I've been writing the occasional blog for Myspace. I thought I'd put them here for people who ain't into that scene. So as they can see what I'm goin' on about over there.

Friday, August 29, 2008
northcote - geelong
Y eah we blitzed the northcote social club on a wednesday night . A fulsome turnout of people, made us feel great! We played with all five of us and it was such a joy to be a part of that highly sophisticated and living sound. We played most of 'We wuz curious' as well as new, funked up versions of 'the birds and the goats' and 'I'm not afraid to be heavy'. Great to see so many people out and about.
Henry Wagons did an opening set and his rolling fingerpicking and melismatic tenor is pretty stunning.
The next day we drove to geelong and played as two solo artists at a joint called the 'National' . Before the show I ate a Laksa soup. I wore vinyl dacks as opposed to leather and gave my waistcoat a rest. There was brave few dozen in attendance but the sounds were warm and delivered with poise and chops.
Henry and I slept in a room with bunks. This is living! Hardcore!
The next day was a lovely spring morning and we ate at an old italian caff. I have stated my preference for working ,mans/ truckers style caffs as opposed to country town approximatiopns of Melbournes approximations of toffy cafe cultured nosheries. No roadside stop food either and no fish and chipperies!
We breakfasted on superb egg and bacon sandwiches. Henry complained that his coffee was 'burned'. (I have never heard of such a sophisticated complaint) It was also too hot to drink and the bubbles on the surface were too large.
I suggested the Italian may have lowered his standards as a result of the clientele not being as demanding of quality as Henry. This led to a lengthy silence between us as we contemplated not much really. Eventually, Henry went and 'dumped his guts:' (He told me) It took longer than Joel Silbersher says it takes him in his song 'I love you (but I also need to pooh') . (In that song he says 'I'll be back in 20 minutes!')
We drove on to Wartrnambool. bought a copy of the play 'the one day of the year' in an op shop before we left. A nostalgic read of the times when Anzac Day was on the ..nose and people were gutsy enough to suggest we forget the wars. I might add we should honour those who marched for peace before and during all these conflagrations, including the millions around the world who did so before the Iraq war.
We drove on, stopping in Colac for lunch. Henry opted for a bakery. I was reaching for snot block when Henry asked whether I was having a 'cumsquare'. I put me off and I went and bought some apples. And a can of diet Coke.
We arrived in Warrnambool and soundchecked. I am accompanying Henry on a couple of songs and he is doing so with me as well.
I walked around the town for a while, trying to get to the beach. I was thwarted at every turn by new developments which sprang up unexpectedly and cut off the roads and trails. Bastards. Maybe it was the pot?
The beach was always , tantalisngly in the distance.
In the local paper, I am on the front page of the entertainment section. A colour picture, with the headline 'you're just too hip hop baby'. (A reference to 5 discs they asked me to name that I loved. Most being contemporary hip hop cds)
Tomorrow we head for Hamilton. A saturday night in a small town. One street with lights the cars drive up and down. Poor bastards. I come with news from the real world! End of days! The whole shithouse is going up in flames!
In the end I came here to the library to file a report.
Monday, September 01, 2008
Geelong- Warrnambool-Hamilton- Adelaide
Yeah, so we had a lot of publicity in Warrnambool and played to a room of people who had a cool time. We packed up and drove through the dark, tree sprung night to my sisters place near Timboon. We sat and had a cup of tea and talked around the fire. In the morning we went for a walk in the forest with Marianne identifying some trees and native grasses and other plants for us. Their crazy dog, Flea, who looks like she is part Tasmanian Tiger, ran gleefully through the undergrowth ahead of us. Ian cooked us a lunch on the barbecue of marinated meat accompanied by a rocket salad . the lettuce was of the type that my friend Howard calls 'telegraph pole lettuce', all dark and differently shaped green leaves . We left the house (that they had built themselves in the forest) with bags of home gown garlic in the back along with a bottle of their fresh, unfiltered, cold pressed virgin olive oil.
We drove an hour or two to Hamilton, directed by Henrys trusty GPS system.
The phone rang as we arrived in Hamilton. the football was on across the road at their local oval, the two Hamilton teams playing . I answered the phone and did an interview with a fellow in Canberra , shouting loudly in the street as the rain started to fall. I attested forthrightly to my greatness in the empty street, accompanied by groans and shouts from the football oval.
Henry and I sounchecke and then went for a meal. I chose a Noodle joint. I have always like that Ernest Hemingway short story, ' a clean well lighted place'. This room was lit by 4 bright flourescent tubes and the chairs were made of aluminium. The tables were white plastic and the coke fridge gave the light the extra lift it needed to make us visible from an orbiting space ship. I loved it.
We ate in silence as I read the Hamilton Spectator. there was a story about me in it. The headine was great, 'Mojo working for King Dave'. I loved that too! 'I got my mojo workin'' is one of my fave Muddy Waters tunes!
I then turned the pages and saw many articles and photos of pigs and pig famers and tractor sales and football talk. Then the page fell open to the local netball and we were both transfixed by the pictures of local girls in heroic poses on the court. These cornfed amazons stoped us mid chop sticks and we could not talk! All the photos taken by a female photographer! They were movie stars! Like Ursula Andress striding out of the waves in that Bond flick. I tried to steal the paper but the Chinese lady pulled out her gun.
We went back to the publicans ranch where we were staying and watched 'wipeout' on tv. Brilliant.
Back at the gig we saw that the footy had plum tuckerd a lot of the people out and going to a gig was not on their agenda. Henry kicked things off with his size 13 boots and his sweatband proudly on his head. Directly in front of him, three mopey drunks were taking it in turns to show him their back and make 'isn't he a fuck?' looks to the young gothic barmaid. I took some photos and cruised at a low altitude on some primo cookie.
Henry was great, as was proving to be the usual. Such a great singer and picker.
I played my set as some young people from a fancy dress party proceeded to come in. A fellow dressed as 'Lorne' from 'angel' cheered me up as he sat at the bar, just like Lorne would . (Lorne was a greeen and horned 'empath demon' who could read peoples lives as he sang lounge songs in his club). There was also a girl in a bunny outfit and a ghoul in white face and blood on his mouth. (Perhaps not in fancy dress?)
As I played 'you had to be drunk' a girl came up talking to me , right in my face, asking for some Johnny Cash and then proceeded to set up a 'johnny cash!' chant that no one else joined in.
Another fellow stood right in front of me playing air guitar and then keening / singing gibberish in a high voice . (He liked me). He then sat down next to Henry and made a lunge for his crotch. (The only gay in the village?)
The night wound down and Henry and I were satisfied with our experience. the owner , Chris was very generous and we breakfasted the next morning .
His wife talked of playing netball, (Henrys ears pricked up) and I asked about the two local football teams, Imps and Hamilton. She explained that the Imps (Impreials) had no clubrooms and their players and supportrs all caused trouble at the pubs and bars. They also had no money and couldnt pay all their players. Hamilton, the other team , had a clubroom that generated a lot of money and paid all their players, even the reserves. Additionally, any policemen who cxame to the town, played for them.
I asked who had the most premierships and she said , 'Imps'. This was the clincher. I said that if I lived in the town, I would barrack for the Imps. The bad boys.
Good on Chris for putting on some entertainment for the town.
I had a good sleep, disturbed only by Henry sneaking in to fossick through my bag for the Hamilton Spectator that I had bought earlier. 'I only want a couple of the pages!' he said.
We had learned that basically country people arent used to entertainment and are quite happy to work out their own fun. They also dont know any of the rituals of a performance and indeed dont know the difference between a television performer and one right in front of them. (Many city people have the same difficulties too)
The next day we drove to Adelaide. I was at the wheel for a long time , until we got to Keith. We went to a cafe. Henry , who had eaten four stolen country eggs for breakfast , ate a pastie as I had told him they were the best thing to be had as we were now in South Australia.
I got one and enjoyed it immensely. I perused the comments made in the bakery guetbook. I again, couldn't look at the snotblock in the same way now I had learned it was also a cumsquare.
I bought an apple.
Henry was disturbed by the food. I suggested it also may have been the outlaw biker looking guy who slung the food at us with a scowl on his face. He had drowned everyting in red sauce and glared at us like we were effette shit on his toes. I prefer that kind of service, being a salt of the earth type, Henry is more delicate.
We drove on and eventually arrived in Adelaide. We did a hot set at a great joint. Henry was on fire! Perhaps it was the ILLUSION that we were in more sophisticated company? I got up and had a squawk too, the likes of which had've never been seen on any stage anywhere in the world. I was great. My amp was great . My guitars were great. My pants were great. My shirt was great. My waistcoat was great and my jacket was great. I started the set with 'Alex Chilton' by the Replacements and ended it with 'move with me' by Tim Buckley. In between, I cruised between many distant planets and backstreets, hangin' around in Adelaide all the while.
The next day, today, we drove back to Melbourne, feeling the dignity of being working musicians in a harsh , stoopid and loveless time. Thanks for coming to the shows, look out for us around NSW and QLD soon.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Cairns royalty
I last came this far north about a decade ago. They missed me! Got greeted by airline workers walking out of the plane and then the cab driver stared at me as he wiped my seat with a hanky before I put my ass on it.
The joint is an arts centre in an old diesel tank. We packed about 400 people in there on a hot night. It was an old style, pandemonium tropical sweat up show. People went nuts and that included us! A great experience to hit out with the band after the cold Victorian solo shows. I couldnt chance my leathers up in this heat so I dragged on my Vietnamese made blue silk suit and I tore the trousers doing a high kick half way through the set. It was stuck fast to my skin.
One lady had driven from Cooktown with her two kids in the car to see us. Had a ball meeting people after the show. A girl/woman I went to school with and Cameron who was an old time weirdness pal from Darlinghurst in the days when the Tropicana had the only Focacias in Australia.
Stayed an extra day and went snorkelling off an island in the great barrier reef and took a trip in a semi submarine boat with fish swimming around. Great fun.
Then we went to a reggae festival in an aboriginal arts park a few miles out of town. So many badly dressed lotus eaters in attendance. So many people who have let go of their facades. I wanted some severity and coolness. So much flesh and dreadlocks on show. All the young dudes giving each other manly hugs dressed in their healing pants or sarongs or giving and taking odd complicated handgrips.
We went and ate in a foodcourt in the city. About 150,000 people and swelling weekly. Industrial tourism. I think its a boom town and perhaps the future of Australia!
See youse next week in NSW ....

