World Music Gathering on Saturday February 4th
Emily Toogood, a violinist, organised a gathering of world musicians. Rain on the day moved us from the public park by the lake, to Emily's home. I used to work with Emily on an organic farm a few years back and we have kept in touch since then through the school we both teach at. I had no idea what to expect from the evening.
Ian Mundy, the Father of a girl I dated in high school was one of the first to arrive, with a guitar, a concertina and a bag of recorders. Some years ago, his twenty year old Son died in a car crash. It has been a long time since I have seen Ian smile in any real way.
Steve, an old aquaintance of the music scene in the hills, brought a Bouzouki and a guitar. Steve has been playing music for about three hundred years. I discovered during the evening that Steve had taugh music to Emily at primary school. Young and old gathered round the table. Kathryn on Accordian, she runs the Adelaide Hills School of Music and is an excellent singer as well. Sonja, on Violin, a teahcer at the Waldorf school, and leader of two student bands playing Gypsy and Celtic music. A clarinet player whose name I cannot remeber, but man oh man when she blows through that instrument it is like she is singing. Pure, sweet music. It is a voice that comes out, not an instrument sound. There was also a Cello player who I had never met.
The gathering was not just for musicians, it was open to the public. Emily had put tiny hand-made posters up around town. A Korean couple joined us, He played the Pan pipes and was into Andean music, She played the Violin. Both joined in during the second hour of music, reading from the books in front of everyone.
The Books. Everyone else had come armed with a collection of music books, most of which were common between them all. Jewish, Celtic, Spanish, Greek, Irish, Andean, Turkish...a huge collection of music from around the world, and everyone in the room either knew the songs from years of playing them, or could sight read music well enough to play along.
I was the drummer. The traditional rhythms of many of these countires or cultures overlap. The melodies, song structures...it might seem a bit oversimplified, but the language of music has words common to many cultures. The phrasing, arrangement and even specific rhythms of these songs were all very familiar to me, despite having never played most of the songs we played together that night.
The rain drifting down upon the world outside, we played for each other. Our bodies swaying to the rhythm of the world, the pulse we all share. I have not seen Ian smile as brightly as I saw him smile that night. His body did not actually float, but for a time he seemed less leaden than he has been. I do not believe in the healing power of music. I believe healing comes in every thing that we do, and music is not special in any way in this regard.
However.....however, I have seen music change people, break open their cages, break their brittle hearts, their fragile minds. My brittle heart, my fragile mind. I have often thought that without music I wouldn't know anything about the world, or myself for that matter. Music saved me from myself before I knew I needed saving.
When you play music, you can't hide from yourself. That sound that comes out of you, whether through voice or instrument, is your sound. It speaks volumes about who you are. Well, I have never been able to hide from myself. The instrument is part oracle, part guru, friend, doctor, therapist...maybe I look at these things in an odd way, but I have HEARD my Setar speak my name. More than once.
Four hours passed, and each of us left that house sweaty, exhausted and invigorated. An evening with likeminded folk, sharing the common love of music. Smiling faces, voices raised in song, our hands joined in the act of making peace in the world.
Rehearsal with Dancers on Sunday February 5th.
Great rehearsal. Two new songs added to the show, bringing our total time to 52 minutes. The bass player didn't show up because he was still too drunk from the night before to wake up when his alarm went off for our 2pm rehearsal.
Fucking musicians.
After rehearsal, the Guitarist, Nick, was involved in a car crash. He is ok, save for an injured right had, his thumb being wrenched around by the steering wheel.
Recording with Ava, Deva, Stompy, Carrie & Mark on Monday February 6th
I met Deva a few weeks ago. He found me on Facebook and we arranged to meet for a jam. When he came over to my house with his instruments, (Tabla and electric keyboard) the chemistry was immediate. There was a real sense of balance in the way we played music together. I find that I am reserved, holding back my excitement. I expend considerable energy in preventing myself from becoming excited, particularly about the potential of new projects. I have seen my ideas fall short too many times to innocently believe that what I want to happen in the world will happen just because I want it to...quite the opposite really. What I think about the world (and about myself) usually turns out to be the opposite of the truth. Almost everything I have ever believed about myself has turned out to be false. Life is long, and weird.
Either way, I invited Deva to join me in the studio to see how I record music. He arrived early, his instruments in tow. I set up to record a Ukulele instrumental solo, The Road Less Travelled. I smoked my pipe and chatted with Deva while Mark set up the microphones. My heart was beating furiously by the time I finished playing. The first take was as near to perfect as I had ever heard myself play this song. Still, I did another take, which was crap, so I deleted it.
There is a better way to tell this story.
An indian, a Czech, and an Aussie got together in a recording studio. The Aussie says to the other two. 'Let's redefine Jazz.'. The Indian played his Tabla, the Czech played his black and gold saxophone and the Aussie stayed out of it. Everything turned out great.
We recorded one song of mine, two poems and two vignette scenes. Ava has a voice like a quivver has arrows, a vast array of characters, some absurd, some sombre, all of them rich with tiny details. I asked him to do some dialogue scenes with me, and a monologue of a drunk man. I also got Deva to record a scene, his thick South Indian accent turning out to be absolutely perfect for the monologue he was to recite. I hadn't planned on using his voice...in the studio with the microphones hot, it becomes very easy to improvise, to try out new ideas. This night was blessed by the Gods.
