Thu 26 Feb

‘It’s the vibe’.

Every city has a vibe, an atmosphere. Melbourne generally has a very enjoyable vibe. It’s the atmosphere of activity but still within a community. Of creativity, culture and wankiness without losing its sense of humour. And the pervading humour is typically Aussie. Basically it’s just the vibe.

This trip to Melbourne already has us in good spirits about the city. The coffee’s good, the friends are good, even the weather is good, but characteristically unpredictable.

Fun Fact: Melbourne has more ‘funky’ hairdressers per capita than anywhere else in Australia , probably more than anywhere else in the southern hemisphere. So if you want a faux-hawk, you know where to go. And while I’m at it, Melbourne weather has necessitated the unprecedented rise of an incredible population of tanning salons.

I’ve been in Melbourne for four days now finishing post-production on some TV ads. The bigger city’s production houses unfortunately make Perth seem like a backwater. Being here gives me some perspective on my home town.

Many bands complain that there’s lots of loitering around waiting for the show and today isn’t much different for us. The other guys have met up with their billet families: Sabian and Rachel for Fletch and Rhys, Dean and Jen for Mike and Sofie for Michael and myself and actually, who knows who Leigh is staying with? Sofie drives the guys down to St Kilda to pick me up. And to skip the boring details, it’s not too long before we’re loading gear up a nasty flight of stairs to the upstairs bar of the Pony Bar. It’s aptly named, there’s a big pony on the front of the bar.

Before we even start there are tech concerns: Seven cables for mics to the PA, six of which work and twelve channels all up (we usually use nineteen). So it’s a different kind of show, a decent crowd for a late Thursday night, particularly as Bowie is in town. Crowd requests for Primary School send Leigh scurrying for his chart.

Aaah, it’s fun, not the best show, but could have been a worse start to the tour.

Fri 27 Feb

I get up early and wander around Brunswick St in Fitzroy on my own. As I almost always do, I end up in a music store. Michael could quite easily locate me about an hour after I’d left the house. This time I’m playing a very fancy Cole Clark lap steel, made in Melbourne and just shy of three grand. Mmm.

After some breakfast, we do the regular Brunswick St shopping expedition. Brunswick St is one of the cool streets in Melbourne . It reminds me of Leederville in Perth , some wankiness but not too much to be intolerable. I buy a T-shirt in the same shop that I tried on those skin tight flares last time. This time I try on some shorts that don’t stay up. They don’t even do the popular hanging at half mast with your Calvins showing thing. They end up around my ankles and that just ain’t a good look.

Tonight’s show is at the infamous Esplanade Hotel in St Kilda – The Espy. It’s been a mere three weeks since we played here last. The difference is that this time we’re in the smaller, free admission front bar and at the reasonable hour of 9.30pm .

Loading in early in the evening there’s a spaced out guy singing Space Oddity at the top of his lungs. Our ex-manager Callum, who happens to be present, asks him if he went to see Bowie and the guy says, ‘Yeah. Oh, nah’.

The front bar is hot and smoky and loud and just before the first band play, four busloads of O-Day Uni students file in through the front doors of the Espy.

We have a really good crowd, people right at the front of the stage, including the loud Bowie singer. He motions at us in an air guitar kinda way to either play guitar solos or smack some more drums depending on which band member he thinks needs a rev up.

We play one of those rare shows that goes beyond just playing the songs and putting on a good performance. It’s a great one. The crowd dig it and we give it back in spades. Bruce McAvaney would call it special. Hang on, that sounds shit, scratch the Bruce comment.

