The Saturday night sun had well and truly set over Kings Cross when we met to start our trek north to shoot the new David Bridie video, Hotel Radio. We splintered into three groups of near strangers and got to know each other better as we drove through the night to the coastal Northern NSW town of Forster.

Fortunately the first night was fairly uneventful as our director, Mr. James Littlemore, came a knocking with coffee's at the crack of dawn on the Sunday. The surreal feel of the trip kicked off in fine style when Mel O'Callaghan, our stylist's, bag was stolen while she slept in our Forster motel.

We shook our heads, kept smiling and stopped for a quick breakfast burger at the local beach canteen before we started our fire-chasing quest. As luck would have it, our first stop was the "Booti Booti" National Park, which despite the name is not Australia's spiritual home of hip hop, but rather a magnificent forest. We all seemed to missed the road closed sign as we set up for the first shoot around what we thought was a perfect setting of a still smouldering bushfire. What we didn't know was the local rangers didn't miss the road closed sign and despite Mel's best eye twinkling persuasion we were sent on our merry way.

Lucky for us, James had been in contact with a local farmer who had some land that had recently been on fire. The adventure element of this trip was really starting to kick in, as I remember walking waist deep through a swamp carrying camera equipment to the exact location. Pretty exciting for a city boy!. The shoot went brilliantly and the interplay between our Art Director Nick Littlemore and our Artist David Bridie was absolutely hysterical to watch.

If my memory serves me correctly, it was mid afternoon when we decided to see how far west we could get. The drive through the Thunderbolts Way was absolutely stunning and we all swapped cars so that we all got to know each other a little better again. We were starving and tired when we finally arrived at our destination at the Western New South Wales town of Walcha. Our only option for food was the Chinese Restaurant in the local pub and it was so disgusting that we laughed so much we cried. Things were just starting to look a little desperate when Mel looked up some old mates Peter and Denise who are the owners of the beautiful Walcha Road Hotel.

The next bit deserves a paragraph of it's own. The re-unification of Mel, Peter and Denise was almost as nice as the drinks that they poured. The next few hours was a blur of beer, scotch, zanex, jazz cigarettes and Phil Collins videos. The company was excellent and when we put our heads down, we were at peace.

The monday morning started directly across from our hotel with some more shooting and I was off to find a hotel room full of character for our next location. It was after visiting all of the pubs in town that I was informed that the town's oldest pub was now a Bakehouse. Fortunately I was welcomed by a very interesting lady by the name of Mary Helen Brown and her very extended family. She showed me around and we eventually grew to understand one another a little better. She informed me of the fact the one of the rooms had been boarded up since a junkie had o'd a few years earlier. Brilliant!

We all re-convened at the Bakehouse and decided that it was perfect for what we needed. Our hosts were an interesting bunch to say the very least their hospitality was second to none and we learnt plenty from one another as we shot through the night. Unfortunately this is where I had to split and leave the a couple of remaining survivors from our original team to delve deeper into Western New South Wales.

Graham Ashton (Client AKA Record Company Wanker)

I'll take over the story from here... (db)

We parted ways with nick and graham in trashy Tamworth. Reminded me very much of some mod western US town and not just because of the country music flavour. Caravan parks, miles of car yards multi coloured triangular flags flapping in the dry country air, name brand pizza, burger and chicken outlets all in a row. On the outskirts of town, James managed to find a disused grain silo by the train tracks with dramatic shards of brilliant sunkight descending through a solitary window five metres up the cylindrical grey concrete wall. Looked wonderfully strange so we decided to shoot. Twas hard to lip sync in such a cavenous room, slap back delay that went on for ever… it gave “Hotel Radio” a gary glitter kind of feel . But the light and cylindrical feel of the silo was something special and what we shot there amongst the concrete pillars was good. Packed up and drove on, stopping every so often to photograph fading agricultural sign boards ,kitsch front garden displays (people in the country go to a lot of effort). One in particular had a sculptured wire piano and accompanying manuscript… "Musicland" or something to that effect… We stopped for a beer in Coonabarabran… drove the back streets of their town, you could smell the stories of johnny howards 1950’s family life gone all wrong inside the weatherboards and “keep this our flag forever “stickers. As the day went on the light became more resonant and conducive to art!. We stopped at these magnificent water tanks that lay side by side with petro chemical junk. Dark maroon rusted 44 gallon drums next to piles of weathered timber, old saw tooth farm machinery , weeds left to their own devices and giant truck tyres. We snapped madly away whilst Peter got the light readings for shots of me dancing beneath the dripping water tanks held up by graphic lines of metal poles that made beautiful shapes in the afternoon (de)light… at least it appeard that way after two pots, a joint and a couple of Nick’s zanex... A curious kanga cop (the railway security guy in an unmarked car ) asked us what we were doing. He informed us it was his job to keep people like us off the railway sidings because it was dangerous... he had a woman in his purple kingswood... maybe he was going for his "afternoon delight." Twas all rather David Lynchesque. James kicked up dust and shot the Bolex handheld through the dust and angular silver poles and water dripping at double speed. James was excited at the prospect. We shot for an hour and a half. I was finally getting the lip syncing right to the "Bakerlight dials" verse of the song… only took me three days! We packed up there and drove on down the country backroads searching for the one last country pub as the sun set, shooting wacky out the window arty road movie shots as we went. The Royal Hotel in Dunedoo had the classic verandah and thankfully hadn’t been renovated. We had the pub steak in the front bar (the healthy country food myth is such a furphy…the food sucks and is frozen… mind you ,there’s something good about a meal that comes with a white bread triangle coated with meadowlea to soak up the golden circle beetroot juice and costs all of $6-50) We booked a couple of rooms for the night…single metal spring beds, scent of old blokes stale cigarette scent and a wardrobe that doesn’t close shut) After dinner there was a classic scene in the front bar watching the Village People’s "where are they now" doco on Channel 7 with half a dozen road workers in classic blue singlets… "bloody pooftas but toe tapping songs"… We retired up stairs and finished off the bottle of johnny walker that Graham had bought me the previous night to elicit a more relaxed performance in the hotel bedroom scene rolled a joint and smoked cigarettes yarning as the roadtrains pulled up outside in vain as the pub wouldn’t open up even though it was only 9.30. We planned future projects and talked utter nonsense till it was time to lay the spine in the curve of the metal spring mattresses. The country air was good…the smoking bringingon a horrendous wheeze in both james and myself.

We woke up had a breakfast of those neat little packets of cornflakes and a cup of international roast and drove towards Lithgow for a proper coffee before heading over th Blue Mountains back into Sydney to drop the gear into the hire place before the allotted time would elapse and we'd get charged an extra days hire. Worse than rental car companies and long term parking at the airport. All good crew… you get to know people in these circumstances…this is the way to create art… good people, good conversation in wonderfully strange locations……

Back to the family now… looking forward to the finished product… we got what we wanted.