The Trials & Adventures of an Aussie Rock Chick

In rockstar news...

2008-07-07T16:07:00.003+09:30

Ok so my last post was sooky la-la, this post is going to be happy joy-joy!!

Ready...?

Ok let's go...

Band #1
...is doing swimmingly. We had our Vic & NSW album launches last week. The Melbourne one was amazing - so so much fun! Over 200 people in the room - a sea of faces as far as I could see. And they were screaming at us. And dancing! I felt so much love and warmth in the room.

We had a guest violinist who was awesome, she really helped lift some of the songs to a new place. Unfortunately a few technical hitches occurred... our guitarist had to sit out a song while the fuse in his amp was fixed. I had to ditch one of the oscillators on my vintage analogue synth as it decided to de-tune itself and wouldn't go back in. Not the best gig we've played in the technical sense, but the vibe was amazing and we put everything into it.

The Sydney show brought us back down to earth with a thud. From the beginning Murphy's Law prevailed, causing delayed flights, a lost keyboard stand, the state of origin final being played at the same time as we were on (apparently the equivalent of the AFL grand final in NSW) resulting in a rather lower turnout than we'd hoped, our chief roadie having gastro, one of the support acts picking a huge fight with me and the venue... Yes it wasn't the greatest of gigs. Mind you we played pretty well considering! And props to Virgin Blue for getting the lost keyboard stand to the venue 10 mins before we went onstage. But regardless, we had fun and I'm glad we went.

Oh yeah. The album is onsale here if you are interested.

Band #2
...is absolutely kicking butt!! I'm loving loving loving it!! I couldn't have found 8 better people to join me in musical mayhem - so much enthusiasm, talent and love - already!

We have a huge list of songs developed in such a short space of time... maybe 2-3 months?? And some really fantastic songs in there, not just rubbish. I get to do heaps of singing, playing percussion, guitar, and *gasp* drums!! As well as the usual keyboards. Recently I went shopping for a keyboard case and came home with a digital drumkit so I can practise and feel like Laine from the Gilmore Girls. Righteous!!!!

We are booked in to record a demo in a couple of weeks and have our first 3 gigs booked - two of them next week. I can't can't wait!!!! If you want to check it out you could go here. YAY!!!!!

See? I told you happy joy-joy!

Blues

2008-05-15T22:04:00.003+09:30

Despite the fact that it's my own choice, sometimes the fact that I'll never get married or have children fills me with grief.

Wanna be in a band?

2008-03-01T12:11:00.002+10:30

Ok, that's it, I'm starting a new band!

Don't worry, I'm not giving up on the old one, in fact the album is being mastered this Wednesday. YAY!

But it's time for me to take control, to find a group of people who are really, really passionate about playing music for a living and are keen to make a go of it. People who are truly excited about the same kind of music I am!

So... here's the job description. Contact me if you're interested.

Do you love Arcade Fire, The Dears, The Frames, Elbow?

I am starting a new originals band inspired by those listed above and more.

I am looking for people who are passionate about playing and keen to try new things. I envisage a band where everybody has a go at singing and takes turns on different instruments. A band where people enjoy performing live and feed off each others’ energy. A band where songwriting is a collaborative effort. A band that attracts a following quickly through its exciting and passionate performances.

I am a 29y/o female keys player who also dabbles in vocals, guitar, drums/perc and I want a chance to improve these skills by using them in a live setting. I would love to find other multi-instrumentalists who are keen to do likewise.

The band will rehearse weekly, probably on weekends so if you’re not willing to give up your Sunday afternoons then please don’t waste my time. It will also gig regularly – through my other band I have plenty of contacts so be ready to hit the ground running. I’m just north of the city so looking to rehearse around the inner Melbourne area.

I don’t care what instrument you play, whether you’re a guy or a girl, age not much of an issue but I need a mature attitude. If you’re excited about putting your heart and soul into a band like those above I want to hear from you.

Post here or email aussierockchick[at]gmail.com.

2008-01-31T14:24:00.000+10:30

Ok time for a rant.

So yeah I know I haven't posted for like a million years so I don't even deserve for anybody to read this but I need to get it off my chest and possibly not to the people involved.

Now, just a warning, don't get too attached, this post could be a one-off - I need something to fill the time today and today only so here goes...

To get you up to speed:
Albums recorded = 1
Albums mastered & released = 0
Drummers overseas = 1
Number of months drummer overseas for = 3.5
Number of days since I sent an email to remaining band members and manager calling for a meeting to divvy up the work involved in mastering & releasing the album and booking subsequent tours, as agreed prior to drummer's departure = 8
Number of days before first response = 2.5
Total number of responses received in 8 days = 2
Total number of outstanding responses = 2

So... this is crucial stuff which needs to happen if we EVER want to get this album out. Our ever-reliable bassman replied in a reasonable amount of time. Then after hearing nothing for a few more days I sent a follow up email saying 'i've had no response, what's going on?'. This prompted the guitarist to send through his availability. Still nothing from the two most crucial players, the manager and the lead singer/songwriter. Not to mention the two with the most to gain from making this all happen. It shouldn't have even been me who had to send the email in the first place, it should have been the manager. But I have learned that if I don't get the ball rolling on things they don't happen so I decided to follow through with what we all agreed to last year, which is to not sit on our asses all summer waiting for drummer boy to get back, but to do some work and make this release happen.

I sent a text just now to the two non-responders going "Just wondering if you have been receiving my emails, everything ok?" Serious restraint going on. But if they know about my world of anger they are not going to want to talk to me, are they?

I am seriously this close to cutting my losses and starting a new band with some people who give a crap. Especially after seeing the brilliance of Arcade Fire twice this week - I am totally inspired to hook up with some truly passionate people and get serious about this whole thing.

Phew. Not sure if I feel better or worse now. Never mind.

Still here...

2007-05-07T23:25:00.000+09:30

Yes I am still alive. Just.

It has been a shocking few weeks with the incredibly sad death of our good friend Mark following on the heels of the death of our beloved puppy Chester. My friends and I have been deeply affected by Mark's death and words cannot express how emotional the funeral was and the deep sympathy we all feel for his family and his fiancee Jo (or Joey Jo Jo). I cannot comprehend losing my partner at such a young age and was very impressed at her strength and humour on the day. We have now buried one of our own. I think we all aged a little this week.

Moving house from the Secret Suburb to a less secret suburb North of the river has also been somewhat stressful. I LOVE the new place, the location and the actual house are awesome, exactly what we needed. We just need to get past the unpacking stage to really feel settled. Oh and we have 10 days to rid the old house of 3 years of grime... time is ticking away.

Oh, did I also mention I recently started paid work for the first time in almost a year? I decided to start doing temp work and am onto my second assignment. This one should go for about four weeks and is something to do with coordinating cable TV & internet installations. Exactly what I'm yet to find out! First day was today, I spent a lot of it bored watching other people work, but hey, it's money, right?

I have been doing some good rockstar type stuff in between all the sadness & movingness - it does help to take your mind off things. A gig last Friday, another one in a few weeks, recording sessions (according to Tom the album is 86.6% ready) and radio DJ action have meant I've had no spare time whatsoever, which at the moment is probably a very good thing.

Hey something pretty freaky happened on the day of Mark's funeral... it was in Sydney and first we went to the church in some suburb, then drove for some time to the cemetery, and then more driving to a golf club for the wake. I need to explain something here. Mark's running joke was always to ask me and his fiancee Jo when the two of us were going to jelly wrestle. He used to constantly concoct elaborate plans to make it happen (none of them were ever actually put into action, which I'm quite glad about since even though Joey's half my size she'd probably kick my ass). So, anyway, there we were, driving along the M5 or something between the funeral and the cemetery, and along the side of the highway are telegraph poles. Stuck on the poles are posters advertising... jelly wrestling.

Now I don't know about you, but I have never seen a poster for Jelly wrestling in my life. Until Friday. I don't believe in heaven or reincarnation or any of that stuff, but I swear Mark was behind it. WAY too much of a coincidence otherwise.

Anyway it's 12:15am and I might actually have to do some work at work tomorrow so I think I'd better call it stumps. Goodnight!

Goodbye

2007-04-12T11:39:00.000+09:30

I just received a very difficult piece of mail.

Now usually I love opening the mail, I have a kickass letter-opener shaped like a little dagger with a huge diamante on the handle. I love it! And the admin chick in me loves reading & sorting the various bills, cards, etc. But as soon as I picked up this envelope, hand addressed, I knew what it was and held my breath.

"Good friends live in our hearts forever" was the message on the card, with a picture of a large dog nuzzling a kitten. Inside was a lovely message of sympathy for the loss of our "much loved little dog, "Chester". The card was from our local vet clinic, who were wonderful with him all the way from removing 7 decayed teeth under general anaesthetic back when he first came to live with us, to treating his heart condition, right through to the very end of his little life. Tucked inside the card was the final invoice for "Consultation/Examination, Frusemide Injection, Oxygen Administration and Burial of Small Dog." That last one made me well up.

I feel a bit bad that we didn't bury him ourselves but we are about to move house and it doesn't make sense to leave him in someone else's backyard. So we asked the vet to take care of it. Besides, I don't think either of us could have handled bringing his body home and burying it. I would rather just hang on to the memories.

Oh god now I am a blubbering mess...

Sorry this has been quite hard for me. Chester was my sole companion for the nine months that Adam was away, and while I did find him annoying at times, and the responsibility of feeding, medicating and walking him did sometimes get in the way of other things, he was the cutest possible dog that ever did live and I loved him very much.

He had been having good days and bad days for a long time, and I am glad that the day before he died was a really good day and we went for a big long walk down at the beach and both Adam and I spent some good quality time with him. The next day he woke up not so good, and had a seizure which was much worse than his previous ones. It was quite scary and I'm so glad Adam was there with me. We rushed him to the vet and they put him on oxygen, and were going to keep him there until they closed at noon (it was a public holiday), when we would have to take him to the animal emergency centre. We had just arrived back home when we got the phone call that his little heart had stopped.

