The Sun sets on the Peppermen!
This is a caricature I did for the Museo de Humor in Fene-Spain Exhibit 2014
This is a caricature I did for the Museo de Humor in Fene-Spain Exhibit 2014
Morning Folks. It's coming down in steady showers. Rain pools in the unven spaces of my roof and runs off to clatter on the concrete path to the clothes line.
Sydney's purging itself of heat again. Thankyou low pressure system, the heat was stifling.
We have a period of low Show activity, rare for us. I was bummed about it until i thought of the good some downtime might do. We've been pretty active of late.
We've just set the recording date for Don't Take It So Hard On Me which brings us up to...hang on...better calculate...
Mr Wizard says 4 parts to 1 song still make it one song, but imma count it as 8 so there.
We, as in 'me' with some bemused looks from the other cellar fellers, decided that the next release should be limited to songs from and around the last tour.
That means we still have yet to record;
Altogether that's 11 songs (well, tracks). that's an albums worth. ish. I'm still set on this project being a Soundtrack style album.
Most of the single-ish stuff we've already put out as we've been going, except for Sweet Mama which is still is post production.
Everywhere feels like home and it's variants are still unreleased (but I get to listen to them, it's good to be me :-) and I've been thinking about release formats.
Digital release is easy. Pressing cds? Some people are a definite YES, some are 'why bother?'
For the most part, I think people have moved to a Playlist for managing music. I think they choose what they want to hear from your group of songs and it's as individual as well, each individual.
That almost makes the idea of a CD with a fixed order and narrative irrelevant. Or does it?
I'm ok with having two opinions on the matter, or most matters for that matter. Never preclude that chance that you could be wrong/right. Thank you quantum opinions.
So on one hand, yay for the USB, the download, the ability to craft playlists.
On the other, yay for a narrative, an order, someone who has thought out the emotional roller coaster of an album.
Then again, both Rosie and I are either running cable or Bluetooth on roadtrips, so plastic cd's? hmmm...
In the case of this current project, I'm keen on creating at least 1 LP equivalent with an order and some other random stuff in it, but i am wondering if we can do both - create a data repository with all the songs + a disc image with an order as selected by them what made it.
I've been toying with the idea of releasing some of the guide tracks on a bonus disc/directory where you could hear the progression of the song from guide track to studio release. Hmmm...
Meanhwile, Mr Wizard has been back in the workshop experimenting with new wonders
There's a time lag between writing, working on, performing and recording a new song. That often means the track has been with us for some time before it gets an airing. On the other hand, that can be as little as a few hours, as in the case of 'Dropping by' which we wrote up at Tamworth this year and played that night.
There's a batch of new stuff Mr Wizard brought in whilst we were busy doing Everywhere Feels Like Home Variations and we've been working on them.
Once again, contention arises. Great. I'm all for the creative conflict. It's worked so far. Viva el Argumento over all the little details.
Whilst working on lyrics for a song called 'chalk angels' I noticed the symmetry of the chorus and wondered if the right stuff also showed itself visually. Noise or signal? :-)
By the time our next show rolls up, there will be new songs, and in fact the first show booked in Feb will be a real trip.
We wrote a song for AWE wrestling because
A: we could
B: we could
C: How awesome is this? huh? Huh?
We'll be there playing 'Return of the King', an unrepentantly noisy little number celebrating Blokes who have the willingness to pursue their dreams.
You didn't see that one coming did ya?
Let's hope we can continue to suprrise and amuse :-)
Howdy Folks.
To celebrate Australia day, we're releasing we released this song called The Flood
I'm trying to work out a d/l function for a celebratory giveaway deal type thing so we can give some copies away but the module I had went kerplooey. in the meanwhile you can have a listen to the song.
As I write this I realise I owe a great debt of gratitude to my 5th class teacher, Mr Maitland, who inspired in me a love of Bush Poetry.
Mr Maitland never tired of Henry Lawson, made us reenact choice scenes from a gold rush story and read to us, with passion and conviction, poems by bush balladeers such as Banjo Patterson and Dorothea McKellar.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!
For the rest visit the official Dorothea McKellar site cos they asked me not to post the whole thing : http://www.dorotheamackellar.com.au/archive/mycountry.htm
For my money, no one sets you more in the mind of the New South Welshman than Banjo.
There's something quintessentially Australian about his awe for the bush, something universal amongst us, even for those who view the 26th of January through a sadder frame.
Antipodeans, imports all, for none truly emerged from, but all came to, her fatal shores.
For those who have travelled in the darkness and the wonders of diamond studded skies, clawed red earth and mud from the cleats of your boots or wandered along an empty beach wondering if you were the only person on earth and made a little sadder to see a far figure, you are united in your awe of the far flung place in which you find yourself luckiest to be.
I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just `on spec', addressed as follows, `Clancy, of The Overflow'.
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
`Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are.'
In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving `down the Cooper' where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.
And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars.
I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all
And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the 'buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.
And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal --
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of `The Overflow'.
Thank you Mr Maitland.
The Flood
She’s empty in the dry
Shying from the sky
Deep beneath her sands
does she keep hidden
The lone & single spark
The secrets of her heart
A piece of her to herself
she’s forbidden
But comes the time
her seasons change
The heavens open
cross her plains And rivers
She breaks her drought
with flooding rains
And riders,to a man
lift up their gaze.
So lay me down
In the press of the waters
No I won’t drown
Float like a reed in her creek
She’s not far now
Though I fail at her borders
If I wait until her rivers’ rise
the flood shall carry me.
