Stormcellar Band Home Page

It's not every day you get a moment to witness the birth of a new Musical Genre Name.

I was asking local Radio Doyenne (ooh french sounding) 'Salty Dog' Dennis Trevarthen about the word Ozicana, which he used to describe the musical range of songs he had on a recent show.

Saltys taste runs to the same gamut of musical stuff that we write and play, namely, Blues, Roots, Country and Folk.

On Whiskey Talking we did styles ranging from New Orleans stuff to Shuffles to Bo Diddley beats. We followed that up with Chicago blues (little Walter on our Spacejunk EP), Spaced-out Mali-psychedelic-atmospheric stuff with Sweet Misery and Credence meets Pink Floyd on Swamp Monster. On the next album (Nuevo Retro)  we tried combining Boogie and Zydeco (Can't Tax Love), Johnny Winters Rock Blues (Roscoe's Boogie) and Australiana/Folk/Alternative on our song about Ned Kelly. By Carl's chair (album 4) we'd completely lost the plot and went all Hill Billy and occasionally Country back to Jazz Blues. Don't even ask me whats coming up on the next album...well..if you've been to our gigs(or listened to the making-of-the-album videos here, you know :-)

Yep, SURPRISE! It's more of the same mix of different stuff!

Believe me, it's made writing a band description a (expletive deleted...sorry, I've been applying for festivals and summing us up in 30 words requires some literary dexterity)

Our music has been played on: Blues Stations, Country Stations, Americana Stations, Alternative Country, Rock and yes, gasp, even mainstream stations (whereforart thou, my indy credibility? for shame). So this kind of makes it hard to pigeonhole us.

After 5 albums (well, almost 5) we can play a full set of almost any of the above styles, just by cherry picking from the albums.

Neither fish nor fowl, Arthur or Martha, a band that relies on songs not solo's, what do you do...

Blessed be the Salty Dog, for he hath given us a name, that we may put in the little 'Genre' box for submission forms, that we can include in Gracenote databases, that will one day be argued about by purists debating whether this particular song or that particular band fits that particular box.

Spake the Salty:

OZICANA - Australian blues/roots/americana/colonial/urban folk - got it!

ust tell em that mixed up kid Salty coined it'

Amen. I will now pass the communion waffles. (This church has Waffles? All right!)

Howdy Folks.

As you may have gathered from my sudden interest in finishing a camera mounting, it's Video Clip Time Again! Yeehaa!

When working on a Zero Budget (or close to it) clip, we rely on Random Stuff To Magically Come Together ( I do believe, I do believe I can fly-eee....thud).

We also believe in unicorns.

If you want to see the kind of stuff we make, look to the left (or click here), yep, all those little boxes with pictures are clips we've made, or stuff we've shot.

Ahem.

So, we're throwing open the doors and using mixed metaphors to our dear readers and other Random People to get involved in our clips.

I am going to start by listing the clips we have ideas for and what we need. 

Stuff You Might Want To Know

We''ve got lots of ideas for the different songs, some from the coming album, some from other ones we have always wanted to do

We do them when we get enough random stuff together to implement an idea

If we try and things fall over, we don't complain, we just move on and do the one's we can make happen.

We'll shoot weekdays, nights or weekends, completely depending on when all random factors are in alignment

Some stuff we already have, here are a list of the things we ain't got:

Stormcellar Song Videoclip Ideas and What We Need to Make'em

Clip Idea 1. Running Jody

Synopsis: The internal dialogue of a soldier dealing with being home.

Cast:

MALE - 25-40, fit looking, must be able to jog

FEMALE - 25-40 - Playing the wife of the Male character

Clip Idea 2. Hollow Tree

Synopsis: Romeo and Juliet meets To Kill A Mockingbird

 Location

An old dilapidated farm house

A Big, Gnarly Tree in a park or forest

Cast:

3 YOUNG GIRLS: playing jump rope (skipping)

YOUNG FEMALE: Youngish 16-25, has to look young and innocent

YOUNG MAN: Her secret boyfriend

OLD MAN: Mean old cuss, get off my lawn, don't date my daughter

Clip Idea 3 - Suit Yourself

Synopsis: Bi Polar? Bi-WINNING!

Location:

Empty Theatre with stage

Empty LARGE auditorium

Stage

Cast:

HIPSTERS & SYCOPHANTS - Various Hip Looking Peeps

PAPPARAZZI - Come on, work it like a Tiger

MALE - 20-40 - it's mental crisis time!

Clip Idea 4 - Country Radio

Synopsis: Trucker on a lost highway singing along with random people who have gone into a radio station. What does it all mean? who knows!

Location:

Semi Trailer Truck Cabin

Semi Trailer stopping by the side of a road

 Radio Studio

Cast:

JUG BAND - Several dudes dressed a-la O Brother Where Art Thou.

PUNK GRRL BAND: Gothabilly look?