Things we will remember fondly about Chester:

The way his little pink tongue would sit in the gap where his teeth used to be;
The way he would pounce on pieces of raw carrot I "accidentally" dropped while cooking dinner, rush them off to the carpet, and then dissect and/or devour them;
His crazy robot walk, ears back, legs just a blur beneath his body;
His huge big beautiful eyes;
The way he looked in his Superman suit;
The look of humiliation in his eyes while wearing the Superman suit;
His squeaking;
The way he would bark at dogs more than 10 times his size;
The way he would bark excitedly when Adam & I chased him round the house in a rather predictable game of chasey;
The way he never barked at any other time;
The way he would take himself off to his little bed;
The way he loved to curl up in clothes on the floor, particularly mine;
The way he would rest his little head on his paws and sigh as if to say "oh, life's so hard when all you have to do is eat and be patted";
The way he would prance around after doing a wee, so proud and fox-like;
The way he would only poo in the most uncomfortable places, like on a twig or weed or something really scratchy looking. And if he accidentally had to do it inside, he always chose a nice DVD cover or keyboard to do it on instead of the floor.
The way everything disappeared except for his eyes when he was wet.

There are probably a thousand other little memories we will have of Chester but I have gone on long enough. We miss you Chest!!! Have fun in doggy heaven...

I got my boy back!

2007-03-27T15:38:00.000+09:30

Yes, the ninja has finally moved back home!! Hooray!!!

It has been an interesting week, with us both adjusting to living with each other again, and cramming two houses worth of stuff into one. We definitely need a bigger place!

For the first few days we were ships passing in the night as I had meetings till midnight (yes its a glamorous life i lead). Adam gets up at 6am so we didn't even see each other in the mornings.

The weekend was a bit more fun, we got to hang out on the couch a bit and go to an engagement party. I know it sounds so boring but I love it!! We are both so 'go go go' all the time that any downtime, especially together, is awesome.

We have started looking for a new place, and let me tell you there is nothing out there! Well no three bedroom places within a cooee of the city anyway. Oh my god, did I just say cooee? Who am I, Alf from Home and Away??? Is that even how you spell cooee??

At least we have plenty of time to find somewhere, our current lease is not running out or anything so there's no deadline. However we are both, particularly Adam, impatient to find something soon and get things set up the way we want, with separate music & ninja studios.

Another thing we have done this week is started the Body For Life 12 week challenge. Now I know this is not very rock n roll, and I promise to not let this become a weight-loss blog, but it is a fairly significant thing to embark on so I thought I'd mention it. Neither of us are particularly overweight, we are more wanting to tone up and build muscle, but it does mean that six days a week we have to eat 6 low fat meals per day and also work out every day. The seventh day is rest day - yay! - when we get to eat whatever the heck we want. How cool is that?!

So... we are adjusting to a new way of eating at the same time as getting used to living together... yes this could be a recipe for disaster, I know. But I'm pretty confident we'll just kick each other's asses and get through it. We're a pretty good team.

What else... oh yeah, my band played on Saturday night. Our current drummer is in Japan so we asked our old drummer Wes if he could play. We had a rehearsal during the day which felt like he had never left, and the gig was heaps of fun. The place was not massively packed but it was respectable. Some new friends I've met in various places came, which was nice, and some old friends of Adam also showed up to welcome him home. The drive home was funny, all my gear was crammed into the Echo meaning only one person could fit. Rather than one of us catch a cab though, Adam drove and I climbed in the passenger seat. The massive keyboard case was where my head should go so I had to squinch down, and if we stopped quickly I had to duck my head into Adam's lap to avoid decapitation. Add to this the fact that Adam may not have been completely under the limit (he was closer than I was though - a slight miscommunication about who was driving home) so he drove very carefully avoiding all possible police hideouts. We were rather relieved to pull up at home!

Better get back to it but if anyone has a 3BR house to rent within a few k's of Melbourne please let me know!!!

Dust, Drinking, Drivetime and Dearstalking...

2007-03-14T22:36:00.000+10:30

Holy crap what a glorious, wild, brilliant week in rock chick land!!!

Following that awesome weekend in the studio was one of the most musically intense weeks of my life. Now I would say that I go to more gigs than the average person. I probably average an international touring act once a month, and probably a local show every fortnight or so, sometimes more. But this last week was ridiculous!! In a good way, of course.

SO. (warning - this is a long one. grab a cuppa & settle in!)

Wednesday: The Dears*
I usually hate going to gigs alone. I would rather go alone than miss out altogether, but seeing a great band by myself is always a bittersweet experience. Sometimes you feel the loneliest in a crowd. And The Dears is kind of a special band for Adam and I (awww...). So I was pleased to find someone to see The Dears with, even if it was someone I didn't know.

Ok I know, explanation required.

Recently I discovered a gorgeous local band on myspace and contacted them to see if they wanted to send me a CD to play on the radio. I got chatting with the frontman via email and I happened to mention I was seeing The Dears and Elbow this week. "Me too!" he said. So he had the crazy idea that he would give me his CD in person rather than by mail. It started to feel like a blind date when he sent me a text saying what he was wearing. But I had a good feeling about Pete and I was right. Turned out we have a mutual friend, a guitarist from my first band, and we are both into a lot of the same music. So as far as people I don't know go, he was an excellent companion for the evening.

After the show, which was great by the way, several members of The Dears came out into the audience and started chatting with people. We just happened to be chatting with the guitarist and bass player when the Prince of Wales bouncers were kicking everyone out of the venue. The two guys from the band were at a loss for what to do now, so I suggested the Espy. To my surprise they said "Ok, we just have to pack up our gear and we'll meet you down there." Excellent!

Pete and I went to the Espy and waited but didn't see any Dears. Finally the pub closed and Pete got in a cab. As I was walking back to my car, I happened to bump into some band members.
"What happened to you guys? I thought you were meeting us at the Espy!"
"We are," the bass player said. "Aren't the others down there?"
"I didn't see them," I said "and now its closed."
Then the bass player told me which hotel they were staying at and said they might be there. Feeling rather like a crazy psycho groupie stalker I hoofed it to the hotel but didn't see any Dears hanging round. Disappointed that I'd gotten so close to hanging out with a cool Canadian band I walked slowly back to my car, sticking my head in any bars still open along the way to see if I could spot them.

***Warning: the following part of the story may portray me as a pathetic teenage groupie stalker. I am embarrassed. But as Adam says, it's all about the story, so here goes...***

On the drive home I thought about how keen they'd seemed to hang out with us. They'd said they were in town till Saturday and didn't really have any plans. Hmm... maybe I could casually hang around their hotel tomorrow till they come out. Stop!!! Way too stalkerish! Then it came to me. A phone message at the hotel.

At somewhere close to 4am my mobile rang. It was them.

So, we made plans to hang out the next day. I was going to show them a local's perspective of Melbourne. I didn't quite know whether this meant I was entertaining them for the whole day, the night or what, but I didn't care. It sounded fun either way!

Then I panicked. What was I going to do with a bunch of rockstars??? I knew who to call though...

"Paris? Ummm... I accidentally volunteered to show The Dears a good time in Melbourne. Help!!"

Paris came through with the goods and at 6pm I met her in the city for our night on the town with rockstars. Our friend Dave was there too - actually I was crashing their night out - and he proceeded to mercilessly tease me about what a teenager I was being and how excited I was. As the night wore on and no Dears materialised, the teasing grew worse. By the time we were onto dinner #2 and drink #... not too sure... I had pretty much given up hope. During dessert my phone rang. It was them. They were just getting ready & leaving the hotel shortly. They would meet us in an hour.

So Dave ate his words and with renewed vigour we cruised through a few more bars. I was quite excited by this stage.

But midnight rolled around and still no Dears. Finally my phone rang. "I don't think we're going to make it. We're all really jetlagged and tired."

Lame.

Disappointed.

We did make plans though to do something the next day instead. Earlier this time. I was to call them at 1pm.

Ok now even I am bored with this story. I know how it ends. So I will stick to the important facts.

I called them at 1. We had a good chat. They are very nice guys. They had to go to a record label thing though so told me to call them at 6 and they'd come out for drinks in the city.

I called them at 6. No answer. Left a message. No response. Went to the nominated bar and waited for them anyway. No Dears. And that was that.

Yep. I know. Anticlimax. Sorry!

But I had little time to dwell on it because by now we were up to...

Friday: Elbow
I LOVE Elbow. They are one of my favouritist bands. Asleep In The Back is one of my favouritist albums. Love.

Pete, the guy who I saw The Dears with, was going to see Elbow as well. He came to the bar in the city and waited for Dears with me and when it was clear they were not coming we caught the tram to the Prince. (All the good bands seem to be playing at the Prince lately. Interesting.)

The Dears had said they might even go see Elbow so who knew, we might still run into them.

ok this is a long post. is anyone still reading??? i'll summarise, i promise!!

Elbow were fucking brilliant!!! I loved The Dears but maybe it was the very very full house or maybe the fun I was having meeting all of Pete's lovely muso friends, or maybe the anticipation of Adam arriving that night and going to Golden Plains on the weekend. Or maybe just the incredible catalogue of Elbow's music. Whatever it was, the show was through the roof!!! I think Newborn was my highlight. What an incredible song. And I must mention local band SubAudible Hum, who opened the night. Elbow is a tough act to open for, but they did an impressive job. Not a great looking band but then again neither are Elbow. Just great musicianship and awesome songs.

One of Pete's mates who I'd just met that night insisted on driving me home after the show and there, waiting for me, was Adam. Yay!!! His hair is long. Well, maybe #4 instead of #2. Still, I haven't seen it that long in... years. It's weird when someone you talk to every day pretty much looks different every time you see them.

The next morning was...

Saturday: Golden Plains
For anyone who doesn't know, Golden Plains is a new festival being held at the site of the Meredith Music Festival (which I think is in its sixteenth year). I got tickets way back in December, way before I knew that it would be the worst possible timing in terms of Adam's work, so many other gigs on, album recording, etc etc. But despite all these annoying things, we were still excited.

