Friday 30 July

I'm wracked with guilt. I've left my day job right in the middle of a crucial week. I want to do everything, and sometimes I can't. It's getting really awkward. The feeling will probably subside a little over the week, but my stomach is in knots. I feel ill and I'm trying not to make it visible to my bandmates - but this is kinda big.

I'll shut up now.

We start with our now ritualistic early flight. It still feels an insane time to be functional, to wake before 4.00am and be at the airport at 5.30am. The early start is okay 'cause the guy sitting next me manages to elbow me in the head, making it all better.

We arrive in Sydney and meet up with our manager Selena, and a van. Once we off-load some gear at Selena's house, we're soon on the highway to Newcastle.

Newcastle has jolly good-looking people; I haven't noticed on our previous visits. The turnout here isn't too bad - couple of hundred, easily. It's a median point between the four people we had on our first trip here and the 800 we had on the second, with You Am I.

At soundcheck I try out my fancy-pants new tuner.

It's all very confusing and it takes a few shows to get adjusted to its fanciness.

For dinner, we head to the van for sandwiches made on a copy of Sydney street press using a butter knife. Michael is an expert sandwich maker and does us proud. Iota comes by and spies a band in a van huddled around, and jumps to the logical conclusion. 'Are you guys smoking drugs?' he said, as he opened the van door to see four guys huddled around eating illicit Wonder White sambos.

The show, being our first with Russ (of Capital City and Stickfigures fame) drumming, was quite good. Loud with good crowd response, considering we were probably still strangers to most of them. My amp was a bit tough to get my head around, so stage volumes and sounds fluctuated a bit. It's always hard with hired amps.

As Iota starts, we start up the van and drive (well, Selena does) the two-and-a-half hours back to Sydney.

Saturday 31 July

Saturday begins late with a cheap noodle lunch in Newtown with Andy Clockwise and Carly (who you may recognise from our previous adventures). It's a happy and lazy Saturday arvo with coffee on the strip. Carly buys us Kinder Surprises and we take to them like little kids. We also decide that anti-rock is the new rock ie we don't smoke and prefer toys, and so on.

Throughout the day we're learning more and more about Russ. We discover that Russ is into Sonic the Hedgehog and definitely not into beer and tomatoes. He's an enigma wrapped in a mystery, etc etc. Russ sleeps through our trip to Newtown having done an all-nighter the night before.

The show at the Annandale Hotel is good. The house is well filled. Our set is cut short, unfortunately, by an afro-ed, over zealous in-house sound guy. It's a bit of a pisser but is soon forgotten.

In the band room Fletch, Michael and I get our first taste of a Krispy Kreme donut. Apparently a fave of Iota and a gift from a fan. Fletch decides to nick one and make us taste the forbidden fruit. We find them disgusting. Kind of like sugar dissolving in your mouth, is how I would describe the sensation. Not worth lining up in droves for as Sydneysiders apparently do. I'm impressed by the marketing of Krispy Kreme which has a light on top of their store which turns on when a fresh batch of congealed fat rings comes out of the frier. It causes a flash flood of people to their carparks, so we're told.

Someone who could do with a sugar hit at this stage is Carly. When we come downstairs to pack the van the ambulance officers are working to revive her. She simply passed out from dangerously low blood sugar levels. It's a bit of a shock, but she recovers well. Should have bought her a Kinder Surprise or two.

If that isn't enough drama to top off the night, then the guy who meets us in the carpark is. He's a drunk (or intoxicated by some other means) and incoherently tells us he's going to front our band, and 'sings' us his obscene lyrics (they mostly involve pussy). It's like a moment out of Pizza (this guy has the accent). We lie to him about who plays what in the band and hightail it out of there.

Sunday 1 August

My day revolves around coping with my addiction. While the Newtown junkies are lining up for their methadone at the chemist, I'm on the hunt for a hit too. Thankfully, the Café Webba is on Selena's street to supply my daily fix of coffee.

