GRAEME JEFFERIES AND THE CAKEKITCHEN BIO

The Cakekitchen - A short review of the bands long history. To put faces to names and how people looked (more or less) at the time check out the initial pictures in the Gallery part of the Homepage. For the sake of brevity we´ve had to skip over some things fairly quickly (or we´d be here until the cows came home), but here, nevertheless is the story of what the band known as "The Cakekitchen" has done so far, and who´s been in it when it did it. How they´ve managed to hop from one log to the next, without falling into the water and just what there was to see and experience on the other side of the river...

Formed out of the ashes of pioneering early 80s New Zealand music collective "This Kind of Punishment" The Cakekitchen led by head baker Graeme Jefferies has made quite a name for itself over the years, releasing 9 full length albums, a few EPs and some 7"s along the way. Graeme has reinvented the band on several occasions and has also based it in a few different countries. At one time or another the group has set up operations in either New Zealand, England, France, Holland or Germany and has achieved a sort of red eyed five in the morning legend status amongst a small but dedicated group of people as to what it´s actually done and how it´s achieved it.

Offically kicking off in early 1988 "The Cakekitchen" first started as a two piece guitar, vocal and drum project with drummer Robert Key agreeing to help Graeme play a series of live shows at the Rising Sun Tavern on Aucklands notorious "Karangahape Road" to promote the then new release on Flying Nun Records "Messages For the Cakekitchen". The 2 piece format (an idea used by The White Stripes to great effect years later) evolved into a more easily palateable 3 piece lineup with the inclusion of young Auckland bass player Rachael King. Together they toured New Zealand 3 times, recorded two albums worth of material and made a healthy impact for themselves before calling it a day and going their seperate ways in April 1990. Graeme relocated himself to London, reforming the band with fellow "Kiwis" Keith McLean and Huw Dainow while Robert toured the world playing drums in a slilt theatre group and Rachael stayed in Auckland for a while before winning a ticket to London in a radio competition.

Together Keith, Graeme and Huw made the "Far From the Sun" album, toured France, gigged in England and drove some 5000 miles around America playing shows at the legendary CBGBs and Maxwells as well as other key cities like Chicago and Boston. It was a rags to riches story with everybody going home barefoot or at least with a hole in their sock. Graeme had spent most of his remaining money on a mail out to over 30 different record companies and had just lost his job in London when he got a positive response from Ken Katkin at Homestead Records of New York ( a label founded on the brains and good taste of Gerard Cosloy and Chris Lombardi).

Legend has it that Graeme was down to his last 20 pounds when he got the letter from Ken. Amazingly enough, Kens´ letter has survived the journey and is actually accessable to read in the memorabilia section of the Homepage. Homestead provided just enough financial muscle to float the band for a couple of years. Tim Adams of "Ajax Records" in Chicago also took an active interest in the band and, as well as re-releasing the "This Kind of Punishment" back catalogue also issued on CD and LP another version of Graeme´s (then deleted) "Flying Nun " solo album "Messages for the Cakekitchen". Two very cold English winters took there toll on the group and they closed up shop with Graeme relocating to France, Keith getting married and returning to New Zealand and Huw staying in London for a while before moving to Australia. Keith, Huw and Graeme also had the honour of being the first New Zealand band ever to play the prestigious "Tegentonen Festival" at the Paradiso in Amsterdam.

Happy to be out of England and begining the year with a free short term apartment in Paris, Graeme (almost by accident) teamed up with French multi instrumentalist "Jean-Yves Douet" and the two of them nailed the idea of the two piece line up back together and began playing shows in Europe that were organised by concert promoter "Dirk Hugsam". This line up of "The Cakekitchen" made the critically acclaimed "Stompin Thru the Boneyard" and "Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" and what they lacked in personal, they more than made up for with hands, legs and fingers, managing at one time or another to play 6 different instruments during the course of their sometimes over two hour long shows.

The band also label hopped in the USA changing to North Carolina label "Merge" who helped them to tour the States again. They also started releasing material through Rough Trade Germany via the Bavarian label "Raffmond Records" run by Edmund Epple and Markus Acher. Jean-Yves and Graeme played more shows together as "The Cakekitchen" than any other line up and did concerts together in 7 different countries. They even managed to fit in a short New Zealand Tour in 1994 and this is the last time the band has played in it´s native country. Jean-Yves and Graeme finally hung up their boots after a rousing set at the "Fast Forward Festival" in Nijmegen in 1995.