Sunday, September 14, 2008
Albury
The drive out is broken up by a stop in the town of Euroa where I have to have phone access to do an interview with Canberra ABC. Henry sits at a table and accesses the internet. He is so happy and smiles at all the pensioners who swarm around us young virle blokes. They must have jobs that need doing.
This joint, Sodens, is a grand old country squire type hotel with an inner courtyard, around which there are some hotel rooms. Henry and I were given one each. His had no air or window or tv or bathroom so I let him into mine which was a big family room with all of the above. He was a bit worried about how this would look to teh members of the football teams who were staying in the rooms around us. He kept telling everybody that it was family room and we weren;'t gay and asking guys about news of Dale Weightman., ( a Richmond player of the late seventies to early eighties).
The gig room was set up with a PA for a hard rock band so we had a booming, crystal clear sound and a light show. Henry kept asking for effects from the lighting man that were more directions for a video cliip."I'm going for a walk in the forest during this bit lighting man, can you give me some stars and overhanging trees?") Henrys playing and performance is fantastic tonight. He always has either exemplary chops in his picking or the quality of his songs or his voice or his talk DURING his songs, tonight he has all of the above in full effect. Great.
I play a set in a new leather shirt and my old faithful suede trousers. I play electric and acoustic. Tonight I visit some old tracks and play a new song I've been sweating on for a year or so. Its inspired by Arthur imbaud and its called "One is another". I am breaking free of some notions of mediocrity I have been strayimg near in order to appeal to commercial radio (JJJ). Now I know that is a hopeless cause I am set free to be as high falutin as I wish. Goodbye, i am going for a walk, I may be some time but I have always made sense and now I'm gonna make more.
People in the room are there to hear some music. the football players are watching the football outside. They all lookl ike members of the Dalton gang. One shouts "king of pop" at me. Another calls me "pal" like hes a digger.
The next morning I wake early and go for a run and have some breakfast. the streets are full of red eyed dull witted yobs with their handbrakes in tow, waving theatrically to each other.
I do an interview with FBi over a pay phone. Its is the cleanest room in Australia. They could rent these out!.
Henry and I leave town and argue over lunch. henry is impressed by a service station that has a cafe called "24/7". "that must be good "he enthuses.
We stop at my favourite psyhedelic portal, the dog on the tuckerbox at Gundagai and I buy some apples and oranges.Sunday, September 14, 2008
the national capital (canberra)So we blew town with renewed hope and an open road in front of us. We listened to Henry ipod in the car.That stuff is a mystery to me but Henry is right into all modern technology.
We arrive in Canberra and check into our frugal accomodation. There is no booking for us but the young fellow fudges the books and we get into a private room in a YHA.Later we learn that we are actually supposed to be in the hotel across the road which is quite posh. WE sneak out and thank the bellhop for his creative booking but tell him it was all a terrible mistake.
At the oundcheck we are less than bowled over by the sound tech. I dont know why hes in this game, perhaps a second career.
Anyway, 10:30 finds Henry plowing his way through a room with half the people interested in music and the other half there to find a sexual portal for the night by getting drunk and falling on someone three hours later. Or they are playing pool as well and trying to ignore the LEVIATHAN which stalks us all , always!
I talk to the sound tech during Henrys gig.I am alarmed he is wearing ear plugs . The person in charge of the sound shouldnt be shutting the sound out. He tells me his girlfriend googled me as they had never heard of me."Are you in Bert Newtons backing band?" he asks. I look at him from a long way away, even though we are rubbing shoulders in a crowded room. I leave a pause wide enough for a civilization to rise and fall before turing away and saying "no". Very softly. I feel the Leviathan and am warmed by its presence.
"Something to do with Bert Newton anyway!" He tells me. I wish I had some earplugs so I didnt have to listen to him. then I hear the young girls and a boy talking behind us.They are talking about getting drunk as they get drunk. they laugh like young horses.I wish Mr Ed would come in and add some class to their crowd. Their boy thing talks. Francis the Talking Mule. Thank God I have enough pot.
Earlier, I had asked the sound man to take out 440khz from the eq as that note was booming in the room from my guitar. It was feeding back. He now asked me what I had been talking about. He was talking like I was an idiot. I marvelled at his easy cruise through life.Perhaps some people never even die?

I follow Henry. It is a late gig and I do my best. I am not using a set list and probably should. For a gig like this you need to be flying to a strict flight plan and no deviations should be attempted. I take many deviations. Its the sort of gig that would be easier to get through if the sound was attenuated more in your favour . Perhaps not by a guy with plugs in his ears and plans to try and catch some friends band across town later on. Did I say this cat looked like a family first senator as well? (I done mean to be mean. Its just happening)
After the show we debrief in our palatial apartment. I give Henry some pot. We watch a porno movie together.It stars Sharapova and Ivanovic in thrilling Nike skirts, playing in the US Open.
In the morning we avail ourselves of the free breakfast and blow that taco stand. We make like chickens and fly that coop. Fridgelike!
I wriote this from Henrys laptop in a Katoomba cafe. I have bought no coffee or tea.I am bludging their air.I enjoy passing through life and not touching much. I went to the food co op and got a brown paper bag of Brazil nuts and a banana
Party!

Monday, September 15, 2008 katoomba
Triselies in Katoomba is run by a real old school gent by the name of Pixie. He is a soldier from the rock scene in Melbourne from the late 70s. He loves to trade war stories and feels a bond with Melbourne people. He keeps mentioning names of people from the scene a few years before I ever got into it but I do know a few that he drops. Its a funny ride listening to him talk about the scene. We are sitting in his Hellenic/ Cypriot restaurant which is across the road from his gig. He has a gallows showbiz humour that is real and I feel like we are hardcore brothers like the Jewish mafia portrayed in Broadway Danny Rose. He hangs and drys out people at will and talks of showbusiness in a brutal way that is quite refreshing. He talks of ancient , immutable laws. "That room has bitch in it and where theres bitch there are guys with their wallets out! Give em something for nothin' and they'll spend everything they've got!"
Henry eats a Moussaka at dinner and I go for a Greek salad. The gig is a beautiful room. The sound and stage are spectacularly well designed and executed. Pixie knows it all.
Henry does a set which is his usual high standard but he tells me later he felt listless from the heavy dinner.
I play a long set and enjoy myself. I've been doing " sweet surrender" by Tim Buckley. Its a funny kind of test for the rock n roll heads in the room. So many people know that album by Tim Buckley and its a secret tongue that we hear there. Its not from the usual conduits of aggregated and carefully cultured sounds . Its wild and its from the wilds. Not from the JJJ world which dreads mentioning anything from more than 3 years ago and not from the other commercial radio portals. Its a sound from lounge rooms and rolling joints and generations of contemplative afternoons and nights.
I sit and chat with some Katoomba locals. One had a strange , shifty way of sitting and was a bit nervy. A girl let slip he'd done some time in gaol. I gently suggested he might like to let people know that if he wanted it to be known. We talked of different gaols, he seemed to know a few A nice fellow. They walked out of the room to take a night train home.
Henry and I piled into the van and drove to Sydney. I ate an apple and some Brazil nuts.
We listened to Miles Davis as we drove. "Kind of Blue" on the ipod.
I got into Hurlstone Park at about 1:30 am and took all my gear out. Robert Mitchums "out of the past" was on that great community tv channel. I wish I could get that in Melbourne.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Emanations of THE GIANT YOUNG BRADMAN!
Yeah, I woke in a green hotel with a strange creature groaning beside me. The snake was pale, gold and shrunken! Actually it was a western highland terrier called Tex who always greets me here in Sydney by nuzzling my face and cocking his head to the side as he wants me to pay some attention to him. I gave him a scratch and went back to sleep. I woke and walked into the main residence and had some breakfast. Mainly fruit and coffee. I then went for a run down by the river.
I caught a train into the ABC in Ultimo. I love Sydney trains. they are double decked and clean and you never wait long. There are also people working in at each suburban station..Outrageous.
I walked from Central station to the ABC. As I entered I felt the strange emanations of the young Bradman coming from an isolated hot spot of cold magic somewhere in the building. There is an enormous atrium in this pile with a 50 foot hanging portrait of Adam Hills. I get my security clearance and am even more conscious of the force feeling me out as to whether I am possessed of any demographic charge that may be useful for the corporation.
There are varying fingers I sense probing me as I enter the lift. The coldest being from the youth frequency of the giant young Bradmanian forces. I remember I wrote a story of Bradman fucking Phar Lap in the darkness of the Melbourne Museum at night. Did they know of this heresy that I had conjured? I had dreamed that these duelling, coupling icons had dreamed of injuring the minds of innocent anzaciacal australia. I had stood back and acted like my creations had lives of their own and stalked the desert, icons drifting across the vacant lots. Minds.
I did an interview for a show to be broadcast in Sydney next Sunday afternoon. We kept it light. I dont know why. I'm not afraid to be heavy. Here in the depths of the ORG they fear gravity and constantly ask the great known what they think of something, anything. I have a casual disregard for folk forms .This has served me well in my heroic journey which has led me in concentric oval shapes for two decades now. I grew up in the mud, my mind is still under the ground...etc etc.
I sit in the cafe with an old and dear friend and we talk disgracefully of people we know and murder friends casually. A banana has exploded in my bag and I clean my books with a tissue. people look at me strangely and I feel waves of indifferent snoots being cocked all around . Security has been alerted that a moving body of renegade material named Graney is in the building. I have a few hours to murder and sit a while longer after my friend has to retreat back into the building. I somehow end up talking to two brothers from the rock band the Angels. We talk of nothing and agree on less. We disengage anyway.Out of common courtesy for manners. Out here we is whatever.
I walk around George street for a while. Everybody loves my faux alligator skin guitar case. I am amazed how easily the natives are dazzled by such cheap imitations trinkets.
I am to do an interview a couple of hours later in at 2ser in the sydney institute of technology. The station is on the 26th floor. The institute has a beautiful and enormous public space where there are some chairs and a few drink machines. I sit in a soft sofa chair and change the strings on my 12 string guitar. Its like performance art. I attract eyes and bystanders. I usually end up covered in blood and bandages but somehow I do the job in a couple of hours. I go up to the station and do an interview. The announcer plays a track from our first ep. Its called "world full of daughters". As I often do, I think of how consistently great I have been for such a long and am warmed by my own regard. I feel sad for the world as I think there was once a time when I didn't exist and then realize that time will come again!
I descend via the large lift , which could fit 40 people , talking to a lecturer who asks about my guitar case.
I should start charging people for copping a feel of it..Even if its just their eyes. "Its impregnated with scorpion juice and kills if you touch it, even with your eyes", I say helpfully. He stands back in awe. Cease! Mortal!
I walk back through the passing Sydney traffic, going the opposite way, as has been my general direction for so long now.
That night, I sit with my nephew and watch the Mighty Boosh. Its the episode with the Crack Fox. We laugh, kind of, but are both transfixed by the psychedelic magic of the Boosh ambience and spirit. I feel more adjusted to a world of possibilities. Escalators, elevators. Destinations and arrivals, then this quiet cul de sac...the blue sky and the solitary fly...I like to be haunted....