Once all my stuff was done for the night, Avalanche and Deva started jamming, so we recorded that. Then Lord Stompy showed up with Avalanche's wife Carrie. Stompy and Deva started jamming, so we recorded that. Many cups of wine were drunk, but not a single drop was spilled. Then I got Stompy and Carrie to both record spoken word parts for my poem 'God has left us all alone'.
God has left us all alone
but shafts of light illuminate the room
over the vista of our doom
we dance to keep our feet from shuffling
we clap to keep our hands from digging
the grave into which we all were born
The hand that rocks the cradle
and the hand that stirs the ladle
is the fist that punches through the walls
of this darkened room
The mind that first envisioned
and the eyes that saw the sunrise
the voice that cried aloft
though all the ears were blocked
the heart that kept on beating
though the body's flesh had rot
and the song we keep on singing
though the choir has all gone home.
The crowd that stands there mute
before stupidity astute
and eloquence is turned to daggers
cutting left and right
For God has left us all alone
like dogs we scrabble for the bone
while masters feast upon the wealth
to which we all aspire
Our hands held out in supplication
we wait for change to come and loosen
these shackles that we are a'shakin'
but I hear music in the makin'
of slaves who dance to keep the breaking of their hearts
from the breaking of their minds
We dance to keep the boots from marching
we clap to keep silence retreating
we sing a song of sixpence
and pray it's not the song of doom
For God has left us all alone
the insult pricks like sticks and stones
but shafts of light illuminate
the corners of this darkened room.
I heard Avalanche say to Deva, in an attempt to explain my poem to him, that Morgan has kind of lost his faith. I didn't interrupt, I agreed and disagreed with him. I think that faith is a weird word and that it carries a heavy implication of ignorance. In order to have faith, one must trust in something, without specific knowledge of the thing one is trusting in. Is it still faith once you have met God face to face? Faith seems to require a lack of knowledge. So, I guess yes, I have lost my faith, but I found myself, and I found God sitting in the same place.
'Human beings are the only creatures on earth that claim a god and the only living thing that behaves like it hasn't got one.' Hunter S Thompson, The Rum Diaries.
Poets, musicians, singers, painters, dancers...my life is crowded with the fruits of a ten thousand year evolution in culture.
Post Script: Mark, he is conspicuous by his absence in this entry. Just a name. Without him none of this would be possible. It is in his home that I am recording all of this, it is with his equipment, with his expertise. I prepare dinner for us in his kitchen with food I bring from home. Mark is a quiet and gracious man, with long graying hair and a generous nature. Running a recording studio is a job that requires a lot of listening, and Mark sure knows how to do that. His attention to the details of mic placement and sound levels is beautiful to watch, and to hear. We use as many mics as we can for each recording, taking every song as an opportunity to learn something new, and keeping detailed records for future reference. The Debt Collectors, Whiskey Bliss (an accordian player from Texas that I recorded a 5 track cd with), and Operation Firehat all recorded with Mark. For years, this man and his home have been the centre of a community of musicians and poets, and all of our recording has been made possible by his generous, free, recording time.
The very walls ring out with song.
Tale of two Tribes rehearsal on Sunday February 12th.
I wake up listening to the song stuck in my head, played like a soundtrack over my dream: I was at work, a year and a half in the future, talking with people in the garden. I was relaxed, confident, at ease within myself and with the people around me, even though they were strangers. The sun slunk through the trees in the late Autumn afternoon, my work was done for the day and I was socialising with friends of my employers.
I am usually irked by dreams of being at work, it's like doing unpaid overtime. This dream was an exception. I suppose it must have been a dream, as I rarely feel that kind of relaxed confidence anywhere. Anxiety is its own reward.
Rehearsal with the dancers was wonderful. The whole band were there on time to rehearse for an hour before we joined the dancers, everyone alert, attentive and focussed. The dancers are really settling into the acting part of the production. Their onstage characters are full of idiosynchrasies, each scene is a soundtracked story of travel, conflict and passion.
The dancers themselves are all lovely people. Between songs they laugh and talk, refining sequences of moves, or confirming song details with the band. In one choreography, an important motion in the dance relies upon a cymbal crash, at the fifth beat, in the fourth cycle, of the second verse, of a song that combines 9/8 and 5/4 rhythms.
The guitarist, Nick Atherton, who had been in a car crash only the week before, is recovering well. His thumb is still stiff, but it seems that there is no real damage. He told me that he had been in three other major car crashes before, and each of them had injured either an arm or a hand. Our life tells stories that sometimes have no meaning, and solves the problems we sometimes wish it wouldn't.
Cocktail Peacock rehearsal on Monday February 13th
In the morning I visited a friend, the poet Sean King, at his new home in Mt Barker. Sean and I worked together on a project called "The Debt Collectors". It began two (or is it three, or is it four?) years ago when Lord Stompy got four poets together to record a spoken work album, with the intention of accompanying some of the poetry with music. Avalanche, Stompy, Zebulon and King...what we ended up with was a punk/blues/jazz/folk album of sixteen songs, drums, guitar, balalaika, bass, saxophone, harmonica, harmonium, some pots and pans and rusty chains and cutlery in a baking tray with keys and a marble in a bowl and a chopstick struck against a half full wineglass. It took a few months to record, each session revealing the unstoppable combined force of our creativity. The final product, now on the verge of release, is a book of all the poetry, complete with photographs and stories, plus the full length album of the songs we wrote together.
