The Continuing Story of Vostok Lake: news, updates, blogging

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Our good friends at Random Static have finally gotten around to offering all previous Vostok Lake albums (and Daphne's pre-VL solo albums) for download, both in MP3 and glorious lossless FLAC format. Stay tuned for announcements about a major Vostok Lake gig in early 2020; and for news about the long awaited second album, Comics and Stories. The short version is: 7 songs are in the can. How can you help us finish it???

Auckland lesbian electropop duo VOSTOK LAKE will be performing a special Valentine's Day set at the Dog's Bollix, just off K' Road in Auckland.

VOSTOK LAKE is Tricia Hall (vocals) and Daphne Lawless (keyboards) - a married couple as well as a musical duo - who have been bringing their combination of synth-pop, progressive rock, performance poetry and queer cabaret to Auckland audiences since 2018.

So I just manually imported most of the good stuff from the old, deprecated Wordpress blog, for the historical record.

When David Bowie left us a couple of months ago, a lot of people talked about – quite apart from what his music meant to so many people – what his image, his personality, his presence meant for those of us who were growing up queer and/or gender-queer back before all the cool kids were doing it.

Keith Emerson was that, for keyboardists.

So, it’s probably time to give a proper news update, for those who are still friends of Vostok Lake music.

So I’m playing some gig in a dingy basement at 3am, and who should be in the audience but one of my greatest influences as a lyricist and performer, Andrew Eldritch from the Sisters of Mercy. So we go for a drink afterwards and he says he’s impressed by what I’ve done and he wants me to play a “live-in-the-studio” demo gig for some bigwigs in the music industry he knows, at his private studio. But on the day my equipment doesn’t work properly, my voice is shot and everyone walks out halfway through, and Eldritch tells me how disappointed he is in me.

Q.  Jesus you really do like your synth-pop 80s music…

Well, yes. And I love my 70’s prog-rock as well. The two most Critically Incorrect music genres of them all! Let me be more precise – I love Sigue Sigue Sputnik, and – prepare to vomit – I think Emerson Lake and Palmer did some good work in their early years.

CONFUSED? Then let me explain the connection in greater detail…

So. It’s my sad duty to mention that the Auckland Electric Salon has gone into indefinite recess. Great apologies to all our fans, supporters, and insane participants. The decision is due to a mix of (a) organiser burnout; (b) steadily declining interest from both performers and audience.

New music! New gig! But first a few words…