Stormcellar Band Home Page

Every day I get up check the weather.

Not the temperature, the Air Quality Index.

Based on how breathable the air is, I plan my day.

There's a thick layer of dust on my blinds, my bookshelf.

We had a few days of clear air. This morning I looked outside and shut the window again.

'Moderate' particle count.

Sad about Cobargo

Saw pictures of Before and After in Cobargo.

Cobargo is a pretty, 'quaint' small town that Rosie and I have stopped at many a time, for many a cup of tea and a snack while on tour.

There's less of it now.

That makes me sad.

Facebook Divorce

Facebook have refused to change their approach to managing propaganda.

I have no beef with lines of code, or servers, or computers, or the folks that program them.

I definitely have beef with people who give matches and a petrol can to children and say 'experiment' while running ads about how fun playing with fire is.

Since Twitter banned political Ads I have made an effort to use that platform instead.

https://twitter.com/stormcellarband

We are not immune to propaganda.

Even little old yours truly spends time thinking about what I post.

For our mates and family who have been serving our society on deployment, we have focused on the things we do that remind them of home.

For our friends who need a mental break, we focus on the positive, on sharing the great peace and satisfaction to be gained from music and creating things.

I refuse to accept that a billion dollar company puts less effort and less consideration into the effect that Propaganda plays in shaping public discourse.

Facebook is now the vector for the virus of state based actors running propaganda, and as it has been documented, the intelligence services and trolls of State based players are becoming sharper, more clever and better at hiding their tracks.

I continue to try to reconcile the need to do my job for the band and my realisation that continued engagement with the platform is adding energy to a bad situation.

Tour Planning

One day, when our work is Declassified, I might say a few more things about tour planning and work.

For now, let's just say that being a Self Propelled Artist means understanding that no one is coming to rescue us, no manager (except maybe Roger), no record label, no bag of cash attached to a chicken running in circles.

If something gets done it's because we do it.

It has taken a group effort to get US Tour 5 underway and the fires have directly hampered our efforts. I lost a few weeks of momentum due to Chest Infection from the smoke and from managing other stuff that arose from its effect on family.

Thanks to our good Mates in the States, some luck and some pluck we are moving towards a worthwhile tour with some very positive events lined up.

There is quite an amount of work to be done, and still to be done, to get this together.

First Show Of The Year Was Great

Thanks again to the musos who had volunteered to join us for last Thursday. It was originally meant to be our US fundraiser but that went by the wayside.

Despite a few hiccups in timing, the first show of the year was a cracker. Mr Wizard had a particularly good night, with the exception of forgetting his solo in 'Julie' :p

We have 2 more shows before we go o/s, come join us if you get a chance.

Meanwhile the work to get ready for the 2nd half of the tour continues. Gear, logistics, you name it.

If it's quiet on the blog you know why :-)

 

Under the circumstances we are calling tonights show a normal show rather than a fundraiser for our US trip.

Firstly it's now on late and secondly there are more important things to donate to, consider wires.org.au for help with saving wildlife affected by the fires, or foodbank.org.au to assist with those in need of some basics.

Our great thanks to the Muso's who had volunteered as guests.

They are evacuating Eden and I don't know what to say.

Firefighters are doorknocking Eden to get people to evacuate.

The roads on the Monaro are clogged with people escaping.

A watertank collapsed in Cooma.

I can barely see past my neighbours house here for smoke and I am 5 hours away.

Australia has been the lucky country, by and large. So far from the rest of the world that its troubles do not reach us easily, or quickly.

We watch other places become war zones and we change the channel to the footy.

We marvel at tornadoes and we murmur our gratitude that we face few of those problems here.

Today, we are the warzone, the ravaged land.

Dust has settled across the paper of my notebook, leaving the window open I wipe a fingerful of grit and dust from the page of my shopping list.

We are at war with nature, as it has ever been for colonial settlement, fighting the floods, the fires, the drought.

We who think we possess this land are as easily stricken from it as the dust wiped from my page.

These things are the impersonal account of an angry planet, the fruits of what we have planted in greed and ignorance.

The commonwealth of coal, of carbon dug back up from the ground and burned for this profit of destruction.

When the air is poison, what will the powerful breathe? What words will they use to explain their own destruction, to deny it further?

Today I weep for my friends and neighbours, this Australian nation, my beloved New South Wales, that we must endure so hard a lesson and watch as paradise burns.

It's not much short of apocalyptic.

The fires have directly affected a few of the band, some family evacuations, at least a few of our mates have lost homes, a few have been injured and the smoke knocked me for a loop.

Even our Golden Roadie, Carl, has been out there with the VFS, putting out flames.

We're still doing tour planning and dealing with last minute stuff.

As usual, when the blog is quiet, I am doing stuff offline. Although recently that involved a week getting over a chest infection from the smoke.

What a time.

Getting ready for the tour has continued and normally we stay quiet on the ups and downs of touring because That Is The Way.

In particular, under the circumstances, any difficulties we face in doing tour stuff is small trouble in comparison to the fires.

We tour through the south coast as often as we can, it's one of the prettiest places on earth, and it's been savaged by these conditions and the fires.

I keep seeing Musicians getting ready to do benefit concerts. But the disaster isn't over yet and our 'thoughts and prayers' and even our donations are not as directly useful as our respective state and federal governments stepping in and treating this as the disaster it is.

A state of emergency has been declared in NSW finally.

I get the feeling that we are so used to bushfires that we shrugged off how bad it can be.

Sydney is not prepared for this level of disaster. Our houses are not built to keep out the smoke.

Those living in the Bush have better understanding of the nature of the danger, they are better informed and prepared these days. The toll is higher in property than lives, thanks to better planning and evacuation.

The loss of bush life and animals is staggering. Some of the pictures I have seen break my heart and I cannot share them here.

When we get through this and we all rally around to thank the firefighters and volunteers, to help the survivors, the friends and family, I hope we will collectively demand more resources and planning from our elected officials.

There is a growing level of awareness that these conditions and these events may become more prevalent, that this might not be just another in a recurring every-few-years bushfire pattern. This is starting to become an annual feature of life in Oz.

To our mates, stay safe, don't take any chances. To our community, we are in solidarity with you, all of us have reached out to those we can help with offers and what help we can provide; The few bucks raised at the small benefit we helped with down in Wollongong seems insufficient to the task.

Meanwhile we wait, and we hope.

 

More Articles …

  1. Stormcellar's 2019 in a song - one in a million, diamond hawke mix, video
  2. Smoke signals and Seasonal Greetings
  3. Stay safe out there
  4. Kirrbilli show 21 Dec cancelled due to smoke
  5. Firemen for your soul
  6. Smoke affects continue
  7. I got the Gnochhi and stories of mythical pasta
  8. stormcellat at the bowral market sat 14 dec 9:30-1
  9. Tour planning is some work all right
  10. This Saturdays' show pending smoke dissipation.
  11. Mr Wizard & Rosie do blog interview with Radio Stickman
  12. Spend a chill moment with your friends in the stormcellar