hey all!
It is another chilly melbourne evening and i have just arrived home from a meeting at my yoga centre about starting a community perma-culture garden.
i am, more often than not, finding myself in situations unusual to my usual habits.
i am a newfound fan to the world of gardening, as you all know by now, but i am by no means a green thumb and have little or no knowledge of perma-culture gardening. it was a learning experience in both gardening and teamwork dynamics.
it was also a delicious experience, as channa, my yoga teacher, is a chef specialising in sri lankan cuisine and he cooked up a beautiful feast for all that attended.
i have now begun teaching at the centre. it’s a wonderful space and a privilege to have access to for my classes. also, not something i thought i would find myself doing, although i have wanted to.
more on the list of the unusual, last week found me at the defence force barracks for a charity event, as a representative for compassionate friends victoria. i was, of course, painting?
yep, it was an art project, where the artistic and the artistically challenged come together and paint a masterpiece that will be auctioned off for the cause (www.lakeattack.com). i was on a team with a representative for legacy and a member of the navy, to name a few types that i do not often find myself rubbing shoulders with. it was a friendly battle of the left and right hemispheres of the brain, that demanded a result, whether those minds met or not. i did my best.
a humbling lesson in team dynamics, once again.
carrying on with the art theme, you can check out my artistic impression of dave mccormack at http://www.messandnoise.com/articles/3188132. it is a celebration of the mundane.
it features as a two part interview between the two of us, where we grill each other in some sort of sadomasochistic bonding ritual for the upcoming tour we are doing together. more on that later…
another thing on the unusual list would be public speaking of any kind, which i have found myself doing more and more of late. the most recent being a couple of talks i gave on the nmit campuses on the subject of music business. let me tell you, i am definitely more comfortable with singing in front of people i don’t know, than talking. perhaps you knew that already, or may have gathered as much. by my second talk, i managed to spend more time looking out into the audience of students, than at my notes and was able to embellish and ad lib a little more freely. i do like the challenge. with nearly twenty years of my life served in the music industry, i feel i have a pretty interesting story to tell and something to give back, even if it might be tales of what i haven’t learned to this day!
in the world of activities that i am comfortable with and do in a style resembling ease, i have been practising for the tour with a new guitarist, sam agostino, of digger and the pussycats. i’ve been toying with the idea of inserting a few old gems into the set which, til now, has consisted mostly of material from my solo project. that seed was nurtured by sam’s keenness to air some frente songs he had a hankering to play. i didn’t need more encouraging than that.
it feels good to sing some old favourites of mine!
without giving away the set list completely, i can confirm that my least favourite song will remain off the list, but one song from each album and the last ep will get an outing this month. plus one cover from a b-side of yore, adds up to at least four frente tunes per show. i must admit it brightens up the set, scattered between my songs of transformations and woes.
as you know, i have been writing towards my second solo album and i am working hard on righting the imbalance of ‘up’ songs in my repertoire. a new song, created by myself and geoff o’connor of sly hats, will get it’s first test run out in the wide open. it’s called, ‘delicate’ and it’s form feels much like it’s title, with a pinch of sweetness.
besides the sets being all acoustic and the prospect of a rousing sing-a-long led by dave mccormack and myself (we haven’t decided what song to sing together, but i can guarantee it’ll be a fun one), that about does it on what i can divulge about the shows. all i know is that i have a strong feeling that i am about to have a memorable tour (the good kind of memorable).
one last item on the list of things that i don’t find myself doing every day. last wednesday i could be found on the end of a pier in adelaide with my family, wearing the ashes of my grandmother, as we cast them into the oncoming wind. it was just like that age-old scene in the movies where the bereft casts the ashes of their loved one over the edge of a dramatic cliff into the roaring ocean below, only to be struck by an unexpected gust of wind and the remains of the deceased. cue much laughter. i think she would’ve loved it.
then we ate fish and chips for dinner. her favourite.
onya nan. xxx
and goodnight to you all.
ang x