Sat 28 Feb

I’m very much looking forward to tonight. We’re playing with Epicure at the Evelyn in Fitzroy. We’ve played with Epicure twice before and we’re a good match and until recently we’ve been equally unsuccessful or as successful, depending on how you look at it. Since then, they’ve had a couple of line up changes and a couple of tunes in the Hottest 100 to edge us out. Being from Ballarat, they’re also more frequent visitors to Melbourne than us and are deserved headliners, launching their single Firing Squad. Anyway, there’s a fair crowd. When we play though, people stand back a bit. They don’t take a step forward when I ask them to. They stand back and watch arms folded as if to say ‘Impress me’. And it’s not for want of trying that they don’t move from their standoff. I’m told it’s a Melbourne thing and I also thought that it was simply a matter of us being the support act but the crowd do almost exactly the same thing to Epicure. Weird.

On the plus side, our merch stand is a little marvel. We have two shirts (girls’ style and regular), 2 singles, 2 albums and a bookmark, all beautifully displayed and purveyed by the lovely Selena who has popped down from Sydney . It’s most impressive, especially side-by-side with the headliners’ stand that stays open for about 20 minutes and has just the single for sale. Oops, that’ll be my competitive streak coming out. There were also folks who tried ballroom dancing to both us and Epicure, which was quite a treat. I don’t know what could have possibly come over them. Remember kids, drugs are bad.

Sun 29 Feb

Hey, it’s leap year day. So in celebration we go bowling. What else?

After a pleasant stroll through Fitzroy Gardens and some of the CBD, our group makes its way to Strike - A brand new yuppie bowling centre in the heart of the city. By yuppie I mean, that’s it’s 1) new 2) fluro 3) doesn’t have the mustiness of normal suburban bowling alleys. Hell, you’d be hard pressed to call it an alley. The pool tables have these kind of giant see-through marbles as pool balls. Even the shoes are fresh and the Velcro seems to be a technological marvel for alley shoes. Winners – Game 1: Me, Game 2: Rousey.

There’s a casual air surrounding this tour and particularly this leg. We don’t often need to be too many places other than the shows. Last time we were here we went to an ultra-strange triple R show in the middle of the night. Did I write about that before?

So in the early evening, we casually make our back to the Rob Roy, an old pub at the city end of Brunswick St . There’s a strange cowgirl wandering around in the back bar area. It’s dark and weird all round, so I don’t spend too much time out there. It’s Ok cause we’re in the front bar tonight. It’s small and that suits the acoustic show. Jess McAvoy is playing with us tonight and she is fantastic. Leigh who’s playing bass with us worked on her new album and the songs sound great and she gets a great response. Jason McGann, former John Butler and current Carus drummer, is the in-house sound guy. And it’s no lie to say that the crowd is more than 50% Perth people or ex-pats.

Our show goes pretty well. The crowd sings every word to Primary School, ah the Perth connection. Michael’s voice is getting a little weary, so as way of encore, we do The Lion Sleeps Tonight (my lead vocal spot), It’s a goof off for sure but... er... they don’t ask for any more.

Mon 1 Mar

It’s retracing footsteps of a previous tour and with Bec as tour guide it’s a return visit to Federation Square and its attendant art gallery. I struggle to locate the alley where we had great coffee but I do finally find it. Today it’s busy with lunching office workers, coffee is still great.

By the time we get back to the car we’ve narrowly managed to receive a parking fine by about ten minutes. D’oh. Shouldn’t have had a second coffee.

There’s a mad rush and drastic action to make the flight but it’s then delayed and all that stress on our hearts in is vain. It’s late evening when we make it in to Sydneytown.

Tue 2 Mar

This morning I’m looking Melbourne , feeling Adelaide . Staying Sydney . Actually, looking quite Adelaide too. (Note: Apologies to Adelaide - we haven’t been through for three years and then I have the gall to equate your town with feeling ill). Yeah OK, a bit of illness is trying to have its way with me, but I’m not having a bar of it. Soldier on and all of that.

‘Don’t mind us, we’re just a band staying in your house’.

