Stormcellar Band Home Page

People coming out of my local IGA Supermarket said 'there's food in there!'

Yeah, there is.

Society has not broken down. It's taking a pause.

And we could do with one.

Since the internet took off like a rocket and we all wound up with hand held devices, we have been interconnected to information at a fast pace.

This hasn't all been to our benefit.

Now, in the face of a fact that cannot be denied we have found that spinning the truth into what suit ratings, or opinions, is just bad news.

Not fake, bad. Malevolent even.

It is as much a virus to be feared as COVID.

Panic is infectious, and so are we.

So without minimising the reality of risk, we can at least manage it in a survival minded way.

Listening to actual Doctors and experts, making changes in our behaviour.

For Cellar Dwellers, this makes some sense.

We've always been a retreat from the tempest, as we are now. 

I'd say it's likely that we will see some gigs cancelled. Quite likely, even if only from an abundance of caution.

We have been working on a streaming idea for a while, more shortly. It'll be a bit of fun and you can join in safely, remotely.

Writing and mixing are still in progress, slowly.

I have higher hopes for the work and it's taking me some time to find something that suits how I feel about it. No rush. Comes when it comes.

We'll be streaming some of that work too, as we work on it.

Practising some simple precautions, staying calm, using the tools to stay connected even when we have to be a little further apart, all of these things will help us still be here, when this stuff has passed, together.

Friend of the band, Record collector, Blues Historian and My Dude, Mr D-Dog shares his private stash to spread some original vintage muddy waters:

WIRES sent us this certificate. awww.

They graciously sent certificates to the entire crew of KC locals and notables who made the night possible.

Nice.

So they've cancelled the Dark MOFO festival in Tasmania. 

Anything where people get together is now a no no.

Hmm.

Turns out the month off we have is perfectly timed with the Zombie Epidemic. So either our gigs will get cancelled later, or they won't because it will have passed, or we'll all be Zombies.

All in all, it's the introverts paradise.

Not having to go anywhere and no one thinking you odd for not going anywhere :-)

Cup of tea?

Meanwhile it's mixing and writing.

The material we recorded in Clarksdale has been awaiting space for mixing, looks like that's starting to happen. No rush.

Any time before the apocalypse suits me just fine.

In fact this down time and quiet time is just the ticket. 

Of course if civilisation collapses in the interim, well, that will present some new challenges.

On the plus side, it will certainly provide a new direction for writing.

'Tales of the apocalypse'

Yeah.

But no.

We're going to have to get our information systems in order at some point.

It'd be good to be able to have better faith in our media and in what some governments tell us.  

Meanwhile, the global village is moving into quarantine and face masks.

Valiantly, and with little regard for my personal safety, I shall continue to blog, not leaving my bunker unless it is to fight for TP and Paper Towels amongst the wastelanders of what was once our proud state, now reduced to ordering in pizza and watching cable.

When we're onto DVD's of star trek re-runs you know it's the end times for sure.

Hmm. Maybe I'd better get a hustle on finishing this album.

In case every other media system hasn't got you panicked,

PANIC!!!!

or, as it's the 42nd anniversary of Hitchikers guide to the Galaxy, with the large friendly letters on the cover - 

We may be undergoing the End Times/Zombie-apocalypse/Corona-virus-flu-zapalooza, true.

And our political system seems irreparably skewed to the control of kleptocrat authoritarians.

Ok yes I will grant you that.

Ah yes and the climate might be up the creek.

But other than Worldwide Pandemic, Political Looting and Carpet-baggery, the destruction of the ecosystem, what have the Romans ever done for us?

It's taking us a little time, collectively, to work out that the words we have around us, the things we pay attention to, shape us in ways we may not fully be aware of.

It's still early days in the development of the online collective mind, and we're still learning to filter.

We get told we're weak, that we can't effect change, we're told to fear, to fear other people, to consume, to envy.

I mean Fear Of Missing Out has its own acronym (FOMO) and is a regular part of marketing discussions.

Really?

Magicians rely on our human blindspots. Social media does too.

The main stream press has become reliant on Clickbait and easy-to-swallow headlines that don't have to be true, because who cares, right?

Nothing's true, it's all fake news, it's all fake truths.

Except for gravity.

Nope, that still works. My coffee cup does not float off my table because someone has a differing opinion.

We're finding out what happens when the old 20th century structures finally collapse. oops. Looks messy.

I'm liking what Sacha Baron Cohen is doing about holding Facebook accountable. Takes a comedian to tell the truth sometimes huh?

As a result of the 20th-century-gold-rush to the internet & the turn-of-the-21st-Century Attention Wars, once again, Truth was the casualty.

It's up to us, individually, to start listening to that smaller voice inside us that chimes up when the news is too pat, too perfect, too click-baity.

We have so much information available to us it's hard to shut the noise out.

That requires a more mature viewpoint.

Perhaps, over time, our natural inclination will be towards less freaking out and panic, and as a result, our news services will start to phrase things in facts rather than appealing tidbits, and we'll start to once again agree that facts are facts, and gravity is not subject to speculation without consequence, or assertion without proof.

After two weeks back from tour, I am enjoying not doing things. It's blissful. My tea cup runneth over and the local sour dough is still the bomb.

Planes, trains and venues empty, for the end times are upon us.

When I ran out of milk for my tea, I had to risk a journey outside.

Brave are the few who leave the house now, flocks of armed women struggle for the last 4 ply toilet paper in Chullora.

The Cops actually said 'it's not mad max'

I mean really?

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/07/it-isnt-mad-max-police-warning-after-shoppers-brawl-over-toilet-paper-in-sydney

This is how Australia goes Road Warrior? First it's the loo paper, next thing we're all pieced nippled and shotgun toting wasteland warriors??

Don't get me wrong, as a fan of Mencken's (paraphrased) thought 'there comes a time when even civilised men must hoist the black flag' and having been raised on Mad Max, I for one welcome the new Australian post-apocalyptic music scene as I think it will be more open to original songs.

It surprised me greatly when buying a loaf of bread and some milk proved Zombie Free, Mad Max Free and I still had to pay with my EFTPOS card rather than with the blood of my enemies or tanks of gas, shotgun shells or antibiotics.

Rule of law has not yet broken down beyond its present state, which may be secretly acknowledged as merely a continues of business as usual since 1788.

Due to the current panic I even got a spot at that cool cafe place for breakfast on a Saturday.

A Saturday?? Can you imagine it?

End times? Goood times I say, good times.