Anyway, I visited Sean, we talked about the book, and the editing issues that have been delaying the release, we talked about the storytelling/horror computer game he is making, and how he wants to use Avalanche for the main character's voice. Avalanche has a remarkable talent for accents, a voice rich with all the cultures he has known. We talked about our children, our partners, our lives. Two cups of coffee, sitting on a bench in the front yard, watching the plants grow.
The rest of the day was wasted on anxiety, though I tried to practice, it all felt contrived, stiff. You can't hide from yourself in music.
I picked up my son from school and drove out to Mawson Lakes, stopping for hot chips on the way, listening to Red Panda episodes, reciting our favourite lines along with the heroes. Three episodes later we arrive, a little early, so we walk around the streets in the cool of the afternoon, playing a continuous storytelling/roleplaying game; aliens, mysterious artifacts, robot sentries, laser pistols, magic swords, worm hole dimensional portals, ancient prophecies, heroes, villians...the usual tale of adventure. Wren's storytelling ability is remarkable, and his memory for details is astounding.
I've said it before, I'm sure, but Rajesh, his family and friends are all so wonderful. The other drummers, Solomon and Venu are very straightforward, plain spoken and honest, but with good senses of humour and an easy way of conversing. My son, Wren, spent the evening playing with Rajesh's two sons, Alvin and Alba (I think I got their names right, I'm still getting my ear around the Indian accent), building lego, drawing with textas and playing minecraft on computer. It is remarkable watching Wren make new friends. I am jealous of his upfront confidence, perhaps I am just jealous of that aspect of the Childrens' World. With very little of the Past to hold you back, the opportunities in the present seem so much brighter. Watching Wren, and seeing how he interacts with people reminds me to let go of my old pain, let go of old injuries, grudges, ideologies, and approach the world with an attitude of happiness and enthusiasm.
The rehearsal, accompanied by cold beer and fried green banana chips (a delicious South Indian snack food), covered two of our three songs, using combinations of Indian and Middle Eastern rhythms, five different drums, and a harmonica (well why not?). We have a fifteen minute spot as the final act of the cabaret evening of dance performances. Samba, Indian, Flamenco, Belly Dance, etc...the usual world dance mix.
The drive home was quicker than the drive there, two and a half episodes of Red Panda. Around 9:30 I carried Wren's sleeping form up the steps and through the front door, laying him gently down on his bed. Another day done.
Opertation Firehat rehearsal on Wednesday February 15th
I work during the day then pick Wren up from school and head into the city. Practice today is at the bass players house. Ryan lives in a back alley in the middle of the city, in a a converted warehouse which he shares with a stack of other musicians. It's kind of an artists dream house, with huge paintings on the two storey interior walls, an old piano and even older organ, an upright bass...every room is filled with musical instruments.
We arrived at 4pm to find the Parkour studio next door open. Wren was very excited to get to use the training equipment and the other athletes there were very friendly, showing him different moves and talking with him. Across the road the hip-hop dance studio was opening up, a dozen young girls accompanied by parents were gathering there before class.
Once the band had all arrived, we went around the corner to a second storey rehearsal room which Ryan uses regularly with his other bands. The room is split in two parts, the entry is a lounge room with an old wooden travelling case fashioned into a coffee table. The second half is crowded with speaker stacks, amplifiers and other sound technology that I have no understanding of at all. A drum kit was set up against the back wall, which was actually a window through to a control room; the rehearsal room was also a professional recording studio. It was dimly lit with lamp shades hanging from the low ceiling. The walls were hidden behind posters, photos, and foam sound baffles, the floors were covered with old but colourful rugs.
I have never been in a rehearsal room before. I have never needed such a space, all the bands I have been in have been acoustic. We rehearse in lounge rooms, in gardens, bedrooms, in spare rooms upstairs at the local pub. This rehearsal room had tens of thousands of dollars of sound equipment, huge, bulky and very heavy stuff that is just not possible to haul around to practices in diverse locations. The shared resource stored there is rather amazing. This also meant that the bass player could make the whole building shake with earthquaking sound, bass frequencies that makes your bones feel loose in their flesh. Black Sabbath makes a lot of sense when you hear it being played in this way.
The rehearsal was excellent, a bottle of chilled sparkling red being passed between us as we worked over the songs for the Fringe show. Nine to Five, Zembetika and Iron Cowboy were played four times each, little details being ironed out. We are ready for the festival, it feels very good to be making music of this quality, and to be able to work with dancers. Dare I say it? I hope the shows go well, I hope they are all sold out. Being devoted to music has had the consequence of making me very poor. I have bills to pay, a car that needs work, and a family to support. I am getting pretty thin, learning how to live on flat bread and fruit, with the occasional bacon and egg sandwich.
Being a musician has required that I make a vow of poverty. Since there is no way for me to make a living wage playing music, I must content myself with simple things, and find happiness amidst the petty stress of juggling meagre finances. Choosing between firewood and fresh food as it were. Still, I am here in this position because of my own decisions, my own failures and my own strenghts. I am a crooked man, I have walked a crooked mile, I wear my crooked hat and my crooked little smile. Coming to terms with the consequences of my own choices is what growing up is about I guess. Here I am, only a few days from my 37th birthday, and I still feel like an ignorant child. A mystery to myself, baffled by the world.
