Run! Hide!

Run! Hide! are more than just a rock ‘n’ roll band – they’re one of the most intense and wild live acts on the Australian hard rock scene. Formed in early 2006 in Sydney’s inner west, this transcendent five-piece has amassed a dedicated following among live music fans that like to wash down their hard rock with a few cold ales.

Blending blues, metal, hard rock and punk, Run! Hide! have built up a powerful and distinctive sound that has rocked stages at most of Sydney’s best venues, including The Annandale, Candy’s Apartment, The Landsdowne, The Empire, Manly Fishos and The Excelsior. Run! Hide! have headlined several gigs, as well as played support for international acts like Cancer Bats (Canada) and Mink (New York), and local favourites like Hell City Glamours, Furcurve and Deez Nuts.

Run! Hide! have received solid airplay on Triple J's Short Fast Loud program with the song 'Vampires' being played on numerous occasions. The band was also selected to feature on the premiere show of Triple J Unearthed TV on ABC2 in early November, and had the track Kings Of The Day featured for a week on the Triple J Unearthed Jukebox. Run! Hide! were profiled, interviewed and reviewed on the biggest online punk rock magazine, Bomshellzine.com on different occasions.

On the back of huge live support, Run! Hide! have just released a blistering five-track debut EP in early 2008 with producer Dave Hammer in Studio Von Hammer in Alexandria. The debut recording consists of five hard-rockin’ compositions, including the melodic blues-rock of Let It Go, the brutal power of Your Crush and Vampires, completed by the rock epics Kings Of The Day and Hourglass. The EP has received rave reviews in Drum Media, Blunt, FHM, Waves and Zoo magazines. The EP is set for release in late February 2008, so expect to be hearing much more from this powerfull and versatile band.

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Chris Gibbs

At an average of 250 performances per year, Chris Gibbs is one of the hardest-working musicians in Western Australia.

Chris performs regularly both as a band member and a soloist. He plays lead guitar for up and coming WA artist CLAIRE CLARKE and lead guitar for his own new instrumental project, FASHION WITH A GUN. Chris' other original act, KINGPIN, has recently completed a new album which is due for release in 2008.

Visit FASHION WITH A GUN and KINGPIN myspace pages here.

Chris also keeps busy on the Perth cover circuit with popular rock cover band HUGE. On his 'nights off', Chris performs as an acoustic soloist, singing and playing his own compositions as well as laid-back arrangements of some of his favourite songs.

In 2008 Chris will release his first guitar instructional DVD, 'Too Much Rock For One Hand - The Lost Art Of Two-Handed Tapping'. Click here to visit Chris' myspace page and see examples of his instructional style.

Chris is a DIGITECH endorsee and also uses 'pinup girl' guitar picks from our Collector Series.

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Mike Dees

Mike Dees is a Singer/Songwriter from Memphis, Tennessee. A prolific purveyor of Southern-fried power pop and veteran of many bands, he recently struck out on his own and hasn't looked back since. Whether playing solo acoustic or with a full-on rock band, he always delivers heartfelt (if slightly acidic) lyrics and ragged jangle rock.

Imagine 1970's AM rock (Neil Young, America) mixed with British Invasion and Power Pop (Big Star,Teenage Fanclub, Gin Blossoms) filtered through a ragged dose of distorted bliss (Soul Asylum, Husker Du, Guided By Voices). Like a candy-coated razorblade, these pop gems slide down smooth before the internal bleeding of emotion sets in. With these sugary bitter-pop nuggets, you can't eat just one. Crunch all you want, he'll make more.

His debut 5-song EP, "Buried" is available now. The full-length album "Unearthed" is coming very soon. Look for his cover of the obscure Jellyfish track "Let This Dream Never End" on Sensory Lullabies:The Ultimate Tribute To Jellyfish from Burning Sky Records. His version of the Jellyfish song "Deliver" is featured on the bonus disc available with orders. His version of the Posies song "Flood Of Sunshine" will be featured on "Beautiful Escape:The Songs Of The Posies Revisited", coming in May from Burning Sky Records. His song "Fields Of Light" is featured on "Wednesday Nights In Memphis", a benefit CD for St. Jude's Target House, available now.

You can find out more information by going to Mike's official website www.mikedeesmusic.com or you can visit his myspace page by clicking here.

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SMF

SMF formed in February 1989 in Belgrade, Serbia, as a project of four musicians who were already playing in their own bands. The idea was for SMF to perform at a festival, held at SKC, and play hardcore music influenced by bands like S.O.D., G.B.H. and Suicidal Tendencies and for the lyrics to be simple, kinda "sick", sarcastic and even ridiculous. The result appeared to be a quite unique style, brutally sounding and aggressively played music, full of weird breaks and unusual guitar riffs leading to bizarre harmonies. SMF are masters of not taking themselves too seriously. Some people consider that SMF followed this original idea so closely that a completely new sub genre was born: "Sick Core".

