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Howdy Folks. New songs, new songs. Almost.

We went into the rehearsal studio (we love Chrisso and we love Troy Horse rehearsal studios) to do some housekeeping and work on some new stuff.

One of the new ones 'all that's right is beautiful' (until we find a Song Name Shortener) had a new beginning added to it, the beat modified and some pinstriping and a turbo charger added.

With the additional fixes we were making to existing songs, I didnt get as many of the new ones into production as I'd hoped and in fact may have kind of chucked a small tantrum at the end of the session during a particulary tough vocal melody discussion. I had to excuse myself and go get a cup of tea. Must work on that.

I looked up at the art on the wall as I stirred my tea. Words to live by.

Whilst I was reminding myself of how to behave in a constructive and professional manner (tea bag, milk, pour water, drink) Chrisso, behind the counter, said some nice things about us. I mean, it's not that he doesnt say nice things but I wondered what had triggered it.

Apparently, the band in room B, next to us, had been listening in and came out to ask who we were and say nice things.

Dear band in Room B, that's very kind of you. Thank you. Especially considering that we were fixing errors and failing gloriously as we tried different approaches.

When I mentioned to Chris that Rosies guitar playing had ranked up considerably, Chris said he'd seen him years ago with his Indy band, The Duchesses. I played Chris some recent stuff including Everywhere Feels Like Home, to which Chris replied. 'I knew he was good but I didnt realise he was that good' :-)

We're going to need a lot more rehearsal time to get the next batch of songs cooked and it was great to see the interaction of the guys last night. I'm all for engaging in the hard discussions (Rosie calls me 'Combat Ready') as the collective input produces really interesting results. Come to a show and you'll hear the new stuff as it arises.

Downstairs in the 'cellar we're chatting over tea. It's been months since we made a videoclip. 

I'm doing the pre production on a few ideas now and came across this whilst doing some research. cute.

Stay tuned for yet more opportunities to appear in a clip.

A great idea

We’ve got a great idea

Not like the last idea

Which turns out

Was not such

 a great idea

in fact we’ve learned

was a bad idea

you could say

we had no idea

how bad an idea

the last idea

was not a good idea after all

but we’ve got a new idea

a much better idea

and I think you’ll find

this is a really great idea

which we will look back upon

and say how clever we were

Howdy Folks.

Last night we had a slightly 'tired and emotional' (i.e: inebriated) audience member who decided that she really really wanted to sing. Taking no for an answer was not part of the available range of options. 

Stage intrusion etc makes the boys crazy. Our erstwhile singer stole the microphone during the break and Mr Wizard had to persuade her to return it. She was not pleased to do so.

Taking a leaf out of DC's book, I tried engaging her to sing one line in Southern Bells, the chorus 'gonna ring me some southern bells tonight'. 

Despite my best efforts, she opted to sing 'Ice Ice Baby' over the song,

following that by running off with the main vocal microphone and adding an impromptu version of 'a boy named sue'.

I wonder How Johnny would have responded to the interruption?

Fortunately our Soundo had been pre warned that I was going to try and make nice, so he gave her some latitude then killed the sound. She was not entirely happy with that outcome.

I'm neither offended, bummed nor fussed. The fact that she wanted to participate is great. Not only that but I know she'd look back upon her after-a-few-drinks-behaviour and most probably be mortified (OMG did I really do that?).

Yes Miss E., you did.

Please note, despite knowing your name,  I kindly limit my self to one letter to maintain your privacy, which I might add you effectively renounced by stage crashing a working band mid set :-)

We truly are your friends here in the stormcellar.

No I did not take offence when you gave me a hard time for not knowing any Slim Dusty songs, despite, as you said, him being the most important Australian of the 20th Century.

As Rosie pointed out, we have recorded several songs with Slim's fiddle player of 20 years, Mike Kerin, so I guess that ought to count.

I was equally unoffended  at the chiding for our failure to know, or include, Duffy or Dusty Springfield songs. if I could get away with that there'd be at least 1 carly simon song in the set, but you know how it is, the boys worry that people would start to talk. 

Yes, this is our blog, you probably wont read this and I wont be vengeance posting elsewhere because I fundamentally have love and compassion for my fellow humans and I know when you go out, it might be my 'workplace' but you're there to relieve some stress and tension, so I'll make you a deal.

We have 7 albums worth of songs, most of the lyrics up online. Learn the words and I'll get you up to sing with us.

Or, when we start covering Vanilla Ice, I'll send you a text. However I'm old school enough that i'd more likely go for a bit of Public Enemy.

We have the love. Remember to fight the power!  

Howdy Folks.

The benefit of a local gig is the normality of the day after and the time to blog and reflect.

We played the Annandale hotel last night, or to be more accurate, the reincarnation of the Annandale. Much as with the Empire (also in Annandale) the retrofit makes it 'better', but some primal essence is lost in the cleaning. Also probably some evidence. Moving on.

I know that Demographics shift, people move in and out of the rings of the city. Change is natural. The music scene in Sydney needs to create its myth anew.

In the case of the Annandale, some sound reflection diffusion would assist :-) The bright shiny flat surfaces and direct box like construction maximises space but pumps even quiet stuff straight down the end of the place to the restaurant, and who needs Guitar Solo a La Loud with your slow cooked beef cheeks?

Being the thoughtful chaps we are we opted to start with all the nice stuff, figuring that by the time we got to the louder bits we'd have a slightly-more-partying crowd. That worked fine but it got me thinking about the other songs we weren't playing.

Come to think of it, we could have played most of the night in a quiet acoustic-ish mode, something we haven't done since the power failed at that Tamworth Festival show. But I digress.

Wildly.

ahem.

Somehow, two very gentle sweet little tunes have crept into the starting line up. 'All that's right' and 'Stopping By'. Mr Wizard would like to point out that neither of them have sufficient clever chords or changes. Beware the pent up chord progressions that doing such simple songs will unleash in him. No seriously. Just wait until you hear a new one, 'isnt how i wanted it', you'll plotz.

During this week we had a chance to work on the next batch of moonshine, including, yep, you guessed it, More Complex Adult Oriented Chord Progressions. Several new candidates will be rolled out at coming gigs, to live, to fly or to crash and burn. This wonderfully disruptive process yields triumph and tragedy. Bring it on.

Did i mention that all of these thoughts flashed through my head at the start of the show?

Thanks to DC's training and mutual agreement, we're now 'calling' songs rather than prebuilding a specific set. Sort of. We have 'song clusters' (face it we are so nerd-core) to allow Mr Wizard to swap guitars and also Yours Truly to check the vibe and match the song to it. 

So, when you're at the aforementioned Annandale and think OMG it's a bright loud room, I can pick songs to suit, you cast your mind to the repertoire and think 'oh yeah we'll play that one' then 'oh no the boys will get mad if I call that one cos we haven't played it in months' and then 'hey that's a bummer that's a good song' and finally 'come to think of it, there's a lot of good songs we're not playing..'

When I voiced that thought, Mr Wizard pointed out that some of the 'show piece' songs we used to do - parchment farm, mississippi meltdown, Hollow Tree, Texas Rosie...etc etc...are completely out to pasture at the moment. Wow.

That's a bummer because some of those are band favourites. Of course, there are less well beloved experiments such as 'Shake'em down mama' and some relegated to the OMG bucket (sadly a personal fave, island time is in that bucket).

As the new songs come in to the set, of necessity, they unseat the previous champions (sigh). See what happens when I get Saturday off? I get all reflective.

I can feel a rehearsal coming on :-)

Also, we're Aliens.