Our career on the road has sort of worked in reverse. We started off booking proper accommodation, but now we have enough friends in each city to stay on floors, just like any proper band earning its stripes should. We’ve earned ours a few times over by now. So in Sydney Fletch and I are staying on Selena’s floor, the other guys are on the floor of Andy (Kelly) Clockwise who we’re playing with tomorrow night. Leigh however is an enigma and has found some other orchestra members to crash with. So, the moral of the story is that we don’t yet have the funds for five star hotel rooms and therefore entrust ourselves to the kindness of strangers. Well, not strangers, it’s just the quote thing, definitely friends. But we take what we can get.

We spend the day heading to Triple J and recording a live spot which will unfortunately not be broadcast until we’re about halfway through our final Sydney show. We also pay a visit to the headquarters of the Music Managers’ Forum where Selena works. Sofie also happens to be there, so it’s a big reunion of all the people we were hanging with all of two days ago. I crash out on the floor, denying that the cold is winning. Positive thinking. I just need a little lie down. And maybe a beer. Rock!

So in a seamless segue - Beer.

I’ve explained before how we’re not exactly the rockest of bands on the road, but I possibly underestimate us in the drinking stakes. Being a Tuesday night in Newtown we head out drinking. And it seems plenty of Sydneysiders have the same idea. Either that, or they just never leave these pubs. We first visit a somewhat new venue called @Newtown. It’s the refurbished Newtown RSL but they still get you to sign in at the door like it’s an RSL or (in our experience) a bowls club. I guess it just reinforces that this is indeed a club and you aren’t a member but a mere visitor but it seems an entirely pointless exercise.

There’s Jacky Orszacky’s (sp?) jazz combo playing and there’s a fair crowd. It’s loud and smoky as these places tend to be. A non-drinking Michael and Fletch slink off to the movies and the rest of us meet about half of Andy’s band we’ll be playing with tomorrow and just hang and joke until the venue kicks us out at the princely hour of 11pm . I spose it is Tuesday, but it is Newtown . Thankfully, there is always the Town Hall.

Ah, the Townie. The bastion of many a musician chasing a late night beverage. And certainly one our regular refuges when in Sydney . In fact, it’s the place where my budget seems to be blown to smithereens on every tour. And I’m definitely not a big drinker. It’s where you can casually meet people who have a career in the music industry and realise that you too are going to be a 40 year old, pulling together a few bucks for a beer at the townie under the pretence that you’re an artist. Maybe I’m just being pessimistic. There are some successful people at the Townie too. I’m sure we’ll be back here real soon.

We polish off the night with a visit to the Newtown all night bakery. I’m well off the Newtown bakery after last time. Once bitten…well, once bitten into a pie…

Wed 3 Mar

So far on this trip I’m starting to notice that I’m returning to familiar places we visit on every trip. And every trip wouldn’t be complete without a visit to Jackson ’s Rare Guitars. Looks like they sold the $65,000 Strat I held on the last foray inside the doors of this miraculous museum. Oh, the money I could spend in here. I can’t help but think the other guys are somewhat bored by what is, to me, an essential stop on our tour.

Following my drool fest, we make our way up the road to Sydney Uni. Andy Clockwise is playing at an Orientation Day. At a Perth University we have O-Day - singular. At Sydney universities in general, they have what would has expanded into O-Week. Each day is a festival of bands, markets, clubs, performers and food. I bet it’s a barrel of laughs.

Andy has a great and attentive crowd. He’s quite the showman and commands attention without being a dick (a trick harder than you might think).

Shortly after he finishes we have to run off, slot in an interview and go to the Annanndale Hotel for soundcheck. The Annanndale is something of an icon of Sydney . It’s a perfect sized room for a rock show, so on any night of the week it can have anything from a bunch of new Sydney bands right through to international touring acts. We have dinner at a neato Chinese restaurant conveniently located out the back of the pub. You choose the elements of your meal like you’re piling up Lego blocks. You pick a noodle style, a meat and your sauce in any combination. It was quite novel and tasty just let down by crappy cheap chopsticks.