SMF's first line-up was:

Kokan - vocals (bands: Amnesia, Kerozin, X-centar)
Djura - guitar (bands: Crist, Brainstorm, Overdose, Svarog, THC)
Dare - bass (bands: Genocide, Heller, Brainstorm)
Francuz - drums (bands: Charisma, Amnesia)

After the concert at SKC, Djura and Kokan returned to their own bands. Due to the positive reaction of the people who heard SMF's songs, Francuz and Dare decided to continue working. They were joined by Sale (Bands: Kerozin, Saht) and Sola (Bands: Brainstorm, Svarog):

Sale - vocals
Dare - guitar
Francuz - bass
Sola - drums

In this formation SMF worked until 1994.

After a couple of gigs, in 1989 SMF recorded their now legendary DEMO at the Zodiak studio. The demo contained 9 songs and lasted for about 10 minutes total. Don't be fooled by the duration - it does not take away from the quality. Even though this demo was later supposed to appear as a single for the "Start Today records", it was never formally issued. However, the demo has been carried "from hand to hand" and spread by word of mouth, so wherever SMF played, people knew the songs and accepted them well. This demo is still very interesting today, even though these songs can be found on their first official album. The production was raw (and fierce), and the style being authentic hard core from the late eighties.

In 1991, upon the breakout of war, the band stopped working. During that period SMF did not feel comfortable with the aggressive style of their music given the situation within this region of the world. They began working on new songs using the conflict as inspiration, waiting for better times to come, times that were seemingly nowhere on the horizon. Everybody got used to the all around madness… SMF ended up completing the material for their first album. At the beginning of August 1994, for a marathon 30 hours the band recorded "Dalje neces moci..." ("You can't go any further..."), at the Focus studio. The material was issued by ITV Melomarket (aka ITMM). The album contains 26 songs.

Sola left the band in 1994 and joined Svarog. Taking his place was Boris, formerly of Brainstorm.

The line-up of SMF became the following:

Sale - vocals
Dare - guitar
Francuz - bass
Boris - drums

The same line-up remains today.

SMF began preparing new material in mid 1996 and continued writing through to the beginning of 1998, when they recorded their second album "Lako cemo" at the Akademija studio. The music stayed aggressive and hostile, the production of the album was now much better than their first release and the lyrics were still provocative, direct and carrying a hidden meaning. The CD edition of this album represents the first formal multimedia disc of any domestic band in Serbia.

SMF as a band exist primarily to play live. Their style is energetic and this is best displayed up on stage in a live situation.

In 2000 work began on a 3rd album. After amazing 6 years of work, 14 new songs were completed and mastered by the end of 2006. SMF's unique sounding rhythms and harmonies, have now developed beyond the boundaries of standard hardcore and crossover. While influences of metal core, traditional metal, punk rock and funk were usual before, now in SMF’s music could be found some elements of fusion, industrial, break beat, drum‘n’bass and even a some traces of purely electronic music, like techno and trance. The album was finally released in November 2007 for PGP-RTS.

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Joe Matera

Melbourne based artist Joe Matera is a veteran of countless original and cover outfits and currently leads his band Double Vision as lead guitarist doing covers of 1970s and 1980s rock classics. Most recently Joe has joined Chris Doheny, taking up the role as new lead guitarist for 80's band Geisha.

For more info on Chris and Geisha, please visit www.chrisdoheny.com

Joe is probably best known for his many interviews and features that have appeared and continue to appear in countless music magazines around the world from Australian Guitar, Blunt and Australian Musician in Australia to Metal Hammer, Bass Guitar Magazine, Total Guitar and Kerrang! in the U.K. As well as Guitar World and Maximum Ink in the U.S and Snaggletooth in Canada, and many others across the globe. He also supplies exclusive interviews to Ultimate-Guitar.Com, and contributes to UK's Guardian Series Newspapers' Limited Edition magazine as well as Fairfax Newspapers' M, The Sunday Age in Melbourne. You can visit Joe's website for a complete list of publications www.joematera.com

In his capacity as music journalist, Joe has interviewed a who's who of the music world as well as spent time on tour with numerous artists. Artists the calibre of Aerosmith, Slash (Guns 'N' Roses, Velvet Revolver), Kiss, Motley Crue, Iron Maiden, Status Quo, The Doors, Allman Bros. Band, Bon Jovi, Black Sabbath, Def Leppard, Korn, Motorhead, Deep Purple, Judas Priest, Marilyn Manson, Cheap Trick, Toto, Tool, The Cars, The Scorpions, Smashing Pumpkins, Queen, Nickelback, Alice Cooper, Slayer, Foreigner, Blondie, Yes, HIM, Linkin Park, Sonic Youth, Staind, Kings Of Leon, Silverchair, The Buzzcocks, John Mayer and many, many others.

His guitar playing work has also graced several recordings including a guest appearance on legendary UK metallers Atomkraft's forth coming studio album titled "Past, Present and Future" which is due for release in late 2007 via Iron Pegasus Records.

Joe's Gear when performing with Double Vision consists of an Epiphone Gibson Les Paul Standard with Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB humbucker through a Laney VH100 head and Laney cab. Joe also uses a Boss Chorus pedal and Fender Tuner.

Joe is proudly endorsed by Maton, La Bella Strings, Laney Amplification and Grover Allman

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