"Recently, we have just released our second full-length album, titled Hollow, and have just been over touring in Australia with Architecture in Helsinki on our third trip there this year. Other trips have been for things like the Splendor in the Grass Festival and we also did a run of shows alongside Friendly Fires (UK)."
Cut Off Your Hands has had some interesting experiences on tour, including a show in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 2007.
"Playing at Summersonic festival in Tokyo, Japan a couple of years ago was also surreal: the crowd applauds rigorously for five seconds between songs, then goes deathly quiet almost on cue, waiting for the next song."
Johnston says it's been too long since the band played in Dunedin.
"We played at Refuel, and it was a really fun night, I remember a stage invasion, which we used to have back in those days, and recall as I was singing looking over to our bass player, who was making out with someone while still playing our last song ... strange but good times."
Cut Off Your Hands, The Verlaines and more play at Sammys tonight.
• Birthday party
Monkey Killer Records, Dunedin's only strictly vinyl record label, has released a bevy of sonically mind-bending records since its inception in October 2008.
It is throwing a celebration for its third birthday with a show using a two-stage set-up in the surrounds of Bennu and XII Below on Sunday, October 16.
All the current bands with a release on Monkey Killer will be performing, including Mountaineater, Operation Rolling Thunder, and Idiot Prayer, along with the more contemplative Dale Cotton project Conray and the closest thing you'll ever get to the remnants of Onanon with the catchy death-obsessed gnarly rock of Kilmog.
• Here next week
Singer-songwriter Mel Parsons brings a fresh bag of tunes to the South next week as she tours New Zealand in support of her new album, RED, GREY, BLUE.
Following on from the success of her Tui folk award-nominated debut album, Over My Shoulder in 2009, RED, GREY, BLUE ranges from gentle ballads to rustic textures and upbeat pop-rock.
Parsons will be joined by her band The Rhythm Kings.
Mel Parsons and The Rhythm Kings play the following dates:
- Oamaru Opera House, Thursday, September 29
- Chick's Hotel, Port Chalmers, Friday, September 30
- The Winehouse, Queenstown, Saturday, October 1.
• Later on
Tiny Ruins has announced a national tour, which includes a date at Chicks Hotel, Dunedin, on November 12. The tour will follow a foray into the UK, where her album, Some Were Meant For Sea, is to be released earlier that month.