We planned to go down pretty early to get a good campsite, but I had agreed to give Paris a lift down so it was obvious things were never really going to go to plan. For starters she booked a legwax to start half an hour before the time I said I'd pick her up (10am).

Anyway we went to the gym & to the supermarket to pick up a few supplies before arriving at her place at 10:30 (late, to allow for the legwax). She was not there. As we stood at her front door a car drove past and beeped and we realised it was her. She rushed inside. "I've just got one more bag to sort out and I'm ready." This is Paris code for "I haven't packed at all, try not to distract me or this could take all day."

So she shoved things in bags and I kept telling Adam to stop talking to her or we'd never get there. I think we left at about 11:30, maybe even later.

The drive down was fun, Paris was a good car companion, and we arrived just as the proceedings were getting underway.

We somehow scored a great campsite and pitched our tent in the beaming sunshine while starting on our two casks of wine (no glass allowed) before it got warm (no esky!). I donned my cowboy hat and we headed down to the Supernatural Ampitheatre for some funness.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. It was gorgeously sunny, the bands were great, our tent neighbours were super fun, Adam and I were heaps excited and the goon was flowing. And the Pink Flamingoes (Meredith's specialty drink) were as good as I remembered. Shooting At Unarmed Men and Ground Components were perfect afternoon festival fodder. As evening fell the plains truly did go golden and I remember thinking this is what life's all about.

At some point after that, things went a bit pear shaped.

During The Drones... or was it Yo La Tengo... I went to the toilet. When I came back, Adam and our little gang was nowhere to be found. A nice guy let me stand on his esky for half an hour yelling "A-dam, Pa-ris, A-lee-sha, Mi-ri-am!" but to no avail. He gave me a beer. I can't drink beer. I had one sip then went up to the campsite to look for the others. No sign of them. Came back to find, surprise surprise, no guy and no esky and definitely no almost-full can of beer. Doh!

Stood by myself for a while before striking up a conversation with a guy standing on his own nearby (or did he strike one up with me?). Ended up chatting to him for the rest of Yo La Tengo and most of The Bellrays. He seemed nice and reasonably entertaining but then it started to get a bit weird. I was telling him about Adam and how I'd lost everyone, he was telling me about his son and his partner, but then saying things which suggested he was trying to pick me up. Hmmm. I got bored of this and started chatting to another guy nearby. He was nice but not very exciting. Dammit where was Adam??? Why was I hanging out with boring/annoying strangers instead of him??

After the Bellrays finished I went back up to the campsite and finally, there they were!! Adam was trashed. I think he had drunk most of a cask by himself. Uh-oh. Even superheroes get hangovers. But for now he was having a super-fun time and I joined in the celebrations. The rest of the night is mostly gone from my memory but I do have a vision of me blowing up the queen sized lilo without the aid of a pump while Adam was passed out on top of it. I spent ages doing it and managed to get it so when we both laid on it we didn't touch the ground - just. Which meant all night whenever anyone moved or rolled over, the other one hit the ground. Which meant my hips & thighs were bruised the next day!!

My bruises were the least of it though - Adam was rather sick and hungover the next day. I was slightly less so. The weather was bleak - overcast, cold and extremely windy. Don't know what happened to our beautiful golden sunshine.

The nicest thing about the morning was waking up to the beautiful sounds of The Sunwrae Ensemble seeping through the walls of the tent and into my subconsciousness, easing me into the day. I wish I could take them home with me and wake up to that every morning. Ok, maybe I'll just buy the CD.

The rest of the morning was spent with me fulfilling my hangover food cravings, Adam trying to fulfill his need not to be around or consume food (only ever happens with a hangover) trying unsuccessfully to avoid the kilos of dust being thrown around by the gusty wind, and many naps in the back of the car.

In the afternoon we ventured down to the ampitheatre to check out Eddy Current Suppression Ring (pretty good but I wasn't really in the mood for dirty garage rock n roll), Gotye (great even with a hangover), Comets on Fire (I really liked them but the others didn't really - maybe the whole stoner rock thing just worked for my hungover state). Fat Freddy's Drop were good at what they do - really deep dub/reggae/soul whatever you want to call it, but in my opinion were misplaced on the bill and played for too long (almost two hours as opposed to most other 50-60 min sets). I think if I'd been stoned it would've been great. But I wasn't. I was trying to stay awake for the Presets and !!! (Chk Chk Chk), and this wasn't helping. As our new friend Miriam pointed out, pills would have been useful, but that's not our thing so we patiently nursed our heads in the Pink Flamingo Bar.

The Presets were great and I suspect !!! were even greater, but I couldn't last the whole set. What I saw was fantastic but we were just over the whole thing and totally exhausted. Time for bed. Adam had to be on a plane at 8am which meant we had to leave the campsite at 5am, so we thought we'd get a few hours sleep at least. The music was so loud and I couldn't stop coughing up the layers of dust lodged in my lungs so we really didn't get much sleep at all. We had lost Paris but she knew we were leaving at 5am and she had to be there. Earplugs and Vapodrops meant I eventually dozed off, but 5:00 came too quickly. Amazingly, Paris was there right on time, and had managed to get a lift home with someone else so took a few of her things and said goodbye. We did the speediest pack up of a campsite in history (in the dark, too!) and were on our way to the airport by 5:20am. The last time I have to say goodbye to Adam at the airport for a LONG time I hope!!!

I arrived home in a bit of a daze, left everything in the car and went to bed. I was shattered. I had totally screwed my voice up, I was filthy, and I went straight to sleep.

After waking up, showering & unpacking the car, I headed to the studio where the boys were mixing the new tracks. Things were sounding good. I added a few keyboard lines in and Mr R said all one song needed was my vocals. "Not today!" I said. My voice sounded like ratshit. Eventually I agreed to put some down just to see how they fit. Mr R loved them! He liked the huskiness. Bonnie Tyler and Stevie Nicks were mentioned. Believe me, I didn't sound like either of those. I sounded like ratshit. Anyway, he worked some magic and the vocals actually sound ok in the mix. You can barely tell I've been coughing for four weeks and inhaling kilos of dust all weekend.

Ok, nearly there, you're doing well! Just one day to go...

Wednesday: Drivetime.
I got the call a week ago to fill in for Incoming, RRR's weekly new Australian releases program. With plenty of warning I had time to gather up some of my favourite local bands' releases and spent the morning putting a show together. It takes freaking ages. I know the pros just go in and wing it, but I wanted to do a good job, so planned the whole show in advance. I think this approach worked pretty well... I got a text from my mum saying "Great interview well done sitting on deck glass of wine listening to my girl on radio what more could i want x x". Clearly no-one has showed her how to do punctuation yet. But a nice message all the same! The interview did go well, we ended up chatting for almost half an hour, and I think the music all flowed fairly well. And I played almost all the bands I'd wanted to. And hopefully didn't say "ahhhh" too much. I've burned the show onto CD to check. It's amazing how hard it is not to say "um" and "ah"!

So that was a pretty good end to my crazy week of music madness. Sorry this isn't in little bite-sized stories like everyone else's blogs - i just haven't had time to fill you in as things happened. So instead a major brain-dump until next time...

Thanks for listening!!

*Too many bands mentioned in this post for hyperlinks. If you are interested you can google them!!

Studio Success!

2007-03-04T23:29:00.000+10:30

Hello! Just wanted to pop in and say things are good...

The band (minus the drummer who was in Sydney) spent the weekend in the studio recording the two new tracks and it has been very productive. It is a small tracking studio so we are unable to all set up & record at the same time, but Tom thought it might be a good idea for all of us to be there a) to get us all involved in the process and b) because he's not really trusting his own instincts right now, due to the amount of criticism his work has copped of late. So I think the idea was to combine our creative brains, do a bit of teambuilding (read: drinking) and make us feel more like a band again.

I think it worked really well. I'm not saying we came up with a masterpiece, but it's been a long time since we've all sat in a studio together, and it felt good. We were all able to make contributions and suggestions, and built the two songs up from not much to something pretty good. I for one felt involved, respected, valued, challenged and creative - all the reasons I want to be doing this music caper in the first place. It is the first time in ages I've really felt all these things in the studio environment.

So... the drums are yet to be recorded, this is happening on Tuesday night. In fact the singer/songwriter from the first band I was ever in will be recording them at his studio. It is good to be able to work with old friends like this. And then Mr R comes home on Wednesday and will hear the tracks for the first time. I hope he likes what he hears. I'm pretty confident though...

Oh the other breakthrough that happened this weekend was that we heard all the tracks in an order that sounds very much like it might be an album!! Yes, not just a mish-mash of tracks that we have been working on for the past two years, but an album. Duh, you say, this is what you have been working on all along. But this time last week I don't think any of us including Tom could envisage all the tracks working together cohesively as an album. With all the recent rejections of songs I was starting to worry there was very little left. But actually, what's left is all the substance, we have cut away all the crap and what's left might actually be a really freaking good album. Tom put the remaining tracks, including the demos of the two new ones, in order and played it for us, and we can finally all see how good it's going to be. Paris is now chomping at the bit to go up to Sydney and pitch it to as many labels & publishers as possible. It's amazing how motivating that vision is!

With the finishing line in such clear view now I have no doubt the next month is going to be stressful as we try to get it finalised. But I am starting to feel very confident that we will finish it and it will be our best work. Which is all we can do, really.

This time in two weeks will be Adam's last night in Brisbane... getting very excited!!

Feeling very attractive

2007-03-01T11:46:00.000+10:30

Today I am a snotty, red nosed coughing ugger.

Bleugh.

The crap thing is I just got rid of a cold. Seemed to get it again straight away.

Now my throat is red raw from coughing, my nose is red raw from blowing, my eyes are red raw from being open...

Yes I am being a sook. I want someone to stroke my hair and feed me chicken soup and honey & lemon tea.

