I got my boy back!

Yes, the ninja has finally moved back home!! Hooray!!!

It has been an interesting week, with us both adjusting to living with each other again, and cramming two houses worth of stuff into one. We definitely need a bigger place!

For the first few days we were ships passing in the night as I had meetings till midnight (yes its a glamorous life i lead). Adam gets up at 6am so we didn't even see each other in the mornings.

The weekend was a bit more fun, we got to hang out on the couch a bit and go to an engagement party. I know it sounds so boring but I love it!! We are both so 'go go go' all the time that any downtime, especially together, is awesome.

We have started looking for a new place, and let me tell you there is nothing out there! Well no three bedroom places within a cooee of the city anyway. Oh my god, did I just say cooee? Who am I, Alf from Home and Away??? Is that even how you spell cooee??

At least we have plenty of time to find somewhere, our current lease is not running out or anything so there's no deadline. However we are both, particularly Adam, impatient to find something soon and get things set up the way we want, with separate music & ninja studios.

Another thing we have done this week is started the Body For Life 12 week challenge. Now I know this is not very rock n roll, and I promise to not let this become a weight-loss blog, but it is a fairly significant thing to embark on so I thought I'd mention it. Neither of us are particularly overweight, we are more wanting to tone up and build muscle, but it does mean that six days a week we have to eat 6 low fat meals per day and also work out every day. The seventh day is rest day - yay! - when we get to eat whatever the heck we want. How cool is that?!

So... we are adjusting to a new way of eating at the same time as getting used to living together... yes this could be a recipe for disaster, I know. But I'm pretty confident we'll just kick each other's asses and get through it. We're a pretty good team.

What else... oh yeah, my band played on Saturday night. Our current drummer is in Japan so we asked our old drummer Wes if he could play. We had a rehearsal during the day which felt like he had never left, and the gig was heaps of fun. The place was not massively packed but it was respectable. Some new friends I've met in various places came, which was nice, and some old friends of Adam also showed up to welcome him home. The drive home was funny, all my gear was crammed into the Echo meaning only one person could fit. Rather than one of us catch a cab though, Adam drove and I climbed in the passenger seat. The massive keyboard case was where my head should go so I had to squinch down, and if we stopped quickly I had to duck my head into Adam's lap to avoid decapitation. Add to this the fact that Adam may not have been completely under the limit (he was closer than I was though - a slight miscommunication about who was driving home) so he drove very carefully avoiding all possible police hideouts. We were rather relieved to pull up at home!

Better get back to it but if anyone has a 3BR house to rent within a few k's of Melbourne please let me know!!!

Dust, Drinking, Drivetime and Dearstalking...

Holy crap what a glorious, wild, brilliant week in rock chick land!!!

Following that awesome weekend in the studio was one of the most musically intense weeks of my life. Now I would say that I go to more gigs than the average person. I probably average an international touring act once a month, and probably a local show every fortnight or so, sometimes more. But this last week was ridiculous!! In a good way, of course.

SO. (warning - this is a long one. grab a cuppa & settle in!)

Wednesday: The Dears*
I usually hate going to gigs alone. I would rather go alone than miss out altogether, but seeing a great band by myself is always a bittersweet experience. Sometimes you feel the loneliest in a crowd. And The Dears is kind of a special band for Adam and I (awww...). So I was pleased to find someone to see The Dears with, even if it was someone I didn't know.

Ok I know, explanation required.

Recently I discovered a gorgeous local band on myspace and contacted them to see if they wanted to send me a CD to play on the radio. I got chatting with the frontman via email and I happened to mention I was seeing The Dears and Elbow this week. "Me too!" he said. So he had the crazy idea that he would give me his CD in person rather than by mail. It started to feel like a blind date when he sent me a text saying what he was wearing. But I had a good feeling about Pete and I was right. Turned out we have a mutual friend, a guitarist from my first band, and we are both into a lot of the same music. So as far as people I don't know go, he was an excellent companion for the evening.

After the show, which was great by the way, several members of The Dears came out into the audience and started chatting with people. We just happened to be chatting with the guitarist and bass player when the Prince of Wales bouncers were kicking everyone out of the venue. The two guys from the band were at a loss for what to do now, so I suggested the Espy. To my surprise they said "Ok, we just have to pack up our gear and we'll meet you down there." Excellent!

