We played a set at the Retreat in Brunswick last week. It is quite a rough, chaotic joint but after being monstered by the geriatrical scene for the few weeks leading up to it I was pretty much ready to take on anybody.
We played with Stu Perera on blazing lead. the four of us. It was a great night, one of those rooms that sounds great. Just don't try and do anything light or delicate or it'll eat you up.
Being a  Sunday night, the room was full of locals too, people wanting to hear some music. We played for about an hour, mostly music from "we wuz curious" and " knock yourself out".
Had a  great time. Thanks everybody for coming along!

The Dames did an opening set. thats Clare moore on drums , Kaye Louie patterson on piano and Rosie Westbrook on bass. A guitar-less trio , playing songs from Kaye and Clare. they have started a  recording project and will continue on that next year. They all come to the Dames from different experiences and directions but it gels. A great West Coast / Jazz / folk pop sound. They do an instrumental by Kaye called "Dudley" , inspired by the music of Dudley moore. i hope that intrigues.

Started thinking about some new recordings for next year, though I still really enjoy playing the music we released over the this year and last year.  Theres a lot of songs that I enjoy playing.From Hashish and Liquor and the Brother Who Lived . We've been pumping a lot of stuff out. Time to let it breathe a bit.

Playing guitar has given me a  real spark as well. I sometimes feel I have the fever to play it like I was with the football when i was a kid. I can't leave it be.The electric and the 12 string acoustic.

Have a whole set of songs ready to go but am taking my time as to how to put it down. Some of the timings are so irregular I could only do them by myself. No click track or drum beats. Others are pretty pop in their arrangements, my kind of pop anyway.
Thinking of of a 12 string acoustic and bass xylophone type sound for the most part, maybe some trumpet from Stu and Nylon sting guitar from Stu Perera.Short songs and short sounds is my game plan. Minimalist. Have been listening to a lot of adult pop from the 69s. That adult folk pop like Harry Belafonte and Jose Feliciano and, of course Sinatra.
I guess they had great rooms o record in, great mics and great skills.I'll be spending a   lot of time getting inside the material before I put it down and will be playing some of the songs at any solo shows I'm doing.

In 2009 I have read tons of novels by the Australian author Patrick White. A master. I can recommend him highly. Anything with his name as author is guaranteed greatness.

LIVE IN HELL was  a high artistic point in my life. That and the first narrative show POINT BLANK have been the shows where I got to pull all my obsessions together.And all the skills. Each one I see as a  song that goes for an hour. And they took me a  couple of decades to write, distill and decant.

Have been enjoying discovering that late sixties British folk sound. Bert Jansch,Nick Jones, Pentangle, John Renbourn, Sandy Denny.Totally addictive.

Most else has not touched me really. Kept it all pretty close. Enjoyed the playing and the company of our band and close friends.
 
Hoping for more of that in 2010.

Oh, and Stu Thomas has recorded a brilliant album called "Escape from Algebra" that should see a release in 2010.

Thanks to everybody who came to a  show or took an interest.

Yeah its that time of year. So I was in the Myer perfume area of Knox, dodging and weaving all the hired help. There was a constant flow of dazed, unshaven blokes in their work gear getting attacked by the make up queens. They left with molten credit cards in their pockets.
I laughed at how cheap the Christina Aguilera scent was. Then I saw the row of Britney Spears Juice, then a cabinet of Beckham water, then a small room of Sarah Jessica Parker liquid, then the Kylie "INVERSE - for men" drops. What were they thinking?
I turned a  corner and saw the P Diddy section. I mean SEAN JOHN. His bottle is called "I am KING". I tried it. Citrus. it was next to Ushers. Its bigger than the cd store!
I wondered what celebrity stuff I'd like. Some "eau de ODB "? You couldn't put that on of course. It'd be cool to have as a  threat though. To yourself.
I would like a  dash of Muddy Waters though. Or some Howlin Wolf for  a night out alone. For a  night in, some Miles. Or a short sprint through a cloud of Isaac Hayes.