The cool thing is I discovered a cough mixture that tastes like licorice. Not aniseed, but the real deal Darrell Lea licorice. Yum!! Nyal Chesty Cough Medicine for anyone interested.

So. Some shit going down in band camp this week.

For the past year or so we have been plugging away in the studio (or rather Tom has) under the seemingly watchful eye of our producer (let's call him Mr R), but without much guidance. It had appeared he was happy with where things were going and after we added the most recent couple of songs he was going to mix the lot and we would have an album.

Think again.

Finally Mr R has spent some time mixing and he has found he is not happy with a lot of what has been done. I think it's mainly at a sound recording level but possibly also at an artistic level. He has asked for two new songs having rejected several others, but is away this week so we are again left to our own devices. He has heard demo versions & approved so we basically have this weekend to record them properly and hope they are good enough. But, the drummer's away. So, we have to record without drums and add them in later. That's ok, we can probably cope with that.

Why the rush? Well, Mr R has taken on another project which he will be getting paid well for, which commences at the start of April. So we have to have our album completed by the end of March, or we will basically be on the shelf until June. Which we are not prepared to accept. So, once Mr R gets back from the country he will have two weeks to mix the whole thing including 2 new tracks and several other partially mixed ones. That may be achieveable, but then where is our chance to listen to the finished thing and make any changes? What happens if we don't like one or more of the tracks? The fact that the rest of us band members have not been included in the mixing process means this is a definite possibility. Not that he's not a good producer but we all have very different opinions about what has been done so far - I know I really didn't like what happened to the vocals in the last track I was shown.

So, we're all a bit panic stations and divided on whether we should even do these two new tracks. The fact is if we don't, we really don't have a suitable track to open the album with. If we can pull them off it will certainly fill a few holes in the track listing. But these songs are new to us and have not gone through the several months of rehearsal that our songs usually go through. Maybe that will be a good thing, but I'm not sure...

And poor Tom, it is his hours and hours of hard work which just keeps getting either rejected or disregarded - there is one whole song which Mr R won't even touch. "Nope, can't do anything with that one." Not really even an explanation given. Which would have been fine while the track was still at demo stage, but he didn't say anything then, and Tom has since spent days and days working on this track. Aaarrrrghghhh!!!

Ok enough of a rant, I will keep you posted!!

Fun with google

2007-02-26T22:49:00.000+10:30

Hahaha I just did the funniest thing. Well I think it's funny...

I'm going to try and learn Ta Douleur by Camille. I thought it might help to have a translation. I speak a bit of french but not quite enough. So I googled it and came up with this:

Your Pain by Camille
L? you it east d?d?br>Laisse me to replace you
I will take your pain

Gently without making noise
Like one r?ille rain
I will take your pain

It fights it d?t
But will not r?stera
I will block the elevator...
To sabotage the switch

But it is which this incrust?
This storm before?
Bitch of small sister salts?

I all will confiscate to him
Its fl?ettes and its whistle
I will give him the fess?..
To transfer R??

But it is which this h?ti?
Who bathes who ground
In water Ti? of your kidneys?

I will deprive it of dessert
He to make bite the poussi?
Of all those which do not have anything any more...
Of all those which are not any more hungry

Say me that fout science
With when this bridge between our paunches?
If you have l??' badly be afraid
You do not have l??e badly thinks!

What is this qu.elle wants this silly bitch
The butter or money of butter
What you sharp or which you die?

What it is necessary Cr? of happiness
Or that it changes godasses
Is necessary that it collapses under the flowers
Change color...
I will play the doctor

Say me that fout science
With when this bridge between our paunches?
If you have l??' badly be afraid
You do not have l??e badly sings!

Some bits of this crack me up. Especially "godasses". What a word! "Bitch of small sister salts"??? I also love the image of the "bridge between our paunches" - not sure if that's a bad translation or a clever lyric??

On another version it had a little bit of english at the start:

;">[I know you're suffering, but trust me, I'm gonna take away your pain.]

Which became:

[ I know you' Re suffering, goal trust me, I' m gonna take away your bread. ]

Nasty bitch. Not the bread. Anything but the bread.

I think doing my own translation may have clarified things a bit more... but far less entertaining!! :-)

Rubbing shoulders with celebs & other stories...

2007-02-26T20:59:00.000+10:30

Woohoo! I just spent the funnest evening... filing!

Well ok not that fun really, but it does feel good getting it out of the way. All part of the Great Cleanout Of 2007. Cleaned out my wardrobe the other day too. Threw out clothes that I have literally had for seven or eight years. In the bin. Yay!

Met Caroline Tran last week.

Paris & I went to a gig at the Corner which we knew she was going to be at. We had the intention of saying hi to her but I pretty much expected it to be a waste of time. Because usually I'm a wuss. And also these things never go as planned.

But I found myself watching the Vasco Era blow everyone away, sandwiched between JJJ's Caroline Tran (Home & Hosed, the J's Australian music show) and RRR's Richard Moffatt (Incoming, RRR's Oz music show). Now is that the holy grail for a Melbourne indie rock chick or what??? So I decided it was now or never...

So I mustered all my braveness and tapped Caroline on the shoulder, just as she was about to walk away. She was really lovely and chatted to me for well longer than she had to about the band, and other musicy, radioy stuff. She totally remembered my band and the name of our EP, and gave some very specific feedback about the music. Which I very much appreciated. I know it would be very easy for someone in her position to piss in my pocket and tell me it's wonderful, but she was very honest and said what she does and doesn't like about it. Upon reflection I wonder whether possibly she thought I was the manager & not a band member, because she kept referring to the band as "they" and not "you". I think she must've figured it out eventually, especially when I said "this is our manager, Paris." But regardless, she was very friendly and I will make sure I keep in touch.

At my sister's birthday party on Sat night I met a guy whose mother now lives in one of the houses I grew up in. Weird. He also grew up in the town I spent my first 10 years in, and his cousin was one of my best friends in primary school. Small world. We caught up on lots of country town goss and spent a lot of time talking about music. He's a guitar player - heavier music than what I do, but an interesting perspective on the industry nonetheless.

I don't think I've talked much about my sister yet, which is weird because we're pretty close. She is seeing a new boy and she's very excited about him. He seems very sweet and they're cute together. I hope it works out, she has not had the best luck with guys recently. I think he will get along well with Adam, although of course he's nowhere near as hilarious. Duh.

They were having a pool party at my parents' place, on the half built deck which is literally bigger than my house. Dad was away on a golf weekend, and had put the fear of god in me that no-one was to walk on the unfinished bits of deck. Yes I'm still scared of my dad. So I acted all grown up and told kids to get off twice. (When I say kids I mean less old adults) I also did other grown up things like make the salad, stay out of the pool (it was freezing!) cook the BBQ and drive home at 12:30am. I'd had a biggish Friday night and woken up with a cold - again - so wasn't really in the mood to be there anyway. So I graciously declined all but one cocktails offered to me and was tucked up in bed by 1am.

Friday night was pretty fun, saw a few bands at the Laundry and caught up with a friend from the business course I did last year. Paris knows him randomly & he was there to see her really, but I managed to monopolise him hehehe. She was too busy off flirting with the guys from the Sydney band who were playing. Not sure whether she scored... I got fed up with drinks being dropped round my ankles (not by me) at about 3am and walked to my car.

Halfway to my car I realised I possibly wasn't sober enough to drive, so bought the biggest bag I could find of Honey Baked Ham chips and scoffed the lot. I possibly still wasn't quite under the limit (yeah i know, how much difference could a bag of chips make anyway? it made complete sense to my almost-sober-enough-to-drive logic though.) but did so anyway without incident.

Set my alarm for early so I could give Chester his tablets, snoozed a bit and ended up giving them to him at quarter past 9, half an hour later than usual. By this time he was huffing and puffing and not interested in food, so the next 20 mins was spent with me shoving tablets mixed with dog food down his throat. Not pleasant for either of us. He spat out one tablet about 12 times until I finally crushed it into a paste and just wiped it all over his mouth so he had to lick it off. It sounds cruel I know, but if he doesn't have those tablets his heart will probably fail so it's for the best. He was pretty crap all day but better by the evening and totally fine the next day. What a pain not being able to sleep in even half an hour!! It will be very nice to be able to share this responsibility eventually.

The Oscars music is making me feel sick, it's so schmalzy!! I think it's time it went off.

Does anyone think Grey's Anatomy may be going down a weird road this year? I don't know, I just have a dodgy feeling about this season so far. All two episodes of it, i know, give it time, but you have to admit the situation with Meredith is a bit silly. I'm still enjoying it, but just wondering whether it's gone too far. As most good things, especially TV shows, eventually do.

BTW - very happy for people to speculate about this but please don't spoil it if you can see into the future!!

The gym is still going well, I've surprised everyone especially myself by continuing to go every day except Sunday. Gym six days a week!!! ME??!!!

I'm improving almost every time, although I did have a few dud cardio workouts last week - just couldn't push as hard as I had the week before. But the last one was much better so hopefully just a temporary slump. I did the Calf Exercises Of Death today so no doubt won't be able to walk for the next 3 days.

Alright I think I've crapped on enough for now... sorry I know everyone else manages beautifully structured posts with a point, but I seem to have a penchant for rambling. Take care chickens!! XO

Open Toasted Sandwich of Awse

2007-02-22T13:47:00.000+10:30

I thought I would share with you something that has been brightening the middle of my day for a few weeks now. Obviously the variations are endless, but this is how I do it!!

OPEN TOASTED SANDWICH OF AWSE
(formerly known as the Open Toasted Sandwich of Awes - Thanks Jac!)