We have a few days off at this stage, which is a rarity, but not unwelcome. So what do we do to fill the time? We partake a little bit of that other beverage, at the Annandale. There's a private party going on to send off the 'sweet doorbitch'. I don't get to meet this oxymoron of pub entry but I'm sure she was very sweet and South America will be better for having her on their continent. We meet a guy who looks like doing some booking work for us, and that sounds very promising. There is a DVD of acts filmed playing at the Annandale to keep us amused. But on the whole, it feels a lot like time killing.

This is really quite an uneventful day to write about but hilarity abounds when Rhys steps on Sean's band's demo, not once but twice (we're sure it was an accident). Much heated debate ensues about whether 1986 horror classic Tremors, starring Kevin Bacon, is a spoof or a genuine scarifying horror. Excitement plus.

Keeping with our theme of anti-rock being the new rock, we have pizza back at Selena's and then, because watching Foxtel is so embarrassing (at least to some of us), we head to that other default hang-out the Townie. Amazingly the Town Hall is shutting at midnight. Bizarre. Unprecedented. Not to worry, head to the Bank - shuts at midnight tonight. The Zanzibar - midnight. This is crazy. I thought Sydney never slept. I guess Peter Allen had been to cities that never close down, and he quite rightly made a point to not include Sydney with New York, Rome and old London town. So when sobriety is enforced thusly, what can you do but head home to bed?

Monday 2 August

Today we offered our services to old pal Andy Clockwise, helping out on a recording he's doing for a Triple J compilation. So we go to his place and clap, stomp and sing on his tune about taking over the world, if that's alright (what a polite young man).

It's The Happy Chef for cheap and cheerful Chinese dinner in Newtown - then it's beer and Foxtel at Selena's. Fuck, we're lame. The viewing menu consists of Resident Evil, Waiting for Guffman (courtesy of Andy) and The Office, which I found hilarious the first time I saw it but second time was like fingers down a blackboard. It's excruciating when you know what comes next.

Tuesday 3 August

Get ready and pack for the trip to Jindabyne.

According to local graffiti 'silence = doom', and I should 'play some fuckin' stooges', right on. And 'Luke 4 Emma 4 eva'. Tell it like it is. People's Poets all.

The road to Jindy is a fairly dull drive. The highlights are few and far between.

As we drive into town, Goulburn seems disproportionately endowed with cemeteries and funeral parlours. 'm glad to be driving through...oh, we're not. Great. Not that I'll let that put me off the place - we're big fans of big landmarks, and Goulburn is the proud owner of the big Merino ram. Very...erm...impressive. We get out and it's bitterly cold, the wind is icy. Sean buys gloves, MJ shoes and me, I purchase some thermal long johns for the snow. Well: they were on special at Target.

iPod soundtrack: Nick Drake, Ramones, Robert Johnson, Soul Asylum, and Split Enz.

Despite the dull drive, the roadside wildlife and scenery includes grey kangaroos and joeys, bedraggled horses, cud chewing cows, lambs and towering ranges, the occasional homestead with the obligatory car wrecks in the front yard and a roadkill wombat that looks like it's sunbaking.

There are many curiously named towns on the trip however to keep me amused. Tuggeranong is in a valley and as we come down towards it, the sky is half blue, with mean black storm clouds threatening and the sun shining through a lighter patch of cloud. All towering over this town in southern NSW. Quite impressive in its scale.

One of the next towns is Bredbo which sounds like the generic cheap alternative to Thredbo. And it is. It's really too far away to be a basis for travellers to the snow and there's nothing else to attract tourists. In the distance the Snowy Mountains beckon.

While I'm feeling schizo, just a thought: Mobile phones - What sort of radiation are they pumping out? Will they be the cigarettes of this century?

Wednesday 4 August

Notice the lake I didn't see last night.

Hear they had 50cm of snow overnight.

After a free buffet breakfast we try to find the cheap way to get to the snow - thinking it's going to be between $25 and $50 for a coach or a train. The mountains in the distance have a half covering of snow. For a while I think it's the closest I'll be getting to real snow.

We visit (appropriately) the Jindabyne Visitors' Centre and they say we can go to Thredbo and frolic as much as we want for the one low price of $16 for the van - $3 a person sounds like our price.

