musings

I’ve spent a lazy day reading, almost finished with ronnie wood’s autobiog. love the story of woody and bob dylan at a party in 1974, this bear of a man walkes up to bob and says, “hi, I’m peter grant. I manage led zeppelin.” to which his royal bobness shot back, “hey man, I don’t come to you with my problems.”

while reading, the house seemed unusually quiet, especially with a couple of bored kids wrestling earlier. I walked out into the lounge room and found them both asleep. I guess the hectic past few days have caught up with them. I’ll need to wake them soon, as we’ll be off bbq’ing and watching the fireworks over sydney harbour.

perhaps tomorrow, I can muster some poignant thought on yet another year. to my dear readers, all the very best to you, and here’s wishing ‘08 is a better year than its predecessors.

gotta love myspace. japan’s choinure, bringing it all back home.

interesting article in rolling stone about the homogenization of modern recorded music, from a technical viewpoint.

been having a ball with my kids. drove up to the country to get them on wednesday, did some sightseeing thru the blue mountains on the way back, then it was off to chris turner’s annual boxing day bbq. fortunately, many of us aging rockers now have kids of our own, so mine had plenty of company.

the gypsy gal’s son is in town as well so last night, we all hit luna park. the kids went nuts on all the rides, and someone had the foresight to upgrade the bar in order to stave off adult boredom. they’ll all be having a pizza/dvd/slumber bash at the gypsy gal’s tonight while I hit the bald rock pub with the tonedogs.

still trying to finalize the new band lineup, just waiting on a green-light from the drummer, who’s away on holiday. I’m looking forward to working within a regular band structure again, all these months of solo acoustic has been liberating but unstructured. I tend to get lazy about my own work and end up mostly playing tunes from my fave writers, such as tom waits, leonard cohen and warren zevon.

and sometime this month, I’ll compile the tracks that will be on the long-promised anthology and send off for mastering. no, really.

and I’m home, chilling.

yesterday’s chrissy jam and bbq at the bald rock was a corker. lost of great musicians turned out to play and hang. I’m still trying to work out why I thought tequila slammers were a good idea, however…

I’ll be hanging around the house tomorrow, on my own this year but not feeling up to going to other people’s homes for lunch etc. boxing day or so I’ll drive up to the country to bring me kids down.

here’s hoping that all of you, dear readers, have a safe and happy holiday season. thanks for checking in.

I’ve had this usual conversation a couple of times this week, so for any of you who may be marginally interested, here’s my best albums of 2007 list, in no particular order:

peter case / let us now praise sleepy john

mark knopfler / kill to get crimson

neil young / chrome dreams II

great lake swimmers / ongiara

levon helm / dirt farmer

steve earle / washington square serenade

wilco / sky blue sky

bruce springsteen / magic

james morrison / undiscovered

nick lowe / at my age

patty griffin / children running through

still haven’t made up my mind about ryan adams, bright eyes, rilo kiley and the robert plant / alison krauss duet album.

albums that should have been great, but didn’t move me as expected:

eagles / long road out of eden

new pornographers / challengers

richard thompson / sweet warrior

suzanne vega / beauty & crime

amy winehouse / back to black

radiohead / in rainbows

norah jones / not too late

silverchair / young modern

anything not mentioned, I either didn’t hear it or have no particular opinion about it. your mileage may vary.

yes, my little casey-lee is thirteen today. god help us all.

and happy b-day to kaya for last sunday.

they’ve announced that the peats ridge festival has been cancelled, leaving all kinds of artists stranded, including one of ours, gwyn ashton. there may be a bright side, I’m trying to talk steve poltz, who’s now fest-free, into dropping into the baldy on the weekend. check out his latest, it’s another gem.

I’ve got fourteen new tunes either demoed or near-completed. I just can’t decide whether to do an album with the band or all solo acoustic and dobro. after a decade, I’m a little out of practice with this record releasing thing, ya see….

finally got a myspace page up for my old band sneakers. go have a look. I still cringe at those songs, but a lot of people liked them at the time, I guess.

oh, and as for my comments regarding steven stills’ performance at the recent crosby, stills & nash show - just learned that he’s been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

despite the rain, which usually keeps most sydneysiders locked indoors for some strange reason, we had a good turnout for last night’s sunday sessions. nicole brophy was fabulous as always, but matt tonks absolutely blew the crowd away. a very short-shorts clad brooke mcclymont guested on a couple of songs, as did miko and jamie the chef. a good time, as they say, was had by all.

read that dan fogleberg passed away today from prostrate cancer. I haven’t thought about him in a long time, he’s just one of those perennial 70’s artists that always seemed to drift in & out of radio playlists. still, it was a reminder for all of us, ahem, aging men to get ourselves checked out.

tonight’s the 26th annual big rock records christmas party, just the first of many ahead this week. I’ll drive up and collect my kids next week sometime, they’ll be here with me for a couple of weeks.

still haven’t decided if I’ll go to sxsw next march. I’d like to catch up with a lot of pals that’ll be there, but I’d like to have something else to do, like play a few shows. I’m still writing and recording demos pretty sporadically, but it’ll be a while until I’m ready to do another album proper.

caught the crosby stills & nash gig on friday night. after last year’s postponement, I couldn’t help but wonder if this’d be the last time we’ll see them here in the antipodes. having said that, they all looked in great shape (all things considered), and crosby especially was in superb vocal form.

the first half of the show was a little spotty, the poor vocal mix was, for one of rock music’s most superb vocal band, inexcusable and stills seemed unsettled. after the intermission though, everything seemed to gel vocally, and stills’ guitar playing all night was extraordinary.

the setlist was very much a “hits” run, though I was a little disappointed that they didn’t do “suite: judy blue eyes” (apparently they haven’t performed it the entire tour, for some reason). the set, to the best of my memory:

carry on / questions
marrakesh express
long time gone
49 bye byes
cathedral
military madness (which may have been impromptu)
(a newish tune, written by crosby’s son james reynolds who was on keyboards)
deja vu
southern cross
what are you gonna do about it
helplessly hoping
our house
for what it’s worth
jesus of rio
almost cut my hair
wooden ships
encores:
teach your children
woodstock

thoroughly enjoyable, all up.

oh, if you’re in the area, there’s gonna be a beaut meteor shower overnight.

tina turner’s official statement on the passing of ike:

“Tina is aware that Ike passed away earlier today. She has not had any contact with him in 35 years. No further comment will be made.”

says it all, no?