The songs contained on this album could well have become the third Stereo Bus album but due to the amount of time that has elapsed and the fact that Dave wished to return to a solo recording approach it seemed more appropriate to release the songs under his own name.

These songs were first recorded using an acoustic guitar onto a clunky old tape cassette recorded in the bathroom ( 'cos the acoustics were good ), later, with Dale Cotton producing, the basic tracks were recorded at Platform Studio in Auckland in mid 2004 and the album was then completed (slowly) in Dave's home studio.

This is a record that is as true to where Dave is/was at in his life as he could make it - a guy who prefers staying at home and fluffing around the house more than going out - a soon to be, and then actual, father of two - a general homebody who likes cooking, walking the dog, being with his family and girlie home-decorating more than is perhaps healthy, or normal, for a musician. In a desperate attempt to try and make his chosen lifestyle appear slightly cooler and hipper than it actually is he has decided to make a record about some of these things.

A self-confessed purveyor of sissy-pop Dave has taken this, his first solo album, to a whole new level of limp-wristedness ... please bring a hanky.

Personnel includes -

David Yetton - Vocals/guitar - ex. The Jean-Paul Sartre Experience and The Stereo Bus.
Dale Cotton - Producer/Engineer - has produced H.D.U., Dimmer and Sleepers Union among others - as well as his own musical project Conray.
Edmund McWilliams - Bass Guitar - Ed Cake - ex. Bressa Creeting Cake
Ross Burge - Drums - ex. Mutton Birds, Dave Dobbyn’s band and appeared on the first self-titled The Stereo Bus album
Bobby Kennedy - Drums - ex. The Stereo Bus - currently a member of Op-Shop
Francis Hunt - Guitar - ex. The Stereo Bus, Sleepers Union
Gareth Thomas - Accordion - Goodshirt
Anna Paris - Backing Vocals - appeared on Sleepers Union - Giant Spheres album
Jason Smith - Piano, Harmonium, Rhodes Piano
Nigel Collins - Cello
Brett Adams - Acoustic Guitar