Full list of stolen gear at http://www.huckleberryswedes.com/Highway_Robbery/STOLEN_GEAR_COMPLETE.pdf

Well, after  5500 kms and more than one or two great gigs, the Huckleberry Swedes have planted  our boots back into home soil, are washing our travelling pants, re-fuelling  the van, changing strings, slowly weaning ourselves off of bacon and egg rolls  and planning the next trip. Meanwhile, there’s a few great things happening  locally too. More about those later though.

 
  Prologue – Barossa Valley Gourmet Weekend
 
  A fantastic  weekend had by all…………. 2 days of great music, fine wines and some fantastic  support from friends and fans who made the effort to come and join us. We  stayed with good friends Jamie and Vicki from Very Jane, who were playing at  another winery down the road and still managed to feed and entertain us on the  Saturday night.

After  Sunday’s gig, we squeezed as many amps and instruments into the van as we could  and drove back to home for our last night in our own beds for a while, ready to  make some tracks on Monday morning.

Day 1a
  Adelaide – Nowhere
“Lets head  north” was the decision as we drove out of town. With all of the recent trips  we’d had, no-one in the band had travelled on the barrier highway for some  time, so we filled up and settled in for a long day’s drive to Cobar 970km. At  Broken Hill, we decided to keep on moving as we could fill up in Wilcannia and  save a refill stop…….Oops.
As we drove  around Wilcannia at dusk without being able to find a servo open, there was a  little concern but we figured there was just enough petrol to see us through to  Emmdale Roadhouse which, being a “roadhouse”, would of course be open until at  least 10pm, right?. As the roos started making their way onto the road we could  tell that the last couple of hundred k’s to Cobar were going to be pretty long.  We’d rung ahead and organised a cabin to sleep us all (we couldn’t fit all the  swags in on this trip), so we weren’t to worried about getting there late in  the evening except for all the blooming roo’s that seemed to be getting quite  interested in the road. As the fuel light lit up on the dash, the 5km sign for  Emmdale Roadhouse came out of the darkness, which was well received. The dark,  obviously closed Roadhouse wasn’t received so well…. Actually, it was us who  weren’t received so well.
Thinking  that someone who sells petrol in the middle of nowhere would be used to  stranded travellers needing his service (and willing to pay extra for it as we  were), we were very surprised (and more than a little irritated)  that the response from the “gentleman” sitting  , watching tv responded to Troy’s polite, gradually increasing doorbell  ringing, window tapping was………..
………….”F##K  OFF”

This  response (and the fact that we had to be in Tamworth the next night) helped us make up  our minds that there was no way we were going to buy fuel from this A##HOLE and  we would do anything we could to keep moving. Luckily, there was a phone booth  outside. Of course it was a card only phone (WHY, TELSTRA????), so we knocked  on the Roadhouse door to see if he would open up to sell us a phone card. After  threats of dogs, violence and violence with dogs, we decided to try reverse  charges to the RAA. Of course, we were in NSW so the NRMA were required, but  naturally the RAA weren’t able to transfer us to them (???)

Day 1b
    Nowhere - Cobar
Finally, we  were woken at 3am by the Broken Hill NRMA guy who had come out on a 600km  round trip to deliver 40litres of unleaded….unreal.

Now the  next task was to get through roo-land to Cobar…… A very hazy few hours was  spent at 80km/hr with frequent stops for crossing wildlife through the busiest  deserted road I had ever travelled. Every few hundred metres are blood stains  from some poor beast that has more than likely been obliterated by one of the  trucks thundering through there every night. We eventually managed to hitch a  ride behind one for the last 50k’s getting us into Cobar at about 6am. It felt like we had a 20 tonne Roo  bar.
 
   
    Day 2
    Cobar – Tamworth
  Feeling refreshed  after our 2hr sleep, it’s time to hit the road again…Only 7hrs today.. After  the road warrior’s breakfast of choice, it’s off to Tamworth.
Sam  couldn’t make it to Tamworth so Richard took care of the bass on the Hammond this night. What a talent………Great  turnout for a Tuesday night, especially with Pete Murray playing around the  corner.

Day 3
    Tamworth – Byron Bay
  Another 7hr  day in the van…….A beautiful trip winding through the ranges, on a road still  feels like it may have just after it’s construction. There are always scenes  travelling through this amazing country that force you to admire the European  explorers for their courage and determination as they forged their way inland,  only to meet folk who had done it 40,000 years before and had managed to not  only survive in it, but understand, nurture and co-exist with it. There are  lessons to be learnt on every step you travel here.