Wren and I got ice-cream on the way home and curled up in bed to watch cartoons. He is beside me now, with his plush black and red toy spider resting on his chest, head upon his furry triceratops pillow. His breathing deep and regular in sleep.
Thursday February 16th
I should have gone to work today, but I just couldn't do it. Too tired. Instead I drove out to Carrie's place and and painted a calligraphy centipede on the tripych I have been working on for a couple of years. We listened to Black Sabbath. Carrie began work on a new sculpture, a Beholder, straight out of the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual. I got me a good woman. It was kind of a dream day.
I came home and played ukulele on my front step, looking out at the street. In the evening I built a lego castle and lay seige with dinosaurs and dragons against an army of weirdo's, creeps, criminals, psycho's and other freaks that I like to call my friends...as Wren quoted from his current favourite cartoon villian, Bill Cypher, from Gravity Falls. Bill is a cyclopean pyramidal psychic demon from the DreamScape, who is trying to break through to the living world in order to bring chaos in the form of his Weirdmageddon.
Wren's beddtime story was a book of rather stylish Jazz poetry. He has always had a fascination for Jazz. As he sleeps I have prepared my new notes for drum class, a selection of Tunisian, Egyptian and Iraqi rhythms, all new material that I will study tomorrow at work, then teach on Saturday morning. A bit slack on the preparation, but I have been rather busy.
Rehearsal at Raj's on Friday February 17th
It's a long drive out to Mawson Lakes, but I am getting used to it, settling into the rhythm of the traffic at that end of town. We are only playing three songs for the cabaret show that Rajesh is putting on, but we are rehearsing with great seriousness. Little details are being worked out, the exact rhythms of a call and response section are being hammered down. It is great fun learning the swing and sway of Indian patterns. We drank shots of home make Arak, which was strong, but very smooth. Deva, Solomon and Rajesh sometimes speak at length in their native language, but even so I do not feel excluded...somehow everything they are saying makes perfect sense, even though I do not understand a word being said.
Drum Class and Fringe Parade on Saturday February 18th
My first drum class for the year, Advanced from 11:15 - 12:45, Beginners from 1:00 - 2:30. I have recently begun studying from a collection of over a thousand rhythms, a webstite I found a few months ago called Jas's Rhythms. It spans many countries and includes the legendary Hawii, an indian 128/4 rhythm. Well, I've got the rest of my life to learn it. For my classes, I seleted some Tunisian and Egyptian rhythms, as well as a 13th Century persian rhythm, Hazaj in 12/8 time. I like the way the old Persian rhythms have no feeling of being related to modern rhythm at all. The world before rock and roll, before hip hop, before funk.
After class I had a few hours to drink some beer and eat lunch with a friend visiting from Panama, at the pub across the road from the studio, before the the band and the dancers gathered to prepare for the parade. I really like parades, I love that the people come out to witness the spectacle put on by the performers of Adelaide. I even like country town christmas parades...sure they celebrate capitalism more than any religious sentiment, but more than that, they celebrate community.
The best thing about parades however, is the way they are nothing at all like real life. In front of us in the line was a giant inflatable golden dragon, followed by a troupe of African gumboot dancers, behind us were another african dance and circus troupe, followed by a firedancing group. Further ahead I saw a monster truck spurting flames from tubes set into the rear, I also saw a cloud of dancers in diaphanous white dresses, all lit up from within by white fairy lights. The parade route was packed as usual, tens of thousands of people standing and sitting, their faces lit up by the lights of the parade.
It is one thing to be witness to a spectacle, it is another to be a part of that spectacle, to be the thing that a child stares agape at. It is an excellent feeling to know that I am a part of something memorable, something inspiring. I said that a parade is nothing like real life, but the real magic is in the fact that it IS real life. We really did dress up and dance through the streets, laughing and clapping while thousands of families looked on in wonder. Being a performer is a way of making the fantastical into reality. Sure, we had to stand around for an hour and a half waiting for the parade to start, but that wait was filled with music and dance as Nick from Firehat played his guitar, our lighting assistant played my doumbek and Stompy played harmonica. The gumbooted Africans danced and sang, a troupe of women dressed in rainbow floral dresses, with fruit on their heads and maraccas in their hands danced along with them. In the distance, Guns and Roses played at the Adelaide Oval, to an audience even larger than that gathered along the streets for the parade.
To get philosophical...and to have a whinge...the Fringe Festival music program this year, as it has been a few years running, is more than half cover bands and tribute acts. It says something about people's need for certainty in their lives that nostalgia has taken precedence over originality. The war (Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq...) has gone on too long for people to crave new art, what they want is the certainty of the past. The only bands making any money in this city are cover bands, while original artists perform to nearly empty rooms. I can't criticise the public for their need for familiar music, the world seems to have gone mad in every country and the rise of neo-fascist democracy is making everyone scared, even if they don't see it for the black faced monster that it is. So, I will bide my time, and in a decade or so, when the nostalgic phase has passed, I will be there, a master of my form, ready to play for an audience who is ready to listen. At least, that is what I tell myself so that I do not feel hungry eating bread and cheese for lunch, bread and chicken for dinner.