Back in '95 I used to go to $2 shops when we finished soundcheck, to kill some time. I'd buy some bottles of aftershave and mix them in a garden spray thing I also had. As we did our slowest and sexiest tunes I liked to spray the ront row so people would go home stinking of our music.
We also put out a single called "I'm gonna live in my own big world" which had  a scented card in it. Ralph Laurens "SAFARI" . the lyrid of the song came mostly from an advert on the back of a  bottle of that stuff. It was all about scientists going to the desert to isolate its smell.
Before my time.

So we went to Target and got some Shane Warne underpants for our nephews. They're called SPINNERS.




Look out for us on Sunday at the Retreat. WE play at 8:30pm. Its free. the Dames play at 7:30pm.

Went to see this new one man show at the new MTC last night. This is the Melbourne Theatre Company in its new multi million premises across from the ABC. Right next to the spectacular multi million dollar RECITAL Hall.

GODZONE is a   one man how. Max Gillies, as PM Kevin Rudd hosts a talkfest on the county and the future. A lot of it to do with GOD as Rudd is such a christian and so is his new opponent. With large screens we get to see him interact with the former opposition leader ( until just last week) Malcolm Turnbull, the British PM Gordon Brown, Country Party idiot Barnaby Joyce, Liberal would be leader Joe Hockey and a  few others. In personae he appears as Rudd, Julia Gillard , Herald Sun right wing collumnist Andrew Bolt and , hilariously new liberal leader Tony Abbott.
The latter is the only one to have the spark of madness in him . (In the characterization and perhaps in real life).
Elsewhere there is a  great video element where we see another right wing commentator bring some madness to the house. Gerard Henderson. He deals with voluminous correspondence and is great! I was sitting behind "public intellectual" Robert Manne and he cracked up during the Henderson part.

Look out for us on Sunday at the Retreat. The DAMES play at 7:30 and we play at 8:30pm.

THIS IS AN ARTICLE I WROTE FOR THE CURRENT ISSUE OF AUSTRALIAN MUSICIAN MAGAZINE WHICH CAN BE FOUND IN ALL MUSIC GEAR STORES AND ELSEWHERE. IT'S THE ISUE EDITED BY POWDERFINGER.


We’re amongst friends here so I feel I should speak my mind. I mean you must be some kind of a  musician to be here among these pages. All the ads for equipment and the reviews of them as well. If a  civilian is in here, you must have taken a wrong turn! Fuck off!
So my language is not tempered here for people who dont know anything. I don’t mean to go back to teh beginning and hold anybodys hand. I don’t have to explain that its mainly rock n roll music here and that pretty much began with Black American musicians in the late 1940s. Around the time that Leo Fender and Les Paul started fooling around in their garages and made some foxy looking banjos that let amphetamine fuelled exx gis and hooch puffing ,shade tree mechanics , pill popping delinquents and horned prison escapees make loud , brutish sounds on the guitar, as opposed to people having to go to music school etc.. Etc... We all know that shit!
I  would expect no favours if my eyes wandered into a magazine concerning houseplants or computer games. I would expect to toss the mag aside pretty quickly as it was written ina  foreign tongue!
So here is some straight talk.
Managers are never there when you most need them. When you are cold are just starting to push your little canoe out into the river.
When you least need them, they appear like flies on sherbet. Alright, shit! When you are hot and everything is going your way and all doors are opening for you.When you are reeking of spondoolix!
My advice , if you have a  manager, is to sack them. Immediately. You can hire them back at your leisure and convenience. Its good just to give them a  flash of  reality that you are the dog and they are the tail. I mean that you are doing the wagging around here.
If they are any good there will be s oft knocking on the door in a  while.
Actually, at that starting point, its good for you to learn how to front your music. I mean you have to be committed to what you're doing. No one else is gonna get in there. The business is not really a  business. Its got a little bit of social cachet. Truth be told, the straight world mocks the music scene. It thinks it knows the score. All those ads with references to “trashing hotel rooms” and politicians getting the “rock star treatment”. Most people would faint of they got  a whiff of “musicians treatment”. They couldn’t hack it for a  day.
Let them think what they like. Its best if people think you’re dumb.
Its not 1963 anymore anyway. Everybody has to front themselves. Whats the  matter with that? Carry your amp and make sure you get paid.
Sack that manager though.
Also, never give anything near 100% to the audience or a writer or a tv camera . Give it to your bandmates or to a  recording. The audience is lazy , stupid and fickle. They dont know shit from Adam. Keep yourself and your music under your control. I mean the core of it. the source, At a certain point, if it gets to be a crowd situation and everybody wants a piece of it and are pushing even you aside, well, thats the sort of situation that everybody is thinking of. That is a happening, a car crash, thats what you want isn’t it? Then everybodys gonna take what they want and you’ll never get any of it back.
In the meantime, get rid of that goddam manager and keep it all cold. Straight from the fridge, you with me?