Toast 2 slices of Country Life Performax bread (yes you can use any bread but this stuff is healthy, low GI, blah blah blah & yummy!)
Smear both slices with a layer of low fat cottage cheese (home brand will do)
Add a layer of low fat ham, low fat turkey or one of those yummy little cans of flavoured tuna/salmon. (Put several slices of ham or whatever on each to ensure you get enough protein.)
Add a layer of sliced beetroot (yes from the can - try a low sodium one)
Top with a handful of rocket (Half on each - don't forget to rinse it. If you're not sure, rocket is sort of like lettuce only way tastier. Use lettuce if you prefer. You can buy "wild rocket" in a 100gm pack for $1.98 from Coles. This will be enough for about a week)
Slice some fresh tomato on top of the rocket. (I prefer vine ripened to regular: they're more tasty but a bit more pricey!)
If you grow fresh herbs shred a couple of basil leaves on top, otherwise a sprinkle of the dried stuff will do fine. Or if it's too hard, go without.
Add a smidge of salt - (I prefer Vegie Salt) - and a little grind of black pepper and VOILA!

This is a delicious lunch or even breakfast, with a good balance of protein, carbs & vegies. I'm not going to make any claims as to the fat content etc but I know it is very healthy. Guys can probably use 3 or 4 slices of toast, either make each one a "closed" sandwich, or simply make 3-4 open ones.

This meal could be prepared at work at lunchtime if you have access to a toaster, a sharp knife to cut the tomato, and a fridge to store everything. Oh and a plate would be handy. It only takes about 5 minutes to put together if you have everything in the fridge.

Let me know if you try this... and any tasty variations you come up with!

It has been seven days since my last confession...

2007-02-21T10:37:00.000+10:30

Forgive me bloggers for I have sinned. It has been seven days since my last blog session. Oh well, I never promised to be good at this!!

Ok, so! What's been happening??

Good question! The last week has just flown by - aided no doubt by a visit from a certain handsome ninja over the weekend. Not long to go now kids, only four weeks till I have my ninja back for good. Yay!!

So...

Had a hot dinner date on Valentine's day with... a bunch of nerds. IT nerds, more specifically. It was a production meeting for the radio IT show I work on - very classy - pizza and beer/wine and tech talk. Now is that a hot date or what??? Actually they are all very lovely people and seeing as I would have been alone otherwise what with Adam being in the wrong freaking state, it worked out quite well. And I think we got a lot accomplished at our meeting.

Did a graveyard shift on Thurs night which screwed up my sleeping patterns for a few days. It was so hot I only managed to get four hours sleep after arriving home at 6:30am, so when it came time to pick Adam up from the airport at five past midnight Friday night, I was kind of in a daze. Sparked up a bit when I saw him though!!

We had a great weekend together despite the stifling heat. My valentines gift to him was two tickets to Tenacious D in The Pick Of Destiny diligently mailed up to Brisbane in time for Valentine's day. Which Adam then managed to leave in Brisbane. Fortunately the cinema staff were very understanding and allowed us to see the movie without our tickets. See, that's how charming we are. Anyway the movie was awesome - totally stupid and cheesy but hilarious. Anyone who likes rock or Jack Black should definitely see it!!

After the movie we shopped somewhat successfully for exercise gear and took some "before" photos. Adam and I are going to start a 12-week fitness program as soon as he moves back home, but I thought since I have already started on the weight & cardio training, it might make more sense to take the before shots now, before my body starts to change. We are going to try and do the program exactly by the book, and I'm really excited to see what results we can achieve together.

Then we went to the gym together (are you vomiting yet?) and did our 20 mins cardio before hitting the beach. By this time it was about 5:30pm, it was still stinking hot and the beach was VERY pleasant!! We just walked with our banana lounges to one of the beaches near our house and it was SO nice!! I love the beach so much!!! I'm really gonna miss it if we move...

Mich met us as the sun was sinking. After lounging for a bit longer the three of us decided to head over the Westgate to Williamstown for dinner. We picked a random restaurant and had quite a nice meal, and a glass of wine that went straight to my head. And an ice cream - yum! I don't have ice cream very often any more, it's such a treat!

On Sunday, Adam and I played mums and dads: wearing straw hats, digging holes in the garden, putting a heap of junk on the front lawn, using secateurs... it actually felt great!! I am going through such a cleansing phase at the moment, clearing out all this junk feels terrific.

Then we met the Fianckies (that's what we call them), Sandra and Lee, for a late lunch. They were in between a wedding and a reception, with several hours to kill. Can I just say this is a stupid custom!!! Why do newlyweds need to pose for photos for FOUR HOURS while the guests have to find something else to do? In formal wear, no less. Surely wedding photos should be about capturing the moment, not standing round forcing smiles for hours and hours while your flowers wilt and your makeup runs. And the ceremony was in a family garden as well, so it wasn't like they couldn't have had the wedding just before the reception!!

Anyway, it meant we did get to steal Sandra & Lee for a few hours and have quite a delicious and hilarious lunch of crap-talking. Lee is about the only person I've met who talks as much crap as Adam. Or almost as much. So between them there was much silliness.

I reluctantly took Adam to the airport that evening - it's weird, it should be getting easier because the end is near but it doesn't seem to be. The opposite, even.

Then I went home and wallowed in the first episode of Grey's Anatomy, and flicked between the So You Think You Can Dance finale and whatever the show was called that was on after Grey's. What About Somebody. Anyway I liked it, it was just the sort of crap I enjoy on a Sunday night after a busy weekend.

This week has been business as usual. I have been hitting the gym first thing every morning, which seems to be working well, and on Monday I had a fitness assessment of sorts. Basically he just measured me with a tape measure, didn't use those calliper things or anything, and didn't actually give me the results. But that's ok, at the end of my program at least I'll have something to compare with. The main reason I wanted to see him anyway was to get him to show me the correct way to do several of the exercises in my book, which he did, and was very helpful. He was impressed by my determination and wants to see me at the end of the program to see how I went.

Yesterday I had another singing session with Hayley and we chose another song. Anyone like Fleetwood Mac? Rhiannon it is! We both love Fleetwood Mac and it's got some great stuff for me to work on in it. And I really like the lyrics. Very exciting!! I'm thinking next week we might do something by Camille... a little ambitious maybe, especially as it's mostly in French, but fun to try!!

After my lesson I got waxed as usual, only I got a little more, or a little less, than I expected.

I did a small business course last year and one of the friends I made was a beauty therapist who was opening up a salon. Since it opened I have been getting waxed by her and since the beginning she has been trying to convince me to go Brazilian. I have firmly resisted. All I want is to not have sideburns when I wear a bikini. I'm really not interested in my bits looking like those of a 10 year old! So... every time she waxes me she goes a little bit higher. Normally she's quite subtle about it. This time... well let's just say she has left a tiny strip. And, it hurt like hell!!! Girls, when someone tries to tell you a Brazilian is no more painful than a regular bikini wax, it just goes for longer, don't listen!!! Some of those bits are very sensitive!!! Ouch!!

Now... if I just had someone in the same freakin state to appreciate her handiwork, it might be worth it!!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

2007-02-14T11:58:00.000+10:30

Yes, I know, it is easy to be cynical about this commercially-driven forced day of amour, but let's face it - what girl doesn't love receiving flowers??

Here's what I got...

Like my attempts at fancy photography?

Thanks Adam!! XO

10 Things I Hate About Today

2007-02-13T20:35:00.000+10:30

1. Woke up with a sore throat.

2. Can barely walk due to doing calf exercises yesterday for the first time ever.

3. Chester crapped on the carpet. Again. I just got the smell out from last time.

4. Smashed a glass while barefoot.

5. Lix Gelati on Chapel St has become Kebab Mania. (Good thing we left South Yarra)

6. Trying to transfer a track from my minidisc to my PC took about two hours. Sony suck.

7. Once I finally transferred the track, emailing it took another two hours. Outlook sucks.

8. A friend emailed me saying her partner is suffering some alarming depression symptoms. Just after I read the email another friend called me & talked for an hour about her depression.

9. Driving in peak hour in a manual sucks.

10. The video shop didn't have Sex & The City series 4, or Grey's Anatomy series 2.

I could go on. Shitty day. Sorry.

On the plus side...

1. The hairdresser gave me a refund for overcharging me the other day.

2. I made it to the express post box just as the mailman was emptying it at 2 minutes to 6.

3. Chester is much less sick than he was on Sunday.

4. I had the opportunity to give feedback - positive and negative - about two new mixes on the album. And so far it has been taken on board.

5. I got a CD review done that I have been putting off for a week (didn't like the album).

6. I only got charged $2 for the DVD I returned because it was scratched to shit and some episodes unwatchable.

7. The band bank account almost has enough in it to pay all our bills. (I have been worried it wouldn't get close)

8. Tonight's rehearsal was cancelled. Sore throat + calf muscles = really can't be bothered.

9. I got the sore throat 3 days after the gig instead of before (like usual).

10. Three more sleeps till I see Adam.

It may sound like I lead a pathetic small life. Some of you are thinking - geez, if they're your worst problems, you've got it made. You may be right. But every now and then everyone loses perspective, and what may be small things in isolation can snowball and become a Very Bad Day. Hopefully tomorrow will be better...

Let me tell you about my weekend...

2007-02-12T21:01:00.000+10:30

On Saturday night the band had a gig. Soundcheck was at 6:40pm (don't ask why!) and I was aiming to get there at 6.

Five outfit changes and three makeup redos later, I arrive at the venue at exactly 6:40. That's why I was aiming for 6.

Perfect timing though, I got one of the boys to lug all my heavy shit upstairs while I carried the small stuff. Ric laughed when he saw me. I couldn't work out why. He said "nice outfit," and laughed. "Are you being sarcastic?" I asked. He said no but I didn't believe him. Later he told me it was because my dress matched my hair. He was trying to work out whether I got the dress to match the hair or vice versa. He was right, actually, I tried on the dress immediately after getting my hair coloured, and the fact that it matched my hair sealed the deal.

So we soundchecked and went for dinner and for once Paris was reasonably on time to meet us for dinner. We had some stuff to discuss over dinner.

We chose a restaurant in Chinatown at random, and the menu actually had some really interesting, yummy looking food on it. Weird system though - you had to write your own order down along with any special instructions on an order pad, and then flag down the waitress, who would enter it into a computer. She came back two minutes later saying they had run out of #11 and #14. Both dumplings. Bummer.