After the parade a few of us walked to the Fringe Artists Bar for a beer before going home. The DJ was playing 1950's - 1960's pop songs. On the opening night of the second biggest Fringe festival in the world, a festival that purportedly is in support of local artists, as the crowds poured in from the parade, a DJ played 1950's American pop tunes. There was no local dance band playing original music, there wasn't even a DJ playing original beats. There was a DJ, doing a sub-standard job of mixing music from another county, from half a century ago. The crowd loved it.
I drank two beers and walked out.
Rehearsal with the dancers on Sunday February 19th
It's kind of funny seeing dancers look tired and sleepy at 11am on a Sunday morning. They are professionally beautiful women, who take great pride in their appearance and in the health of their bodies, so seeing their tired faces and hair still wet from morning showers is reassuring. They can seem a bit unapproachable, too perfect at times, their beauty a little overwhelming.
With sunlight pouring in through the east facing windows, the second storey studio room glittered with the morning rain outside. While everyone was getting ready, Stompy picked up his guitar and sang "Black Life", a dirge we recorded together last December. Somehow it was the perfect atmosphere to start the day. It's funny how blues music, so full of pain, can make even a group of exhausted performers still aching from the parade the night before, perk up and start to smile and laugh.
Take a look at your black life
Take a look at your black life
take a look at your black black life
never coming back no more
take a look at me doctor
take a look at my brain
same old thing day in day out I
swear I'm goin' insane
take a look at me Jesus
take a look at this hole
once upon a time it used to be my soul
lord where did it go
take a look at us drinking
take a look at us sinking
into a pit of our dribbling shit
and we're never gonna care no more
no more (no more!)
no more (no more!)
no more (no more!)
no more (no more!)
Sick and tired of hearing the score
never gonna care no more
won't you join in my sad song
won't you join in our sad song
think you're immune to this tragic tune
i tell you that it won't take long
not long (not long!)
not long (not long!)
not long (not long!)
not long (not long!)
think you're immune to this tragic tune
i tell you that it won't take long
Take a look at your black life
Take a look at your black life
take a look at your black black life
never coming back no more
The line take a a look at your black life, came from an experience Stompy had some twenty years ago. He was sharing a house with a man who was on the edge of madness, and during a particularly dark period, Stompy came home to find his friend sitting in his room playing a single chord on guitar and repeating that line over and over again. When Stompy and I recorded the song last December, as soon as we were done Stompy rang that old friend and told him that he had finally put the line to use. It was comforting to know that the man who had inspired the song was still alive.
The rehearsal was excellent, I'm still missing my cue on that 9/8 - 5/4 song, but a bit more practice this week should clear that up. The narrators, Avalanche and Shamira are both really warming up to the task, their delivery becoming more nuanced and better memorised. Shamira's lines as Death are being trimmed, simplified, her brevity in this role expresses more threat and menace than if she spoke long shakespearean monologues.
Taking up a sort of directing role for myself in this is good for me. To see my script being brought to life by this large group of talented people is good for my self esteem. In between songs I flit from group to group, encouraging people with comments about their dance combo's, asking questions and communicating the needs of each group to the others. This kind of intermediary role is something I am well suited to, and along the way I am learning how to translate between the dancers vocabulary and the musicians. It's a funny thing trying to describe something that cannot be seen, only heard and felt, counted with the feet and hands.
The rehearsal over by 1 o'clock, I made it to Carrie's place by two, to slump on the couch and play "Call of Duty" with my son, Arky. There's nothing quite like shooting each other in the face to make a Sunday afternoon seem complete. When the fighting was over, we had dinner and watched Daria, a cartoon that seems as relevant and clever now as it did when it was released over a decade ago. Then, when Arky had gone to bed, Carrie and I watched a couple episodes of the new Sherlock Holmes series before bed, where I fell asleep with a book in my hand.
Now, on Monday morning, refreshed and relaxed, I sit in bed listening to music and writing, my jug of coffee beside me and fruit toast in my belly.
Rehearsal at Raj's on Monday February 20th
So, it was written in my diary, but it wasn't in the text message....I got things mixed up, and there was no rehearsal tonight. An hour and a half drive for nothing...eh. I called my old friend Dook to try to catch up, he had recently moved and I hadn't been able to visit him yet. It turned out that his new home was exactly on my normal route home from Raj's. On my drive to Dook's, I saw from my car window, an old watherboard house with peeling blue paint and an empty front yard, save for a fancy looking sedan parked on the front lawn. Parked on the road outside the house was a white four wheel drive, where two men, both wearing suits, were opening the doors and carefully putting in suit bags. My suspicious mind dreams up loads of cool stories...
Last week, on the same road, but a few houses up the hill, I saw a huge family gathering, at least fourty people all seated at tables eating a feast, with a big "Happy Birthday" banner strung across the front porch. That banner was still up there today.
Dook is living with three other people, his own partner Dani, and another couple (I forget their names, I've only met them three or four times....I'll have to look them up on Facebook.) Everyone in the house is working on a PHD of some kind, Anthropology, Botany and Biology I think, while Dook is in his first year of a Cognitive Philiosophy PHD. He is going a little crazy, a by-product of his subject material, it kind of unravels him, having to pull apart the mechanisms of thinking, his own included. Still, his new home is wonderful, full of light and art and with a backyard filled with food. Two avocado trees, the biggest pumpkin and tomato plants I have ever seen, capsicum, mandarin, lime...all the veggies were planted two months ago and they are the healthiest vegetable plants I have ever seen.
