Winter 2006

Winter mists... feels really cold this time around... I have started to try and appreciate the softer winter angular light made by the sun being lower in the sky, the mists down on Merri Creek, the shorter days. I have been trying to get out at night for those walks where your ears hurt and your breath smokes... decided to stop being down on this long Melbourne season and enjoy the fog and mists and early evenings and angular slant of the sun and the dull light... coats and scarfs and beanies... though maybe it was the wrong time of year to give myself a number one haircut... crude but effective.....I guess I’ve lived with Melbourne winters all my life, tis nothing compared with Toronto or London or indeed Telluride. Maybe winter was made more extreme by the fact that the five Moab men were staying here...their first time outside of Rabaul.

Greetings to all who can be bothered reading these scribbles... Lots going on at present having just come down from the whirlwind that was the Sing Sing concerts and fully ensconced in mixing down the MFTCC album, tentatively titled “The Home Improvements Album”. I think we are on to something with this record. Certainly everyone has been in good spirits in the studio and creatively there has been a strong current throughout. This new batch of songs have been enjoyable to play and we’ve ventured down a few different roads... Mostly recorded at the Enormodome although we also spent a day in at Dex recording 4 tracks live down, a certain dose of improv in there leading to a couple of tracks that have a different sound to it. Songs of carnivals, bustling mad instrumentals, suburban pictures and lifes, weather coast in the Solomons, an adolescent love song called Pentacostal Girl, some textural moments where the string grind and the piano sustains... a couple of belting pop songs with layers and layers of Beach Boys-esque backing vocals (Helen should so make a girlie pop record!!!)

Dean and Andrew Richardson have added some great parts, the rhythm section is locked in... I have been inspired writing wise which feels good, not sure that it’s my best work but have been positive about it... We have big hopes for this record, we have been together for 17 years now and the feeling is as good as ever which augers well... Release date late August, early September, touring November through til May 2007. Off and racing.

Twas a lifelong dream to have the lads here in Australia... they played so brilliantly.. Wagi and Kaul are both musicians I have admired for a long time... they recorded a cracking record of stringband tunes in the ‘Dome whilst here which will be up for release in the next few months... the plan.. take stringband music to the world! And why not... I think what separates the Moab boys from other stringbands is that normally a stringband will have one feature muisian, often the lead guy who is also a master guitarist... In Kenny, Kaul, Elopas, Wagi and of course George, Moab have five players who are distinct and this brings a layered sound of different guitar picking styles...

Ian Foster, Jason Byrne, Catriona Mackenzie and myself are working on a documentary on stringband music, on George Telek, on grassroots life in Rabaul... tis an exciting projects and a great simple story....reaction has been positive in the film world, a complimentary CD release of stringband music will accompany this documentary which we will shoot next year though we have already started and plan to shoot Telek’s appearances at Fes Napuan and the Tolais Warwagira next July (2007) plus Sing Sing last week obviously.

George is in his element he is performing as well as I’ve ever seen him, and has become a statesman for PNG music, a role he previously shunned but now feels comfortable in

Sing Sing was a blast - the look on Frank Yamma’s face as he was performing with the Moab boys and with all the west Papuans on Diru Diru was priceless... I think the penny dropped for many of the indigenous performers and those in the audience, especially in Sydney where there were many, that collaborations with their Melanesian brothers and sisters is a logical collaborative direction and relevant to their world and artistic endeavours of whatever form. It simply makes sense...almost like if Europeans hadn’t come to Australia PNG is what their life would be like... the camaraderie and support amongst the troupe was brilliant and uplifting... if only we had more concerts... I have a feeling we will in the future.

Highlights for me were:
Djakapurra’s powerful song with the band, for a big guy he has such subtlety as a dancer. Meinmuk as he would say

Frank Yamma in his element... “Make more spear” and “Coolabah” and “Nguta Waljilpa” are such strong songs... Frank’s voice works well in such stripped back environs, and he has a certain stage presence and wisdom in his tales of urban desert life, alcohol and the pulls both ways... Frank is keen to record the songs in this form.

Everything about the Moab Stringband lifted my heart... they so enjoyed their trip, and they performed really well... radio live-to-air, in the studio, on stage in rehearsal... these guys would rehearse for 8 hours, come back home to their swags on the floor of the Enormodome and keep playing til 3 in the morning... they even managed a performance at my daughter's “show and tell” at school to the grade ones!!!

Jeanette Fabila is a beautiful dancer, her concept of the nest dance was inspiring to the rest of the Sing Sing crew.

Airi Ingram is great to work with and his garamut drumming and collaboration with tony Subam on the bamboo flutes was mesmerizing. it was great to see Tony out here...as a musician, he is a leader in PNG...he has paved the way for younger musicians with Sanguma and his teaching at UPNG. It was a real pleasure to listen to his wisdoms and witness him playing.