Pete and I went to the Espy and waited but didn't see any Dears. Finally the pub closed and Pete got in a cab. As I was walking back to my car, I happened to bump into some band members.
"What happened to you guys? I thought you were meeting us at the Espy!"
"We are," the bass player said. "Aren't the others down there?"
"I didn't see them," I said "and now its closed."
Then the bass player told me which hotel they were staying at and said they might be there. Feeling rather like a crazy psycho groupie stalker I hoofed it to the hotel but didn't see any Dears hanging round. Disappointed that I'd gotten so close to hanging out with a cool Canadian band I walked slowly back to my car, sticking my head in any bars still open along the way to see if I could spot them.

***Warning: the following part of the story may portray me as a pathetic teenage groupie stalker. I am embarrassed. But as Adam says, it's all about the story, so here goes...***

On the drive home I thought about how keen they'd seemed to hang out with us. They'd said they were in town till Saturday and didn't really have any plans. Hmm... maybe I could casually hang around their hotel tomorrow till they come out. Stop!!! Way too stalkerish! Then it came to me. A phone message at the hotel.

At somewhere close to 4am my mobile rang. It was them.

So, we made plans to hang out the next day. I was going to show them a local's perspective of Melbourne. I didn't quite know whether this meant I was entertaining them for the whole day, the night or what, but I didn't care. It sounded fun either way!

Then I panicked. What was I going to do with a bunch of rockstars??? I knew who to call though...

"Paris? Ummm... I accidentally volunteered to show The Dears a good time in Melbourne. Help!!"

Paris came through with the goods and at 6pm I met her in the city for our night on the town with rockstars. Our friend Dave was there too - actually I was crashing their night out - and he proceeded to mercilessly tease me about what a teenager I was being and how excited I was. As the night wore on and no Dears materialised, the teasing grew worse. By the time we were onto dinner #2 and drink #... not too sure... I had pretty much given up hope. During dessert my phone rang. It was them. They were just getting ready & leaving the hotel shortly. They would meet us in an hour.

So Dave ate his words and with renewed vigour we cruised through a few more bars. I was quite excited by this stage.

But midnight rolled around and still no Dears. Finally my phone rang. "I don't think we're going to make it. We're all really jetlagged and tired."

Lame.

Disappointed.

We did make plans though to do something the next day instead. Earlier this time. I was to call them at 1pm.

Ok now even I am bored with this story. I know how it ends. So I will stick to the important facts.

I called them at 1. We had a good chat. They are very nice guys. They had to go to a record label thing though so told me to call them at 6 and they'd come out for drinks in the city.

I called them at 6. No answer. Left a message. No response. Went to the nominated bar and waited for them anyway. No Dears. And that was that.

Yep. I know. Anticlimax. Sorry!

But I had little time to dwell on it because by now we were up to...

Friday: Elbow
I LOVE Elbow. They are one of my favouritist bands. Asleep In The Back is one of my favouritist albums. Love.

Pete, the guy who I saw The Dears with, was going to see Elbow as well. He came to the bar in the city and waited for Dears with me and when it was clear they were not coming we caught the tram to the Prince. (All the good bands seem to be playing at the Prince lately. Interesting.)

The Dears had said they might even go see Elbow so who knew, we might still run into them.

ok this is a long post. is anyone still reading??? i'll summarise, i promise!!

Elbow were fucking brilliant!!! I loved The Dears but maybe it was the very very full house or maybe the fun I was having meeting all of Pete's lovely muso friends, or maybe the anticipation of Adam arriving that night and going to Golden Plains on the weekend. Or maybe just the incredible catalogue of Elbow's music. Whatever it was, the show was through the roof!!! I think Newborn was my highlight. What an incredible song. And I must mention local band SubAudible Hum, who opened the night. Elbow is a tough act to open for, but they did an impressive job. Not a great looking band but then again neither are Elbow. Just great musicianship and awesome songs.

One of Pete's mates who I'd just met that night insisted on driving me home after the show and there, waiting for me, was Adam. Yay!!! His hair is long. Well, maybe #4 instead of #2. Still, I haven't seen it that long in... years. It's weird when someone you talk to every day pretty much looks different every time you see them.

