February/March 2002

Hi, I'm writing this the day before heading cross the Pacific for two weeks. In case you haven't seen them elsewhere, the dates are as follows:

9/3 - Knitting Factory
LA 11/3 - Bottom of the Hil San Francisco
14/3 and 15/3 – SXSW, Austin Texas (my birthday on the ides!)
17/3 - Knitting Factory, NY
18/3 - T.T. and Bears, Boston
19/3 - Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto
21/3 - House of Blues Foundation Room, LA
22/3 - Cafe Largo. LA (un-advertised gig)

We'll mainly be playing songs off Act of Free Choice, though we'll chuck in a couple of NDW tunes, maybe Marriage is a Mess, Walk Me Home, Cold and the Crackle or Teteko(might take a request on this one), perhaps a couple of Cake tunes such as The Gossip and a cover or two such as Eye of the Tiger.

We'll also showcase a couple of new tunes off the next record; Blue Black Sky, Message for Young and Old, The Tender Trap (which I played live for the first time in Adelaide last weekend during the gig I did there with the mercurial Ben Frost).

A weight off my shoulders now that the Imax film and the Cake record are both finished. I go into the studio at the end of April to finish the recording of album two with Nick Littlemore and Christian Scallan at Mangrove just north of Newcastle in NSW, with the mix starting in May. It's coming along fine; a few more up-tempo tracks than the previous record; at first for the reason of keeping EMI happy though having gone down that road, I'm quite enjoying myself and have certainly not dumbed it down. Tracks such as 100 Flowers in Bloom, Nation, Come Around, This is Not the Right Way, Hotel Radio, and Revanmates have a certain brightness to them.

The cake album CURIOUS is finished. Just recorded a piano and cello song, More Heart Than Me to finish it up. Chris Scallan has mixed it up a treat. It features some great Greg Patten Soul Coughingesque drums, Helen's huge quadruple tracked girly pop backing vocals, the usual standard of Helen/Hope interplay, a fair wad of harmonium, and some Carswell harmonica and tin whistle (he comes up with very lateral/oblique musical ideas). There are 14 songs and a doll's house is being bastardised at present in the name of artwork. Photos were taken at the Spiegeltent last weekend for the inner sleeve artwork.

We're trying to negotiate the appropriate distribution arrangements for the album. We had initially planned to do the whole thing ourselves, but have now settled on a compromise idea; we'll finance the making of, mixing and mastering, do the art and design, but leave the promotion and distribution into record stores and hamburger shops with those who know what they're doing. We want it out in May and hope to tour Australia in June. How to describe the album? It's a band album, played live in the studio, minimal sound reinforcement, though some elaborate multi-tracked backing vocals and string overdubs. Not too many effects though beautifully Eq'ed. A mixture of songs and instrumentals, some songs I've had lying around for a while that I wanted to release and some new ones, some instrumentals Helen and Hope wrote and a couple of re-recorded film compositions . Produced by Helen and myself with large input from Christian.

I've finished the remix of the track 'Ainda' for Portuguese band Madredeus with Chris Scallan. Utilised the tempted loops from Insect Harmonic and recorded some harmonium to accompany the wonderful voice of Teresa Salgueiro. This remix album should come out later this year.

Luka Bloom returns to Australia for shows this month. I am indebted to him, as he was the man who nagged and persuaded me to do a solo album one cold Saturday afternoon walking around Dublin. His solo shows are marked by passion and astonishing sound quality. The fella can sing.

The Dirt, Motley Crue - this book has changed my life

Dirt Music, by Tim Winton - yet again it is a fantastic story ,you can taste the salt off the West Australian beaches

People of the Merri Merri - The Wurrundjeri in Colonial Days. Written by Isabel Ellender and Peter Christiansen. I wish we'd been taught this in school, a must for all Melbournians

Rabbit, Run written by John Updike, as a follow up to Don Watson's Australian Quarterly essay

Box the Pony Scott Rankin and Leah Purcell(am doing the music for Leah's play of the same name)

De La Soul - A01 BIONIX

Vale Mark Waugh from the one day cricket team, poetry in motion, a la David Gower. I could watch him bat for years, he seemed to have all the time in the world. But how could one so classy be so dumb! And Steve won us the world cup single handedly. Not only that but a republican and Labour voter. A rarity in cricket, treated shabbily.

Goodbye Spike. I grew up with Dad blasting the Goons on a Saturday after the midday news; now he's been deaded.