In 2022 I was approached by one of the Car Club members to make some recordings of a Brass Band. They had turned 75 (founded 1946) and nobody had recorded at that celebration! So digital recorder in hand, I went along to a local event they were playing at. This coincided with the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, and they played a special tribute to her.

As other groups were performing and time was short, they cut the number of pieces played, so a month later I drove out to the band practice and recorded some more. We were aiming for Christmas, but then information wasn't coming through while I worked and reworked the recordings.

I also did a ton of research on the 21 tracks. For example, did you know that France had strict laws about the length and format of operas in the 1800s? One track (affected by those laws) is the "Can-Can", or more formally the "Galop Infernal" from Orpheus, by Jacques Offenbach - only later popularised by the Paris cabarets.
The CD comes with an 8-page booklet loaded with such details.

January 2023 turned into aiming for anzac Day, then it all slid into June. Finally my contact and another veteran member of the Band just put up their own money for production as the Band took longer to warm to the project.

So for this one I did everything. Recording, audio production, research, more research, layout, writing copy, proofreading, all the artwork, and of course managing the manufacturing. Every last detail from concept until the physical delivery of nearly 100 CDs.

For 2016 and 2017, I created calendars for the Car Club. Enough were sold to just break even. It is a lot of work, plus I landed up being the lone saleman. People sometimes ask why we don't do another calendar. They know not what they ask for.

For the »Hamilton Vintage & Classic Car Club's 25th in 2020, I designed a special limited edition metal bumper-mountable badge. Only 50 of these badges exist, and of those 7 have the red and yellow swapped. The colour-swapped ones were auctioned off and raised funds for a good cause - an expensive piece of medical equipment for one of the departments at the regional hospital. The colours echo those in the standard Club badge, which are the Waikato “Moloo” (rugby team) colours - yellow, red and black.

In 2014 while we went on our first proper family vacation in many years and missed the coldest week of that Winter in NZ (yay!). Meanwhile some folks at our church had recorded an album during that time. When we got back I was asked to create all the CD case artwork.

This was all done in 3-4 days as everything was about to be sent off to production. Only some 100 physical copies of this CD exist, but it has been available for free on »SoundCloud. Another place to access the tracks is via the »Westside Church website.