Michael’s voice is bit tired and ragged after the four shows in a row in Melbourne and due in part to a bit of sickness, so tonight we’re playing tuned down a semitone for the first time ever. I don’t mind tuning down, it adds a certain extra darkness to your tone but it can have certain consequences when your guitars aren’t set up for the lighter tension. For the most part tonight it was fine, but during Night Under Lights, Rhys had dropped out of tune, so as a consequence it was rather tuneless and I had to sort of fake that I was playing. It was a disaster but following that we got it back on track, but it didn’t really hit the heights I’d like. The sound and lights are awesome at the Annanndale and Selena took some cool photos, so just imagine we’re playing as brilliantly as they make us look.

This year so far has been characterised by my stupidity. I’ll save you the gory details but today started like the year did. I couldn’t find my sunglasses, something I find just as disastrous as if I’d discovered my house was built on the San Andreas faultline and I woke up to find my ceiling in my face. So I spend the morning squinting despite Sydney sunlight being a little softer than Western Australian sunlight (some may find this measure totally arbitrary).

Of course, later I find my sunnies buried at the bottom of a box that I keep cables in. When I go on stage I’m inclined to put my car keys and if it’s daylight out, my sunnies, in this box. It should be the first port of call when I’m missing some personal effects. Instead I get a bit flustered and plan to buy new ones (these are $15 Big W sunnies mind you). But my flustration (new word that) is over for now. Let the year of stupidity continue.

From Selena’s place it’s short walk into Newtown . Totally in keeping with our tour of our regular haunts, we check out Pete’s musician’s Market, a great place for odd second hand pieces or exotic effects. No purchases were made this time unfortunately, although the script logo MXR Phase 90 was in danger there for a moment. However, up the road at a second hand CD store, I find Mukaizake’s album for an incredible $4. I’m stoked cause it’s a fantastic album.

By the afternoon we get it together enough to visit FBI, a popular community radio station that’s built a big following. We waltz in do a short interview and play Stories Unglued and get out and it’s amazingly fast. They’ve apparently being giving a good plugging and playing throughout the week. So it’s slowly coming together. Slowly.

The rest of the arvo is punctuated by playing video games on Fletch’s laptop.

At soundcheck at the Vic on the Park Hotel Leigh gives what I consider the quote of the tour – “Men hurt”. Was it something like discussing men’s feelings and relationships? I’m not sure. How very SNAG. How very support group, “My name is Leigh and I’m a hurtaholic”.

The Vic on the Park isn’t heavily attended but it’s a decent turnout, apparently everyone is at Magnet (??? Yeah, me either). We do have a very pretty merch stand which nearly makes up for it. Actually I tell ya what makes up for it. We fucking pull out a ripper of a show (IMHO). I don’t think we’ve ever played this good away from home. Leigh is gelling really well with us now, moreso than he probably did in December. In fact, Leigh loses himself in the music so much during the encore (like all of us) that he starts hitting, as in totally smacking, his precious bass. He says he’s never quite experienced that before. This is what it’s all about. This show goes above and beyond and more people should have seen it, dammit!

So to celebrate it’s off to the Townie. Aaaah. Leigh bold as ever, downs a few Long Island Ice Teas. There aren’t any rock stars at the Townie tonight but for a short moment it’s us. Tomorrow’s 8am flight is gonna hurt.

Fri 5 Mar

We get into Brisbane a bit bedraggled, well if we aren’t yet, we will be in a few minutes. We’re staying with Perth ex-pat Stu Badhair once again. Thankfully Stu has left a key out for us and we descend upon his house to crash out. 3 or 4 hours sleep is heaps – let’s rock. Ok, I crashed out too but I’m feeling good, totally powered through that bit of cold. Cold? It’s was so pissweak it could barely call itself a cold.