Thredbo is 34km from Jindabyne. On the way up the mountain out excitement grows. At first just a couple of white patches appear in the scrub at the side of the road. The free-falling flakes of white blow towards our windscreen. We're all starting to get quite giddy with it all. It's quite life affirming to see snow falling on the barren trees on a snow covered mountainside. Our excitement gets the better of us and we stop at a pristine patch of picnic ground with its white covering - snowballs are on within seconds.

It's a big burn of energy but a unique experience for me. This is my first taste of real snow. Embarrassingly I notice my parka is so old that my mum has written my name and phone number in it, from the days when we had seven digit numbers! After we've had our fill of filling each other's beanies with snow, we drive into Thredbo proper, and park. It isn't long before we attack another pristine wonderland of soft powder with snow angels, and snowballs from hell raining down upon bandmates. After posing with someone else's snowman as if it was our own, thinking we couldn't be bothered building our own...but a little later we build an 8ft tall monster/behemoth. Complete with hair, clown shoes, goatee, tongue, buttocks and gut. The feeling of natural wonder is enhanced by a large, shaggy-haired wombat that just waltzes out of the frost and down the road. He just trots along seemingly oblivious to the families in their 4WDs that slow down to leer at him, just as we do from our snowman-guarded sentry post.

The Lake Jindabyne Hotel is divided in two. One half is a bistro that converts into a dancefloor and band room, the other half is a bar with pool tables and a TAB. Being the night's entertainment, we manage to get a free dinner in the bistro but unfortunately we get no drinks rider, despite being promised its existence. It's a bummer that the bar next door is chock-a-block with hormone-filled skiers and our half is sparsely populated. I guess it's better to pour your hard earned bucks into the pool table or put it on the dogs than spend it on live music. Later, during iOTA's set, they open the doors and people spill through and the crowd looks much more respectable. Sean breaks a bass string mid song in our show, so we do an improv acoustic/electric Surround Sound which goes down quite well with the few people there. The show finishes alright, but the feeling is quite average for me. We do, however, sell a few CDs but it takes a few consoling beers to make me feel slightly better about it.

Thursday 5 August

We get up early to partake of the buffet breakfast. It pretty much makes up for our lack of drinks rider last night (a second free breakfast in as many days). Strangely, Russ goes the sausage roll from who knows where. Pretty soon we're driving to Canberra. I'm pretty out of it. Still a bit depressed by last night.

iPod soundtrack: Death Cab, Johnny Cash.

At this point my notebook says 'Metal Detector' but I have no recollection of what I'm referring to.

We have some time to kill when we get to Canberra, so what is there to do in this town but go to Parliament House?

We check out both houses in enough time to see them adjourn for lunch. We too adjourn for a very average café meal in parliament. Russ orders a lamington for $4. It does have some jam and cream in the middle but to be honest, it don't look too appetising.

At 2pm, question time begins and bright eyed and beltless (due to the metal detector! That was what I wanted to remind myself of. When I came in the front of parliament house I got frisked and my belt set off the metal detector) we enter the House of Reps.

All the stars are there: Howard, Costello, Latham, Beazley, Abbott et al.

Talk about the US Free trade Agreement is intense, but starting with a question about local cultural content the government soon shift talk to a Latham blunder about the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and his many positions on troops in Iraq (referred to as a Kama Sutra by a cheeky, ministerial-wannabe backbencher). Well, talk of this Latham blunder dominated proceedings, the government clear winners (although the press report it as a win to Labor) but the repetition puts me out and despite my interest I nod off.

While stocking up on supplies (coffee, cornflakes, toilet paper) we catch up with ex-Perth boy and one time Fourth Floor bass player Leigh Miller. Leigh now resides in Canberra and a couple of weeks previous has had a rather large birthday party, and so he supplied drinks. Thankfully for us, the guests brought their own, leaving Leigh with six cartons to work his way through - happily we obliged and helped him dispose of a couple thoughtfully.