Thursday, September 18, 2008
hopetoun hotel- sydney
Wednesday night in Surry Hills. Its an industry night, the weekends are for the rubes and the marks. Tonight its the initiates, that made people. We played this joint 20 years ago with the White Buffaloes. Now they have to board up the windows and doors with wooden hatches and then cross them with heavy woollen cloth to prevent the sounds from escaping to bother the rich inner city dwellers as they consult their chicken entrails to ascertain the most opportune time to hurl themselves from their high Windows as their stocks head down to hades. They must, of course, follow.
Its a bit like being on board a ship in this little hotel. It has held many precious and delicate ambitions over the decades. The ship has been blown into the doldrums but tonight the strangers all come together once again to talk of treasure , rum, the lash and ill famed booty (same as treasure I know but the Beastie Boys made that link so well). We are here for a summit meeting to see if there is any magic left in the tank. To hear tell and to take some soundings. Where are we? Is there any hope of landfall? How soon? Can we make some sort of "do" here on this tiny fruit transporter?
Henry Wagons takes the stage and addresses "sydney" with his lightly picked and warm tones. the sound is great. Its one of those rooms that "brings the shit". (Henry has a great new song he's working up, a boogie, where he says that "henry wagons always brings the shit"
There are no parasites here to report back to the mother colony. No one from the blue light disco or the murdochian whisper. Everything that happens here happens here. People can talk about it with friends, if they have any friends.
Clare Moore is on the drums, a kit kindly loaned to us by Russell Hopkinson from You Am I ( and our label, Illustrious Artists). I am playing acoustic and electric guitars and Stu D is on the bass. The 6 string bass.
We have done a lot of playing as a trio and we hit a groove pretty easily and ride the tracks for an hour and a half. We play a lot from " we wuz curious" as well as "death by a 1000 sucks" and "my schtick weighs a ton". We could play for an hour more but it ain't the Fillmore in "69.
It was a great night to play for friends and insiders. People who know my stuff. I didn't have to be careful like when I am amongst squares and passers by. I could let fly with the language and know I was among friends and strangers who had given me the nod.

Sunday, September 14, 2008
Albury
The drive out is broken up by a stop in the town of Euroa where I have to have phone access to do an interview with Canberra ABC. Henry sits at a table and accesses the internet. He is so happy and smiles at all the pensioners who swarm around us young virle blokes. They must have jobs that need doing.
This joint, Sodens, is a grand old country squire type hotel with an inner courtyard, around which there are some hotel rooms. Henry and I were given one each. His had no air or window or tv or bathroom so I let him into mine which was a big family room with all of the above. He was a bit worried about how this would look to teh members of the football teams who were staying in the rooms around us. He kept telling everybody that it was family room and we weren;'t gay and asking guys about news of Dale Weightman., ( a Richmond player of the late seventies to early eighties).
The gig room was set up with a PA for a hard rock band so we had a booming, crystal clear sound and a light show. Henry kept asking for effects from the lighting man that were more directions for a video cliip."I'm going for a walk in the forest during this bit lighting man, can you give me some stars and overhanging trees?") Henrys playing and performance is fantastic tonight. He always has either exemplary chops in his picking or the quality of his songs or his voice or his talk DURING his songs, tonight he has all of the above in full effect. Great.
I play a set in a new leather shirt and my old faithful suede trousers. I play electric and acoustic. Tonight I visit some old tracks and play a new song I've been sweating on for a year or so. Its inspired by Arthur imbaud and its called "One is another". I am breaking free of some notions of mediocrity I have been strayimg near in order to appeal to commercial radio (JJJ). Now I know that is a hopeless cause I am set free to be as high falutin as I wish. Goodbye, i am going for a walk, I may be some time but I have always made sense and now I'm gonna make more.
People in the room are there to hear some music. the football players are watching the football outside. They all lookl ike members of the Dalton gang. One shouts "king of pop" at me. Another calls me "pal" like hes a digger.
The next morning I wake early and go for a run and have some breakfast. the streets are full of red eyed dull witted yobs with their handbrakes in tow, waving theatrically to each other.
I do an interview with FBi over a pay phone. Its is the cleanest room in Australia. They could rent these out!.
Henry and I leave town and argue over lunch. henry is impressed by a service station that has a cafe called "24/7". "that must be good "he enthuses.
We stop at my favourite psyhedelic portal, the dog on the tuckerbox at Gundagai and I buy some apples and oranges.Sunday, September 14, 2008
the national capital (canberra)So we blew town with renewed hope and an open road in front of us. We listened to Henry ipod in the car.That stuff is a mystery to me but Henry is right into all modern technology.
We arrive in Canberra and check into our frugal accomodation. There is no booking for us but the young fellow fudges the books and we get into a private room in a YHA.Later we learn that we are actually supposed to be in the hotel across the road which is quite posh. WE sneak out and thank the bellhop for his creative booking but tell him it was all a terrible mistake.
At the oundcheck we are less than bowled over by the sound tech. I dont know why hes in this game, perhaps a second career.
Anyway, 10:30 finds Henry plowing his way through a room with half the people interested in music and the other half there to find a sexual portal for the night by getting drunk and falling on someone three hours later. Or they are playing pool as well and trying to ignore the LEVIATHAN which stalks us all , always!
I talk to the sound tech during Henrys gig.I am alarmed he is wearing ear plugs . The person in charge of the sound shouldnt be shutting the sound out. He tells me his girlfriend googled me as they had never heard of me."Are you in Bert Newtons backing band?" he asks. I look at him from a long way away, even though we are rubbing shoulders in a crowded room. I leave a pause wide enough for a civilization to rise and fall before turing away and saying "no". Very softly. I feel the Leviathan and am warmed by its presence.
"Something to do with Bert Newton anyway!" He tells me. I wish I had some earplugs so I didnt have to listen to him. then I hear the young girls and a boy talking behind us.They are talking about getting drunk as they get drunk. they laugh like young horses.I wish Mr Ed would come in and add some class to their crowd. Their boy thing talks. Francis the Talking Mule. Thank God I have enough pot.
Earlier, I had asked the sound man to take out 440khz from the eq as that note was booming in the room from my guitar. It was feeding back. He now asked me what I had been talking about. He was talking like I was an idiot. I marvelled at his easy cruise through life.Perhaps some people never even die?

I follow Henry. It is a late gig and I do my best. I am not using a set list and probably should. For a gig like this you need to be flying to a strict flight plan and no deviations should be attempted. I take many deviations. Its the sort of gig that would be easier to get through if the sound was attenuated more in your favour . Perhaps not by a guy with plugs in his ears and plans to try and catch some friends band across town later on. Did I say this cat looked like a family first senator as well? (I done mean to be mean. Its just happening)
After the show we debrief in our palatial apartment. I give Henry some pot. We watch a porno movie together.It stars Sharapova and Ivanovic in thrilling Nike skirts, playing in the US Open.
In the morning we avail ourselves of the free breakfast and blow that taco stand. We make like chickens and fly that coop. Fridgelike!
I wriote this from Henrys laptop in a Katoomba cafe. I have bought no coffee or tea.I am bludging their air.I enjoy passing through life and not touching much. I went to the food co op and got a brown paper bag of Brazil nuts and a banana
Party!

Monday, September 15, 2008 katoomba
Triselies in Katoomba is run by a real old school gent by the name of Pixie. He is a soldier from the rock scene in Melbourne from the late 70s. He loves to trade war stories and feels a bond with Melbourne people. He keeps mentioning names of people from the scene a few years before I ever got into it but I do know a few that he drops. Its a funny ride listening to him talk about the scene. We are sitting in his Hellenic/ Cypriot restaurant which is across the road from his gig. He has a gallows showbiz humour that is real and I feel like we are hardcore brothers like the Jewish mafia portrayed in Broadway Danny Rose. He hangs and drys out people at will and talks of showbusiness in a brutal way that is quite refreshing. He talks of ancient , immutable laws. "That room has bitch in it and where theres bitch there are guys with their wallets out! Give em something for nothin' and they'll spend everything they've got!"
Henry eats a Moussaka at dinner and I go for a Greek salad. The gig is a beautiful room. The sound and stage are spectacularly well designed and executed. Pixie knows it all.
Henry does a set which is his usual high standard but he tells me later he felt listless from the heavy dinner.
I play a long set and enjoy myself. I've been doing " sweet surrender" by Tim Buckley. Its a funny kind of test for the rock n roll heads in the room. So many people know that album by Tim Buckley and its a secret tongue that we hear there. Its not from the usual conduits of aggregated and carefully cultured sounds . Its wild and its from the wilds. Not from the JJJ world which dreads mentioning anything from more than 3 years ago and not from the other commercial radio portals. Its a sound from lounge rooms and rolling joints and generations of contemplative afternoons and nights.
I sit and chat with some Katoomba locals. One had a strange , shifty way of sitting and was a bit nervy. A girl let slip he'd done some time in gaol. I gently suggested he might like to let people know that if he wanted it to be known. We talked of different gaols, he seemed to know a few A nice fellow. They walked out of the room to take a night train home.
Henry and I piled into the van and drove to Sydney. I ate an apple and some Brazil nuts.
We listened to Miles Davis as we drove. "Kind of Blue" on the ipod.
I got into Hurlstone Park at about 1:30 am and took all my gear out. Robert Mitchums "out of the past" was on that great community tv channel. I wish I could get that in Melbourne.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Emanations of THE GIANT YOUNG BRADMAN!
Yeah, I woke in a green hotel with a strange creature groaning beside me. The snake was pale, gold and shrunken! Actually it was a western highland terrier called Tex who always greets me here in Sydney by nuzzling my face and cocking his head to the side as he wants me to pay some attention to him. I gave him a scratch and went back to sleep. I woke and walked into the main residence and had some breakfast. Mainly fruit and coffee. I then went for a run down by the river.
I caught a train into the ABC in Ultimo. I love Sydney trains. they are double decked and clean and you never wait long. There are also people working in at each suburban station..Outrageous.
I walked from Central station to the ABC. As I entered I felt the strange emanations of the young Bradman coming from an isolated hot spot of cold magic somewhere in the building. There is an enormous atrium in this pile with a 50 foot hanging portrait of Adam Hills. I get my security clearance and am even more conscious of the force feeling me out as to whether I am possessed of any demographic charge that may be useful for the corporation.
There are varying fingers I sense probing me as I enter the lift. The coldest being from the youth frequency of the giant young Bradmanian forces. I remember I wrote a story of Bradman fucking Phar Lap in the darkness of the Melbourne Museum at night. Did they know of this heresy that I had conjured? I had dreamed that these duelling, coupling icons had dreamed of injuring the minds of innocent anzaciacal australia. I had stood back and acted like my creations had lives of their own and stalked the desert, icons drifting across the vacant lots. Minds.
I did an interview for a show to be broadcast in Sydney next Sunday afternoon. We kept it light. I dont know why. I'm not afraid to be heavy. Here in the depths of the ORG they fear gravity and constantly ask the great known what they think of something, anything. I have a casual disregard for folk forms .This has served me well in my heroic journey which has led me in concentric oval shapes for two decades now. I grew up in the mud, my mind is still under the ground...etc etc.
I sit in the cafe with an old and dear friend and we talk disgracefully of people we know and murder friends casually. A banana has exploded in my bag and I clean my books with a tissue. people look at me strangely and I feel waves of indifferent snoots being cocked all around . Security has been alerted that a moving body of renegade material named Graney is in the building. I have a few hours to murder and sit a while longer after my friend has to retreat back into the building. I somehow end up talking to two brothers from the rock band the Angels. We talk of nothing and agree on less. We disengage anyway.Out of common courtesy for manners. Out here we is whatever.
I walk around George street for a while. Everybody loves my faux alligator skin guitar case. I am amazed how easily the natives are dazzled by such cheap imitations trinkets.
I am to do an interview a couple of hours later in at 2ser in the sydney institute of technology. The station is on the 26th floor. The institute has a beautiful and enormous public space where there are some chairs and a few drink machines. I sit in a soft sofa chair and change the strings on my 12 string guitar. Its like performance art. I attract eyes and bystanders. I usually end up covered in blood and bandages but somehow I do the job in a couple of hours. I go up to the station and do an interview. The announcer plays a track from our first ep. Its called "world full of daughters". As I often do, I think of how consistently great I have been for such a long and am warmed by my own regard. I feel sad for the world as I think there was once a time when I didn't exist and then realize that time will come again!
I descend via the large lift , which could fit 40 people , talking to a lecturer who asks about my guitar case.
I should start charging people for copping a feel of it..Even if its just their eyes. "Its impregnated with scorpion juice and kills if you touch it, even with your eyes", I say helpfully. He stands back in awe. Cease! Mortal!
I walk back through the passing Sydney traffic, going the opposite way, as has been my general direction for so long now.
That night, I sit with my nephew and watch the Mighty Boosh. Its the episode with the Crack Fox. We laugh, kind of, but are both transfixed by the psychedelic magic of the Boosh ambience and spirit. I feel more adjusted to a world of possibilities. Escalators, elevators. Destinations and arrivals, then this quiet cul de sac...the blue sky and the solitary fly...I like to be haunted....
Thursday, September 18, 2008
hopetoun hotel- sydney
Wednesday night in Surry Hills. Its an industry night, the weekends are for the rubes and the marks. Tonight its the initiates, that made people. We played this joint 20 years ago with the White Buffaloes. Now they have to board up the windows and doors with wooden hatches and then cross them with heavy woollen cloth to prevent the sounds from escaping to bother the rich inner city dwellers as they consult their chicken entrails to ascertain the most opportune time to hurl themselves from their high Windows as their stocks head down to hades. They must, of course, follow.
Its a bit like being on board a ship in this little hotel. It has held many precious and delicate ambitions over the decades. The ship has been blown into the doldrums but tonight the strangers all come together once again to talk of treasure , rum, the lash and ill famed booty (same as treasure I know but the Beastie Boys made that link so well). We are here for a summit meeting to see if there is any magic left in the tank. To hear tell and to take some soundings. Where are we? Is there any hope of landfall? How soon? Can we make some sort of "do" here on this tiny fruit transporter?
Henry Wagons takes the stage and addresses "sydney" with his lightly picked and warm tones. the sound is great. Its one of those rooms that "brings the shit". (Henry has a great new song he's working up, a boogie, where he says that "henry wagons always brings the shit"
There are no parasites here to report back to the mother colony. No one from the blue light disco or the murdochian whisper. Everything that happens here happens here. People can talk about it with friends, if they have any friends.
Clare Moore is on the drums, a kit kindly loaned to us by Russell Hopkinson from You Am I ( and our label, Illustrious Artists). I am playing acoustic and electric guitars and Stu D is on the bass. The 6 string bass.
We have done a lot of playing as a trio and we hit a groove pretty easily and ride the tracks for an hour and a half. We play a lot from " we wuz curious" as well as "death by a 1000 sucks" and "my schtick weighs a ton". We could play for an hour more but it ain't the Fillmore in "69.
It was a great night to play for friends and insiders. People who know my stuff. I didn't have to be careful like when I am amongst squares and passers by. I could let fly with the language and know I was among friends and strangers who had given me the nod.

