I've been helping Jim Finn and the guys in FINN with some videoclips for their new album.
Yes I know I should be making videos for our stuff (i'm trying!) but this is how we build up the favour bank for our own stuff, by doing stuff for others. Want people to volunteer for your stuff? well ya gotta show the love to get the love :-)
Whilst I was editing a new video for 'bomb the world with kindness' (that video is due out tomorrow, I'll post a link), I came across some footage from NASA and thought 'oh wow, I wish we had a song I could put over this'... and then it dawned on me (no pun intended) that Jim's new album had the perfect candidate, my favourite song from his new album, 'Eden'.
I thought the song was a cracker and it fits over this footage beautifully, plus the whole thing is beautifully in keeping with the message of the song.
Sit back, relax and enjoy Eden. Go full screen, it's awesome. Thanks NASA for public domain footage, it's great.
Howdy folks. I've been offline after some ISP issues (ARGH). Anyway, with some minor technical jiggery pokery, I have hacked together a temp solution so that I can do the importnant things, such as...err...facebook...and err...the blog. If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to tweet...?
Ahem.
Lookit the cool thing JC showed me the other day, a mounting bracket that magnetically attaches to the harmomica and mechanically attaches to the microphone:
I haven't tested this yet but I thought it was a great idea. The company that makes'em is at www.harplock.com. If you use one before I do, let me know how you go.
Yep we've noticed too, not sure what's causing it but we're on the case. It looks like we either might be getting popular (optimistic) or we have something wrong under the hood. Working on it. Stay tuned.
If the site explodes/dissapears or variously vanishes, you'll know I am fixing it, but good.
Well that was Tamworth for another year, folks! Quite the trip up and quite the trip back. Oh and there were some gigs somewhere in between. Eight in seven days to be precise.
Memorable moments
Debut of new song & playing it live to air on 2TM. I’d had a chord progression and feel knocking around for a year or so and just before we geared up for Tamworth, Mr Wizard and I sat down and put some time into it, slowed it down, came up with a slide part for it and presented it to Mjeb who got some words happening for it. Once we were in Tamworth we sat down with Carl & Theo to work on bass and drums. The real surprise was when Jo added a harmony. By the time it came to the radio gig we’d played it live twice. It’s got a working title of “Sweet Adeline” but it may change. Either way I’m diggin’ it.
Having Jo with us once more – how could this not be a highlight. Aside from the softer songs that we keep for gigs with Jo, we also got to play Wine to Water, which although we occasionally do play, really cooks with Jo’s vocals added in there.
For the guitarists: sweaty guitars! The change in the weather between the Saturday and Sunday night gigs was so dramatic that my guitars broke a sweat (okay –maybe it was condensation) – but needless to say they were not dry. In the end I resorted to putting talcum powder on my hands – a trick I saw Jeff Beck do once. It worked a treat!
The weather driving there and back – so as we all know there’s been some pretty extreme weather happening. Here’s a photo of the clouds and mist that we encountered on the way up:
And some amazing blue sky also on the way up:
Less blue but no less spectacular:
Some from during the week in Tamworth:
And finally, some of what we saw on the way back:
and then:
also:
I love the colours we have in our country.
Fans:
It’s great playing to new audiences, but it’s also really great when you see familiar faces showing up as well. We are lucky enough to have some pretty amazing fans. I’m always staggered when someone travels out of their way to specifically come to one of our gigs. Some from the central coast (you know who you are!); some from Sydney; and then there was the lady who flew from Victoria to come to the show. Zoiks!
Other people’s gigs:
In between our own gigs I checked out what Peel St had to offer. I saw a band doing a country cover of “What’s going on” by 4 non-Blondes which was rather goodly. Funny to think that the song is nigh-on 20yrs old!
There were the three brothers who sang a beautifully harmonised version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” on Paul Robert Burton’s stage at the Atrium shopping centre.
Cash Only – shout out to Rosie, fiddle player – lovely conversation between us packing down and them setting up.
On the road music:
Confession: I am a musical snob. I believe I have the best taste in music. There it is. I think that some decades have been kinder to music than others. 50s, 60s and 70s were good to music. The 80s were pretty testy. The 90s were good and so were the 00s. I’m yet to be convinced that the 10s are treating music well. But I remain open. So my own collection is reflective of this. However, I would venture to say that while Mjeb and I have many tastes in common … there are also some departures! Moreover, when on the road the driver picks the music. Welcome to Mjeb’s “open ears” playlist policy! So we get musical selections like the following:
Howlin’ Wolf (cool) … Little Walter (no problem) … Pink Floyd (woo hoo) … Fleetwood Mac (yep no problems) … Stevie Nicks solo (hmmm) … Bob Marley (woo hoo) … Aloe Blac (not bad) … a host of West Coast yacht-rock; and a bunch of 80s tunes (I’ll leave it to your imaginations as to just how good that was!) … La Roux (pushing it now) … and Skrillex. WTF! And then after that … Skrillex … same song again … and again! If you don’t know what a Skrillex is … I aint’t gonna be the one who directs you there! But if you liked the sound that your old 56k modem used to make, then this guy is making your kind of music.
Buskers:
At one point Mr Wizard and I were taking in the buskers and saw a kid doing a cover of the Paul Kelly song “To Her Door” on a Tomkins guitar – pretty cool! This is he:
We also caught a girl playing banjo and singing – personally I find walking and singing hard enough. Kudos.
On the road cooking:
When we travel as a band we keep it loose but we stay together and we dine communally – none of this ‘every man for himself’. It’s one of the ways to bond with the people with whom you spend so much time writing, recording and gigging. Mjeb does do most of the catering but we all try to pitch in in some way shape or form. Here's my list of the culinary highlights from the trip (no particular order):
Theo’s Bolognese - not much to add here - fantastic as always!