In speaking of his PHD, he said that he was married to someone, and it wasn't Dani. I was suddenly worried that his relationship with her had ended since I had seen him last, but when he smiled I realised he was speaking of his PHD. It's an interesting thing to note how we both have dedicated our lives to something other than our relationships. I'm not sure that a man can be happy unless he is devoted to his true heart's purpose. We are here to make something of ourselves, something in the world.
We ate home-made sushi with brown rice, seasoned with home made chilli-sauce and drank beer, talking in the kitchen. Dook has worked in theatre for most of his life, beginning in early childhood through his mother's theatre work. We talked about the dollar cost of putting on productions; he was actually pleased to see me doing a show that had more than a $5 ticket value, (or free entry if you're broke). My last Fringe shows, three solo performances, were mostly attended by friends I had given free tickets to, so I only just covered my costs. There are times when my poverty does seem self inflicted.
In describing the show, I said something that I have said often in conversation.
The worst thing you can give an audience is what they expect, or even what they want.
No audience will ever really be moved by simply having their expectations met. We are putting on a gypsy belly dance show, with almost no belly dancing, no actual gypsy songs, and no middle eastern music of any kind. The audience that will gather for this show will be friends of the dance studio, and fans of the Divine Elements dance company, which have in the past put on belly dance shows. The audience will expect belly dance, they will expect gypsy music, they will get neither, and yet, both.
Tuesday 21st of February.
A day at work, wasted on anxiety about my poverty. Still, from the bottom of my fear came the phrase, the poor man's wife wears a paper wedding ring. During my lunch break I began writing, soon realising that it could be a part of the gypsy epic poem Stompy and I have been slowly writing together for about three years. Next I searched for paper wedding rings on the net and found origami instructions for their making. I am deeply troubled by my poverty sometimes. I have no savings, no insurance of any kind, I can't even afford to pay my RAA membership. I am living over a deep pit, with no safety net, no wires. If I trip, there is very little to catch me. Well that's not true. My family are actually very supportive. My mother contacted me just the other day to say that she was worried about my lack of income, and offered to pay me for gardening work at her home. My father has offered the same to me, but there is one problem with both offers. I am already working every single hour that I can, I live on the edge of exhaustion, though I only manage to work an average of 36 hours a fortnight. Paid farm work that is. Every other moment is filled with rehearsals, performances, family, writing and painting....in about that order too. It's a kind of bet with myself, or with the future. I am pouring every available moment into my life in music, in the vain hope that one day I might draw some kind of reliable income from it. For the moment however, it is an unpaid second job.
...like I said, a day wasted on anxiety.
Pick of the Fringe on Wednesday, 22nd of February
And so, another day filled with dread
but i never said I was afraid
for dread and fear should not be confused
by dread I'm inspired
by fear I'm amused
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
Firehat and four of the gypsy dancers did a three song demo of our show at a cabaret style showcase evening (The Pick of the Fringe) at the Kentish Hotel in North Adelaide. There is a way that a crowd can look at you that makes you feel like a rockstar, and from the moment we walked in the door it were as if we were lit by stadium lights. We played fantastically, the dancers burned up the floor, people cheered and clapped for every instrumental solo, they gave us their fullest attention. They came to dance onstage when the dancers called them up. We were ourselves last night, doing what makes us who we are.
Before she show, all eight of us gathered in the front bar to drink and jaw about the show. I overheard one of the dancers say that she was about to start working full time again. I saw the faint dread in her eyes, mixed with the hope that the money will be worth it. It seems the whole band are flat broke, or as Nick put it, fast approaching 0.00 in the bank. I've been that way for a year now.
Ugh...enough about money. I'm getting too worked up about it.
Tomorrow night is the band's final rehearsal before the first show on Friday. I will pitch my idea for next years show which I have already begun writing the script for in my mind. I will shower and shave and prepare myself for the big day tomorrow. Today I work as a gardener, tomorrow I shine as a musician.
Final rehearsal for the band on Thursday 23rd of February
Nick nack, it's all a trap
bowbis and so is this
hey ho, to hell you go
watch it all go down
ding dong, a silly song
sure do say something's wrong
headeeyo, to hell we go
watch it all come down.
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
All morning I have been singing this chorus. Sometimes my own mind is my greatest enemy. Mowing the lawns at work, the wind has covered me from head to toe in dust. I feel the creeping hand of burnout on my shoulder. I must remember to get enough sleep, and to eat fresh fruits and vegetables.
The sun shines silver on the almond leaves
Limes hide in their green shadows
Birds tumble upon the dusty wind
and I
and I
* * *
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead
of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and
complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly
washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats
away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall
down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll
throught the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plant to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver.
* * *
Poetry heals a wound no other medecine can touch. Poetry cures an illness no doctor can diagnose. Poetry speaks only when we are silent.