Friday, September 19, 2008
Cronulla- Sydney
Spent the day in Sydney attending to nothing much. Logistical puzzles and washing.
We packed the van and drove to Cronulla which is in a mysterious area known as "shire". We unpacked and soundchecked and went for a Vietnamese meal at a place which we have been a few times before and which can now be called "the usual". Oh, the inside of the venue was covered with posters for upcoming acts . Diesel, John English and many others. There are proudly displayed posters of Missy Higgins and Tim Freedman and Pete Murray as well. Its a place for working players and it sounds great and the presentation is always good.
Henry does an opening set during which he mentions "the shire" a few times, a ploy to let the locals know he is onto them. We get up and back him for a few songs. (Clare and Stu having leant the songs at soundcheck yesterday).
We get up and decide to really get up for it. We start with " a man on the make" and "feelin kinda sporty" from "the devil drives". I have dragged my Dan Electro wah wah out for this trip. Singing and playing is enough for me so I only get the wah happening when I am making instrumental. I got the pedal years ago because its in the shape of an old hotrod, complete with headlights. Its probably not the best wah around but its cute.
We play a long set and visit the new album and a lot of other stuff, including songs from Clare and Stu.
People are usually set back in their seats a bit by the upbeat forward motion of our music . I think they might be expecting some laid back adult contemporary mope fest or museum piece exercises in tango or ballads or whatever other exhibition areas old musicians stray into . As they hang around, waiting to get out of our way. They get something else from us, its alive.
We end the set with Henry on stage playing some acoustic guitar with us.
We stay around and talk with people for a while. Sydney is great for having these kinds of venues out in the suburban areas. I wish it was the case in Melbourne.
I drive the van back to the inner west where we are all ensconced in different crash pads. Henry thinks he wants to go to a club called "stiffies" in Oxford street that someone had told him about. He wants to borrow a shirt. Stu kindly suggests my black string vest along with my leather pants. I put the kibosh on this. We dont want to lose Henry to Sin City so easily! Certainly not with my pants and shirt on anyway.
Today we leave the city and drive to Bulli which is a tree change settlement outside of Wollongong.

Monday september 22nd
Buli to Maitland NSW
Nothing happened in Bulli. Not even the ghost in the hotel showed up. It was dud.
Undeterred, we piled into the van and drove to Newcastle, via Sydney , where we were to drop off the drums . Just out of Bulli is one of Clares favourite NSW landmarks, a shop called "scrags on the beach". We were amused , once again by the creativity of the Australian mob.
The Newcastle gig is a pearler. A venue/small theatre/rumpus room in what seems to be an old bank building in the heart of old Newcastle. Run and operated by Dean Winter who has spent many years in Amsterdam, it definitely has a Euro feel to it. Dean runs the lights and sound from the back of the room. there are booths and chairs and bean bags. Downstairs is a bar in the old vault and the decor is great. Very East German / Ipcress File if that means anything.
Henry plays a great set. He is doing several new songs which is great. Working up to a new album. He doesn't seem to be very prolific which is great. He takes his time. The quality of his material attests to his rigourous examination of the raw stuff and the refined arrangements and style.
We have made contact with some Novocastrians and have been lent both a drum kit and a set of vibes for the night. We play a few songs with Clare on the kit and then she shifts to the vibes. A lovely old silver set, much bigger than her own golden jazz model.
We play for a long time and then sit around with friends after the show. Justin , who makes music as "transcendental headache" and Paul, who lent us the kit. Both are "reverends" in the "church of the sub genius". (Look it up) and show us their cards. Paul talks of his interest in both southern rock and "dark wave gothic" music. I can hold my end up in all things southern rock but dont like the sound of the latter.
We drive back to our hotel and watch tv and eat crap food.
In the morning we eat at my favourite Newie Caff which is terribly cheap and warm and full of light. Stu is in a sulk as he wants silver service at all times and makes do with a savoury pastry. He sits in a tree outside the building.Listening to "Bela Lugosis dead" on his walkman.
Henry sends his egg and bacon roll back as the roll had been slightly burned. Clare enjoys her meal, as do I. They both point out that all the rolls had been delivered upside down on their plates so as to obscure Henrys offending black sided bun.
We eventually leave, collecting Stu on the way out.
Its a long drive to the airport where Stu and Clare leave to go back to Melbourne.
Henry and I drive on to Maitland which is half an hour away.
We set up and then go to our rooms.
The opening act is a young girl from Melbourne. She is playing an acoustic guitar. Oh, I forgot to mention that the majority of the audience is a football team, all dressed in womens clothes, celebrating a premiership. Luckily they are soccer players so are a bit girly anyway. They very much enjoy being in mini skirts and high heels and suspenders. I think something untoward was destined to happen later on and there will be an awkward first practice session next season.
The young girl singer is tougher than indie people and plays on, regardless of the ugliness around. She is joined by two backing singers who look to be about fifteen years old. All in little white snocks. They add a great touch to the songs. These three do THREE sets of music to a baying and yelping room of dragged up boofs. I am impressed. They do a lot of crowd pleasing cover vesions of course. The original material is nice but colourless and I am uncomfortable with the young ones singing about sexual matters. Prudish I guess.
I tell the main girl to get a telecaster instead of the acoustic and predict that one of the backing singers will stage a coup in 2009.
The singer tells me I have brilliant voice. I say, "Yeah its fuckin great isn't it!" I then add, "as a concept I'm incredible, but I'm a reality!" (This is one of my favourite lines by Morris Day, Princes rival in Purple Rain- and in real life early 80s Minneapolis) I offend her with my brutish lack of humility and the fact I offer no similar compliment in return.
I go to eat and leave Henry to kill or be killed in regard to the football team. I come back and he is covered in sweat and is wearing the sunglasses of a punter. At least its not a wig and a dress.He is indestructible.
I go and and do TWO ONE HOUR SETS. I become a machine and drill my songs out like I was in Stalingrad in 1945. Steve Griffiths is doing our sound and because he does a lot of solo shows himself, he has the foldback tuned to the super present and LOUD power that you thrive off when playing by yourself. My electric guitar was great with Clare and Stu but the 12 string is SINGING here. I lose track of time and play songs like "robert ford on the stage" and "jesses james" and "codine" and "morning dew" and ":alex Chilton" and two songs by Love and also Tim Buckley. In short, I have a ball.
Its all over by 9:30pm. Steve packs up the pa and leaves for Sydney and then for as tour of the UK and I go to my room and fall asleep.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
pulling out of maitland
Today we leave Maitland. We have been here since Sunday. I have run up and down the main drag and also walked it. I have made friends with the town bum and also got to know the desperate junkies. I found a wallet in a public toilet and gave it to the filth. Almost a member of the community.
Other than that it has rained a lot and I have sat in my room and played guitar like a demon and written 3/4 of a new album. I have the lyrics for the rest but will need to collaborate with Moore, Perera,Thomas and Fitz for the music. These others are pretty spartan and 12 string driven. I have decided to really disappear up my own arse as far as lyrics go. I have been a little tentative and have been hanging on like a scared clingon (dangleberry) at the edge of my bum but now I am off on a fantastic voyage. Now and again I stand with my back to a mirror and poke my head out to look, AT MYSELF!
The new album has a Shakespearean title, though this may change.I want to make it before the end of the year. It will be JJJ unfriendly, though all my music has been that way for a decade. (I know its no boast)
A friend of Henrys took us for a spin in his jalopy around Maitland yesterday. It really has a unique spread to it. the main street looks back onto a river with meadows and cows . Its not cute but its odd. I'd like to come back here.
Last night I watched Wipeout on the tv as I played my guitar. there was also a channel 9 show about the best songs of the decade. Can you imagine how thin that gruel was? Pop music seems so lame the bigger and broader it gets. And when experts like a member of Human Nature and Darren Hayes and Glenn A Baker and several FM deejays get on their pompous high horses to talk about music, it just gets more paper thin.
I have decided I like rock music more, its more sophisticated. the discipline of pop is great but it aint nothin to crow about in general, its just the stuff that gets through somehow. I saw a sign on a bookshop window once attesting to the ephemeral nature of blockbusters and best sellers as opposed to the eternal power of small prints and pamphlets . Those are the sheets that have blown the mind of generations, the hidden powers of obscurity and darkness.
Today we roll onto Coffs Harbour.