The next morning was...

Saturday: Golden Plains
For anyone who doesn't know, Golden Plains is a new festival being held at the site of the Meredith Music Festival (which I think is in its sixteenth year). I got tickets way back in December, way before I knew that it would be the worst possible timing in terms of Adam's work, so many other gigs on, album recording, etc etc. But despite all these annoying things, we were still excited.

We planned to go down pretty early to get a good campsite, but I had agreed to give Paris a lift down so it was obvious things were never really going to go to plan. For starters she booked a legwax to start half an hour before the time I said I'd pick her up (10am).

Anyway we went to the gym & to the supermarket to pick up a few supplies before arriving at her place at 10:30 (late, to allow for the legwax). She was not there. As we stood at her front door a car drove past and beeped and we realised it was her. She rushed inside. "I've just got one more bag to sort out and I'm ready." This is Paris code for "I haven't packed at all, try not to distract me or this could take all day."

So she shoved things in bags and I kept telling Adam to stop talking to her or we'd never get there. I think we left at about 11:30, maybe even later.

The drive down was fun, Paris was a good car companion, and we arrived just as the proceedings were getting underway.

We somehow scored a great campsite and pitched our tent in the beaming sunshine while starting on our two casks of wine (no glass allowed) before it got warm (no esky!). I donned my cowboy hat and we headed down to the Supernatural Ampitheatre for some funness.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. It was gorgeously sunny, the bands were great, our tent neighbours were super fun, Adam and I were heaps excited and the goon was flowing. And the Pink Flamingoes (Meredith's specialty drink) were as good as I remembered. Shooting At Unarmed Men and Ground Components were perfect afternoon festival fodder. As evening fell the plains truly did go golden and I remember thinking this is what life's all about.

At some point after that, things went a bit pear shaped.

During The Drones... or was it Yo La Tengo... I went to the toilet. When I came back, Adam and our little gang was nowhere to be found. A nice guy let me stand on his esky for half an hour yelling "A-dam, Pa-ris, A-lee-sha, Mi-ri-am!" but to no avail. He gave me a beer. I can't drink beer. I had one sip then went up to the campsite to look for the others. No sign of them. Came back to find, surprise surprise, no guy and no esky and definitely no almost-full can of beer. Doh!

Stood by myself for a while before striking up a conversation with a guy standing on his own nearby (or did he strike one up with me?). Ended up chatting to him for the rest of Yo La Tengo and most of The Bellrays. He seemed nice and reasonably entertaining but then it started to get a bit weird. I was telling him about Adam and how I'd lost everyone, he was telling me about his son and his partner, but then saying things which suggested he was trying to pick me up. Hmmm. I got bored of this and started chatting to another guy nearby. He was nice but not very exciting. Dammit where was Adam??? Why was I hanging out with boring/annoying strangers instead of him??

After the Bellrays finished I went back up to the campsite and finally, there they were!! Adam was trashed. I think he had drunk most of a cask by himself. Uh-oh. Even superheroes get hangovers. But for now he was having a super-fun time and I joined in the celebrations. The rest of the night is mostly gone from my memory but I do have a vision of me blowing up the queen sized lilo without the aid of a pump while Adam was passed out on top of it. I spent ages doing it and managed to get it so when we both laid on it we didn't touch the ground - just. Which meant all night whenever anyone moved or rolled over, the other one hit the ground. Which meant my hips & thighs were bruised the next day!!

My bruises were the least of it though - Adam was rather sick and hungover the next day. I was slightly less so. The weather was bleak - overcast, cold and extremely windy. Don't know what happened to our beautiful golden sunshine.

The nicest thing about the morning was waking up to the beautiful sounds of The Sunwrae Ensemble seeping through the walls of the tent and into my subconsciousness, easing me into the day. I wish I could take them home with me and wake up to that every morning. Ok, maybe I'll just buy the CD.

The rest of the morning was spent with me fulfilling my hangover food cravings, Adam trying to fulfill his need not to be around or consume food (only ever happens with a hangover) trying unsuccessfully to avoid the kilos of dust being thrown around by the gusty wind, and many naps in the back of the car.

