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The Septembers
...begin, (as all good stories do), with a chance meeting.
K' Rd, Auckland, New Zealand, 2004. After another solo gig with an extremely well travelled acoustic guitar and supported by whatever drinks were being brought to the stage, Anthony Stretch was introduced to Sean Harvey via a mutual friend. Harvey had come along to watch his friend play but ended up staying for the duration of Stretchs set, (in it's gorgeous entirety).
Sean was recommended as someone who played guitar with real feeling. Anthony was mostly impressed with his George Harrison circa '65 haircut and shoes.
Stretch had recently returned from Europe where he had been living, writing and playing from Glasgow to Portugal, now finding himself in back home in New Zealand with a world of songs burning a hole in his pocket.
Harvey was playing the kind of intensely melodic electric guitar that was soon to be a perfect match for this songbook. Within a few weeks the two were playing and forming a sound that falls between the gaps of their shared influences: Wilco, Radiohead, Elliott Smith...
An unofficial first gig one evening in a lounge full of friends and neighbours followed. And after much debate, suggestion, drinking, chin stroking, innuendo, more suggestion and some more drinking, the two were dubbed
"The Septembers" by the end of the evening... "that's not crap, that'll do!"
As the songs took shape, a proper real gig was blagged, as support for Irish singer-songwriter, Damien Rice.
As fanatical fans of his debut album, there were just a few nerves beforehand. But an unforgettable show in front of a packed and cheering audience at Studio, (K' Rd) resulted. Beginning the run of gigging that hasn't stopped since. (Though not always to so many people, do the bar-staff at Eden's count as a crowd?)
Their evolution quickly continued with the arrival of Andrew Dukeson on drums. His dynamics and talent for arrangement lifting the songs into the kind of music this new band wanted to write.
And after debate over a bassist OR cellist, Huw Jenkins, (on upright double bass!), completed the picture and added to the already unique sound they produce.
The Septembers are a melodic mix of acoustic and electric, songs full of soul, uplifting and personal, finding and losing, remembering and forgetting, taking off and landing...
Band Members:
Andrew Duke (drums)
Anthony Stretch (vocals, acoustic guitar)
Nigel Chang (bass, keyboard)
Sean Harvey (guitar)
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