Through all does she endure
The heat and dust so cruel
green and pleasant lands
so long forgotten
The sharpness of her gaze
her azure skies inveigh
a fearless binding will
that can not soften
But you who do not know her well
tremble ‘neath her tempest
and her fury
yet to her summons will I fly
when shadows
grow much longer
than my days
Here's a track that Rosie's been digging on and switched me on to.
Bombino's like Tinariwen with Chord changes :-)
owdy folks. How's that for a clickbait Headline ? Not bad eh? Clickbait is not a new phenomenon however :-)
I did actually have a point related to the headline, but first, relaxing pictures of Clouds.
Ahhh.
Turns out both Rosie and I are nuts for weather formations and one of the great elements of any trip are the patterns as you drive.
More of that in a minute.
We're back from a short run across the first week of the festival where we were the alternative to the alternative. We're not sure what the alternative is but whatever it turns out to be, we're either for or against it.
Meanwhile
Tamworth is on the move, the population is pushing 40K and new housing developments are springing up.
Unusually for us, we arrived to clear blue country skies.
A symphony of station wagons.
Our first show was an early evening show on the first weekend of the festival.
I was trying to video our sets using this new sports camera - when I get the footage sorted I may even post some of it here :-)
We used the first show to do a set of all the nice stuff we don't do at Pub gigs.
Big Thought #1 - Songs and People that listen to them or not
Songs model emotional states* (see how music works by david byrne)
On our albums the songs travel from Happy (cant tax love) to to Sad (even in a lifetime) , Introspective (feel so blue) to Extroverted (give me somethng I want).
When people are out and about they tend to want stuff to dance to. That means some of our more contemplative things get sidelined.
We make the distinction between audiences that are there to listen - they will tolerate more introspective or gentle musics and riskier musical ideas, as opposed to audiences that are there to party - crank it up baby, let's dance!
Getting this read on the audience right is crucial.
The festival crowds are a combination of both. We silenced the Albert one night with 2 vocals and a guitar, coulda heard a pin drop. Same show, 2 songs later, it was all about raucousness and dancing.
Chaos theory is alive and well represented in stochastic audience analysis as performed on the fly by your favourite cellar dwellers.
With our shows at regular evening intervals we had a very well orgnised enforced period of relaxation
New songs!
Quinoa Salad
Back to the pub for another show
Rinse and repeat
Big Thought # 2 - Absence of evidence or Evidence of Absence?
Scuttlebutt and rumour have no place in an evidence based process.
Fortunately this is a blog.
There has been talk over the years of dwindling crowds attending Tamworth. I really dont have the empirical data to state yea or nay, but here's three four (anonymised) quotes
Mother of four - 'It's too expensive to bring the family, CMC rocks the hunter is cheaper' (maybe but I hear it's moved to Ipswich so there)
Local Resident 1 - 'Yeeep, the numbers are down'
Local Resident 2 - 'there's lots of accomodation still available so late in the year, not a good sign'
Performer - 'yeah but the club is packed mate'
True to form, it only took a matter of days before the Stormcellar Weather arrived.
I'm still seeing rainbows
We did an early morning interview with Georgia at the Country Underground blog. I'll cross link when the vids posted. Rosie and Mr Wizard kindly ignored my suggestions and picked a high range vocal song for an early morning session. I am not entirely done exacting my revenge on them yet. I may also post pics of that process.
and what would a country show be without the chicken wire?
Big Thought #3 - Tributes to the gods of youth and beauty - or Country Music as Human Sacrifice
This year we missed the breakfast at (CENSORED), where, for each of the preceding five years we had watched a new beautiful, gorgeous, talented, well spoken, heartfelt Young Female Country Singer introduced as the winner of the 'XYZ' contest (or equivalent).
Each year a new one.
I've worked with previous tributes (yes I do think it's Hunger Games-ish) who have been somewhat less starry-eyed at the end of the process and somehwat bemused when the Love Tap gets turned off.
Time to start singing 'New Kid In Town', or in our case, 'Country Radio' - (Just another bleeding soul, singing on a country radio).
No, not a moral judgement here. Something even stranger.
I recently visited the Aztec exhibition and was doing a little reading courtesy of Louis (hey L!) because I couldn't wrap my head around the whole sacrifice deal. It bugged me. The willing participants even more so.
Continuing Big Thoughts on the role of music, this perpetual discarding of the previous winners in favour of the new strikes me as more of a celebration of youth and beauty's flowering each year, than a quest for Music. Some deep, jungian link to a Celtic past of maidens in garlands and peat bogs.
Ok, I promise not to think too deeply for at least an hour.
Here's some relaxing cloud pics.
We had a great week in Tamworth that could only have been made better with a few more days to see some of the great acts up there.
I hope it continues to be a beacon for anyone that wants to participate in music, even for those folks who might think a little too much :-)
Along our drive back we got lost thanks to an outdated GPS map. I love getting lost.
We stopped to smell the Rosie.
The journey, that's the thing.
Oh yeah here's some great drumming from Theo.
Howdy Folks.
Apols for the lack of blogs but I didn't get a roaming wireless deal and logging in to blog back end on a mobile sucks. I am going to have to deploy a solution for that.
That often means we blog to Facebook cos its easier when on the move, sad to say. So that means if there's no update here you can check https://www.facebook.com/stormcellarband just in case we gave in and used FB. (sigh)
Big 5 gigs, big drive and now I'm listening to the mastered version of 'The Flood' and the secondary mix of 'Sweet Mama Told Me' which I am not liking as much as the initial mix candidate.
Therefore, all systems normal again. We're back in the Emerald City and work continues.
I'll update the blog with some stuff form our trip after a well deserved chill out time and some listening to these new tracks plus the new one we did a guide track for up in Tamworth.