Wednesday, August 29, 2007

The birds were singing and the sun was shining

Wow, wtf is up with the weather recently. Yesterday was crazy warm. My room's messy again because I had to go hunting through the darkest crevices of my wardrobe to find some summer shorts, and I had to shave my legs...I was hoping to get away without deforestation for at least another two months. Lucky I have a new razor which vibrates. I'm not sure how beneficial to the shaving process the vibrating actually is, but whatever.

Anyway, John Butler Trio were absolutely brilliant, although to be honest I expected nothing less. They're three extremely talented musicians. I would love to have a quarter of John's ability on guitar. One of his guitars had this huge scratched area just behind the bridge, and I couldn't work out what the hell did it as it was nowhere near where he strummed, then he played a solo song where he strummed and then hit the guitar in that area with his nails to create a really nice percussive sound. Michael Barker's drumming was amazing, he was playing kit, jambe/bongo type things, timpanis, glockenspiel and one song he was playing kit with his right arm and legs, and using his left hand to hold the mic while he beatboxed a beat over the top. Now that is cool. Mark of a good drummer is when their solo still has a beat and groove you can dance to instead of being a boring rapid succession of bangs and crashes.

Also I have a video up on youtube, I covered a song by The Waifs called Bridal Train. I heard it the first time that morning, learnt it and performed it, which is probably why it's a bit dodge. I bet I got the melody wrong in places, but hey it's all character innit.


-R

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Quick update

Just a quick one...don't really feel like blogging but I guess I have the time right this second so I may as well.

George's birthday drinks was on Saturday....I had an awesome time, from what I can remember. Probably drank far too much and woke up on Sunday with a raging hangover and had to work that afternoon, but it was worth it. There are photos on Facebook (speaking of which, hi Adri...) and I'll probably put em up on Flickr at some point too.

We've now recorded our song that we're entering into the Darebin songwriting contest. I think it's quite good, I hope the judges agree. If we get into the semis we'll have to perform it along with all the other entrants, which makes me quite nervous. Unfortunately I won't have my Maton till well after the competition, so I think I'll play Alana's. Playing so much acoustic over the past couple of weeks has completely screwed my neck and shoulders...can't wait for my guitar!

I'm seeing John Butler Trio tonight, with Steve. We were a bit nervous about the gig being postponed, Canberra's was postponed because their drummer (who is the possibly my favourite drummer, he's awesome) got sick. I'm pretty excited about it, we got the green tickets, fifty extra cents buys carbon credits to offset emissions from the tour and us getting there. Figured it's John Butler, we may as well go in hippy mode. It would be cool for more gigs to offer it actually, I'd definitely take the green option. We've been good little greenies at home, cut our water usage in half the past year, and probably made quite a dent in our energy usage too. I think we're getting the house kitted out with a new type of low energy consuming light near the end of the year, someone we know is developing it nd I think we're guinea pigs, should be quite interesting.

Anyway I better get ready to go...I'm being green/lazy and walking to the station to take public transport to the gig. Steve's taking me home in the 'Gizmobile' as he affectionately calls it (although when I first read it I thought 'Jizzmobile - Steve, that's disgusting.' Me and my dirty mind!).

-R

PS I could've *sworn* it's the 24th.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Sorry I haven't blogged for a while. Everything seemed kind of uneventful after Crowded House :) Trying to remember what happened...I saw Liam Finn again, got a perm, went to Kaiser Chiefs last night, and put a guitar (yes, another one) on layby today.

Liam and the perm are old news, so not going to go into that...there's photos of both on my flickr though.

Kaiser Chiefs last night, man what a gig! It was at Festival Hall and I was with Stef and my little sister and her friends in the all ages section in the stands so wasn't so enthused about our seats, but surprisingly they were quite good, we had a view of the stage (even if we were sitting perpendicular to it). Kaisers are so awesome live, they have a huge presence and charisma. Ricky Wilson should start a cult, we were eating out of his hand. One of Kathryn's friends was getting way overexcited and it rubbed off on me, I was screaming like one of those girls at the Beatles gigs. I have sore shins today, there was not a lot of space between the rows of seats and any time I danced too energetically I hit the seats in front. I can now see why it's called Festering Hole, cold night and it was boiling inside, can only imagine how bad it would be in the summer. The sound was pretty terrible too, very muddy and messy even for Kaiser Chiefs probably because of the shape of the room. Still, it was a fantastic gig so I can't complain.

And today...today I put a (soon to be mine) fantastically superb Maton EBG808CL acoustic guitar on layby at Allan's *dances excitedly* It's such a gorgeous instrument. I played it a few weeks ago when they first got it in and decided I had to have it...funnily enough it's very similar to the model Neil Finn and Tommy Emmanuel play (although mine is thinner and has a cutaway)...hero worship much? lol well the real reason I love it is that it's a smaller bodied guitar which makes it really comfortable to play...also it sounds incredible, bright and big, and amplified...*sigh* The guy who is looking after me in the guitar shop (Neil...not Finn) and I spent ages passing it back and forth and playing it. He wanted to buy it but he's going to have to wait till they get another one in, haha. I'm taking on a couple of extra shifts at work (including sunday night, my least favourite shift because of all the cleaning) to help pay for it, so for anyone who is even contemplating saying 'oh, just take time off work' for me to do something, the answer is a flat no, unless you want to help pay for the guitar :P If everything goes to plan (I'm an accountant's daughter, I wrote down all the dates and how much I'm going to pay) I should pick it up end of October.

So that's what's happening. I'm seeing the Cure on Sunday night with Alana, and John Butler Trio with Steve on the 23rd, both of which I'm very much looking forward to.

-R