Thursday, September 25, 2008
Coffs Harbour
We took off from Maitland quite early, drove 100 meters and Henry had to sop for a last coffee. The previous day we had driven around a few junk shops and Henry and his mate spoke of the arcane aesthetics of coffee.I learned of burned milk and burned coffee grounds and the importance of the size of the feckin bubbles . Henrys pal had even married his favourite Barrista that he had espied in a Sydney cafe. They now live in a house in Maitland which is suitable for the crockery and coffee machine.
I bought nothin' from the junk shops.
We drove on further north, stopping in the delightful town of Kempsey where I scored a mindblowing denim sportscoat . When we got to Coffs I turned the shower on full blast and steamed the coat. People perspire a lot up here.
I watched tv and slept through the rainy afternoon. I walked out later and it was dark and I soundchecked. It looked like it was gonna be a grim Wednesday night.
I went for a walk in the misty rain, the streets were dark and deserted. The only buildings were motels. The 'tropicalia/', 'Oceana', 'paradise' 'sands' etc . Must have been about 30 small investment motels in the street. In each office could be seen a grim retiree looking at his account. His figure. His balance sheet. It looked grim. The swimming pools were all tiny, for toddlers only. Cement ponds as Granny called them in the Beverley Hillbillies.The fish and chips shop was run bya retiree too.
I walked back to the gig and was pleased to see a cool turnout in the room as Henry had already started. An old friend (whose name I cant mention as he wants to lie low), came up to say hello. He looks so happy and has dropped 25 kilos. He tells me he is living in a van down by the river. I laugh as Chris Farley had a character who always said that. My friend is aware of this and laughs himself. He adds that his van is parked in a field known as 'the Gallows'. This provokes further mirth.
A fellow comes up with a stack of cds for me to sign and hugs me. I am feeling quite at home.
The show could not possibly go bad. I play any songs people ask for and sing 'Live and let live' by Love for my old friend. Its funny, we have never spent that much time together but we always hit it off so immediately and easily.
I come off and spend some time with people. I then stow my gear away and go off with my fiend and his girlfriend to a nearby house where we eat burritos and drink tea . They also have a couple of skinny joints.We talk of Arthur Lee and Roky Erikson and friends with liver damage.And madness, drugs and booze.
While I was at the gig the sound man had been playing Howlin Wolf. It sounded great but it was the London Howlin Wolf sessions where he is backed by all the Limey blues rock royalty and Eric Clapton tells him how to play 'little red rooster'. My friend had commented that it sounded too slick but you could still hear the madness in the Wolfs voice. I was so happy to be gifted with such a sophisticated and easy opinion. Someone in the room knew stuff, they had drank deeply of real dark and tonal music, the brandy of the damned. And I knew what they were talking about. We laughed like friends.
In the morning Henry and I piled my seventeen and his two bags into the van and headed for Lismore.

Saturday, September 27, 2008
Toowoomba nites! deja vu! the potion takes hold! ass kickins all around
So we drove from Lismore to Toowoomba. It was a pretty boring drive as it was all highway. We had eaten beakfast at a posh vegan joint. Henry was feeling vulnerable as he had mixed his spiked drinks. I had gotten up and gone for a run and checked out some junk shops. I was looking for more leather but the stuff is rarer than rocking horse shit up here. All they wear is cotton and keep it on till it falls off. Yeah, they all look like Robinson Crusoe. I am stopped on the street by said Crusoe number #13 who was at the gig the night before. I remembered his t shirt. It read "boobs are cool". I congratulated him on this. He said he liked my music and shook my hand warmly. I took his critique to heart as he had a lot on his mind. the qualities of tits being at the front of his concerns. I continued my lap of honour through the streets of Lismore, stopping in a bookshop.A statuesque blonde in a sari stood at point and raised a finger to me and said rather theatrically, "you must be the golden wolverine!" I enjoy formal greetings like that.People using some of my proper names. I assented and she left me alone, withdrawing to a safe distance to haunt me from a peripheral vantage point, just the way I liked it.
As we drove, Henry refined his talk with me of his distaste for ethics and morals and his love of "truth". I counter that Tommy Smothers had been on the Emmys the other night and had said that "truth is whatever you can get people to believe".
Henry was impressed but did not let on that fact to us observers.
The Lismore show was so well attended it was amazing. A big crowd of people came from from the Lismore races all dressed in style and up for a night out. Actually the soundcheck was funny. It seemed that it was a mainly gay hotel and the check was accompanied by some fellows feeling the impulse to cheer when we stopped etc. This is usually done by toothless barflies ( as in Coffs) and is a bit tedious. One chap then came up sucking a drink through a straw and asking if we had any disco music. The only gays in the village?
The gig went well as I said. After the show a blonde lesbian told me she thought I was like Cher. Or was it Freddie Mercury. I have come to enjoy and treasure bad reviews and took this to my collection of great pans.
So we arrived in Toowoomba and checked into a motel. Henry was anxious to prove that we were not gay to the old receptionist. I said that we were from Melbourne so it was obvious. Just accept it man!
Henry did a set that was his usual high standard. We had talked of how he was to sing "I aint never been to toowoomba" and I suggested he do it " I aint never been Toowoomba". He does not take my sage advice. Backstage I have not had much to eat except some lotus leaf cake . It is a restaurant and the backstage area is like being in a glass cage. It is a restaurant in an arcade. I am taking off for Venus and am dressed in black leather and doing some pushups and stretches and alternately dropping off to sleep. People are looking through the window. There is also too many posters of Bob Evans and I am being pushed into an antagonistic mood. I am helpless for the funk that is shrouding my mind. I have drunk of some evil hemlock and am riding a dark and unknowable rocket.
I also experience a terrible senseof deja vu as Henry says something . I feel I am on a slope to some experience I have had before but cant remember what happens next. I write down on some paper. "I read a book about being here but I fell asleep before I woke up". I feel full of terror and excitement. I walk on stage and play some songs on guitar with Henry, barely hanging onto existence and looking for signs everywhere.
Someone talks to me and then I find myself onstage myself. The roots music posters have turned me ugly in mood and I feel my black leather holding me up. I begin with a new song called " cop, this sweetly". I then go into "I come from the clouds". I enjoy the bragging, senseless , triumphant nihilism of this tune as I explain where I am coming from. "I'm the man from nowhere ! I'm a tail dragger!" People recoil in horror as I speak from nowhere except from within my songs. I enjoy this titanic struggle. I feel a great need to clash with time ,the worlds and the void. Nothing is matching or meshing or taking on. I am playing well but from a great distance. A woman who looks like Kath Night/Day begins to dance up in front of me. She is moving at three times the speed of any tempo I am playing. It further nudges me off balance. I play a ten minute version of "night of the wolverine" and many other songs from my catalogue of greatness. I feel the power of my past selves come to shroud me and power me up. Henry appears on stage too.
I finish the set with Tim Buckleys "sweet surrender" and Loves "Live and let live".
After the gig we go to get some fries at a joint next door. the streets are full of young , bunged up, gelled drunks. One shouts as I walk across the street, "Hey! Check the gay leather cunt!"
He then proceeded to sing a song about a said "gay leather cunt!" and I laughed my head off so hard. It was contact with the living, finally! The greatest moment of Toowoomba. I laughed all the way home and slept like a log.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Gatton Man! Brisbane QLD
WE set out from Toowoomba, checking out some junk shops on the way. There is no leather north of Albury, I have discovered. It looks like a dull freeway drive so I suggest we take an early exit and stop to breakfast in Gatton. I do this because I love the story of the Gatton Murders which occurred in 1908 (3 young people killed on their way to a wedding and the killer never discovered) It is a masterpiece of gloomy northern gothic horror. And it was real. The original book came out in the early 80s. In the mid 90s the poet and union man Merv Lilley wrote a book about his murderously violent father. In the book he revealed the dark family secret that his father had told his mother that he had done these killings. He had ruled the family with real thuggish violence for all his life . That book was terrifying also. So we walked the hot street for a while and then tried some cafes. Henry wanted to go to "Maries - Have a Chat". I baulked at the decor and the prices. then there was Georges which was a bit fried and finally Tonys. This was great. The service was slow and the food was great. Men in tatts enjoying bacon and egg rolls and thats what we ordered. At the next table, a woman tucked into a chiko roll from its bag. Cool.
Henry took photos of his burger which did not go unnoticed. To give them a thrill I got my camera out and posed my sandwich in an erotic posture and snapped it too.
We continued on, past giant billboards asking "Abortion problems?" and more direct Christian gathering premises. Signs for Mr Eds Pies kept appearing but the actual shop proved quite elusive. Disappointing, I have never eaten horse.
We eventually pulled into Brisbane at my old friends David and Julies house where we were treated to a barbecue and a giant tv with the grand final on it.
A lovely afternoon .
That night we played a great couple of sets at the venue in the Valley. The streets outside were full of the usual violent and psychotic regulars. I was approached by a woman talking of aliens communicating with her via telepathy anhd that they ( the aliens) were all on their way down to rape everybody.
The fellow at the door tried to give us some provincial attitude. He looked at me and asked if I'd been on a classic album show recently . I said I had. He said hed never heard of me but it was a cool interview. He filled me with inertia. I think hes a local musician. He was not gay or leather but......
Henry played a brilliant set. Giving the Brisneyites a lot to think and to drink about.
I wore denim when playing the songs with Henry. My new denim sportscoat and denim jeans. When I went on I was wearing leather waistcoat and trousers and my French see through satin and nylon shirt.
I played a long set and felt it was the best show Id done in Brisneyland for a long time. A lot of old friends there. People really into the music.
DJ Wolvie Trash and Curtis Edwards were double handedly maintaining the cool of underworld Brisnia. Many others were keeping slack but these cats were flash.
After the gig we drove through the valley of THE VALLEY , surrounded by drunken , spewing supermodels and rugby players. It was incredible. Violent and mad and brawling. Fun.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Brisneeah to Coolum. Warm nites etc and then a shortish run dwnhill
The nights performance in Brisbane went so well I was buzzing into the next day. It was warm and beatific in the hilly suburb I was staying in. We had breakfast and then took a drive around the city. We ended up at an area that was sizzled to me as the 'cool' area of Brisbania. Of course, its something else up here. In this heat. It is not possible to be. Cool. It is an unbuttoned flux we are a part of here.
I had not really listened to any radio or read a newspaper for the last couple of weeks and this blogging was being achieved via borrowed computers.
Late in the afternoon I bid my old friends goodbye and we left for the Sunshine coast, which is above Brisbane. My friends run a confectionary distribution business and threw two one kilo bags of soft sweets and some prototype crisps into the van before the door closed. They were all sampled well and truly before half an hour was up. I can recommend the Rosemary and sea salt flavor which should be appearing soonish. Also the Salted Garlic crisps.
We arrived in Coolum and soundchecked. This venue is a honky tonk by the sea. No backstage area, nowhere to go and brood. Its all ot in the open.
I went for a walk along the beach. the sun had well and truly gone down and the tide was in. Right across the road from the gig you could sit on some sand in the warm dark and get deafened by the crashing waves and breathe in the warm sea spray.
Back at the gig we had some food. people were arriving. An intelligent older woman ( my dream audience) did an interview for Noosa Radio. I was glad to be talking of my favourite subject. I held forth expansively. A fellow came up to me to talk of serious things. he was with his wife and sister. He told me he had half a chubby and hard nipples as he talked with me. I am not comfortable. I try to guide the chat somewhere else. I now realize there might have been some drugs in the blood around here. I detect a Limey accent and ask where they come from. 'east Cheem'. Is the answer. I lightly mention the comedian Tony Hancock. They laugh. i say its a pity he died. 'Hes dead?' they ask. 'Yes', I say. He hung himself in Melbourne. 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!' they cry and their faces contort in anguish.
'It was in 1968' I say in an attempt to calm their emotions.
'Hes dead! He hung himself! Thats terrible!'
Its only 8pm but things are too weird for me. I beg my leave and go for a walk.
I go down to a phonebox and talk to my mother who is a couple of thousand ks to the south. I feel better for that.
I get back to the venue. A young woman comes up to ask me when the music starts. I say the time and she registers her disapproval. She has paid to get in and wants some music now. Another woman asks if she knows my music. The young girl is pulling faces instead of talking. She is not drunk, she is just using her hands and eyebrows more than words. No violence ensues but its gettin a bit hard to maintain some distance in this place. Henry goes on stage. I wish I could join him and eventually do for a few songs.
Henry has the licks now to command this kind of a room. He has been dreading this lace from the beginning due to a tough gig last year. He wins this time.
I come onstage. Its a good crowd. The people on the left are sitting and listening to my music. the ones on the right are wanting to dance and wave their arms in the air and drink long shots of alco-fuming bubbling STUFF. They want to party. Before I begin a woman leans across Henry to ask if I'm gonna play some dance music. She says his music was too slow. I say mine is gonna be even slower and that I am here to play my own songs. She takes it as an insult and says ' we can listen to your stuff'.
Off I go and start with 'I come from the couds' which I have found is a good place to start proceedings with. I am letting people know where I am coming from and I aint no wallflower. Its gonna be loud.
We continue on and people drift in and out. Its a honky tonk gig like I said and I love honky tonk gigs. I take it as a point of pride to play music in this firefight type situation. Its gotta have the legs. Of course, a drum kit and a bass player would make it a lot easier. We would be shootin fish in a barrel then.
After the gig I say to henry that we should just drive to Melbourne. 'Lets do it!' he cries.
As we leave a young fellow tells me my lyrics tear his head off but my guitar playing is amazing. I love to hear that shit. Another fellow in a rakish hip hop cap gives me an elaborate upside downical handshake and says 'Oz rock royalty- RESPECT!' he then tells me he has slipped Henry some of his dope and that it will make us 'real spiderface' and adopts a foetal curled pose to illustrate the point.
Two hours later Henry and I are asleep back in Brisbane. (Not due to any dope, just fatigue).
In the morning we awake and have a marvellous breakfast courtesy of his friends and leave for Melbourne. We head inland to make it quickly.
We head through so many towns we have never encountered much before. Goondiwindi being the first stop. This Qld burgh has a statue and many town references toa racehore called Gunsynd who once won the Melbourne Cup. 'The Goondiwindi Grey'
We drive for fourteen hours and visit Forbes during the night. This town has a bushranger for a favouite son, Ben Hall. The town has a spectacular sqaure with many fine old buildings. We cruise through the empty streets at night. At midnight we come to Temora which has a statue to a harness racing horse called 'Adios'. This place has a lovely art deco feel to the main buildings, many of which are empty.
We stop in a motel for the night and then complete the drive to Melbourne. I learn much from henry in regard to proper coffee making. I have developed a taste for the instant variety on this trip. Its that or Starbucks for me.
On Thursday we leave for Launceston.