We settled on fried wontons and Paris pulled out mock-ups for the album artwork. We were all seriously impressed, especially since we were not particularly happy with the previous EP 's artwork. This process of having several samples made up for us to consider seems much better than having just the one design to try and make changes on. You can see some of the artist's work here.

We also talked about our plans for the next few months, which boil down to keeping on working on building a live following. Whoa. Is that a sentence? Anyway, making sure we pick the right shows, playing the right venues with the right bands, and making sure the show is the best it can possibly be. And get the album finished and try to find interested parties to finance the release. But realistically, no-one's going to be that interested until we have a really strong live following. And then they will come to us, not the other way round. So that's where the focus has to be.

Two of the boys surprised me by saying they had kicked a bunch more money into the band account so it looks like we will be able to pay the producer, the manager, the visual artist & the drummer in the short term. Phew!

Alright, alright, enough of the business crap. How was the show???

Well... probably depends who you ask. But personally I had a great one and the audience seemed to love it. Several broken guitar strings were problematic for Tom (typically, the one time he didn't bring a spare guitar) but in terms of pacing and energy I reckon we pretty much nailed it. And I could hear my vocals for once!!! Way to go, Stu the sound guy!!

Got another humungous bruise on my leg from the tambourine. If I keep this up I will never wear a bikini again. Seriously considering a steel thigh implant.

The band after us were a bit too cock rock for my liking and surprisingly, too cock rock for my bogan cousin & his mates' liking too! So I spent their set chatting & drinking and realising that - I probably shouldn't drive home. So I made enquiries about leaving my gear at the venue for the night and continued drinking & chatting. This seems to be happening more frequently these days. Perhaps I am becoming a rock star. Or maybe just an alcoholic...

Well the rest of the night is a bit of a blur but I know I met my sister's new man, made friends with some random guys and accompanied them to a different club in the city. Lost them, made friends with a guy with a bunch of metal in his face. Must've talked to him for a long time and I remember dancing and then deciding he was getting a little full on and leaving. Back to the venue where the party was still kicking on. Found Paris who offered to drive me to somewhere I could get a cab from. Drove me four city blocks - about two minutes. Then talked at me for 20 minutes. Oh, I was probably crapping on too, but in my fuzzy memory it feels like she talked at me. Boy problems I think. She then proceeded to hail me a cab from inside her car and I went home. My bedside clock said 6am. Jesus.

Sunday. Hungover. Tired.

Had set alarm for 10am to give Chester his medication. Hit snooze for 25 mins. By the time he got his tablets he was wheezing and panting like an old man. Which he would continue to do for the rest of the day. Good one. Go out and get shitfaced and then almost kill the dog. Nice.

Wanted to go back to bed but needed the loo first. Then needed peanut butter toast. Super crunchy. Ended up on the couch watching Sex & The City. For 12 hours. Except for an interlude where I had to pick up my car from the city. And eat a Bacon Double Cheeseburger Deluxe meal. Regular. Yuck. For some reason I always crave these when hungover. Then regret them immediately. Idiot.

Completely blew off the St Kilda festival - no way I could deal with crowds and more public transport and the wind in my state. It was SO windy!! I thought my bus stop was going to get blown away when I was going to the city!

So I spent the day with Carrie & co feeling fairly sorry for myself. What a sook.

There were a few serious questions going through my head though. Such as: Why do I do this to myself? How was Adam going to feel about me spending a crazy fun night hanging out with multiple random guys until dawn? What happened to all the cash in my purse? How much and what did I actually drink? What actually went on between the hours of midnight and 6am? Why do I always have these crazy nights on my own instead of with Adam? Was my gear/car going to still be there when I went to pick them up? Was Chester going to make it through the night? Who will Carrie end up with: Mr Big, Aiden or neither? (don't tell me!! I haven't seen it yet)...

Some of them were answered in time:

Adam was fairly ok about it but we talked at length about it and I think we need to have a big crazy night together sometime soon. And live in the same state as each other soon.
I had given a chunk of cash to the sound guy as we hadn't been paid by the venue yet. This will be reimbursed - yay! So I didn't actually spend that much... which means...
I didn't pay for that many drinks. Still don't know how much I actually drank. I know there was a significant quantity of the house white consumed. It was the nicest house wine I've ever had!! Seriously.
The car and gear were both fine.
Chester was heaps better on Monday.
And yes, I still don't know who she ends up with...

Neko Case @ The Prince

2007-02-10T14:21:00.000+10:30

Ok, here is the promised review...

Neko Case @ The Prince
Fri 2nd Feb, 2007

by Aussie Rock Chick

Neko Case emerged on stage at the sold out Prince Bandroom without much fanfare, her signature ginger hair in two braids down her back topped with a beret. Sporting a grey t-shirt and black pedal pushers with chuck taylors, she looked casual and comfortable, but funky.

The rest of the band were suited up and they commenced the set with barely a word. They didn’t need an introduction – the music was enough. After three breathtaking opening numbers they paused, Neko taking the opportunity to introduce a key member of her band.

Kelly Hogan was Neko’s backing singer, gorgeously voluptuous in a black suit jacket & skirt, red heels and a hint of red lace at the bosom. Dark, wavy hair swept back in a graceful knot with a few wisps framing her face, but those eyes… oh those eyes… big, dark, moist, dreamy eyes, gazing out into the crowd. From the opening bars, I had a complete crush on Kelly Hogan.

“Ms Hogan is playing the part of the Executive Secretary tonight,” Neko quipped. “And I’m the bicycle messenger. Well, either that or Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas. Except these are my real tits!”

Throughout the show, the pair enacted their secretary/courier fantasies, the band joining in at one point with “banjo porn music”. Which was hilarious. I hadn’t expected a comedy act!

But the highlight of the show was certainly not the comedy; we were all there for the music. And they delivered!

The voice was what got you right in the chest. Truly lungs of steel, Neko’s voice has an almost bell-like quality which cuts straight through to your heart. According to my singing teacher friend, her technique is all wrong, but somehow, it works. When I first heard Neko’s voice on record, I thought “now that’s a real voice. I bet she sounds great live.” I was right. When she switches unexpectedly from chest voice to head voice it makes you melt. And with such confidence, control and command of the stage, her voice, and the guitar, she really is a born performer.

Kelly’s backing vocals made the show for me personally though. Being a backing singer myself, I am often disappointed when all those wonderful harmonies on an album don’t translate to the live show. Tonight, not only were there harmonies, but there was a dedicated backing singer with the sweetest, most divine voice, to really do it justice. I got the feeling no-one in the world could have delivered those harmonies so beautifully and blended so well with Neko Case as Kelly Hogan. Wow.

The rhythm section consisted of electric guitar, upright bass and drums, with Neko joining in on her acoustic tenor guitar in most songs.

John Rauhouse, the banjo & lap steel guitar player was also amazing. He had an incredible sense of time and pitch, bending and stretching both liberally – giving the songs movement, colour and feeling. There was certainly plenty of feeling.

Each and every “sad animal song” was infused with that melancholy mixed with hope, leaving you with the bittersweet feeling that even if your heart gets broken a thousand times it would be ok with this music.

Die-hard fans squealed to the opening strains of each and every song, but a special roar was given for Deep Red Bells, John The Baptist, Hold On Hold On and That Teenage Feeling amongst others. I was impressed that songs from her latest album, Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, received as strong a reception as old favourites.

Being the final night of the tour, Neko graced us with four encores, and never once did I think “Oh, no, not another one!!”. This was one incredible show and I will certainly be lining up for tickets the next time Neko Case brings her band to town.

Uncanny... no? (sorry couldn't find a pic of Neko with braids to freak you out even more...)

Hair!

2007-02-09T15:38:00.000+10:30

WOOOO!!!! I have new hair!! I figured since I've had the same style for a while now, and my sister recently got pretty much the exact same cut, it was time for a change.

And change I did!

Here's a sneaky peek:

Ok so it's not the most flattering angle (makes my chest looks huge!!) but you get the idea. PINK & PURPLE!!! Yay!!!

Weird since I have been wearing so much red lately... but I just had pink in my head for some reason. The hairdresser assured me it won't clash and I think she's right, it looks ok next to my red singlet - kind of gerbera colours I suppose.

Yesterday I forgot some news... Sandra (v. good friend, recently engaged) asked me to play piano as she walks down the aisle. "Are you sure??" I said, a bit shocked. She has never really seen me play piano, only keyboards in a rock band. But she has faith that I will do a good job and I'm extremely flattered. I'm guessing she didn't read my post about playing at that disastrous funeral recently... thank goodness she's not an internerd!! But that was with 2 days notice, for this one I have 14 months, so it should be enough!

So. Now I don't have to feel left out of the whole thing (several other close friends are bridesmaids) and I don't have to go through the rigmarole of dress fittings, photo shoots, etc. I can do my little 2 min bit and then enjoy the rest of the day with Adam etc. YAY!

Ok, off to St Kilda shortly for a beach party - part of the St Kilda Festival on this weekend. Paris is organising the bands etc for tonight so I want to support her - plus - it's a fabulous day!! What more could a rock chick want... beach, bands, beer (or some less yeasty substitute... mmm vodka...) and the best of them all - SUNSHINE!!!

Happy place! :-)

A new leaf...

2007-02-08T23:52:00.000+10:30

When Adam comes back to Melbourne, we are going to look for a new house. One where we can both have our own studio space to work on our passions/hobbies/businesses.

When I get my new studio I think I would like to paint it yellow:

You Should Paint Your Room Yellow

Bright and bold, yellow is truly the color of inspiration.
Your yellow room will drive you to think clearly, develop new ideas, and be organized.
Yellow is also energizing and very powerful. So don't expect to rest in there!

What Color Should You Paint Your Room?