Sneaking a ride back to Bavaria in Wolfgang Petters´ old band bus and pondering what to do next Graeme was offered a job at Raffmond. He worked promoting the label through Rough Trade Germany and teamed up with "Notwist" songwriter "Markus Acher" when Markus offered to help with some of the drum and percussion parts for the material he begain writing in Bavaria. This was the first time that anybody from New Zealand had worked with anybody from the Weilheim scence and the pair of them helped Edmund to stare the boat known as Raffmond for a long way down the Isar during the course of Graeme´s year in Bavaria. The first song they worked on together was "Down At the Cooler" and during the time Graeme was based in Landsberg they kept on borrowing the old Tascam analogue 8 track that Wolfgang owned, dragging it up the road in Markus´s car and recording stuff in the local Hausmusik practice rooms together. They began working on the songs that would end up on the album "Everything´s Going To Work Out Just Fine" in the summer of 1995, (the Wechslerhof was one of the coldest places in town during the summer) and finished it off around a year later.

Touring wise Markus and Graeme went on the road in Germany and Austria taking with them the Americans "The Mountain Goats". The Cakekitchen´s "European Tours" have always had a good amount of different nationalities on board and this has always added a lot of fun to the receipe. Markus and Graeme played live together for the last time at the Hausmusik Festival in 1996. Other musicans from the Hausmusik collective such as Stefanie Böhm and Marion Gerth also added pieces to the Cakekitchen´s Bavarian recordings with Stefanie adding some gorgeous violins to a cover of Michael Hurley´s "Wild Geeses" and Marion adding some backing vocals to the second Cakekitchen single "Little Foxes".

At this point Graeme scored another record company job, this time working for Rough Trade Records in Nordrheinwestfalen and played shows there with good friend "Andre Richels" playing drums. In Cologne they played to over a 1000 people. During this time Graeme also met music director "Paul Lemp" and together they recorded some of Graeme´s new material in Paul´s "Gambusa Studios" in Bochum. Over the next 2 years Paul and Graeme worked spasmodically together, sometimes transfering things from Graeme´s analogue 4 track to Pauls 8 track. These very different brains eventually hatched the most obscure Cakekitchen release to date "Talking To Me In My Sleep".

It came out on the bands own label with handsome handmade packaging in a very underground style and is one of the hardest Cakekitchen releases to find. It seemed that Graeme working in the music industry had the opposite effect to what you would think it would but in reality things were looking towards a sunnier day. Germany and European record company land actually suited the "Mothership Cake" well and over the next 7 years the German recordings yielded a succession of very tasty results..

The German years were helped tremendously by the success of Graeme's songs in the Leander Hausmann youth movie "Sonnenallee". Graeme wrote the title song and also came up with a wonderful piece for the films love scene. The movie went Top 5 and was a huge success. It was seen by over 5 million people in the first year and the CD of the soundtrack sold over 20 thousand units. Sonnenallee is still regularly shown on television and in the cinema in Germany and is also available on DVD and video. It is a humourous story about life and love in east Berlin before German reunification and Graeme´s theme song offers the optimistic view of that although life in the DDR may have been hard and incredibly frustating at times the citizens there made up for these problems with a healthy attitude towards irony and life itself.

While living in Germany Graeme also began working with Belgian violinist/celloist "Dieter Roseeuw". They worked on a number of pieces together and with the addition of drummer "Herbert Dee" played a live performance at the 10th Hausmusik Anniversary Show. More live work followed in when Graeme played solo for the first time in 10 years when he took to the road with Robert Scott´s "Creeping Unknown Package Tour". The tour was a healthy 14 shows and after jamming with Robert in a hotel room in Dortmund Graeme started to join Robert's band at the end of the night to play some additional songs with them such as the classic Flying Nun chestnuts "Tally Ho"and "Anything Could Happen".

After seeing The Cakekitchen perform at the Hausmusik festival "Michael Heilrath" of Couch and Blond fame offered to help Graeme with recording some of his new material and the two of them began work on what would eventually become the "How Can You Be So Blind?" LP. Laying down all of Graeme´s rhythm guitar parts, vocals and most of the guitar overdubs in 3 days Michael then started working on string arrangements for the songs and added bass and percussion parts as well. Notwist headbaker "Markus Acher" rejoined the fold in October of that year to put drums and percussion tracks to all but 1 of the recorded songs.

