musings

our label’s second release, the new lime spiders album hit the streets today. preorders are good, which I’m relieved about. the band themselves live scattered around the country and are starting to arrive in town for next week’s rehearsals, then the tour kicks off thursday.

between pretour details and my own graphic workload, a couple of the guys at the guitar shop have been ill, so I’ve been back to my double-shift routine. hence not much posting. but I’ve been thinking about my friends in california affected by the fires, spoke to a couple and have had email contact with most. it’s brought back some very strong memories for me, I may save those for another post.

daylight savings ends this weekend as well, and while that generally doesn’t mean much to me, I’m anticipating the effect that it’s likely to have on my sunday gig. if last year is anything to go by, people seem to venture in when dusk approaches. you’d think a sunday gig would be a nice afternoon thing, but I can’t seem to get anyone to turn up til evening. at present, night begins to fall about 6pm, it’ll be 7 from tomorrow. so I’m hoping that I don’t have a repeat of last year’s shows where the bulk of the crowd turns up an hour before the show ends, then doesn’t want to go home.

got a couple pals out from the states as well, mike steed is playing my sunday gig tomorrow, and terry’s arriving from austin prior to his artists’ tour, hamilton loomis. they’re both great musicians, check em out.

went to the 10 year anniversary of tice & evans at the bridge hotel last night. all the old crowd were there, some still wearing the same things they wore back when it was uh, fashionable to.

fave cover song of the month: leo kottke and mike gordon doing aerosmith’s sweet emotion. watch it here, it’s tre cool.

been following the news of the latest malibu fires with mixed emotions. I lost my house in latigo canyon, just above malibu beach in 1982, and I still remember so much of it like was yesterday.

even now, every time I smell smoke from a fire - like last week’s minor blaze at the backpacker’s next door - those memories come flooding back. they say that olifactory triggers are amongst the strongest. at any rate, I certainly feel for my friends and others that are there now.

local shows have returned to the usual peninsula weekends. I’ve got the new recording gear out of the boxes finally, but still need to pick up a good valve compressor before I can start working on anything. hopefully I’ll get the old tracks in for mastering soon, but with the spiders tour kicking off next week, that’s unlikely.

cool new album o’ the week - crosby tyler’s debut, produced by peter case and featuring my pal duane jarvis. it’s pretty funky.

had a great show last thrusday at the harp with jim conway’s big wheel. was nice, and a little startling at first to have room full of people actually there to listen to music. it’s not the sort of thing one gets used to in a new south wales hotel. I had a good time pulling out old songs, telling even older stories and ‘performing’ once again. I could get used to this….

saturday marked the 30th anniversary of the plane crash that took the members of lynyrd skynyrd. at my sunday gig, bryen from nicki gillis‘ band joined me for “tuesday’s gone” and “gimme three steps” in their honour. oddly, the only skynyrd song that people seem to know in this country is “sweet home alabama”. most people here haven’t even heard “freebird”, which is amazing to me.

our crowds were down though, possibly due in part to the televised federal election debate. more of that same gainsaying over the next few weeks, I’m ‘fraid… in birmingham they love the gov’nor. boo-hoo-hoo…

getting thru the backlog of my workload and starting to see some daylight again, which is a relief. aside from mundane workstuff, there’s not much to comment on.

should have the shopping cart up on the figtree site soon, the lime spiders’ tour starts in two weeks and we need to have product up. been tracking down someone to digitize my acetate copies of “colourblind”, then we can finally schedule this long-overdue anthology album for mastering. so march ‘08 looks likely for a release.

anyone in town, I’m at the harp in tempe on thursday, opening the show for jim conway’s big wheel. had a giggle when I saw my name on the pole posters lining sydney’s main arterials.

picked up a copy of derek & the domino’s classic for ten bucks. was so nice to hear “layla” in the original version, now that the yuppie market has grasped the unplugged version to its collective.

I mean, c’mon… jim gordon’s drumming. bobby whitlock on keys. and duane allman? “bell-bottom blues”? “why does love got to be so sad”? “nobody knows you when you’re down & out”? not to mention their stunning take on hendrix’ “little wing”.

sheer class. you won’t find this in a britney or killers album, kiddies.

for the benefit of my overseas readers - this country was inhabited by the original indigenous people, loosely referred to as “aboriginals”. they endured many, many countless years of hostility, atrocities and injustice since “official” anglo settlement in 1788, and there has been a long-standing cry for reconciliation and… a public apology from the government of the day.

this has gone all but unanswered for decades.

presently, the incumbent government is lagging well behind the opposition, and unless a miracle or lightning strikes, it’ll be out on the street time for the long-standing “conservatives”.

so the political game-playing has cranked up to eleven, which means that no actual work is being done, and all the taxpayer’s money is being wasted on an “adult” version of voting for the new prom king & queen.

today, the incumbent preside… uh, prime minister, john “cricket” howard announced that he’d “consider” a public apology.

this would have to be the most openly transparent, pathetic last-desperado grasp at garnering votes that I believe I have ever seen in my life.

is it any wonder that people lose faith in their political system? is there any hope for justice, honesty, decency amongst our “elected few”?

we have a generation of young kids totally immersed in video games, file sharing and social networking sites. why should we be surprised? even my own daughter turns her nose up when she sees news reports of “parliament question time”, when the so-called role models argue, bicker and insult like trailer park trash.

wake me up when the election ends.

had an enjoyable set this week at the pop tarts’ show, where it was all-male artists. hence, I was a “pop-stud”. sadly, a few well-meaning pals turned up somewhat inebriated and proceeded to guffaw and chortle amongst themselves thru my set, which undoubtedly will get picked up on the tv cam mics.

stevie ray vaughan would’ve been 53 today. I wonder what he’d have been playing had he lived.

one more week at the guitar store, then I can hopefully catch up some. so much has been neglected here of late due to my workload, and I’ve forgotten what a normal life consists of.

the new recording gear is still sitting in boxes on the floor, can’t wait to unpack and get working again - working on music that is.

shouldn’t complain though, I could’ve always been a burmese monk…

or I could’ve been a mr. potato head smuggler…