This is a movie from 2008 that it took me until last night to watch. It is a feckin' great music film. there haven't been many of those , of course but this is up there with "Ray" , The girl can't help it" , "walk hard", "Spinal Tap" and "the mighty wind".
Its the story of Chess records in Chicago from the late 40s to the mid sixties. Its the perspective that makes it great. These people, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Little Walter , Chuck Berry and Etta James are seen as artists. You also see them looking at these effette young Limeys, The Rolling Stnes, as they make a pilgrimiage to the house of their idols at the Chess studios in 1965. Its like the Aztecs seeing the Spanish coming or the indigeneous Australians seeing the white sails coming into the harbour. Its the perspective.
All the actors are great but the man who plays Howlin Wolf is spectacular. You want them to do a  movie just on him. And Mos Def as Chuck berry is also superb.
The movie ends in 1967 and Muddy is on a  plane to the UK with Willie Dixon . he is nervous as he doesn't know "what the fuck these people want".

These  is the IMDB details on the film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1042877/

We're doing an end of year blow out at the Retreat in Brunswick on Sunday night. The Dames (Clare Moore, Kaye Louise Patterson and Rosie Westbrook) are doing a  set at 7:30pm

I did another show in Sydney . A dinner and show type room. I don't really like those kinds of rooms, they are toffy and beige. I like rock n roll clubs where people who have a  shared interest in getting blitzed and / or listening to music go. Places they know how to find.
I gave them my best and they kept chewing. I was opening. I left the joint and headed out.
Next day I caught a Greyhound bus to Canberra. Just like a Jimmy Webb song. the bus was full of teabags. Limeys. All trying it on with the nearest gullible sheila.

The theatre in Canberra is nice. The audience is almost totally men who look like country party senators on a  casual friday. Constantly getting up to go and strain the potatoes. I am getting my mojo back and do a few more of my own songs. I stray over 30 minutes and nobody dies.

I ride in the crew bus to Melbourne. W watch "step brothers". I have seen it twice and still laugh. We arrive in melbourne at 7am and I catch a  bus and a  train home for the day.

Later, Clare and I drive in to the Palais. I am doing tonights show with Clare on percussion and vocals and Stu on bass and vocals.
We crowd around the two vocal monitors in the middle of the stage. (there are no other monitors on the stage as the band all have in ear foldback sound.
We play for about 35 minutes, mostly my songs. People know who we are and know what we are reputed to be able to do.
Palying acoustic guitar and singing in a  theatre is a delight. The sound in the room rise and swells and has a long delay and decay. We triumph.