Oh yeah, there’s the spin off storms from a cyclone coming through Brisbane . 100% humidity, plenty of wind, plenty of rain. Then the news says something we didn’t want to hear – “Unless it’s essential, don’t go outside your home tonight”. Nice one when we have a show to do.

Thankfully Brisbanites either don’t consume any broadcast media or have a blatant disregard for it. Either way there are heaps of folks out on the roads and in the restaurants and so on. There’s even a few at our gig at the Alley. As the name implies, it’s a pub attached to a bowling alley. Some of us, of course, manage to pop in a quick game before the show.

There’s a desperate lack of live music venues in Brisbane . Urban housing, that scourge, has necessitated noise restrictions. It could be why we’re effectively playing in a suburban bowling alley tonight. We’re subject to some noise restrictions here. We’re supposed to keep to something like 100dB (we’re normally 115, which may seem loud when you consider a jet taking off is about 129dB at close range) but it still made it like playing with one hand tied behind our back. It just didn’t feel the same. Hell, a drum kit on its own is 95dB. To highlight the venue situation in Brisbane , our other shows here are all acoustic.

The show is OK, but not as awesome as the previous show in Sydney . Charles Foster Kane who we’re playing with lent me an awesome amp, a custom jobby made by a guy in Brisbane and it’s sensational, a cross between a Fender Deluxe and Vox AC30. it’s sweet and suits me perfectly. I’m excited just thinking about it.

When we start loading out of the venue it’s still about 30 degrees and pissing down. This is after midnight . It doesn’t stop us heading into central Brisbane (like hundreds of other warning flaunting Brisbanites). Our first stop is Ric’s Bar where we played on the last acoustic tour. We just happen across Dave McCormack onstage (he started at 2am!!). It’s a happening venue that is so not suited to having a live band and a hundred or so people crammed into it. Dave and band sound good but after listening to about three songs, we make our way to the back and have a game of pool in a sickening blue light. The cramped conditions make us think about moving on.

It’s a quick dash across the mall, dodging some of the most colourful characters in Australia , to venture into the Troubadour where we’ll be playing on Saturday night. It’s a cosy bar that plays good music over the PA. The clientele sink deep into couches and chill out, we do likewise. It doesn’t take too long before we decide to call it a night. So a quick run through the mall wildlife and it’s back to Stu’s.

Sat 6 Mar

Oh dear. It’s like a Saturday morning back at home. A very slow start this morning. We have a mission today though – Bowling.

Rhys does his bit for the team and visits a few record stores to make sure they have our CDs in. Stu, Mike, Michael, Fletch and I head back to Bardon Bowls Club, the site of our initial foray into the world of lawn bowls. A helpful local informs us not to touch our feet or hands and then go eating anything due to the powerful insecticides used on the greens. Thanks for that advice to help us avoid dying at your club. He also lets us in on the correct technique for delivering a bowl, very useful info.

The club lets us play for free, I think we must have looked thirsty. And after doing one of those pointless sign in efforts (my theory is so they have a record of your identity if you happen to have a heart attack and keel over on the green), we repay the kindness by purchasing generous quantities of beer served in foam wrapped middy glasses. Price of a beer: $1.70. Can’t beat a day of bowls. Oh yeah. And throw in a sport that you can play and drink simultaneously. Well, as long as you don’t spill some on your fingers and lick them and inadvertently ingest industrial strength Baygon. But enough paranoia, after ten ends, the joint winners: Dan and Mike with 4 each.

Unfortunately we can’t stay any longer as we have to get Mike to the airport (slacker is leaving us a day early as his services are surplus to requirement) and we have to do an evening interview on community radio station 4ZZZ the site of our last infamous interview. I’m prepared this time, if the interviewer/s can’t deliver the goods then I’m going to take over and interview both Michael and Rhys. Luckily this interviewer is much better and we get to say a lot of good stuff and once again trot out Stories acoustically for the listeners. The single is certainly going down very well live in all forms, we’re enjoying it.