In the afternoon we ventured down to the ampitheatre to check out Eddy Current Suppression Ring (pretty good but I wasn't really in the mood for dirty garage rock n roll), Gotye (great even with a hangover), Comets on Fire (I really liked them but the others didn't really - maybe the whole stoner rock thing just worked for my hungover state). Fat Freddy's Drop were good at what they do - really deep dub/reggae/soul whatever you want to call it, but in my opinion were misplaced on the bill and played for too long (almost two hours as opposed to most other 50-60 min sets). I think if I'd been stoned it would've been great. But I wasn't. I was trying to stay awake for the Presets and !!! (Chk Chk Chk), and this wasn't helping. As our new friend Miriam pointed out, pills would have been useful, but that's not our thing so we patiently nursed our heads in the Pink Flamingo Bar.

The Presets were great and I suspect !!! were even greater, but I couldn't last the whole set. What I saw was fantastic but we were just over the whole thing and totally exhausted. Time for bed. Adam had to be on a plane at 8am which meant we had to leave the campsite at 5am, so we thought we'd get a few hours sleep at least. The music was so loud and I couldn't stop coughing up the layers of dust lodged in my lungs so we really didn't get much sleep at all. We had lost Paris but she knew we were leaving at 5am and she had to be there. Earplugs and Vapodrops meant I eventually dozed off, but 5:00 came too quickly. Amazingly, Paris was there right on time, and had managed to get a lift home with someone else so took a few of her things and said goodbye. We did the speediest pack up of a campsite in history (in the dark, too!) and were on our way to the airport by 5:20am. The last time I have to say goodbye to Adam at the airport for a LONG time I hope!!!

I arrived home in a bit of a daze, left everything in the car and went to bed. I was shattered. I had totally screwed my voice up, I was filthy, and I went straight to sleep.

After waking up, showering & unpacking the car, I headed to the studio where the boys were mixing the new tracks. Things were sounding good. I added a few keyboard lines in and Mr R said all one song needed was my vocals. "Not today!" I said. My voice sounded like ratshit. Eventually I agreed to put some down just to see how they fit. Mr R loved them! He liked the huskiness. Bonnie Tyler and Stevie Nicks were mentioned. Believe me, I didn't sound like either of those. I sounded like ratshit. Anyway, he worked some magic and the vocals actually sound ok in the mix. You can barely tell I've been coughing for four weeks and inhaling kilos of dust all weekend.

Ok, nearly there, you're doing well! Just one day to go...

Wednesday: Drivetime.
I got the call a week ago to fill in for Incoming, RRR's weekly new Australian releases program. With plenty of warning I had time to gather up some of my favourite local bands' releases and spent the morning putting a show together. It takes freaking ages. I know the pros just go in and wing it, but I wanted to do a good job, so planned the whole show in advance. I think this approach worked pretty well... I got a text from my mum saying "Great interview well done sitting on deck glass of wine listening to my girl on radio what more could i want x x". Clearly no-one has showed her how to do punctuation yet. But a nice message all the same! The interview did go well, we ended up chatting for almost half an hour, and I think the music all flowed fairly well. And I played almost all the bands I'd wanted to. And hopefully didn't say "ahhhh" too much. I've burned the show onto CD to check. It's amazing how hard it is not to say "um" and "ah"!

So that was a pretty good end to my crazy week of music madness. Sorry this isn't in little bite-sized stories like everyone else's blogs - i just haven't had time to fill you in as things happened. So instead a major brain-dump until next time...

Thanks for listening!!

*Too many bands mentioned in this post for hyperlinks. If you are interested you can google them!!

Studio Success!

Hello! Just wanted to pop in and say things are good...

The band (minus the drummer who was in Sydney) spent the weekend in the studio recording the two new tracks and it has been very productive. It is a small tracking studio so we are unable to all set up & record at the same time, but Tom thought it might be a good idea for all of us to be there a) to get us all involved in the process and b) because he's not really trusting his own instincts right now, due to the amount of criticism his work has copped of late. So I think the idea was to combine our creative brains, do a bit of teambuilding (read: drinking) and make us feel more like a band again.