I feel as if the new year is the start of a new chapter for me. At 28 it's time to pull the finger out and make those dreams come true before it's too late. So the past few weeks have involved quite a bit of soul-searching and list-making (i love lists) .

A list of personal goals was the starting point. The rule was that they had to be goals which didn't rely on anyone (or anything) else to achieve. So "have a #1 record" was out. I came up with 8 or so things that I really want to achieve this year and gave each one a time frame. They are all things that have been floating round my head but none of them really had a deadline or action plan attached. Now, they do. I'm excited!!

It is going to be tough, I am not the most disciplined person, but I think the way I have broken everything down to a daily level of what needs to be done will make it easier to not get distracted. I very much need things in bite-sized chunks. If the task seems too hard or I don't see results I quickly become discouraged.

So... it started this week and so far so good. I have already done more piano practice this week than I probably did in the previous month. Plus guitar and singing.

I have also been to the gym every day. My new gym plan, BTW is to alternate cardio & weight training so I do a little each day rather than everything a few times a week. When I have to do everything it takes too long and by the time I get to the end I'm completely over it and get slack. So this week, for the first time since I started going to the gym four weeks ago, I have been able to do 20 mins of cardio!!! This is a breakthrough for me, previously I did 10 mins and thought I was going to die. I know it sounds pathetic but I haven't exercised regularly for a long time. The trick has been to increase and decrease the resistance on the bike/cross trainer in a saw-tooth pattern:
So you increase the difficulty in 1 min intervals and then after you've hit the hardest one for a minute drop it back to the lowest one for a minute & work your way up again. I know most bikes etc have a workout roughly like this built in but I think I prefer doing it manually because I am in control of it and have to be the one to push myself harder. Anyway it's working well for me so far!!

Another goal has been clearing out clutter - I know D'Jen was talking about doing that recently - must be in the air!! I have started by selling a bunch of books we don't need on Ebay - it's the first time I've been a seller and going ok so far. Quite time-consuming by the time you photograph the books, type up the blurb, etc, but since time is one thing I do have, it's worth it. Next step is to sell some other, trickier, stuff, like excess musical equipment, random slide projectors and pretty much anything else not bolted down. I am a hoarder big time so it's hard to let go of things, but I know I'm going to feel much better when it's done. Why do I need a blow up purple plastic couch under my bed gathering dust??? Why??? So, Ebay + Hard Rubbish Collection and/or Garage Sale = Happiness.

Anyway I will fill you in more about my goals as time goes on but it's an exciting new start!!!

Other things going on...

Adam has been not well. Some sort of infection causing quite a lot of pain. He will probably kill me for telling you. Since he likes to think he's invincible. Please make sure they play something nice at my funeral. No Whitney Houston crap, okay? Anyway, he has to go for an ultra-sound tomorrow. Sounds pretty serious, doesn't it? Hmmm we will see... (It is very hard not being there when your partner is sick. Who's going to hold his hand in the waiting room? Yes, I'm such a girl!)

Chester has been pretty stable, his poor little heart hasn't exploded yet. He had a bad coughing day today, I gave him cough mixture in the morning to soothe it a bit. He left me two presents on Tuesday. Right next to the Sex & the City DVD case*. Good thing it's a rental. Hopefully they won't notice if it smells a bit like dog shit!

*Chester has this weird thing where he has to poo in the most uncomfortable places. Usually not in the house but every now and then if he doesn't get walked he will. But not on the lino in the kitchen or the bathroom, always on in a carpeted room, and very often on a DVD case. I don't know why, something in his training must tell him not to do it on the carpet but there's a crossed wire somewhere. Once he even did it on one of my keyboards. Ew. And when he goes outside, he doesn't just pick a nice patch of grass to poo on. No, he has to pick the spikiest twig or weed to back up to... it must be so uncomfortable!! But every time without fail, he does it. Bizarre little creature, he is. But SO adorable!!!

Just look how freakin' cute he is would you!!!

Chester The Cutest Dog In The Whole Wide World curled up on a beanbag with my dirty clothes... awww...

Hmm what else?

Oh, saw Dr McSleazy going into the gym the other day as I was on my way out. Looking forward to running into him in there.

Band things have been... up and down. Rehearsal was pretty good on Tuesday but took me a while to snap out of the feral mood I got in when I found out the thing I had waited over a week for which was supposed to supply power to my new mic was the wrong thing. It did technically supply power as required, but it also complicated things a whole lot unecessarily. For those in the know I was sold a pre-amp instead of a simple phantom power supply. And to run the mic through the pre-amp on stage would require a DI, or for the pre-amp to be at the mixing desk. Which is not what I wanted. I just need a simple 48v phantom power supply. Today I got a refund and will be buying the thing elsewhere. I must learn you can't rely on people in shops to sell you the right thing. But it's hard when you don't know what you're talking about!! You assume they do...

Almost got in a fight with Paris the other day, she sent an email asking for certain things to be done and I felt like she was starting to delegate her entire job to me and I got over it. There are some things I'm totally happy to do like putting up posters and spending time on myspace, but liaising with our publicist... I don't think that's my job. Same goes for ordering posters from the printer. I'm happy to pick them up and distribute them and all that, but I don't see why I should be doing the negotiating. That's why we have a manager!! On the other hand I understand that she's only one person and working for not much money so she does need to delegate some things. It was just bad timing, there were too many things in the last week that pissed me off just a little bit, and this was the proverbial straw.

Anyway I called her rather than playing email tennis and managed to talk it out in a non-fighty way. I'm not very good at sticking up for myself but I think I got my point across.

Got an email from Tom today to everyone in the band and Paris, asking us individually to name the three songs of our repertoire that we think represent the "present and future direction of the band and why". Interesting question. I, being difficult, gave two answers. One for where I feel we're being "guided" to at the moment, and one for where I'd prefer we were heading. He said "this is not a test, nor is it an expression of what will/won't be on the album, i'm just curious in regards to peoples impression of where we are and where we're going". Hmmmm... so what happens, Tom, when everyone has a different impression of where we are and where we are going? And are you going to share your impression with us??

Sometimes I feel like there is a grand plan in his head and the rest of us only find out each clue as we need it, if that makes sense. So perhaps this question is a part of some bigger picture...

After I sent my response I sent another email saying I'd very much like to hear his response to his own question. Because honestly I really have no idea. Especially as he spent last week mixing album tracks so I don't even know how half of them sound now or which ones he's excited about.

You should see the bruise on my thigh. From tambourining. I was going to give you a picture but decided the internet would probably break if subjected to a close-up shot of my white flabby bruised thigh. Suffice to say the bruise is bigger than my fist. Ouch!!!

Ok - a gold star to you if you got through this one... I swear I should write a novel not a blog, but anyway! Time to turn my computer off and curl up with Chester and an episode of a slightly smelly Sex and the City (I'm up to series 3 by the way. Bring back Big - I miss him!).

Over & out.

Tagged!

2007-02-06T17:44:00.000+10:30

Ok there is a giant game of kiss-chasy going on... without the kissing! And now I'm IT!

Five Useless Facts You Probably Don't Know About Me
(tagged by Deb - thanks dear!)

1. I have OCD tendencies
Not the usual ones like being tidy/washing hands/turning lights on and off, but odd ones. I have to have my linen closet perfect. All the towels facing the same way, in colour order etc. I always put my left shoe on first (or if I don't I feel weird). My work desk used to be very tidy with everything at right angles. Adam can probably tell you a few more... The weird thing is that the rest of the time I am actually a fairly messy person!

2. I didn't kiss a boy till I was 17
Sad but true. My friends in year 12 ended up organising a party specifically to pop my kissing cherry. So there I am at this party having a good time and then all of a sudden everyone went inside leaving me standing there with some random guy I'd never met. "This is it!" I told myself, skulled my vodka & raspberry UDL, and went for it.

He was really quite drunk and it was really quite gross. I spent the entire next day feeling ill every time I thought about it! Thank god all kisses aren't like the first one...

3. I was once on a TV gameshow called RocKwiz.
Dave McCormack was my "celebrity". He was a dude. Our team won. Yay us!

4. My p0rn name is Nobby Outlook

5. My p0rn name is Nobby Outlook because my first pet was a sheep called Nobby (yes, really) and my first street was The Outlook, Glen Waverley.
Nobby was cute, he used to follow me round and chew on my clothes. I cried when he was shorn for the first time because I thought they had taken away Nobby and bought back a different lamb - he was so much littler without all that wool!

NB Not an actual photo of Nobby. I don't have any *sniff*. This one's cute though!!

Hmmm who to tag next... oh the pressure!! Must choose someone good...
Ok, how's about Chesty LaRue, Sloth, Meva, I'm Not Craig, and Amanda?

Pick up after yourselves!!

2007-02-05T12:42:00.000+10:30

It was a gorgeous walk to and from the gym this morning... except for this:

Rubbish everywhere!!! It always happens after a weekend of fabulous beach weather (which this one was) - dozens of families flock to my little local beach and have a wonderful time, which is great, but I don't think they know what a bin is.

The council has recently stamped the walking track along the beach with big signs telling us to pick up after our dogs - penalty $200. I think. Interestingly, I use this path all the time and have never seen dog shit on it. Pet owners tend to be pretty responsible about these things, and yet tend to cop the most flack.

How about signs on the grassed area saying "Pick up your own shit - penalty $200"??? There certainly needs to be some education especially for the kids, about what happens when their rubbish gets left on the foreshore. But it should be obvious. The photos above of all the junk floating in the water - you can't tell, but I saw a cute little fish swimming round in amongst it. Yuck!!! They shouldn't have to put up with that! Neither should all the birds and other wildlife that makes the area so lovely. Take some responsibility people!!! Maybe kids don't know better but their parents certainly should!

Your help please...

2007-02-04T12:24:00.000+10:30

Ok so as part of my quest to be a better rock chick, I have decided to form a duo of sorts with my friend Hayley. Hayley and I studied music together at uni, and she's a great singer/singing teacher. Over the past few years I have had singing lessons with her on and off - which usually translated to singing for half an hour and then catching up on the latest gossip for another two hours. Which was fun but maybe not overly productive.