So after a quick stop at our home base for the evening with Pete Bayliss (manager of David McCormack amongst others) and getting lost on the way (hopping on the freeway to Melbourne) we go to Leigh's, meet his lovely roommates, crack a beer and (as you do) make tacos. A great night was had by all and we made a fair dent on the beer between Fletch, MJ, Sean and myself. The guitar comes out again and a small playalong kicks off. Leigh reminiscing about his old Fourth Floor days. Ohhh, the sweet bliss of being free of obligations.

Friday 6 August

Sleeping on the floor with a blanket as a pillow hasn't treated me too badly but the beers (quite possibly in the double figures) leaves me starting the day a little below par.

In our box of cornflakes we get five bags of Shrek 2 Pop Rocks. I could be mistaken but I think that Russ has pop rocks and Pepsi for breakfast!!

On the way to Leigh's we get lost again! This is unprecedented.

The rain on the way to Albury gets heavy. A couple of hours from Canberra on the road to Melbourne there are several historic townships - we stop for lunch in Gundagai. The immortal Gundagai: we have lunch in the Niagara Café, which was established in 1902 and is now run by a lovely Greek family. Fletch in particular is pleased with his sandwich and lets them know of his approval. The patriarch tells us (as a band) to take any job as long as it makes money. Ahh, country folk.

On the road from Gundagai, Rhys points out the supreme irony of a cow eating the grass that grows under an enormous McDonald's sign just over the mighty Murrumbidgee River.

Driving past several road trains on the open road, a thought for an invention hits me. If, by putting this out there, someone decides to make this, please just give me partial credit. Some cash would be nice, too. Ok, my invention: A heart rate monitor for truck drivers that sounds an alarm when they're going to drop off to sleep. You might have to have them go into a clinic to find their resting heart rate but it could save their lives and destroy the trade in trucker speed.

When we get to Albury it is bitterly cold and wet to boot. The Terminus Hotel is ours tonight. It is a fairly homely pub with many small areas and a fairly sub-par PA. We draw a small crowd but they dance and the lovely folks even purchase a few albums. Russ does his debut drum solo in Sun.

After we play we have to load the van and drive two hours to almost get to Melbourne.

When we get to the motel about 2am, a fog has descended.

Saturday 7 August

We leave at about 7.30am and the fog is the thickest I've ever seen, and lasts for many kilometres as Fletch drives us out of ...where are we? Fuck knows where, about an hour out of Melbourne. We have to get Russ to the airport and pick Selena up at the same time.

Half of us are staying in The Nunnery - a backpackers' in Fitzroy that I can highly recommend. Had a good vibe, nice fire roaring, clean showers. I think it is actually a rejigged nunnery. Didn't see any penguins. A nun is somewhat responsible for my involvement with music. When I was in Year 7, I was playing along to a song on my ruler and she suggested I had some potential - and despite my parents asking me often if I wanted to play music, this nun's encouragement kicked my butt into starting. This is after I'd already had a 'band' for about a year - but that's a totally different story.

Today we do something that is almost totally against our instinct, history and probably better judgement at the same time - just after midday we meet tonight's guest drummer. Russ had to fly back to Perth for a Stickfigures show, and Dave kindly stuck up his hand to help. So it's a mad rehearsal at Dave's place mere minutes after we'd met him. He offered us coffee (thumbs up in my book) and we played acoustics while Dave played a Roland V-kit (rubber pads instead of real drums) amplified through Rhys' hired AC30.

Thankfully he'd had the CDs for some time to learn parts. An hour later and Dave's our man. We're rediscovering that a lot of our songs have intricacies that take ages to work out but a surface level job can be done to most. Cross fingers.

The show at the Evelyn goes down well. iOTA has a very devoted following here, as he does in Sydney. Our show goes well considering our short time as a band. There aren't any train wrecks and in the circumstances there are some moments that feel really good, especially Stories Unglued for mine. Phew! Got out of that one unscathed.

Tour quote 'cause I can't remember one to beat it: (when driving, referring to gears in hire cars) 'If you can't find it, grind it'.

Sunday 8 August

An early flight back for a uni show at lunchtime and back to face the music at work on Monday.