January 2017

Friday 20th.

There is now more music in me than fear.

Recording continues, my solo album flourishes, and along with it my faith in my music. Each song revealing more about itself in the recording process, whole new melodies, new instruments added, new sections added to old songs, and new songs written in the days between studio sessions. Recently I recorded "Street Dance Karsilamas", which was the first drum arrangement I ever wrote, and which has for the past five or so years been sitting quietly waiting for me to really pay attention to it.

Prior to recording this song, I began teaching it to my students. In the process of notating and playing the song with them, sections were adapted, simplified, then made more complex again; it evolved. On the day I was to record, I packed an old wooden school Xylophone in the car, (along with the Doun Doun, Cajon, two Ukulele's, my harmonicas and a tamborine), just to muck around on and see if anything could be gotten from it.

The song arrangement was set, all the drum parts were written, it has an old shoe comfort now, the break patterns practiced ten thousand times each, ten thousand combinations of possible outcomes explored, ten thousand progressions tested.

It still feels like I'm falling over the edge of a cliff though, falling through time and all I have to do is let the music pour out of me. I have to trust myself, I have to trust the music, it knows itself better than I. How strange that letting go is more difficult than grasping.

Playing the Xylophone was like a car chase in a Bond movie. You'll know it when you hear it.

On the same night as I recorded "Street Dance..." I also recorded my most recently written song, "Tambourine". Inspired by Regan, a dancer who I work with. It is a waltz played on ukulele. It took all of two days to write the music and lyrics, and another week to practice. I think it might be the sweetest, most beautiful thing I have ever written.

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These rhythms and melodies have been playing in my mind for a long time, many years in some cases. They have been tickled out over hundreds of nights, slowly refined and tested in in cafes, lounge rooms, stages and in my lunch room at work. For a long time now, (years...) I have made sure that I have a musical instrument of some kind with me at all times. Most often it is a ukulele, but there are always at least two harmonicas in my bag, usually either a Cajon or Darbuka in the boot of my car. Every lunch break is a race to eat, then a concentrated twenty minutes music practice. I have often recorded some of my best demo's on my phone during these times. During the day I listen to my recordings, either my solo stuff or whatever my band has recorded most recently. I listen over and over, studying my own music, paying close attention to the smallest details of melody, tension, mood or structure, making use of my time amidst the plants to practice in my mind, my fingers twitching imperceptibly as I prune the roses or mow the lawn.

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My band "Operation Firehat" have also been recoring their debut album. We have been playing together for about a year, I suspect that a full length album is a little premature, but at the same time, the songs we are recording are really good and each studio session ends with a few new tracks down. We are very productive and generally egoless when it comes to songwriting. We don't cling to ideas that don't work, but seek to always challenge ourselves in order to better the music. There is a grand feeling of mutual respect, each of us stands in awe of the others capabilities, expressiveness and imagination.

I have been really struggling with a Reggae song written by the guitarist Nick. I've never played reggae before and for months now I have felt like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, but the penny finally dropped when the Bass payer Gardy turned up his amp. Suddenly the melody he was playing rang through my whole body and everything I had to do became instantly and instinctually clear. I told him that it reminded me a little of the bassline from "My Girl", the mowtown song, and that he should take that as a compliment. This is the first band I've ever been in that even has a bass player and I am learning a lot from him about laying down super heavy grooves and playing complimentary rhythms.

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Amidst the hectic recording scedule, I have also begun rehearsals this month for the Fringe Festival show that I am involved with. A few months back I wrote a script for a dance, storytelling and music show, a dramatic reinterpretation of an old gypsy story. I presented it to Regan, and within a few weeks four of the dancers and the band were together in a room talking about how we were going to present the show. Firehat had recently recorded a live show at "Bluebee", a little underground venue (literally, underground) in the city, so we had some good quality demos to give the dancers to start choreographing with.

Our first rehearsal was last Sunday, and I had the very great pleasure of seeing my script put into action, as well as seeing our music made flesh through the dancers, of whom there are now eight. I recently heard a criticism of dance, that when it is just movement set to music, with no deeper motivation than to entertain, it becomes shallow. It has no narrative to really maintain the attention of an audience. Dance becomes elevated by the presence of storytelling, such is the case with ballet, where epic tales of love and death are presented through movement. Contemporary dance sometimes shares this connection with narrative, the interpretive movements offering the audience a chance to read the story being told without words.

Working with Belly Dancers choreographing to funk, dub, metal and jazz music has been inspiring and exciting. Using non-middle eastern music has granted the dancers the freedom to introduce non-belly dance moves, a fusion of contemporary street styles, influenced by gypsy, hip-hop and theatre aesthetic. We have five more Sunday rehearsals, all the dancers and band together in one room before our three shows in the festival. The band will continue to practice on Wednesday nights, and record every second Monday, while the dancers will practice on their own using our recordings to dance to.

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I went to horseshoe bay with my family, a beautiful warm day, a gentle breeze. The shore was an avenue of tents, most of them old fashioned striped canvas shade structures. Young and old mingled upon the sand and in the shallow surf. I chatted with a 71 year old man as we both tumbled off our respective boogie boards. Kids built sand castles, dug moats, heaped up walls against the rising tide. Eating hot fish and chips and drinking cold lemonade as the evening change blew the heat from the sky. Sandy and satisfied, feet were washed at the shower outside the toilets, children strapped into seat belts, a radio play to listen to on my phone as we drive home.

Perfection is in the little things.

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January 24th

The second rehearsal (Sunday 22nd Jan) for the Fringe show went well All eight dancers were present this time. There is great enthusiasm in the room, each group co-ordinating with the others, pinning down the arrangements for songs, working out the moves for the big song in the middle of the show with all the dancers involved. Stompy was really sick on the day, spending the second half of the afternoon laid out on the floor boards on his back playing harmonica.

I spent the rest of the afternoon with Avalanche (Ivan Rehorek) working on the script. His house is an art gallery curated over a lifetime of art teaching and living among artists. The entry hall is lined with hundreds of books of poetry, musical instruments recline on lounge chairs and lurk in side rooms. The kitchen smells of coffee, cider and yiros. Ivan's wife, Carrie plays harmonica in the front room, sometimes coming out to chat. My wife, also named Carrie, sits reading and talking....we talk about poets and musicians mostly, Cohen, Waits. A big hardback book of poetry (Carl Sandberg) is open on the table beside copies of the script and a broad sketchbook with pages covered in Ivan's nearly untranslatable scrawl.

He and I jaw back and forth, trying out new lines, imagining set changes and lighting arrangements. Ivan's poetic vocabulary is like....well, it's kinda hard to say how poetic a person's language is, without trying to be poetic. But that would be my poetry, not his, and wouldn't really tell you what he is like. So, I'll say this. He has an excellent memory for both stories and poetry, he has a voice rich with age, a quiver full of characters and accents, a handful of foreign languages, and an excellent top hat.

　


January 29th.

Wren (my seven year old son) has begun to play three instruments at a time. Pumping the upright harmonium with his left foot and playing the keys with his left hand, drumming on the marching drum with his right hand, and tapping a tambourine on the floor with his right foot. His rhythm is excellent, full of swing and instinctive groove. Yesterday he sang in tune with Tom Waits, dancing step by step in unison with the blues progression melodies. Today he hummed along perfectly with my ukulele as I played a complicated finger picking melody. He has heard all my songs hundreds of times, sometimes he will mash the lyrics and melodies of two or more songs. Christmas carols, songs from school, melodies from his favourite tv shows or movies...everything is fair game.