Mark Fitzgibbon and Dave Graney

30 Sep 2007
POINT BLANK- first week
Current mood: excited
Category: Parties and Nightlife
We started the shows on Thusday night. Being a prt of the Fringe festival its a bit of a scrap to get any awareness out there of the event happening. The first night is me gesticulating and frothing at the mouth ( well thats the way it must have seemed) and grabbing my crotch and talking to a small statuette of myself to a handul of ladies who of course, are the kind of daring and up for it people who keep theatre going. Clare heard one saying 'well that was differrent!" on the way out. Thats a high compliment.
Friday got better and Saturday (even though it was Grand Final night) was a full house. Two people got up and walked out and I took that as a sign that I still had it as well. (the delusions of performers have neither beginnings or end) .
We set up again tonight and then again from next Thursday to Sunday. The show is really humming and has gotten bigger and sharper. This will be the last time we do it in Melbourne. We are looking for a venue in Sydney and maybe Newcastle as well for December.
Following is a story that appeared in the Age on Friday.....................
Officer of musical truth
The Melbourne Fringe festival kicked off on Wednesday and this year's program hits a number of musical high notes. Dave Graney's acclaimed Point Blank show, playing at the Butterfly Club, features Clare Moore on vibraphones and bongos and Mark Fitzgibbon on piano.
The performance is part-music, part spoken word - Graney strips back autobiographical songs such as No Pockets in a Jumpsuit, I Held the Cool Breeze and Lt Colonel,Cavalry to their essence, singing them unamplified and filling in the gaps with tales of his upbringing in Mount Gambier and his reign as the King of Pop before going it alone as an independent artist.
He explains that Lt Colonel,Cavalry was inspired by an article written by British rock journalist Nik Cohn that described lounge singers across the US as the infantry holding up the sagging front lines of the entertainment war. Graney continues the theme on I'm a Commander by urging musicians to die for his song.
"Music and entertainment is a war," he tells Sticky. "At a certain level, road crews are like pirate gangs, coming into port, attacking and securing a situation and holding it to their advantage, press ganging local layabouts into their crew for a day and then leaving the scene by darkness as if they'd never been there. There are songwriters and musicians, camp followers, infantry and the officer class."
He also likens fleeting pop stars to soldiers - "they are told to go over the top and fight for a certain bit of land and, unbeknownst to them, to DIE", while the officer class are behind the scenes, summoning up the pieces of land and devising the battle plans.
"Officers for me are Hank Williams and Jim Morrison. I check with them," says Graney. "All the people who play with me are officers. Everybody else, we pretty much consider infantry, especially the ones on the covers of magazines and on the radio. Michael Jackson was an officer who had a great officer in Quincy Jones on his staff. Prince is a five-star general."
Graney says the local twist to this paradigm is that Australians have always been told that they are roughnecks and larrikins who do not take kindly to officers. "It takes real officers to command and prevail in this particular theatre of action. It's a civil war here, I guess." Intrigued?
Catch the show at the Butterfly Club, 204 Bank Street, South Melbourne, every night at 9pm until October 7. Bookings: 8412 8777 or www.melbournefringe.com.au.
Currently reading :
Hangover Square (Penguin Modern Classics)
By Patrick Hamilton
Release date: 28 June, 2001
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25 Sep 2007

back to earth
Current mood: exhausted
Category: Automotive
We left Cocos in the afternoon and flew to Christmas Island, where the poor "illegal" detainees are kept and continued to Perth where we arrived at 10:30 pm their time.
We dropped Stu D off at his Mothers pad and went to the hotel.
The first show we did was at 6pm in a bar coming right off the street in Northbridge which is Perths area for party drugs and boofy nightlife. A good crowd filled the place and we did two sets, The place kept filling up and geting more unpredictable by the minute. It was a free entry show so although most of the people knew who we were and some of our material and what kind of a situation they were in there were also blow ins from the street and the world. One of these was a young hens party who grooved to our dance tunes. I like it when I have the sense people are coming to our music and responding to it for the sheer initial flash of it. ( I appreciate it when people have some of our albums and want to hear songs they "own" as well).
During our second set a youngish buck with an expensive , distressed cotton white shite and gelled straight hair came up to the stage, beckoning me forwards. I am a congenial gent and did as he asked. He told me that we should all look at the audience more , in the eyes as we weren't doing so and so we weren't communicating our enjoyment and that I should not stand in front of "the young lady" when she sang. I looked at him and then we counted in the next song which was a new number called "you had to be drunk" which is about a strategy to deal with the world we are presented with.
We finished the show and then packed up our gear. the man came back to me and I said I had talked to him and could he go away. I said I remembered what he said about looking at people. (He was a dick, I do look right at everybody when I play, I like it!) He said, "and what was the second thing?" It was like having a conversation witha minister from the Hillsong singers. One who was on coke and thought he was even more interesting and brilliant. I tried to control my mouth and just said I was busy and could he go away. He did, or I did. We continued packing up and then he was giving Clare the life coaching treatment as well. He held her elbow in some controlling way he must have learned as he smiled and preached his entertainmnet dogma. This guy must watch Australian Idol and take notes! It was still early in the evening and he would still have plenty of time to annoy the wrong person that night, we hoped.
Perth can be a strange place, full of money and dope and crims and we were glad to see the end of that street as we drove to Fremantle.
We set up at the Swan Lounge and I changed my clothes.
We came on and powered into 'feelin kinda sporty" and "rock'n'roll is where I hide". We had a level of energy that was really exciting. It hadn't been this tight and rocking for a long time. The sound was loud and the audience was in our sights. Bands can be delicate things and sometimes they chug away and then all of a sudden they swtch into a new found gear and thats what happened on this trip. It was the best we had been for a long time. It had been buidling up since the show with the Apartments. We had been working on new material and rehearsing and then recording. Something new was going on. WE have found some new kind of balance and poise and direction.
We did a long set and ended it with "boogie oogie oogie", "shame shame shame" and our second Elvis number, "one night of sin" which has a swinging 6/8 feel and a vocal elivery people don't hear much nowadays.
Mick Blood from the Lime Spideers was there and many old friends. it was a cool night.
The next day I got up at 8 am ( I had hit the sack at 3) to got to an ABC studio to talk to the arts show on ABC local in Melbourne, where it would be 11 am. I put the headphones on and the producer asked me about my football team. I said I wasn't interested. ( I was a bit shocked, thinking this was an ARTS program andthere would be football all over the place for the net week). I wanted to talk about our show "point blank" which was on in Melbourne the next week. I got my message across, a little bit.
We then went out to Yum Cha with Stu D and his family and then set up in the garden of the Balmoral hotel.
We played two sets to a pretty packed house. Many pals were here as well. We have played in Perth many times over the years and people do love music there. The last time we had been there was in January and we had played with vibes, bass and twelve string. This time we had some real firepower going on.
We'll be doing some shows in Melbourne and Sydney before the end of the year.We packed up and drove to the airport and caught the 11:30pm flight to Melbourne, where we landed at 4:30 am.
The next show is "Point Blank" which starts this Thursday and goes until the 7th October. It'll be the last time we do the show in Melbourne.
Currently listening :
It’s About
By Charles Schillings
Release date: 22 January, 2002
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21 Sep 2007

thecocos club
Current mood: crushed
Category: Parties and Nightlife
Our last night on the island. We had spent the day at the beach, snorkelling and reading and dozing. We got the gear together and set  it up inside the Cocos Club which is the only drinking place on the island. Kylie and Ash run the place, a lovely couple who had taken us out canoeing on South Island. Ash is  a real rough diamond who loves to talk about his favourite music, Supercharge and Sweet . He spent most of his life in the West Australian goldfields, including playing footy on dirt tracks  so I am intrigued as to how he has taken like  a natural to such an marine environment. They run a very social hub and keep the community together. I have driven through so many dusty country towns where you can sense that everybody keeps it in the home and there ain't much clubbing together happening.
We can't resist having a smirk at Clare behind her Gary Numan like electronic drum kit. She has sworn death upon anyone who actually laughs and is also intent on getting her own kit as a five year old child could lift one. We play two sets of songs, different in tone to the Sunday family friendly session the other day. Paul gets up and sings "Hi Heel sneakers" and "Suzie Q" with us. I chose the songs as they're the only kinds of blues I know .
Everybody we'd met during the week was there and we had  a great time. After we packed up they followed us back to our pad and drank all night. Brett the Kite ski man, Michelle, Catherine, JCR (the King) , Ernie, Emma, Borby, Megs, Brad, the shaven Chad Morgan, the Perth millionaire and many others.
After a while I went to bed and left them partying. I watched  a movie from early 50s Britan which had Patrick Maghooan,Sean Connery, Gordon Jackson, Alfie Bass, David MaCallum , Herbert Lom and Stanley Baker acting up a storm as greasy working class truckers.
This afternoon we fly to Perth where we do three shows in two days. Next week we start our Butterfly Club shows,
Currently listening :
In a Silent Way
By Miles Davis
Release date: 20 August, 2002
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20 Sep 2007

Dave Graney and Clare Moore sitting in with the Sand Pebbles 2006. Esplanade.