Met an East  Coast thunder storm….wow.

Picked up  Sam from Ballina and made our way to Byron for the night’s gig at the Great  Northern. Hooked up with Paul Green, his tour manager Mel and Andrew Morris.  Sound Checked and then had a little rest before the gig.

Cool room  ……….in the genre of the classic aussie rock venues.  Great to have Sam on stage  again even though Richard did such a good job  with his Hammond bass the night before. Cool little song sharing session on  the balcony upstairs afterwards with Andrew and Paul. The full time residents  there must hear some amazing jams because it’s a great space for a get  together. There may have been one or two song elicitting drinks imbibed too.

Day 3
    Brisbane – The Troubadour
  Arrive in Brissy to be greeted by  the coolest  load in in the country…….NOT (See below)

.............................................................More soon

Hi Folks,

Heres a little update from life on the road with Bill Chambers and Huckleberry Swedes. Since the last update, weve finally had our first gig with Bill in Melbourne a cracker of a night, I must say.

Spent all of last week in rehearsal mode. We actually were able to score a high school music room to practice in, which was fantastic. Im not sure the teacher really appreciated the disruption to his recorder lessons, but hey, thats rock and roll We started off running through Bills songs from his Frozen Ground LP, quickly realizing that this was going to be a lot of fun. There were a few impressions of Bills deep voice floating around the rehearsal room as we tried to work out the harmonies without him being there. Drummer, Tobys bass voice was a revelation He has really been keeping those dulcet tones a secret from us, but hes going to have to put up with a microphone in front of his face at gigs from now on at least, in future, hell be able to respond to on-stage payouts instantaneously instead of moaning about being picked on after the gigs.

We soon moved on to the Swedes set and had a fantastic time arranging some new songs, especially a beauty of Troys that has already become a highlight of the set, called Dust Storms. Oh yeah. For those of you worried about us disrupting the kids music classes, it was actually school holidays, so we had the whole campus pretty much to ourselves, except for the workmen doing alterations in another part of the building. It was funny to see these blokes line dancing down the hall as they passed the room.

It was a shame to not play in Mount Gambier on Friday, but it gave Bill the chance to play a gig with his daughter, Kaseys band up in Brisbane on that night. He arrived in Melbourne on Saturday where we had our sound check with him at the Cornish Arms for that night. It soon became apparent that the sound guy was going to be an asset on the night and he pulled a great sound really quick. (always a relief) There were a bunch of pre-sales for people who came to enjoy the fine food at the Cornish and stayed around for the show, and more than a few who happened to be in the room for sound check and decided that they should stick around.

Bill has a great loyal following of people that hes met through the many years hes spent on the road here in Australia. He assured us before the tour that our Alt-Country style would go down well with them, and we werent disappointed. We had a fantastic set to a really enthusiastic audience. The new songs played themselves and the crowd were appreciative and supportive. Many of them decided that they should pick up one of our Eps at the end of the night..beauty.

Once Bill came on stage, it was like they were greeting and old friend. The room had a fantastic feel to it, and although weve had little chance to play with him, he directed the stage like a master. A real rocking show that everyone seemed to enjoy.,  especially this band of miscreants.

Drove up to Albury on the Sunday to play an afternoon show at the Kinross Woolshed, an actual renovated woolshed in Thurgoona, Again played to a fantastic, supportive, albeit a little smaller, audience and had a ball.

Monday was spent driving up to Sydney for our NSW gigs for half of us. Toby and Sam went back to Melbourne, and Troy and Mark to Central coast to do pre-promo for the weekends gigs. After radio intervals, promos and a duo set at a fantastic songwriters night hosted by Bill we now find ourselves ready for the weekends gigs. (Any of you that find yourselves in Terrigal on a Wednesday night around 7pm should check out this one. Its called, Songwriters on Dekk and is every week at the Dekk Bar. Theres an amazing depth of talent in this area and it is a great night.)

Well pick up Sam and Toby from Sydney airport Friday and take them straight to the Bridge hotel for soundcheck and what looks to be a big night. Apparently the poster people have done a pretty good job and were up on stobie poles all over Sydney. Back to Terrigal on Saturday, Newcastle, Sunday and Tamworth next weekend.

More soon.

Catch ya later

Huckleberry Swedes

Hello World,

Huckleberry Swedes calling

More Soon