Glenn comes on to a standing, cheering crowd. Of all kinds of ages. There has been no reception like this anywhere else.People are into the nuance and the icon and the amazing set list. Glen rips out all these solos from nowhere and clearly is on his best game. He fumbles for words in between songs here and there, as usual , but the performance is amazing. the band all step up to the plate too. this crowd have given them some bounce. They had played well everywhere but tonight they know that people are catching all the notes and the moves. It is going somewhere. that thrills a player.
My favourites are many. "Dreams of the everyday housewife" with the 3/4 skipping time and the beautiful melody. "Southern nights" with the great funk beat and the funny 30s cha cha timing.  "Wichita lineman" which swoons out like a  great film. Glen does "the HIghway man" tonight and its so funny when he puts the guitar behind his head a la Hendrix for "the william tell overture". There is a standing ovation.

Backstage the band is all abuzz at the reception and wish theyd been staying in Melbourne for a  week as opposed to Brisbane. I say my goodbyes to all and we drive home. Thats it!
On Sunday 13th December we are doing a  gig at the Retreat. this will be me, Clare on drums , Stu D on bass and Stu Perera on electric guitar. dave graney and the Lurid yellow Mist.Its our end of year blow out.Also playing will be the DAMES. Clare Moore on drums, Kaye Louise Patterson on piano, Rosie Westbtrook on bass.

Got to the call to do some shows opening for Glen Campbell last week, a few days before they started. Seemed easy to set up and do the shows so off I went. Flew to Brisbane and got a car and drove two hours to Toowoomba. Its a big old reception centre type place off teh main strip. Carpet on the walls. No dressing room, no drama. The band were sound checking, no Glen.I went on ina  light blue suit with white shoes, trying for  a Hank Williams look! Played for forty minutes, probably too long. A quitye elderly audience. About a  thousand people. Reception was pretty reserved. At the end a couple of people shouted for "more" and more people laughed as someone was, obviously, joking!
Glen came on and opened with "Gentle on my mind,", the "Galveston" , Country Boy""Lovesick blues", "she thinks I still care", "dreams of the eveeryday housewife", "don't pull your love out one me baby", "by the time I get to Phoenix", and "true grit". His daughter Debbie storms on and kicks the ass out of "silver threads and golden needles" and "crazy". then his youngest daughter Ashley comes on and does a modern op song I don't know and then Stevie Nicks "landslide" with her sister. GHlen comes back and all three rip through "rollin in my sweet babys arms. (AShley plays banjo and keys in the band as well). Glen did a  couple of guitar workouts, (as well as ripping out great solos in ALL the songs) "classical gas" and "the william tell overture".
There is not a  single amp on the stage, all di'd into the desk and in ear monitoring. The show comes to  the end with "southern nights", "wichita lineman" and "rhinestone cowboy". The band are pretty amazing and so is the set list.
I drove back to the hotel and got to bed at 2am.
Brisbane was the enormous Convention centre in Southbank.
I did the Bowie song "sorrow" as its a tune people should know. I then do my own "you put  a spell on me" "youre just too hip ,baby" and Elvis's "one night of sin".
I then doa  new song of mine called "Mt Gambier night". Around about now the audience turned quite ugly and started to call for me to "get off!" One fellow started  a slow hand clap. I had to stop that. I made light and ha d said at the beginning that they might like one song and not another and thats just a s good. "we want glen" was the reply. "we've had enough". "Go away!"
I had to stop the silliness and did a  song called "don't mess with the blood", then after the abuse began afresh I introduced a song "about how tough you have to be to be an entertainer", "my schtick weighs a ton". People were getting up in dozens and storming out. It was like I'd walked up and taken a  shit in the stage, the way they carried on. Like sulking kids. I ended with "night of the wolverine". All the songs were quite pretty and ballad like in their tone.
I thanked them for listening and hoped they had  a good night and expressed regret that some had taken offence. "Don't call us , we'll call you" came the reply. I walked off and sat with friends.