Mjeb’s Mexican breakfast extravaganza – where upon we supped on refried beans, chilli con carne, scrambled eggs … and a large variety of hot sauces.
BBQ at Gasman’s – Michael (yes another one) is a friend of the band and each time we’ve played Tamworth he’s invited us round for a BBQ. It’s a great chance to relax with good people some of whom are musicians (but we don’t hold it against them). It’s also where we first met Mike ‘Fettler’ Kerin (fiddle player for those still catching up) who has since gigged and recorded with us.
And I’m going to put my hand up and say that the gazpacho soup that I made was a bit alright too :)
Some random pics:
Guitars chillin' out
Last light after a gig:
Family photo on the porch:
(L-R: Elsa, Noodles, Mr Wizard, Bill, Mjeb, Jo, The Machine)
Mr Wizard and Mjeb playing "Sweet as pie":
Last highlight … that only a handful of people got to enjoy:
Sitting on the porch after the gigs, cooling my heels in a bucket of iced water … working on new stuff as the sun sank below the horizon. Peace, tranquillity and mung beans.
Did I forget to mention we also did a live radio bit with a couple of songs on 2TM? Oops.
Luckily Mr Wizard took a picture of the venue where all the radio stuff was happening. We did Lucky Streak and the brand new song we'd been working on just the other night.
Right, now where was I?
Day 5 - Breakfast of UnChampions!
Going to Steve Passfields brekkie show has started to become something of an annual ritual when we're at the festival and this year was no exception. We rose early, went and got a very decent seat and ordered the BIG COUNTRY BREAKFAST.
Unfortunately, one of our band members was not pleased with the size of the serving of Tomato and some other service issues and proceeded to expound on his unhappiness at the table using some choice invective. Given that this band member is normally so polite, none were more shocked than I...perhaps excepting the two Grey Nomads sitting at the table behind us who raised an eyebrow when the air turned blue for a moment. We apologised on his behalf and she nodded and said, 'don't worry son, they're @^&*#)@'.
I expect Deadwood is her favourite show.
Still, I couldn't help but poke a little fun.
Steve Passfields breakfast show always features special guest performers and singers and Steve's own unique blend of music and humour and is worth getting up early for.
While I was out taking a 'moment', I spotted this in the Mens Room.
The mind boggles. It lends itself to some MEME's such as
or
After brekkie, we returned to the accom to check our stuff and get ready for the next show.
During the previous gig, Mr Wizard had some amp problems. Fortunately, we had Bill V there as guitar tech who determined that the shock impact from the car crash (see blog part 1) had probably damaged the valves but not to worry, International Guitar rescue was on hand to fix such things!
Watch out - some NSFW language in this next one.
and eventually...
thankfully Rosie had brought a spare amp, despite our making fun of him for being overly cautious, so I guess that's SCORE 1: ROSIE.
With a replacement amp available nothing could stop us from our next gig!
The heat had come on strong and thoughtfully, the venue had provided fans. Oh I see, they're not for us, they're for the amps. Ah. Right.
Whilst the boys setup, I took a moment to wander down Peel St and yes there was a crowd. This year they decided to make the Buskers audition so the busker numbers were down and in a strange way, I missed the cacophony of 25 different buskers doing Burning ring Of Fire :-(
By the time I got back from my walk the boys were setup and it was time to do our thing again. Hurrah!
Day 6
Our next show was a night time one and the last show with Jo. Cheers to Stuart for pressing her to join us for this Festival, it makes it a joy to perform.
And once again the weather couldn't make up it's mind..Hot, cold, dry, rainy, pick and stick for crying out loud.
Other than that, a quiet day :-0
Day 7 - AUSTRAYA DAY!!
Ah yes, the gig we'd been waiting for all week, the front bar at the Albert on Australia Day.
The previous year when we did a similar gig, 5 windows were shattered on the 2nd floor after the Soundo got a little carried away with the Bass Bins.
Surely it will be better this year.
We rocked up, started to setup and went looking for the soundo.
What's this?
You're kidding me, right? Not to worry, Michael the Soundo was back there pretty darn quick. Cheers Michael, I hope next year they give you some additional assistance.
With a big crowd full of Australia Day happiness, we set about our set and I caught some footage of the gig.
In between sets I noticed that the line up to get into the gig was getting longer and longer :-) A good sign.
When we did Roscoes boogie we sent a shout out to Roscoe, who at last contact was in Afghanistan.
I got back to Sydney and found an email saying he was home safe. Good news.
As we do when we're in the mood, we ended the night with a Boogie, Canned Heat style :-)
Thoroughly exhausted we retired to the accommodation to crash out and get ready for our last show of the festival the following day. Cheers to the A.M and all the Australia Day revelers.
Day 8
For our final day, Rain won out over heat.
We had thought it would be a quiet show and when asked by a very sweet Irish girl if she and her friend (singular) could get their picture taken behind the mike stand, I naively said 'yes'...OOPS.
I was in big trouble with the boys when the stagecrashers started messing with their instruments.
Oops. Chalk that up to another Front Man rule for me to learn. No Slightly Inebriated Irish Girls On Stage.
Another fun moment was the dude who thought our 'newsletter sign up sheet' was a great means of communicating his song preferences to us.
Billy Joel? Really? At the Tamworth Country Music festival? I'm a fan of Billy Joel (Downeaster Alexa is an awesome song) but really?
As night feel, I got a few last photos at the rear of the Marquee
As we finished our last song, there were still die hard festival goers down the front dancing away and we even got an encore.
All that was left was to do a final pack up, clean up our accom and get on the road.
All in all a fun packed week of playing. Cheers to all the folks that spent some time with us at this years Festival.
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