back in sydney and it’s still sunshine on tap north of my home town. the day i flew, i first took an hour long walk from east brunswick to collingwood with a raging hangover. as is common to melbourne, it was sunny, cloudy, raining and blowing a gale, when it wasn’t still. a truly refreshing jaunt, although i had to sit in my damp clothes, when i reached my destination, which was a juice bar, followed by a bar (serving the other juices that come out of a barrel, through a tap and into a jug, or a pot, depending on how much denial you’re in when you pretend you are only going to have one drink), followed by a middle seat on the airplane. as is common to me, i didn’t want to fly, then arrived and was glad i came. what’s with that?
i resist change so strongly when i see it coming and yet i welcome it with open arms when it arrives. ‘try to think less’
it’s radio promo time. dean, jasper and i went into the j’s and did a fine cover of the pixies’ aptly titled, ‘holiday song’. funny being back in the band thing, palming the answering of questions appropriately back and forth to the relevant band member and finding a harmony and flow amongst one another with that. it’s quite similar to playing a song together. it requires sensitivity and spacial awareness, teamed with a keen sense of when diving in out of turn will benefit the mix. dean and i work well together with this strange verbal tennis game.
we popped in to fbi (where we are enjoying the attention of album of the week, this week) and sang a couple of tunes and had a chat about frente, leonardo’s bride and now, hoi. followed that up by talking with nick bennett on radio 2(which you can find online, as well as on the good old radio dial) and sang some tunes amongst the natter. in ill-judgement, on an incredible all time blood sugar low, i scoffed five meals in one sitting at the cafeteria downstairs, then tried singing through the film of food in my oesophagus, whilst coughing, clearing my throat every other second and sounding rather congested. to my relief, the engineer began audibly coughing uncontrollably during ‘get up and fall down’.
lastly, on our mini-radio tour of sydney, we did vega fm, with angela catterns. as soon as we left the building we called all our friends to ring the station and request ‘spell happiness’. i think they did a good job, as the receptionist kept saying they were getting a lot of calls for it that morning.
we played the vanguard last night, our official launch. it felt like our first real show. great turnout and we had arranged a truly special evening, that i enjoyed being a part of, as much as i think the audience did. you know it’s a good night when you’re being entertained by something, even when you organised it, are participating in it, and know what’s coming next. i wish keira, the hula-hoop girl would join the band. things are just more special when she’s around. we opened the show with the ‘holiday’ song gamelan sound playing, whilst dean and i walked through the audience singing and playing guitar. we started on the balcony and worked our way down, until we snuck behind the curtains and let keira wow the crowd, then the curtains opened and the whole band began to play with keira in the foreground. i got so amped by the sheer excitement of it all, it took me a while to calm down and just sing. abbie dobson got up (and didn’t fall down) for ‘get up’, which was so beautiful. wow, what a voice and what a lovely person. dean and i got goofy and really played off each other with our banter, doing a little dance together while we played. for the encore, we closed with my song sand, then received a big cheer when we played blt with the full band. like i said, it was a real show.
speaking of get up and fall down, boy am i an emotional roller coaster this week. is it jet-lag? change of diet? pms? or just the blues? who knows, but i can hardly stand myself. maybe it’s launching myself headlong into the middle of a melbourne winter (even though i’m writing this from fair weathered sydney). everyone else seems pretty beaten by it. maybe i’m just trying to match them….. you know, blend in. although they don’t seem so moody, more like just flat.
it is odd, going away in the heat of summer, only to return to the dead of winter. the overall vibe is, well, different. besides the obvious wardrobe change, everyone seems more subdued. it’s oh so quiet. not that things around me are exactly quiet. i have still managed the usual pace of drinking (and smoking)and galavanting around that i have grown accustomed to. but, life around me is definitely moving at a slower pace. i like it. i feel like i just stepped off the plane to another world that could teach me a thing or two about just being.
heading off towards the blue mountains today to play our regional dates. we’re going to take it easy, stay overnight, have lunch with steve (the guy that took the pics for the hoi website) in the sticks. generally cruise around.
i didn’t say i was slowing down, did i?