The next day Clare Moore and Stu D arrived and we did a show of our own at teh Brisbane Powerhouse to an audience who were in tune with us and the general flow of a  performance. WE tore it up.
On the Gold Coast the next day, at the beach I got  a call about all the Brisbane gig and the emails and complaints that went to the promoter about me. Apparently I offended some by  greeting them ,as I always do, as "comrades".
The band and crew and the promoters were very supportive and I said I'd do a  shorter set of more tunes by other people. Basically, to keep it nice.
That night I did some Tim Hardin and  Fred Neil and Kris Kristofferson and Curtis Mayfield. Also the pop song "seattle" which I introduced as being "by the noted country songwriter Hugo Montenegro". Tumbleweeds blew across the stage.The reception was better than Brisbane. I rode on the crew bus to Tamworth. I was worried about this joint. the gig here was the best received so far, though my judgement was only in that people didn't call for me to be killed or storm out of the room. Success!
This night, the audience started to slow handclap Glen before he started!

Rode on the bus again and we arrived in Sydney, at the State theatre in the middle of town.
I did my own songs here in teh theatre. A few odf teh songs I'd gotten to like playing like Mike Nesmiths "Joanne" and Tim Hardins "Lady came from Baltimore">

People dug it. I left the theatre and went across town to a gig I'd organized. There wer about seven people there. All being musicians. I knew. I played for two hours, doing anything I liked and any requests that were called out. Then I took a  cab to the inner west.

On Friday I do a show in Sydney and then join Glen and the boys (Though I have never spoken to Glen) in Canberra. Oh, did you know the band all come from Phoenix?

Saw this play tonight at the amazing Red Stitch theatre company which is in an old church building across from the Astor theatre in St Kilda.
Three actors, a couple of chairs , lights and a movie screen.
A man in a  white coat begins the play as if we are in a lecture theatre.
He's talking about the brain and what it holds , the person. He says its all neurons and its a story . We are a story.
Its full of ideas and brilliant themes. No religion or mysticism.
Very exciting!


Look out for us in Brisbane on Sunday afternoon at the Powerhouse. The 29th November. And also my solo shows in Sydney next week. The 2nd at Raval and teh 4th at Notes.

Went to see Penny Ikinger play as she released a single from her 2010 album. It was at yah yahs in Collingwood. Clare and I had recorded three of her songs at our studio and played on them as well. Tonight, we only had to sing a little. Who was there? Charlie Owen to play a  lead break. the Orb Weavers did a great set. Ron peno had a squawk. Malcolm Hill. Martin Hardie, (who once managed teh laughing Clowns but now lectures in some sort of fuck-ology" at a school in geelong. Cam Butler. Many musicians in attendance. Penny is a  one off.

I was invited to Alan Broughs' gathering in regard to his becoming naturalized as an Australian citizen. I thought it was gonna be a  party but it turned out to be a  part of his ABC 774 radio show. Last Sunday Morning, and I was supposed to have  squawk. Luckily there were a  few other acts playing, amongst the interviews. It also ended up being brought indoors as it was an absolute deluge in melbourne that day. It was at the Abbotsford Convent which is a cute reclaimed nuunery that is now occupied by arts groups. And Steve Millers house of refreshment.
I asked the band SPOONFUL to back me on bodysnatcher blues. I thought it would be easy as its a one note boogie. We followed Pikelet and Oliver Mann. It was rude and nasty and people loved it.
The boys in SPOONFUL were great. They have two brothers in the band and look great in that Supergrass way. Some of them are/were in Rocket Science. Thanks Comrades!

http://www.myspace.com/spoonfulblues

Ran into a  lot of friends and went up to Steves CAFF to annoy him for a  while.

I must also alert interested people to a young genius from Sydney. i heard two of his discs at RRR. they came as plain burns wrapped in A4 photocopy paper. Turns out each disc is a set of songs about a specific Sydney Mall. He plans to do 50 of them. He left school two years ago. He is giving away the seven cds of songs he has recorded on his Myspace site. he is pretty gifted and sounds like Shuggie Otis! Great pop music. The lyrics are like short stories. His name is Art Rush.

http://www.myspace.com/artrush

Play the song "first" on his Myspace. Its the opening track on the album about the MaqcQuarie st Mall.

We are in Brisbane on Sunday at the the Powerhouse. From 3-6pm.