Alles Wie Gross celloist "Mathis Mayr" and violinist "Osamu Nambu" quickly followed suit, working on Michael´s string arrangements and Graeme and Michael continued to bash things into place over the course of the next year with Graeme returning to Munich on several occasions to add more overdubs and supervise a lot of the sessions. They finally finished the new project in late 2003 and having previously had an offer from Wolfgang Petters to release the recordings on "Hausmusik" were happy to deliver the finished tapes and artwork to him. Graeme has been involved with various Hausmusik things over the course of the years and it seemed a logical home for the recordings. The new album received very favourable reviews worldwide and rekindled much more interest in Graeme's music.

Live concerts was undertaken to promote it and The Cakekitchen went on tour again with an expanded "Bigger Than It´s Ever Been" 4 piece line up. Another Cakekitchen album called "Put Your Foot Inside The Door" was released in mid 2005 and gained good reviews and Graeme was invited by The Vienna Songwriting Society to play a show in Austria in the middle of the year. He also played a set of shows in New Zealand. It was the first time he had played in his own country for over 11 years and the concerts were well recived.

In late 2006 the next collection of songs was unveiled. It had the longest actual title of any of album issued by the Cakekitchen and was called "Everything's Driving You Crazy Cos You Just Can't Get What You Want". Graeme also played a show in Denmark that year when he was invited to Arhus to do a set at the Pop Revo Festival. At the start of 2007 Graeme decided to relocate back to New Zealand but before doing so he teamed up with German drummer and "Ship of Ara" songwriter "Groucho Kangaroo" to play some farewell shows in Nordrheinwestfalen. The shows and the line-up itself yielded some great things and at some point the two of them will probably get back on the horse to do something similar again, time and oceans apart willing.

The final German album of songs came out in mid 2007 and was called "Stories For Late at Night". Released in the USA by West Coast label "Unfun" the album marked a return to domestic releases in the USA and long term string player Dieter Roseeuw contributed some lovely strings on four of the songs. Graeme also introduced an the old forgotten medieval instrument called a Gamba to the proceedings, featuring it on most of the CD's orchestral tracks. He also brought himself a cello. There are still a few bug eyed electric guitar moments on the release as well and it is the longest collection of songs released by The Cakekitchen clocking in at over 55 minutes long.

There was still however one last song to come from the hinterland recordings. It turned out to be one of those rare yellow diamonds that get stuck in your teeth because you didn't expect it to be in a pineapple. Much to everyone's delight 2007's last shard turned out to be a split single with Moscow guitar band Dairy High. A record for the "Guinesss Book of Records" it marked another hole in the kitchen wall opened by fate. The amount of paper work it took to get the project done was staggering but the seven inch came out remarkably well and is one of the most "weighs as much as an album" singles anyone has ever seen and is well loved by those lucky enough to have one.

Pressed in the Czech Republic, but designed by Christian Witt in Germany, (with one song being recorded in Moscow and another in Nordrheinwestfalen) the production parts went through the wires, post and customs department a staggering amount of times. It's a grand testamant to what can be achieved in this day and age with a bit of patience and a lot of luck and stamp licking. The project opened the door for future things to happen in Russia.

By the time it came out Graeme was back in New Zealand working for Marbecks records in Auckland. He based himself in Auckland for a while and wrote a few more songs before starting work on a special multi instrumental performance in Sydney featuring former Nocturnal Projection bass player Brett Jones. This time with Brett playing drums. The show featured planned theatre pieces and the musical performance involved the live use of electricfied six string (viola like...but not really) gamba for the first time. Those that were there were got a good airbashing and were mightily impresssed.

It was the first time Graeme and Brett had worked together for many years and they put in long hours working on the Bald Faced Stag show for a couple of months. Their newly converted homebase studio attic on Gordon Street proved to be a great place to do recordings and write new material and over 20 new compositions were written under the hot Australian sun. The premier for the show was recorded in surround sound and on video on the 1st of December 2007 and a commerical release DVD of the show is still in the pipeline.

Brett has since relocated to Saudi Arabia and Graeme is now back in New Zealand. Most of the started in Australia recordings have been finished and a new album of songs in underway. It will be a 12 song package and will be out on early next year. Another surprise turn of events saw a different kind of wall fall over when Graeme was invited to actually play a couple of live shows in Russia and to produce a recording session there for Dairy High.

The concerts took place at the end of June 2009. The first was at the 16 Tons Club in Moscow on the 23rd of June and second was at the Sachi in St Petersberg on the 26th. Graeme hired a cello from one of the players in the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra for the shows. He also borrowed the Dairy High band members themselves to perform live with him. It all worked out very well and is the first time anyone from the New Zealand Underground Music Scene has ever played in Russia using Russian musicians. A good amount of fun was had by all and Graeme wrote a tour dairy of his adventures there that is readable by accessing the tour diary part of the homepage .