Stormcellar Band Home Page

Howdy Folks. in the 'Cellar working on new work. 

 6 hours later still at it.

But our mates at Troy Horse lay on Tea and Coffee :-)

The boys are working hard. 

Howdy Folks.

I'd like to sum up my feelings on Tour Planning.

and my personal feelings on organisation and logistics

But this is the age of the DIY musician and what's got to be done, has got to be done by us. 

Big ups to Rosie for his work on our 3rd US tour.

As per usual, we've been pretty quiet about what were doing because:

a) it's highly variable

b) we're highly variable (well, maybe just me)

c) Mentioning it could be viewed as Bigging Ourselves Up

in fact, the correct, "Baggy Green' approach to Australian Behaviour is to run everything through the Sir Donald Bradman flowchart, as endorsed by the inner-cricket-player aspect of our culture. 

For the benefit of our Overseas Readers, the best Australian heroes are understated but excel with the bat. Or Bat Equivalent, whatever that may be. If we wish to emulate our cultural icons, we are well advised to emulate their lack of Exclamatory Self Promotion

This is one of the many cultural differences between AUS and the US, some of which will feature in my thinking as we leave our shores (temporarily, don't worry Immigration), things such as

Your Dollar

our dollar

your leader

Our leader

(seriously guys that's our actual PM, not a Grindr pic)

Our Donald - understated, noble, a gentlemen

Your Donald.

Potential Leader of a future Conservative Government

Wanna swap for the dude in Budgie Smugglers?

Contact details on the side here Mr Trump, look forward to receiving your call.

Meanwhile, back to tour stuff. 

Reports are in that Triple M in Sydney played Low Low on Sunday night, so a tip of the hat there to Nancy for submitting the song and to a commercial station for playing it.

Long, long ago I gave up radio for Web based stuff, so even though I knew about it, I couldnt even listen to it in my car.  When the End Times come the Zombies may get me as I am Radio Fail.

We've been Bloody Fortunate to get the radio support in Indy land both here and O/S, and even that was a heck of a surprise - as in, hey wow, someone else is into the same sort of stuff we're into. You just dont take that for granted when you play Harmonica :-)

Accordion? Maybe

so we say Thank You Triple M, for playing our track.

We winnowed the current set list options down to 68 songs out of a potential 90 or so, or 83 if you exclude covers.

Due to the number of guitar changes that these songs entail and the fact that Mr Wizard doesn't like getting the stink eye from the rhythm section for stopping to tune during the set, we've been developing 'clusters' of songs that we can change between as needs arise.

DC called it feeling the spirit of the crowd. I call it 'switching to alternate material when you discover that tonights venue is a Honky Tonk'

So how do we combine the needs for variability plus the needs for ease of guitarist changeovers (wusses)? We develop 'clusters' of songs within the setlist, allowing some degree of 'settling in' plus the Emergency Stylistic Bail Out for times when there's a 98 Y.O lady in front of the stage and you're doing the song you wrote for the Wrestling Championships.

I kid you not, these things happen.

Each of the song cards details tuning, feel, tempo, style etc and putting them together into an order can take quite some discussion.

My vote is for for calling the songs depending on whim. That doesn't meet with great approval from the Guitar Section. 'All you have to do is pick up the right harmonica' they complain.

It's not that easy. I also have to

1. Make sure it's the right way round

2. make sure it's not upside down.

3. Ensure all facial hairs are waxed and out of harms way

4. Remember lyrics (can be hard. ever been stuck for a word? Try doing on stage. in a song. that you wrote the lyrics to. facepalm)

I am very pleased to say that the clusters for tonights show were arranged by Bill and completely different from what Rosie, Mr Wizard or I would have done, thereby sowing chaos.

CHAOS! Muahahaha...(cough)...ahem.

 Also. new songs. Better off without you, a very tom petty vibe piece (on purpose we frickin luvs ya tom) and a mutant Pete Townshend kind of thing with a Bacharach/Japanese style melody progression, a very sweet sounding vocal and an aggressive guitar riff. When Pete D said I sound like Doris Day doing metal, well, rather than deploring it, i think we have may embraced it.

We dont generally write 'angry' songs but I've been doing my reading on music usage and human brain stuff and this song is an exercise in writing a for a specific type of emotional need.

Bill loves it for the complexity, Mr Wizard's into it because it's got the Japanese influence that's so big with him at the moment PLUS the complexity and and I think it's fascinating. 

 Not the first time we've taken a risk (See: light in the distance) but these experiments dont always see the light of day. Heh. it's a 1am show in Newtown, on a Friday. It's the right place to unveil the experiments :-) Come one, come all!

It's been ages since we played the lansdowne for beer money, for hours, to students and drunken backpackers and people who didnt give a ***t about who was playing as long as there was some noise to drink to.

I'm not nostalgic in an 'OMG think of the children' manner, but I'd like to acknowledge the loss of another development habitat for music. 

According to the press release, don't worry, there'll be a space for music, etc etc, and in no way am I disparaging their motives or intent, but face it, the sheer value of residential property in Sydney and the changes in the culture of how we socialise is assigning the music development ecology of the Aussie Pub to the dustbin of history.

\

Observers of the changes in the system might point to Lock Out laws, RSA, RBT etc which are 'good' outcomes for the community but fundamentally change the nature of external socialisation, and to some degree and where the money comes from. No booze? No Speakeasy, simple logic.

Again, that's just societal evolution. The upsides are less drunken binge fighting aggressive behaviours (or so I read). 

Music will remain a part of us, so I am sure the live music scene will continue to morph and evolve in some way.

I'm not sure that Gastro pubs are the answer and the pokies? Well... How come we can work on the societal ills of Music as Noise Pollution (ie: property rights for upwardly mobile new residents), the Violence/Alcohol link (lock out laws) but we're still happy for Gran to pour the pension into the Electronic Dalek of Bank Account Eating? Hmm.. Seems we're selective about just how much 'good' the public can bear...

I maintain my bizarre Keynesian-ish stance on music. That somehow there is an economic basis for its existence. It's part of the human experience.

So instead of paying $30 for a bunch of beers and the band getting $3-5 of that towards their fee, we might have to go back to accepting a cover charge for a few bucks if we want musicians to be part of our society.

So fare thee well Lansdowne, thank you for the gigs where a bunch of Sydney bands, including the likes of us, had a chance to do our stuff.

The Venue is dead, long live the Music.