The Lurid Yellow Mist

the big house
Current mood: quixotic
Category: Games
We took the 7:30 ferry (cost $2.00) over to Home Island, the other inhabited island where the Malays live. At one point, during the colonial period, there were about 1800 people who had been brought or enticed here to work the Clunies Ross Copra plantation. The island is smaller but more populous and is very quiet due to Ramadan being in effect. The streets are empty except for the occasional golf buggy type vehicle that rolls along. Each house has an outdoor cooking area and some kind of boat. The power is supplemented by solar panels and some wind generators are going up. Is this the future? I could deal with it in this tropical clime with the soft sea breezes.  There is one shop and a mosque. We meet with Paul at the school who us to take us on a  guided tour. he comes with four young Malay kids who give us a bit of commentary as well. Two girls, who are wear scarves on their heads, and two boys.
We drive to the BIG HOUSE which was the mansion built by the Cluinies Ross family . (The family of the king we had had dinner with the night before). I ask the girl sitting with me if she goes here and she says they gather Guava here from the trees in the ground after school. She also volunteers that it is haunted.
We walk up to the house and Paul sees the lady of the manor. She takes us inside, which scares the kids and is a bit of a privelege for the rest of us. The place is a big two storey pile on the very edge of the sea, at a high point. It has an exterior of white glazed bricks which were made in Singapore in the 1880s. They make it look strangely modern.
Inside it has furniture all aover the place and double doors opening from the entrance to a grand ballroom. Different wings were added at different times and the present owners have an idea to bring it back to some "original" state. Deciding which original state to approximate might be a bit of a job in itself, getting materials and workers is another. On the lawn is a shipping transport container and its contents also spill across the lawn.Including a  small cherry picker
In the entrance hall, the wood panelling, in teak or jarra wood, goes completely from floor to ceiling. The lady goes to get the man of the house, and he presently comes down the stairs like the proverbial ghost. The children shrink back, he is a squat little bull of a man with a protruding pot belly coming over the top of his straining at the waist boxer shorts. He has a voice like a demon and a white moustache stained red at the lips by his everpresent rollup cigarettes. He takes us through his discoveries of the construction of the building. the strength of the foundations and how various renovations over the years have altered the original design. He is another rich dominant bull who is used to the sound of his own voice and getting his own way. We don't talk up much and the kids are in shock.
He apparently sleeps most of the day and wanders the house atnight. He does not look like Bela Lugosi though.
We walk around to the kitchen and he shows us  a guitar he was playing the night before, a semi acoustic jazz box by Ibanez. He says "it looks good, they gotta! Same with dames, they gotta look good to start with!" We laugh. His wife adds that she will keep him to that.All the while we are being bitten to death by mosquitoes. They don't seem to be a problem anywhere  else on the island. Natures justice, cruelling the scene for those on knob hill.
I doubt he will finish the renovations. The remnants of the dynasty sit over on the other island, cracking cans and working up new schemes to get some economic power happening.
We hear a story of the last Clunies Ross to live and rulle from the BIG HOUSE coming back for a visit during the 90s. the one who charmed the queen. He got off the plane in his white suit and took his shoes off and walked quietly around the streets of  the West Island before taking the ferry to his former domibion on Home Island where the Malays greeted him warmly.
We take the bus around with the kids. Stupidly, I tell them I saw the ghost while we were there at the BIG HOUSE. I say that I shook my finger at him and told him to go away. I say he had a white beard and a sharks fin.
During the trip the little girl tells me she can talk English and Malay and also read her Koran in Arabic.She volunteers that she loves the West Coast Eagles and also has a soft spot for Geelong. She points out her house and says she is living there with her two brothers and sisters while her parents have moved to another house to look after another sister who is having a baby. She does the cooking and cleaning, with help from her siblings.
As we say our goodbyes one of the boys comes up to ask what the ghosts face looked like. I feel stupid and say I was only joking.
We find a shady bench to sit on at the beach and eat some sandwiches, discretely, due to those behind the curtained windows not being able to eat between sunrise and sunset.
We take the ferry back to West Island where we spend the day filming some more scenes for a video we are shooting for our soon to come single, "I'm in the future now".
We make some pasta and eat with Ernie and then go to the radio station where we act stupid for an hour or so. As you do.
Currently listening :
Proud Mary: The Best of Ike & Tina Turner
By Tina Turner
Release date: 26 March, 1991
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19 Sep 2007

tea at the house next door
Current mood: cheerful
Category: Parties and Nightlife
We walked over the hollow logs that serve as a fence to the household belonging to man I referred to as "the King". His name is JCR and his family was given these 27 islands in 1824 by Queen Victoria dn they ruled them until 1978 when they sold up to the Australian Giovernment. They had their own money and all the people on the island worked on their business which, I think , was Copra.
He is a big and powerful fellow. We had visited his giant clam and angel fish farm the other day. He was not there but left the radio playing to the clams in this strange outdoor aquarium next to the sea. Next door had been a drydocked boat on the grass which a young siren was turning into an art gallery facing the rolling waves.
The feast was plentiful. We sat on Victorian chairs in a verandah/ patio area with two goats running around and crying as well as two cute kittens/ We ate chick pea curry and chilli chicken wings and some squid and rice. Copious amounts of Melbourne Bitter cans were thrown across the table to other people. The cans were referred to as "soldiers". All the people there were working on the island as teachers or kite ski instructors or fishermen. Everybody had  a lusty appetite. JCR is indeed like something out of a Somerset Maugham story. The big family mansion is on the other island where all the Malays live and he resides here in the town. His son, also called JCR was here and I asked about the previous JCR. JCR the elder brought out a framed picture of his father looking like  a movie star standing, in a blinding white linen suit, with the very young Queen Elizabeth. It was 1954 and she visited the island. She did indeed look very taken with him but JCR took it further and said, "she wants him!! She's thinkin' 'fuck it!~ I'm on holiday!' She thinks he's fuckin' hot!". Not many people can bring out a family photo like that.
The night went on with much light hearted banter. A Millionaire Perth businessman came over for a chat.He spends 4 months of the year on the island. He had spent the morning exercizing in his gym while watching a video of David Byrne, he told me. He knows the man who owns the "Big JCR House" currently and says he is a "lovely, eccentric fellow". Buildings in this place need constant maintenance and it would take "five million" to fix the house properly. He would never take it on.
JCR junior told me of New Years Eve and how he and his father take care of fireworks, stringing them all across the lagoon. How would it be to know the land and the sea and the tides and the wind and the seasons so intimately? To have so much family history entwined in such a place?
Another fellow, Brett , talked of fishing in Bass strait with waves the size of telegraph poles and falling overboard and how you have to take off your waterproofs and tie a knot in the legs and blow them up so you can rest your arms on them. I'll remember that. He also spoke of the wild and narrow current as you sail through Hells Gates in Tasmania where the "worst" convicts were tortured further. He had fished Crays all over the place and was now working the kite skis.
It was a very interesting collection of people in a very interesting place. I left early, dodging a couple of cans as they flew acrtoss the room.
Currently listening :
The Inner Mounting Flame
By John McLaughlin & Mahavishnu Orchestra
Release date: 18 August, 1998
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17 Sep 2007

Trannies beach/big pams curry/ south island canoe
Current mood: chipper
Category: Travel and Places
Got up early, as you seem to do here, 5:30 am and went down to the beach, facing Africa beyond the rolling surf and read Trotsky, my feet up as the sand was swarming with scuttling crabs. I sat cross legged on an old concrete block and learned some new and exotic terms of abuse such as " house broken gradualist" and bourgeoise vulgarian". I tried some out on the crabs. They ran off, comically.
Then we caught up with Ernie for some of Big Pams Chicken and Dahl curry with rice at the club. We also played some table tennis and visited the tourst museum. This place slows you down. We went later to the improbably named Trannies Beach where we snorkled in the lagoon as the sun set and took some video. We went back to the house and watched ourselves on the video and then went to the one restaurant which is Portuguesse and ate curried fish and rice followed by apple crumble with custard and ice cream.
This morning we got up at 6pm to go for a canoe trip acrtoss the  lagoon to a few other islands. WE had breakfast at the first stop (Champagne and orangefor everybody, orange for me) and then continued to another island, taking it in  turns to drive the motor. We finally got to eat a coconut. It had been maddening to be surrounded by them at all times yet Ernie refused to get his machete out and cut one for us. Finally Ash did the trick and we tasted the forbidden fruit. Ernie looked quite upset to see us taking a portion of his treasure.
We went over our survival plans and noted that there was a lean to shelter on the island so Clares work was done. There were plenty of coconuts so Stu Pereras work was also in the pocket. I traced a small "HELP" onto the sand for practice and a plane immediatley landed to see if we were ok.That worked. All we needed  was the certainty of our fish supply. Stu D said he was still to google a bit about that and would do so when we got back. We felt let down by his efforts and had  a talk to him about it and he took the criticism on the chin and vowed to be more of a team player in future.We were cool, though, as long as we remembered where this island was.
We motored to another island and snorkeled around a reef and RIP area. We got into the current and flew over hundreds of fiish and spiny urchins and glimpsed some baby sharks hiding in the rock shelves. I swam away as fast as I could.
Very enjoyable. Very very enjoyable.
Tonight we feast with the King.
 