I could go on... Markham’s mime and sasi dance, Jida Gulpilil’s youthful enthusiasm and mournful vocal (Jida was an enthusiastic collaborator). Dujon Niue’s canoe dance, Hein Ayamisore’s contributions from Manokwari and his dancing in the Iguana bar after the Opera House gig were treasured memories, having the 42 West Papuan refugees storm the stage in Melbourne and lift the roof off with Telek’s song West Papua, performing the NDW songs for the final time in such an appropriate occasion, working with Tim and Russel on the visuals...

Thanks to all who supported this event... Twas a ball breaker, but well worth it and something I hope will be become a usual occurrence in Australia.

Tim lent me the cinematic orchestra cd “Everyday”... Has been good listening to that.

Greg lent me Danger Doom... love that too...your east coast sound...reminds me of De La Soul.

Paul Cartright lent me Scott Walker’s “Drift” which is a tremendous record... If you can deal with a whole album of that deep dramatic voice.

And All India Radio’s new CD “Echo Other” is a must buy for all into Australian atmospheric music. Martin Kennedy is quite a talent. Byron Scullin co-produced the record.. I think he and Martin would be a good match for each other next month at the Northcote Social Club. Phil and I are doing the support playing a 45 minute set of wire, noise, guitar and synthesizer textures under the name “BRIDIE AND WALES: CHALET” July 22nd.

Have been listening to all my Go-Betweens as many of you would have been doing and reflecting on Grant McLennan’s life and songs. He has left us with a wonderful bunch of stories... I remember the effect the GOB’S had on me as young Australian songwriter growing up in a land of pub rock yobbos and Bundi and coke, it was okay for a band to have literary intentions, to write about Australia, its landscape its suburbs its peoples... they were such a good foil for each other Grant and Robert. Bernard Galbally who was our manager also managed them. We watched at close quarters their recent well deserved revival.. They were enjoying the run back to the top and its such a pity to have been taken so unexpectedly. Favourite songs Cattle and Cane, Draining the Pool for You, Streets of your Town, Spring Rain, Dive for your Memory, the Clark Sisters, Bye Bye Pride, Dusty in here.... so many great songs and gigs... RIP Grant

Hey Stu Speed died also... same age as me, liver failure... a big happy warm guy... played bass with everyone part of the Melbourne music mafia... Greg and Dean knew him really well... He had a fine array of Hawaiian shirts, larger than life... RIP Stu

“Maps for Sonic Adventurers,” the NDW remix album has finally been released. It works me thinks, getting different people’s perspective through mixing of the NDW songs... some took the original song apart, others emptied it, others made additions... some pushed tempo, others erased tempo altogether... Everyone put artistic endeavour into their work and we are very grateful... Good for a project to be followed through from initial idea to completion... Many favourites for me.... Josh’s “Palau, ” Mike Fisher’s “The Kiap Song, ” The Secret Masters’ dub treatment of “Blackwater”, Rik’s and David’s “Thomastown,” David Thrussell’s “Big Sky”... In fact there were some that I’ll send on to Rik that didn’t make the CD that deserve to be heard... We could have done the original double album... But advice from record companies is sometimes worth heeding.

Sacred heat mission football game is on Sunday week June 25 starts at 11am heaps of bands and entertainment.. fitness could be a worry... have had a couple of roosts up at the park at Edinburgh gardens in preparation. We train at Arden St tonight. Should be a big crowd again, obviously for the entertainment cos the standard of footy that we offer up, especially Phil and I is somewhat lamentable. Am hoping to avoid the heart attack by parking in the back pocket and spoil the resting ruckman!

Rediscovering the joys of op shop shopping...the one at the local church is always a bit of an adventure...mixed bag of offerings, the luck of whether something will fit you...but you end up buying trousers you’d never think of buying otherwise.. clothes shopping ain’t my forte.

Cake album.. We start mixing tomorrow..... tentatively titled “Home Improvements” we have recorded the following tracks and shall chose the best for the album... Luke Flood is doing the artwork.

Home Improvements
She Dreams In Different Colours
Pentacostal Girl
Lets Go Walk This Town
Hymn for the Carnies
Happyland
This Life Tonight
Weather Coast
Without A Bolt
Athletes of Persia
The Slightly Mad Procession
Improv
J Patap
Ab Piano Muse

A few different directions, a few different approaches... Tim Cole at the boards... the mix should be fun... we need a quick turn around to deliver to Liberation, so we’ll be going hammer and tongs.“Gone” is the title for Middle of Nowhere, actually this came from the director and he has changed titles about six times, so who knows. Was very happy with the finished mix, am looking forward to it... for those at the Sing Sing concert, Jida’s Loss is the closing titles track in the film. Chris Scallen (who mixed it) and I are about to master the cues ands turn it into a soundtrack based from the actual score for the film and selections from the hours of demos we sent over to the UK working title people... Tossing up the idea of whether to release an accompanying textural CD of all the desert wires and wind harmonics that I recorded out at Winton.

Am OUTRAGED by the appointment of Keith Windschuttle to the board of the ABC. This is such a kick in the guts to Aboriginal people. Akin to appointing David Irvine to the chair of the Israeli film commission.

Argentina are looking the goods, I also like the Czechs though you can't discount Spain, Germany, England, Brazil... Australia face their hour of reckoning.

Til next time
lukim yu,
D