COUNTRY GIRL SINGER: Traditional Country Singer look

TRUCKER: Whatever a trucker looks like

Clip Idea 5 - Light In The Distance

Synopsis: Someone on a train looking out into the dark, see someone on a track

Location:

RAILWAY TRACK: Abandoned station? unused section? Any ideas? I'll be calling State Rail and asking anyway.

MODERN TRAIN CARRIAGE: Any ideas? 

Cast

MAN: 20-50

Clip Idea 6 - Southern Belles

Synopsis: Working guy goes out on a Friday night bender

Location:

WORKSITE - Guys doing roadworks./building work

PUB: Where the action takes place

Cast:

MAN: 20-30 Your Average Aussie Bloke

OTHER: Random stuff we haven't worked out yet

And that's not all the clips we have ideas for, just the ones that we're ready to go with. If you have any suggestions on locations or want to volunteer to be in the clip, message me here

We'll add some more clip ideas soon! Stay tuned! Internet Fame & Glory Await!

Hiya,

So one of the things I like doing when we’re off doing out of town stuff … or recording stuff … or … well you get the idea, is taking photos of the stuff we do. So here’s couple of shots I’ve taken recently.

This first one was taken up at Mt Kincumber a couple of weeks back – it’s Paul and Theo discussing secret muso business before the gig …

Now this one is of one of the special guests who has recorded some bluegrass country fiddle on a couple of tracks on our next album …

I'll have a hunt around the archives and see what else I can find.

Cheers!

Rosie

Spotted this bumper sticker on the way into the studio today, just my kind of thing :-)

Howdy Folks, yes, I'm back on the blogging, after a self created, hardware related break. Seems like Facebook really didn't need me for a week.

Ahem.

Big studio day today, as, despite our own best efforts, we get close to finishing another album.

Pete was helping Rosie to find something specific in Light In the Distance.

 After which, I got to try Rosies pedals with the Low G harp, neat effects. 

The boys added some harmonies to Road Rise, Theo did some cowbell and we started reviewing mixes.

Next week we''ll be powering through three or four mixing sessions -  this train is rolling through.  

Stop! Wait! there's a harp bit I want to fix!

Wait, the vocals could do with one more polish!

Wa....oh. 

When' s the next train?

We're on target for the first listening sessions, where we take the mixes into the car, the house, the ipod and make a list of last adjustments before mastering.

Howdy Folks

A while back, I started building a home made Steadicam in order to film a clip for Last Drinks At Glenrowan (jeez...two albums ago). We'd gotten up to the Balancing stage when our Ned Kelly actor shaved his beard off and the clip idea went out of the window.

With the new album on the way, I thought it was high time we finished this unit so we can try using it in some of the new clips. 

If you're reading this for DIY purposes, see the following articles for the initial build stages:

Homebuilt Steadicam 1

Homebuilt Steadicam 2

As you can see, we're particularly scientific about our use of legumes.

When we left off, I hadn't figured out how to attach the weight to the sled so we could being the balancing process.

At the suggestion of our very handy friend Vicky,  we're going to try using magnets as the weighting component.

Of course, the bottom of the sled is aluminium (aluminum for our Norte Americano readers) so that would mean attaching a metal plate.

Also there's the worry of the Steadicam getting stuck to the fridge, or nearby lamp poles when filming with it, but heck, we'll cross that one when we stick to it.

So, step one, find some weighty magnets. 

I found a local Sydney supplied that was close to me www.neosid.com.au and went to their warehouse to see what we could come up with.

I opted for the Ferrite magnet rings so that I could incrementally adjust the weights. Each ring is 225 grams. 

So here's the sled we built from plans we found on the web (a knock off of Cody Deegans plans) You can see the gimbal, centre pole, sled and the tiny camera I have been using to test the rig with.

The guys at Neosid were very helpful and hardly raised an eyebrow when I showed them what I was trying to do. However, they did teach me to be very careful when adding or removing the magnets as they slam together pretty darn fast and can give you quite a nasty pinch if you don't keep your fingertips well out of the way.

With $60 worth of magnets carefully secured in a box, I headed to the hardware store to source a few other components.

Now if you have a look at the bottom of the sled here, you can see where the design allows for a weight to be mechanically fastened to the slider plate , to allow you to adjust the weights position.

Rather than gluing a pieces of magnetic metal to the sled, I struck upon the idea of using a steel fence bracket ($3.00) and drilling a hole through it, then fastening the plate to the sled.

As you can see, the ferrite magnet ring fits perfectly inside the metal plate, by drilling a hole through it, I have been able to attach it to the sled with ease. I then stack the magnets up to the appropriate height/weight and slide then back and forth until the correct balance position is reached. or so the theory goes.

To ensure balance, I picked up some attachable spirit levels.

Not quite sure where to attach these to yet...hmmm...Double sided tape?

I've been testing the weighted camera sled out now and have done some test filming with it (chasing the dog around the back yard). It works, Panning is ok (turning the camera) but if I move off a central line, the thing swings wildly. This is going to take a bit more reading, maths, calculations, trial and error and practise as I am no where near Dynamic Balance yet.

I'll post the results as I go.