Currently reading :
The Age of Permanent Revolution: A Trotsky Anthology
By Isaac Deutscher (ed)
Release date: 1964
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cocos food and art festival
Current mood: exhausted
We had our stage set up under a marquee in a  little clearing opening onto a  classic desert island lagoon-ical beach. The stage was bordered with coconuts and palm leaves. Warren Snowdon, the federal shadow minister was there to meet some far flung constituents and an opening speech was delivered by a  member of the family who used to own and run the island until 1979.
Cheese is a delicacy here. Lettuce costs $7.00. Fruit is a luxury. Beer is tax free.
We played from 3:30 to 5 pm . A long set . A bunch of 8 year olds were dancing up the friont. I told them they had their pocket money tripled and could drive the police car whenever they liked and didn't have to go to school. They gave  a big "yay" after every bit of shameless pork barrelling. I then told them they had to buy me a house to live in on the island in the future.
We stopped and had something to eat and then did another short set. The adults all started dancing madly now. KIcking up the sand in the moonlight. It was quite pagan. We did a lot of Elvis songs and I tore my voice up. I scared those little urchins with "one night of sin" right into their mushes! They trusted me and asked "how do you drive the old people crazy?" as their parents cavorted madly all about. I felt cool, like Rufus Thomas.
Oh, and Clare is playing an electronic drum kit and likes it. I want to get a guitar with no head to it to go totally futuristic.
I ate some baclava made from Cocos honey. It was ......awesome.
We are making a  video clip as we go along. Perhaps for "I'm in the future now".
The sky is beginning to bruise and tomorrow we sit on the beach and read books.
 
Currently listening :
In My Lifetime, Vol. 1
By Jay-Z
Release date: 04 November, 1997
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15 Sep 2007

direction island
Current mood: tired
Category: Games
There are no dogs or birds on the West island which is where we are staying. Home Island is where the Malays live who are going through their version of Ramadan at the moment.There are feral cats and chooks and large landcrabs. Apparently they can take out a chook. There are 25 other islands which are uninhabited. Tony Mokbel should have come here.
So we caught the ferry to Direction Island at 9:30 and set up camp in a nice clearing.I was feeling good. Then Clare said, "its great isn't it, you forget you're on a   tiny speck in the middle of the ocean." My blood ran cold. I had put thoughts of earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes to the back of my mind and now I am presented with a vision of the very uselessness of our existence! I am then informed that the lagoon or bay we are sailing through is actually the mouth of a giant volcano and we are situated inside it! I laugh and look foward to the day. It may be my last.Again!
 Its kind of exactly like Gilligans Island or the scene in the movie Age of Consent. Absolutely staggeringly beautiful. No shops or cars or even roads on Direction  island, just the beach. I raise the subject of us being stranded with the team and we decide that Stu Perera will get the coconuts, Stuart Thomas will score the fish and Clare will build the shelter. I will think of ways to communicate with passing boats.
We walked to the place where the RIP was guaranteed to be. Its a sheltered inlet where a fast stream of water runs down at incredible speed . You swim out and fly down like you have steeped onto a bus and gaze in awe through your goggles at the large fish and coral underneath. Like a trip in a 3d world. Clare saw 3 sharks and a Barracuda.
We spent the day underneath palm trees swimming and relaxing. Idyllic.
Clare went for a walk and saw the cove of thongs which Monica had told us about. Every lonely lost thong in the Pacific has drifted towards this eerie graveyard of rubber footwear.
And then we took the boat back to the West Island.
There must be something going on here. Life is too easy and people are too happy. I will endeavour to root out their dark secret and inform the proper authorities on my return to civilization.
Currently reading :
Ashenden Or: The British Agent
By W. Somerset Maugham
Release date: 1941
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maelstrom slightly not
Current mood: cheerful
Category: Travel and Places
So we flew to Perth and stayed in a  travelling salesmans hotel near the airport. Hookers everywhere and traces of blow on the elevator control panel. We made the airrport again at 9 amd and caught a small plane for 6 hours straight out into the Indian Ocean. I read " the restoration iof capitalism in the USSR" by an American communist author called Martin Nicolaus. Written in 1975 it follows a line from China and Albania at the time that Stalin was great and there was a military coup after his death led by Kruschev. Strangely, on the way to the airport we had heard an author of a new book on the Kennedys talking of the same thing happening in the USA in 1963.
I believe it all.
I also started a book by W Somerset Maugham called "Ashenden". It is an espionage tale featuring an author recruited by the Secret Service. Must have been the inspiration for Jason King.
We stopped to refuel at an airstrip in Exmouth where it was forbidden to take photos as there were American facilities nearby.
We continued on for another 3 hours to Cocos .
We arrived at 3pm their time and were greeted by our man in the Ocean, Ernie with a tablefull of coconuts filled with punch. With little umbrellas in them.
I informed him without smiling that I did not pollute my body with such poison while the others ruined my game by grabbing their cocnuts gleefully.
We drove 200 metres to Ernies pad and then spent the day driving from one incredibly idyllic beach to another. This joint is outrageous and we are trapped here for a week!
Tomorrow we take  aboat to Direction Island. We call it DI as we are old hands at being beach bums already and it is a dumb in joke about a piece of musical equipment.
Oh, I was reassured about there being no danger of tsunamis as the water is so deep. then I noted  a sign at the airport saying that the elevation was 10 feet above sea level. We have been metric for many decades. Has it changed?
DI is promised to have a "great rip" that we can swim in which is "full of fish". I have a mask and a snorkel.
Currently listening :
Morphosa Harmonia
By Toby Dammit
Release date: 14 December, 2004
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13 Sep 2007

descent into the maelstrom?
Current mood: chipper
Category: Life
Today we leave for the West. Its blowing a gale in Melbourne and the news reports are full of earthquakes of ever rising richtonian power tearing the Indian and Pacific earth asunder and tsunami warnings for the tiny atoll that is the Cocos Islands, where we are heading. Our man in Cocos comforted me with talk of the island having a five kilometre sheer drop off to the oceans floor. I feel even more vulnerable thinking we'll be sitting on a coral button which sits atop a flimsy stalk of more dead plant life stretching 5 ks down to Davey Jones locker. Should I take PG Wodehouse to read or the Trotsky anthology? Adieu sweet MySpacians. I may be some time!

Cocos in the tent by the lagoon

Clare e-kit

Stu Perera and Stu D

11 Sep 2007

recording session
Current mood: energetic
Category: Friends
We had been rehearsing new material for the last few months in the Yarraville Mouth Organ Band Hall (which is an experience in itself) and had also been playing a few tracks live. We went into Sing Sing South studios last Saturday (sept 7th) to lay down the song with Adam Rhodes. Adam has worked with us on many discs such as "the first Dave Graney Show cd, Kiss tomorrow goodbye, Bad Eggs , the Brother Who Lived and Heroic Blues. He is a great "can do" guy and a good friend. He also has all the old school recording skills to do with mic placement etc as well as the new world digital know how.
We had last been in a big studio to do a session about nine years ago, to do the first Dave Graney Show cd which came out , kind of, on Festival records. (Since then, we have been at our own place, the Poderosa or recording , setting up a computer in different spaces we liked) This studio had been very spruced up and vogueuish then. In a late 90s techno style. The place had been the stomping ground of a svengali type producer who had a teen rock act coming out just then called Killing Heidi. The place still had his touches on it with one wall of the control room being covered in faux bunny rabbit tail furry things. Something you'd giggle at if you were stoned I guess. Otherwise it was still a great room to record in. Before him it had been a top shelf working studio called Platinum and had a history going back to the 50s.
We had also done the Devil Drives album, which was recorded in 1996, in here and a session with the Dirty three to murder a Burt Bacharach tune around the same time.
This time was a bit different. Different world outside. Music was under different pressures to exist at all. The only people who give a fuck are us.
We set up the drums and the keyboards in the big room and put the guitar amps in smaller rooms where they could be closed off. the bass guitar went straight into a preamp ( no amplifier box) and I stood iin the control room with Adam and played my semi acoustic guitar and sang a guide vocal. ( So everybody can follow the arrangements)
We started running through the songs at about 1 pm and had seven in the can by six pm. Three were pretty modal slow burning funk grooves and three were pretty tightly arranged pop songs. We broke for a meal and Mark , our keyboard player, wrote out the charts for a piece of his music. (Everybody else had written the music for a song which I then put some lyrics to) . This took a bit of rehearsing but it turned out great, like a classic Roxy Music song and I started to do the vocals. By ten pm we had all the backing vocals and lead vocals done and we were packing up.
Recording sessions have never been more productive or sweeter. I don't know why they've been so daunting in the past. The music we're playing is pushing the boundaries in all the areas a lot more. The arrangements and playing and keys and tempos are all different. (As well as more varied) Must be that we're all on the same page somehow. All that rehearsing and nutting out arrangements in the GIMP Hall.
We recorded "lets kill god again", "I'm in the future now", "I like to be haunted", "I was a country boy", " I come from the clouds", "bring me my liar" , you had to be drunk" and " whores of the orient".
We have a few more songs to record, such as "crime and underwear".
We plan to put a single out ( via itunes) in November and release an album in 2008.
Currently listening :
Judgement Days
By Ms. Dynamite
Release date: 11 October, 2005
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02 Sep 2007

august- september -everything in particular
Current mood: happy
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes
After visiting the planets Elvis , Batrider, Milton Walsh, Fauve , Cabaret, Wydler, Miles and Buzzard we landed back at the compound where we walked down into the studio and finished work on the new darling Downs cd. This is to come out this year and sounds great. Its a real privelege to work with Kim and Ron and they seem to like working in our style which is as far away from a conventional studio as you could get.
The album sounds great and has the same ultra mimalist voice and guitar approach except Kim is branching out to banjo on several tracks. The songs are again, like gems and shine in their stark relief.
Work was also done on an album for Jane Dust which will also be coming out this year. This is also very minimalist and features Jane on driving acoustic and her incredible voice. I think she is a bit of a genius musician and writer . He lyrics are superb and one in particular , I told her, could have come from ancient greece, so mythic is it in its voice and scope. She played everything perfectly and knew the material so well I only had to open the mics up. I think its gonna be called "a spray of red from the deep". A classic waiting to spring out.
We have also been busy organising an arts show which I am putting together for the Victorian Arts Centre in November. More will come of this laster but its gonna be called "the bewdy of speed" and will be an hour long art / music happening in a venue in the Arts Centre called the Black Box. Wednesday November 14th.
We are also rehearsing every week in a shed in Yarraville . This has been to get some new material together and my objective is to make a recording with more input from Stu Thomas, our brilliant bass player and Stu Perera, our equally sharp and inspired guitarist. Stu Perera has been with us since 1998 , the second longest stayer since Rod Hayward in the white buffaloes/coral snakes and Stu Thomas has been with us since 2004.
Both of them are really strong on r&b/jazz flavours and voicings and Stu perera knows what I'm talking about when I'm going on about hip hop tracks. Stuart Thomas is right on the money on everything else, from disco to jazz to Elvis and Lee Heazlewood. I mean we can communicate easily and quickly.
We have come up with a lot of stuff which we have strated to play live and are going to put down some tracks in a big studio this weekend. Mark Fitzgibbon is also involved and is bringing his arrangement skills to the tunes. I'm very happy with the songs and think we're going to make a real high point / artistic achievement of an album.
We are planning to have an itune strack called "I'm in the future now" which has music by Stu Thomas and words by myself up in November.
Plans are also afoot to finally release what was "the brother who lived" album in the UK and on itunes as well. This was released and ignored in Australia in 2003 and was also a real artistic breakthrough/ achievement album. Its terribly disappointing to fire such perfect shots out there for them only to be swallowed up in the void. Soemthing about