* * *
Tonight was our final rehearsal as a band before opening night. Around sunset we gathered at Ava's house, the band ready to play through the songs, and both Ava and Shamira (Death) to recite their lines. I had not known before that Shamira had retired from performing, anxiety from the demands of the stage becoming greater than the joy of performing. She is still an excellent and well respected teacher, but even performing with her students at end of term school shows is very stressful for her. I am quite honoured to have her in the show, her delivery of the few spoken lines of her character are perfect. She has an expression that gives nothing away, a mask she wears to hide her nervousness. She said that even watching her students perform, she is tense with anxiety for them. She doesn't want them to fail, she doesn't want them to feel the embarrassment of making a public error. It is a kind of love, I think, that she extends to all those around her, a strange burden that has proved a little too heavy for her. Still, I am glad she accepted the offer to play Death, and I am glad she accepted the opportunity to confront her anxiety.
Opeing Night of Tale of Two Tribes on Friday, 24th February.
Hanging with the band at Gardy's, listening to Electric Wizard on vinyl, drinking coffee, eating bananas and flat bread. The tech run starts at 3pm, then we are onstage at 8:30. We are as ready as we could ever be. Stompy slept in this morning and missed our performance on the Fringe stage in Rundle Mall, so Nick and I played as a duet (since Gardy was still at school). Nick is such an accomplished player that even without the others he could cover all the necessary melodies.
As I approached the mall stage this morning, Kelly, one of the 'gypsies of the past' stood in costume, alone against a wall. With all the modern world around her, I realised that to me she looked normal, and the commoners on the street looked strange. When all the dancers had gathered in full costume, I felt more at home in their company than among the jeans and t-shirt set. It's a kind of arrogance, or prejuduce I suppose, that I as a poor musician can somehow think myself above the society I perform for. I guess that I have to be proud of myself, and what I do, despite my position on the economic scale. Ugh....I'm talkng about money again.
Gardy's room is a tiny rectangle (about 3m x 9m), at the top of a crowded and twisting staircase. With bookshselves overflowing, (I can see Oscar Wilde, Poe, Sherlock Holmes, Cormack McCarthy, Moby Dick, Frank Herbert, every single one of James Joyce's books), a couch more frame than cushion, a mattress against the wall, a computer on a table in the corner. Vinyl stacks lean against the stereo cabinet and further along the wall. I can see James Brown, Faith No More and Tom Waits from where I sit. Gardy is actually a kind of scholar, his devotion to fine literature and exellent music are the marks of a true gentleman. He lives in a very simple way, devoting his life to music, and to study. A picture of Leonardo DaVinci hangs above the bookcase, next to a prortrait photo of four Native American elders and a clock made from a frying pan lid. Exposed floor beams are partially covered with carpet squares and floating timber slats. A pencil drawing is blue tacked on the wall above the TV, of a security camera looking down upon a shrivelled corpse in a corner.
I guess I'm just trying to paint a one minute portrait.
* * *
Opening night of the show went as well as it possibly could have.
The atmosphere of the venue is amazing, with a high curved ceiling and sturdy timber beams....one thing you can say about churches, they were designed by people who knew a thing or two about sound. I have this quasi-synesthesia thing where I can almost see the sound bouncing around the upper reaches of the chapel. The natural echo of the room made the band sound so much more like an orchestra, all the high end, metallic buzzing that comes with amplified music, and especially with Stompy's hamonica being pushed through the distortion and delay effects, all that noise was simply absorbed by the room, taken out of the range of the audience and lifted up into the ceiling alcoves beside the high arched widows.
As the crowd took their seats, (and more seats were brought out to accomodate the now sold out show) we hid behind the black curtains beside the stage, peering through the gaps at the gathering crowd, their conversation warm, excited. It is an odd thing, for us as performers who are natural exhibitionists, (despite often being painfully shy at the same time) to also gain such pleasure from voyeurism, not in a sexual way, but just for the pleasure of beinge able to observe, while being unobserved. To watch those who have come to watch us. Backstage was a press of bodies, fourteen of us squeezed into a tiny polygonal room without windows, just a fire escape door leading to the alley beside the venue. On a table at the back of the room, hidden in its thick padded case was a Koto, a very large Japanese thirteen stringed instrument. An elderly woman from Japan comes out every year to play in the festival, she is a master, showing those of us with ears to hear it, the unique and exotic music of her homeland.
Playing in a band, your ability to see and connect with the audience is quite important. As the lights went down on the crowd and the musicians took their places onstage, I looked up into a wall of inky darkness, impenetrable. Nothing was visible beyond the steps of the stage, it was quite unsettling. A hundred or more people sat only metres away yet in their silent anticipation they were completely concealed from us. But we had prepared for too long to be put off by the void beyond the stage.
This was the first time any of us had seen the show, from beginning to end without interruptions of any kind. One single event, each song flowing into the next via bridging melodies and the smoky voice of the narrator. At last I could see the story Avalanche and I had written together as one tale, a narrative held in the gentle palm of the stage, painted by the loving attentions of warm stage lights. Though Ava and I had written the script, it was told by fourteen of us, a true and balanced collaboration of peformers. I am impressed by the dancers' ability to translate thinly described scenes, into a fully expressive pantomime that tells the story without language, but which says so much more that language could every hope to communicate. Telling a story with words alone is a narrow beam of information, the audience must listen actively with their minds and their imaginations, translating the poetry of the text into a form they can relate to. When music is added to that narration, the poetry becomes song, and the emotional expression of melody and rhthm speaks to people's beating hearts, to their tapping feet and nodding heads. When dance is added, the whole body is engaged, the audience is offered an experience that effects all the senses. To see a body move, is to be moved by that body, the twisting, turning and leaping, stamping and clapping of the dancers is all experienced by the audience, who cannot help but become dancers themselves, albeit in their stillness they express a different kind of dance. Because they are still, we may dance. Because they watch, we may show. Because they listen, we may speak.