I think it worked really well. I'm not saying we came up with a masterpiece, but it's been a long time since we've all sat in a studio together, and it felt good. We were all able to make contributions and suggestions, and built the two songs up from not much to something pretty good. I for one felt involved, respected, valued, challenged and creative - all the reasons I want to be doing this music caper in the first place. It is the first time in ages I've really felt all these things in the studio environment.

So... the drums are yet to be recorded, this is happening on Tuesday night. In fact the singer/songwriter from the first band I was ever in will be recording them at his studio. It is good to be able to work with old friends like this. And then Mr R comes home on Wednesday and will hear the tracks for the first time. I hope he likes what he hears. I'm pretty confident though...

Oh the other breakthrough that happened this weekend was that we heard all the tracks in an order that sounds very much like it might be an album!! Yes, not just a mish-mash of tracks that we have been working on for the past two years, but an album. Duh, you say, this is what you have been working on all along. But this time last week I don't think any of us including Tom could envisage all the tracks working together cohesively as an album. With all the recent rejections of songs I was starting to worry there was very little left. But actually, what's left is all the substance, we have cut away all the crap and what's left might actually be a really freaking good album. Tom put the remaining tracks, including the demos of the two new ones, in order and played it for us, and we can finally all see how good it's going to be. Paris is now chomping at the bit to go up to Sydney and pitch it to as many labels & publishers as possible. It's amazing how motivating that vision is!

With the finishing line in such clear view now I have no doubt the next month is going to be stressful as we try to get it finalised. But I am starting to feel very confident that we will finish it and it will be our best work. Which is all we can do, really.



This time in two weeks will be Adam's last night in Brisbane... getting very excited!!

Feeling very attractive

Today I am a snotty, red nosed coughing ugger.

Bleugh.


The crap thing is I just got rid of a cold. Seemed to get it again straight away.


Now my throat is red raw from coughing, my nose is red raw from blowing, my eyes are red raw from being open...

Yes I am being a sook. I want someone to stroke my hair and feed me chicken soup and honey & lemon tea.

The cool thing is I discovered a cough mixture that tastes like licorice. Not aniseed, but the real deal Darrell Lea licorice. Yum!! Nyal Chesty Cough Medicine for anyone interested.



So. Some shit going down in band camp this week.

For the past year or so we have been plugging away in the studio (or rather Tom has) under the seemingly watchful eye of our producer (let's call him Mr R), but without much guidance. It had appeared he was happy with where things were going and after we added the most recent couple of songs he was going to mix the lot and we would have an album.

Think again.

Finally Mr R has spent some time mixing and he has found he is not happy with a lot of what has been done. I think it's mainly at a sound recording level but possibly also at an artistic level. He has asked for two new songs having rejected several others, but is away this week so we are again left to our own devices. He has heard demo versions & approved so we basically have this weekend to record them properly and hope they are good enough. But, the drummer's away. So, we have to record without drums and add them in later. That's ok, we can probably cope with that.

Why the rush? Well, Mr R has taken on another project which he will be getting paid well for, which commences at the start of April. So we have to have our album completed by the end of March, or we will basically be on the shelf until June. Which we are not prepared to accept. So, once Mr R gets back from the country he will have two weeks to mix the whole thing including 2 new tracks and several other partially mixed ones. That may be achieveable, but then where is our chance to listen to the finished thing and make any changes? What happens if we don't like one or more of the tracks? The fact that the rest of us band members have not been included in the mixing process means this is a definite possibility. Not that he's not a good producer but we all have very different opinions about what has been done so far - I know I really didn't like what happened to the vocals in the last track I was shown.

So, we're all a bit panic stations and divided on whether we should even do these two new tracks. The fact is if we don't, we really don't have a suitable track to open the album with. If we can pull them off it will certainly fill a few holes in the track listing. But these songs are new to us and have not gone through the several months of rehearsal that our songs usually go through. Maybe that will be a good thing, but I'm not sure...

And poor Tom, it is his hours and hours of hard work which just keeps getting either rejected or disregarded - there is one whole song which Mr R won't even touch. "Nope, can't do anything with that one." Not really even an explanation given. Which would have been fine while the track was still at demo stage, but he didn't say anything then, and Tom has since spent days and days working on this track. Aaarrrrghghhh!!!

Ok enough of a rant, I will keep you posted!!