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Howdy Folks, a huge weekend, even the fire department came for a visit :-)

The first inaugural festival of Stormcellar was a riot. Not an actual riot, more a metaphorical kind of riot. 

You know, the good kind, with Sax.

Dave Wray joined us under his original moniker and was a brilliant addition to the lineup. 

On Saturday night we also had Grant Naylor and Jo Fitzgerald and the sound was huge.  HUUGE

So here's a picture of the moon.

Moral to the picture? You shoulda been there :-) If you're reading this and far away, then you're off the hook, if you're within a cable tow and didn't get down here, well...

On Sunday, Brother John Hill and Ms Jo joined us, and again, it was great.

Mr Wizard spent the two gigs hiding behind the speaker stacks.

Cheers to Nick, Zelda, Ms Sue and Ms Claudette, Bill V, Ted, Mika, and all the folk who joined us. That was enormously enjoyable.

If you missed it, well, there's always hope that we'll do it again soon. You should come on down. :-)

What do you do when you have too much of a good thing? Go again!

Yes it's the first inaugural festival of Us!

With two gigs back to back, we're pulling out all stops.

Every now again and we burst into flames.

It kind of sucks.

It might be part of the natural eco system here, but Sydney basked in the ill lit fires of doom this afternoon as the smoke haze drifted in from the bushfires.

Even the cross city tunnel was hazy. Get down.

For our neighbours and friends who live in the burnt bits, we send our best wishes. Poor wee buggers.

It looks so nice out there, with all the native bush and then every now and again, it just frickin burns down.

FYI for our mates Overseas, Sydney's fringes are burning but the city is fine. Rural parts of NSW south coast, North and west, basically in fact everywhere, are slightly on fire a lot.

Images c/o 

usa todayyahoo7 etc

Dealing with regular, sometimes catastrophic, bushfires is part of our national character, and for those who need some reminding,

here's Dorothea Mckellar speaking from a while back.

My Country

by

Dorothea Mackellar

(1885 - 1968)

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!

A stark white ring-barked forest

All tragic to the moon,

The sapphire-misted mountains,

The hot gold hush of noon.

Green tangle of the brushes,

Where lithe lianas coil,

And orchids deck the tree-tops

And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!

Her pitiless blue sky,

When sick at heart, around us,

We see the cattle die-

But then the grey clouds gather,

And we can bless again

The drumming of an army,

The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!

Land of the Rainbow Gold,

For flood and fire and famine,

She pays us back threefold-

Over the thirsty paddocks,

Watch, after many days,

The filmy veil of greenness

That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,

A wilful, lavish land-

All you who have not loved her,

You will not understand-

Though earth holds many splendours,

Wherever I may die,

I know to what brown country

My homing thoughts will fly.

Howdy Folks, back in the studio last night thanks to Mr Wizard and Rick O. Well done Gents for keeping us moving..

We've been pretty busy of late so we could be forgiven for dragging our feet a little on doing more recordings, but such is not the worth ethic of this band. Nope.

We knocked over one more track for the curious assembly project and in keeping with the random themes of the project,went to a completely new studio.

Our objective was to play simultaneously, to keep the live feel of the song, so we looked for a local studio where we could get line of sight to one another yet sufficient separation to play all at once.

Mr Rix was impressed by some amp thing or another, I don't know..

More analogue gear for you Tape Freaks out there - but last night we were strictly digital (sadly)

.

while the rhythm section setup, Rosie and Mr Wizard and Pete jammed on Travelling Song

And yes, great to see, Chicks that Mix! Cheers to Antonia for being our recording engineer last night.

Getting the vocals right on this one was no joke - the long held 'Hey' at the beginning of the verse has to come in strongly and be held on the note, without wobbling or wandering around. The recent work we've done with Vicky D. has improved the harmony work of the band. I am happy to say that I used no more nor no fewer takes than required to get the job done :-)

The terrific Pete D was there as producer for the tracks so even though it was a different location, it felt just like home :-) Cheers to Chris and Antonia for the help!.

Next stop will be mixing at Goose.

Meanwhile, we're looking at how to record the next two tracks.

As always, if it happens, you'll hear about it here first!

Yay!  We had to shift the proposed recording from last week, as I developed a well earned post tour flu.

Hurrah! With our immune systems primed with vitamins and vegetables, we're back and ready for (cough, snizzle) another attempt to (achoo) to record The Travelling Song.

Sniff.

I blame it on this bizarre hot/cold/hot/cold weather we're having.

This is potentially one of the last songs of the Curious Assembly project...or maybe it's the start of the next album or maybe it..we don't know. We'll record it and work the rest out later.