June 2000

here we go.. the tour starts tonight - we’re rehearsed, on edge a bit, but looking forward to it - we have a cracker crew, Ben Shapiro is overseeing the technical side and manning the on stage monitors, Marcus Bennett is doing stage and guitar and midi monitor, Bill is doing the visuals... lights, shadows and on 6 of the songs projecting 6 of the DVD 16mm films and Tim Milliken is doing the front of house and surround mix, except in Melbourne and Adelaide where Stuart MacPhee will take over. The lighting, if all goes to plan will be pretty special and in sync with the mood and texture of the songs. The DVD films have been transferred to 16mm to be projected on to the rear of the stage - we’ve decided to show 6 or 7 of them rather than every film; it would be a bit much having wall to wall visuals - we'll use the films for Float, Breath, Talk Mister Nation, Found Wanting, Sad and Act of Free Choice. Have been rehearsing and reworking an old NDW song, Dare Not Say a Word, off the Another Pond album. Our other non-album track is a song we recorded in the Act of Free Choice sessions, a cover by a band called Wire, the song entitled "Map Reference 41 Degrees North, 83 Degrees West off the 154 album.

the set list for the tour is as follows...(though obviously likely to change at some point)
Breath
Dive
The Koran,the Ghan and a Yarn
I dare not say a word
Float
Talk Mister Nation
The Deserters
Kerosene
Salt
Act of Free Choice
Found Wanting

Map Reference
the Last great magician
Sad

Heard some demoes of a Brisbane band called Speedstar whom EMI are interested in and have asked me to maybe think about working with... I'm pretty impressed with the sound of these demoes... they will be playing with us in Brisbane at the Tivoli.

On Creatures in the Spotlight on JJJ there's a competition running for listeners to submit ideas/story board to make a short film using Salt (I don't want to go no further) as the soundtrack. EMI will fund it. I'll have a brief chat with the winning budding film maker to explain the meaning of the song from my perspective but basically all the creative freedom resides with the film maker. The winning entrant will make the film and it will be shown at the live gigs and placed on the DVD alongside the other films.

During the interview on Creatures of the Spotlight I had to nominate 5 personally influential songs over the years - impossible to know where to start really - I ended up choosing from a short list of the following 5

- Quasimodo's Dream by the Reels
- Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads off the Remain in Light album
- Beasley Street by John Cooper Clark off Snap Crackle and Bop
- Barturana by George Telek off his forthcoming Serious Tam CD
- Heroes by David Bowie...

Jeffrey Farmer has been incredible over the last 2 weeks... go the dees

Two weeks ago we played on House Of Hits together with one of my favourite acts, Bardot. This was a night I'll always treasure. Phil Wales our guitarist, managed to snare a new Bodyjar t shirts a spoof of the television programme "Popstars" and the selection process by which the girls were chosen. Bodyjar change their name to "Barjar" for the send up, Phil managed to get the 5 girls to sign the shirt oblivious to the send up, and proceeded to wear it whilst miming his rock god guitar movements. We all thought it incredibly unfair to take the piss out of this formative act,but Phil could not be moved.Very cruel Phillip. These girls have loads of talent. Molly Meldrum also managed to fuck up reading the auto cue - he called the album "Axe of Freedom" - close but no bananas...

Have finished the soundtrack for "Saturn's Return" by Christos Tsalkos. It's a story about a gay Greek couple dealing with the impending death of one of the men's ex-hippy father. Have had the good fortune of working with editor Henry Dangar who was also the editor on in a Savage Land.

Just finished 6 shows with George Telek at the Brisbane Powerhouse.The band was George Telek vocals and guitar, Ben Hakilitz on drums and percussion, Glen Low on bass, Phil Wales on guitar, Greg Patten drums and ukelele and meself on keyboards and vocals - on the record John Phillips played most of the guitar parts - the album,"Serious Tam" is due for release on real World records in 3 weeks time - the australian release on Origin records will be the end of july - We will also be playing the Hemisphere Festival; in Sydney prior to the olympics... the bill for these gigs includes Neneh Cherry, Asian Dub Foundation, Transglobal Undergound, Salmonella Dub, Paul Kelly, Christine Anu, Jimmy little, Natascha Atlas (who sung on the track Penmon on the NDW Circus album). Telek's cd is the first Pacific artist to attain a world wide release - After the Act of Free Choice tour we're off to play WOMAD festivals with telek in Hannover, Reading, Seattle and Singapore as well as a gig at the Globe Theatre in London. Whilst there, I'll be playing a couple of solo gigs in Barcelona and London.

Look forward to seeing you on the tour apologies to tasmania...the venue we were to play at closed down...we'll be there in september for sure
Been listening to

Joseph Arthur	Come to where I'm from (on Real World)
Full Fathom Five	Friend or Faux (they are also working up a remix of Salt)
Goodbye Enemy Airship	do make say think
Robbie Robertson	contact from the Underworld of Redboy
The Filth and the Fury soundtrack	(any record that segues from the Pistols God Save the Queen to Shang a lang by the Bay City Rollers has to have something going for it