After the show, my Cajon on my back, cymbal stand in my hands, I walked back to my car. Two homeless men slept on the front steps of the Pilgrim Church, their sleeping bags, woolen blankets and scattered possessions a sombre reminder that even amidst the frivolity and joy of an international arts festival, the poor still suffer the same indignities they always have. Adelaide has a serious and escalating problem with amphetamines, and the streets become more crowded each year with the victims of this chemical plague. A pair of drunk girls stumbled past, teetering on high heels and adjusting their short skirts as they sang joyfully in the early evening. Less whimsical drunks leaned against the stone fence of the church, their rough voices communicating unintelligable complaints.
Walking on, the Metro Fire station roller doors clattered open to the accompaniment of sirens and a feminine computer voice intoning coded information to the dozen men and women slinging their overalls on and prepping four fire trucks. Sirens howled as they pulled into the wide city streets.
Walking on, restaraunt lights painted the footpath, the contented faces of the affluent flush with wine and rich food. Between the homeless men on the church steps, and the well fed bourgeois in the restaraunts, I walk the paved streets of my home city, still buzzing with the energy of the show.
I drove a few minutes out of town to a friend's party, (Neil, one of my drum students) arriving to a colourfully lit garden crowded with people eating and drinking. Picking up an open bottle of wine and a plastic cup, I poured myself a drink and chatted with a few familiar faces. "The Bearded Gypsy Band" were just setting up, drums, bass, guitar and violin, cables running through the trampled grass, fairy lights strung through the branches above them. I saw this band about five years ago, they were all teenagers and already a very talented group. Since then they have been touring Australia, Europe and America and now they are truly amazing. Neil is in his fifties, living alone now that his children are grown and travelling the world. He has opened his doors over the last few years to boarders, many of whom are musicians and friends of his children. Neil is an acomplished jazz piano player, his home is filled with musical instruments and the accumulations of a life among artists and performers. Neil recently survived a heart attack, and has been going through a rather joyful rearranging of his life priorities. A near death experience has not put the fear of death into him, but has rather re-affirmed his love of life. We sat together watching the band and I said to him (quoting from Neitzche):
Without music, life would be a mistake
February 25th
My Birthday! My partner gave me a rare Dr Seuss book, The Seven Lady Godiva's, his only book for adults, and the only book of his to ever go out of print. It's pretty damn funny, but Seuss decided that he didn't like writing for adults so never pursued that avenue. I eat a breakfast of toast and coffee, surrounded by cats and our Tibetan Spaniel puppy as our children play in the quiet of the morning.
Monday February 27th
It's been too hectic to write every day, but I have been doing so much that I have to make time or I will forget something important.
The show on the 25th was amazing. My whole family was there, except my Dad (who is nearly blind, so can't get out much any more). The comraderie that exists between the performers is steams with the excitement that this level of trust opportunes. We have worked together to make this thing, and now we are achieveing the goal we have set for ourselves. Responses from the audience have been overwhelmingly positive and the crew feel the same about their own performance. I realised that I haven't seen a single disagreement between anyone throughout the entirety of us working together.
During the performance, I sit centre upstage, staring forward directly into a white spotlight. It is hypnotising. The darkness beyond the stage is like a hole beneath the earth.
I didn't know darkness could have a bottom, until i saw darkness that didn't.
(Alice Isn't Dead)
We are alone up there, the fourteen of us, our skin warmed by the coloured stage lights, everything is incredibly sharp in detail. I study the dancers faces, now serious in concentration, now beaming with joy, eyes flashing with confident happiness, as they too are caught up in the moment of their own beauty. I hear the soft turning of their feet, I see the muscles tight in their arms as they grip each other and spin against the music. I have watched them so closely I know every step they take, I can see them skip to make adjustments as they go, shifting ever so slightly from their exact choreographies, as the band make some slight adjustments as they play, shifting ever so slightly from their exact arrangements as the audience is meserised by the same lights and sights and sounds that even now mesmerise me as from my memory I type of the wonders of the stage.
There really is nothing like it in the world.
* * *
Operation Firehat played on the front steps of the Pilgrim Church at 12:30 today, for an audience of seated people with disabilities and their carers, and whoever else was walking by on the street at the time. It's quite a nice spot to play and it reinforces our shared belief that we should practice in the streets more often. It is an excellet way to meet people and make fans, and at the same time to get paid a few dollars for each practice. The whole thing was filmed today, so we will see what result that yields, Stompy is very exacting in his standards of what he will put up on youtube.
After the show we chatted with the sound guys, music industry stuff. In the seventies, it seems, bands were paid up to $2000 per night for pub gigs. Musicians bought homes and put their children through school on an income from music. For our efforts today we were paid $65. That's $65 for the band, so, $16.25 each. I'm not sure if that even covered my travel costs. Vow of poverty indeed.