So interview done, to the venue. The in-house sound guy isn’t over the moon we weren’t around to sound check at some ridiculous hour (5.30) and he has some stern words with Fletch over who is actually going to mix tonight. The in-house guy is suitably uptight about his desk as some touring band came through and spilt a beer in it fairly recently. He cooled down soon after, right after we poured a beer over him. Um, no, we didn’t do that but the situation was defused without alcohol related violence.

The show goes well. The patrons sink into their couches and enjoy the show and it’s well attended. We play pretty well and Leigh does some top work at the merchandise counter. Giants of Science (A Perfect Circle’s fave Aussie band) do a bang up job of the acoustic thing. They play their own songs, then following an interval they mostly play covers which is a bit hit and miss. It’s always hard to do two sets. Tomorrow we’re going one better though – three sets over three hours.

Sun 7 Mar

The Fortitude Valley Mall is strange place to be playing music and not literally busking. Gone are the ‘characters’ from the wee small hours (although 11am on a Sunday is a wee hour by mine), they’ve been replaced by families and folks nursing hangovers by having greasy breakfasts and black coffee. It’s a mall which you could probably find in any Aussie capitalBut there we are in the middle of it, basically right outside the door of the Troubadour, a curio to passers by, freaks who interrupt the peaceful throb of a Sunday morning headache with acoustic guitars and the dreaded high pitched wailing of the mandolin. This was to be a memorable show no matter what happened.

We’re to play three sets in the humidity of midday Brisbane , but it works a treat. The locals, the families, the passersby, the people who have come to see it all dig it and we have a blast goofing off and working our way through all the songs we know and a few we don’t. Japanese tourists stop by to have their photos taken in front of us as if we were Uluru or the Harbour Bridge . Kids of three or four years of age chuck their parents’ change into an open guitar case (an added bonus as we’re getting paid and on top of the masses of CDs we sold). We actually probably sell more albums here in the mall than we did for the entire rest of the tour and just as we’re packing up we sell the very last album we have with us. Amazing. We’ll be playing in this mall next time we come back for sure.

We have a slap up lunch to celebrate the end of the tour and a most enjoyable and successful day.

“Is that your mother calling?” – It’s home time.

The trip home can only be described as a disaster, from check in to baggage collection. Well, I spose it could be worse, but not much worse. We check in a bit too late and we get seated in lucky row 13 (the row where you can’t recline your seat) and we get hit for excess baggage for the first time since Virgin began flying. What’s more, Fletch starts whinging that he doesn’t have a window seat. Being so close to boarding there are no window seats to move him to (although I can think of a few windows I’d like to throw him out of). Out of the goodness of my heart I agree to swap with him, how bad can the people I sit next to possibly be? Well it depends how you look at it. I’m sitting next to two young girls and when we start up a conversation it begins normally enough “Are you from Brisbane ? What are going to Perth for?” etc – then it moved onto the Holy Spirit and how drugs are not the way. I’m sorry? It was too late and I was too tired to have a full blown discussion of how the Holy Spirit was good and people who do drugs are bad. From the way they spoke, these girls were desperately undereducated too (not that that is in any way related to religion). Fine, time to pop the headphones on and tune out, maybe do a little light reading. No, no you can’t sleep, read or even get comfortable because every two minutes one of them has to get up. So, I have to take off my belt (when I remember to get up after taking it off), I have to put a bookmark in my book, I have to return my tray table to the upright position back against the seat in front which is desperately close to my skull at all times and then take my headphones off and deposit them in a pocket, then wait like this for them to return. Oh, are they returning, here she comes back to our row, no, she’s off again. And then I have to go through my ritual in reverse, headphones in, tray table down, seatbelt on, book open, bookmark out, where was I? Oh. Now what? The other has to get up to go to the toilet or talk to some friends in row 36 or what not. Time and time again. It was torturous. Michael simply laughed somewhat sympathetically at my predicament.

Fletcher!!! You owe me.