Now that I am having lessons from Mr Expert, I have decided to get together with Hayley once a week and practise songs that we can perform together. My goal by mid year is to have a repertoire of 12 songs that we can play at performance level. Whether or not we do an actual performance, I need the pressure of a deadline and regular rehearsals to get this happening.

So, we are meeting on Tuesday for the first time, and I want us to pick our first 6 songs to work on. This is where you guys come in. I would love your suggestions, dear bloggers, on what songs could work as an acoustic duet for two girls.

To give you an idea I'm thinking we'll probably do a Neko Case song, and we'll look at other current girl sings like Martha Wainwright, Feist, etc. But I'm very open to suggestion - nothing too cheesy please!! You might even know of a song sung by a guy that could work well sung by girls. Either a duet or something with killer backing harmonies would be idea. The classics or current stuff will all be considered... but bear in mind it has to be able to be performed by 2 girls with acoustic guitars and maybe a piano/tambourine. No cheesy backing tracks thanks!! So "U Can't Touch This" is out I'm afraid!

Ok it's all yours...

Wow.

2007-02-03T00:10:00.000+10:30

Oh my god I had to pop in just to tell you how fucking good Neko Case was!!!

Wow!!

I got home and immediately wrote four pages about it, but I need to organise it a bit better so won't post it yet. But she was incredible. And I am completely in love with and/or want to be her backing singer, Kelly Hogan. She was absolutely gorgeous with a stunning voice. But brilliant musicians the lot of them, and Neko's voice did not disappoint. Everything I hoped it to be and then some.

Until I get sorted I give you this...

Unfortunately you don't get to see the rest of the band, but you get the idea. Yes it is a little bit country. But the good kind...

WTF is that??

2007-02-02T13:10:00.000+10:30

That, my friends, is my bruised as fuck patella. Evidence of the glamorous rockstar lifestyle I lead. (...oh to have roadies so my amp didn't bang against my kneecaps as I carry it down two flights of stairs and halfway down Chapel st to my car...)

Yes, it has been an interesting week in rock.

Last night's gig at a "trendy" Chapel street club was quite successful, if you exclude the following:
-the guitarist's $107 parking fine
-my bruised kneecaps
-the singer's displeasure at having spent half the day driving round to pick up a bunch of drums and amps, only to find out when we got there that we were supposed to use the other band's gear. our manager should have told us this.
-the time when I hit a nerve in my hand by whacking it with the tambourine in the opening bar of a song, causing pins and needles and numbness to shoot down my hand and arm. The little finger was numb for the entire song. I soldiered on.
-the stage was so small I had to stand virtually on top of the guitarist and have his amp blaring in my ear along with the drums. My left ear is still ringing.
-the stage was so small i had to set up one of my keyboards behind me and had to play it with my back to the audience.

But other than all that, yes, it went well.

The crowd was funny... all 18 year olds, very "cool" in all their leggings, balloon skirts, VERY short shorts & skirts, overall thingys, etc you know what I'm talking about. Especially you, Mars. I wore leggings under my dress to try and fit in and/or avoid flashing my undies at poor unsuspecting punters when i sit down at the piano. I needn't have worried, the stage was so small i couldn't even sit down at the piano. I had to stand up like someone in an actual rock band. Oh the indignity!! But yes lots of Paris Hilton wannabes... which we picked on mercilessly and then got the fuck outta there. As Ric said "I have to go, it's like Schoolies Week in here!!"

Hmm what else?

Oh yes, I had a mini-tanty earlier in the week when I was cc'd into an email to our graphic designer/artist guy. He is sketching some ideas for our album artwork and wanted titles to work with. So I saw this email that said "here are the album and track titles." We have not yet discussed album titles or which tracks will be on it... so of course I baulked at this. I sent a somewhat bitchy email saying I thought we were in a "band". Who decides things together. Turns out the guy just needed any old text to work with so Paris had plucked one of the four title ideas Tom had thrown her way many months ago and put it together with a list of songs just so the guy could have some text to put in the designs. Still, I'm glad I said what I said. Because earlier in the week I was told, not consulted, that two particular songs won't be on the album. I don't have a problem with them not being on there, but I find it hard being told not asked. But because I thought it was a good decision anyway, I let it slide. But I wasn't about to let something as important as the album title slide. I don't want to be a puppet - if we are all contributing equally financially plus I put in a damn lot more time & effort than most, I want to be included on important decisions thanks!!! There that's my rant.

The album is almost almost done... I recorded my last little bits last weekend - tambourine, a few keyboard bits and vocals for one song - and it is being mixed this week. Well, since they spent the first 2 days on one song, I doubt it will be finished this week. Which is typical. These things always drag on WAY longer than they should. We really need to get a deal with some money in it soon so we can get some deadlines happening. At the moment it feels like there's not much urgency as once it's finished we can't afford to get it mastered, let alone promote it anyway. Ho hum money is so boring. I wish it grew on trees.

Oh yeah I had a singing lesson with a new teacher on Tuesday - the one my voice pathologist referred me to. He was really good, spent a whole hour analysing what's going on with my voice and he hit a lot of nails on a lot of heads if you know what I mean. He seems pretty confident that he can make me into a brilliant rock singer yeah yeah. I had to sing a whole song to him, by myself. I don't think I've ever really done that before. It was scary as hell. But certainly highilghted all my weaknesses!! To start with I am going to have lessons with another girl with similar problems to mine, her claim to fame is she came in the top 70 of Australian Idol, I think in 2002 or something. La di da!

Going to see Neko Case tonight at the Prince. Can't wait for that!! Taking my friend Hayley with me, she knows nothing about her but is excited to see a successful female singer up there doing her thing. Hayley is an incredible singer herself, I've probably told you about her before, she does an amazing Eva Cassidy tribute show, but she wants to improve the non-singing aspects of her show. You know, the onstage banter and all that. I think she'll find Neko very inspiring - not sure about her banter, but just that she is quite unique and has an amazing, individual voice and writes great songs as well as interpreting others'. And I have heard some of her recently released live album and she sounds as great live as she does on record.

My knees hurt. I'm going to the beach.

"So sweet," huh?

2007-01-29T22:16:00.000+10:30

On Sunday I received a message on my phone. The subject read:

Look out.

It then featured this photo:

with the caption: "I'm coming to get you!"

So it's not enough that I get bitten by a donkey, now I am being stalked by one too. Great.

The Auction

2007-01-25T00:33:00.000+10:30

One armadillo for both warts, going once, going twice...

(Adam I expect prompt delivery on purchase. I'm a bit worried about how Chester's going to get along with the armadillo. It will be much bigger than him. And they both eat ants.)

Galaxies

2007-01-23T16:29:00.000+10:30

Over the past 24 hours, Adam and I have had some very tough conversations. The long distance thing is starting to take its toll and we are both a bit fed up with it. The financial strain is difficult for us both to deal with and there are still some unresolved issues from the past floating around. We both had a pretty shitty week.

communicating about feelings and emotional stuff is difficult, but we gave it our best shot and I think we're both feeling a bit better. I am very confident that we will be able to ride out the next few months and things will improve greatly once we're both in the same state. We are a great team and I think once we get past this difficult first bit, 2007's going to be a great year for us.

Tonight, I am doing something which I am very excited about. Laura Veirs is playing at the Corner Hotel and I will be there. Unfortunately I am going alone, but that's ok, as long as I get to see her play I'll be happy.

The reason I've brought this up is that I was listening to her latest CD today, Year Of Meteors, and the lyrics of this song are a beautiful description of what it's like to be in love with someone as beautiful as Adam:

When you sing, when you sing
The stars fill up my eyes
Galaxies pour down my cheeks
Galaxies!
Galaxies they flood the street
Galaxies!

When we dance, when we dance
Eels and seagrass float on by
I'm ten thousand leagues beneath the sea
Ten thousand leagues!
Ten thousand leagues beneath the green
Ten thousand leagues!

When we kiss, when we kiss
Bears and boulders vibrate through the air
Gravity is dead you see
No gravity!
All I need is beating red
No gravity!

Hee-haw!

2007-01-22T13:13:00.000+10:30

Yesterday, a donkey bit me.

Here are some pictures of the fucker:

Yes, looks all sweet and innocent doesn't he? Yeah, right. I've seen Shrek.

Yesterday I also started an auction here (scroll down). Please feel free to bid...

Wart do you want? (practising bad puns for when I become editor of Odd Spot)

2007-01-20T14:46:00.000+10:30

About a week ago I discovered a growth on my thumb. It didn't belong and was a bit tender to touch. I suspected it might be a wart. I know, ew.

Let me tell you I have never had warts, and I don't intend to start now. Warts belong on witches and toads, not on me.

It looked not unlike this:

Fig 1: Not actual thumb depicted, this is another similar growth that has since appeared on my middle finger. But this is what it did look like. Not much, just a little red raised lump. Like my macro work, Deb?

So, I went immediately to the Chemist and asked if she had something for warts. I didn't even want to say it out loud, it's such an icky word.

She examined my thumb and said it didn't look like a wart. Warts are hairy. I asked what else it could be. She said maybe it was a blister. It was not a blister.

So I got the wart stuff and went home. It is quite complicated - you have to put something around the wart to protect the rest of your skin, then apply the stuff, and then cover with a bandaid. And then try not to get it wet. Yeah right.

I used clear nail polish around it as suggested, and diligently applied the stuff every day for a week. I did get it wet, you can't really help that with showers and hand washing and such.

Now, it looks like this:

Fig 2: Actual thumb depicted.

Notice how red and angry looking the thing is? It hurts like buggery. I have effectively been burning a hole in my thumb with acid. Now I don't really know what to do about it. Continue until there is no sign of a wart left or I reach bone, whichever comes sooner? Put burn cream on it to try and heal it? It looks like it will scar, so now rather than having a big ugly wart on my thumb I will have a big ugly scar. Just what a pianist needs!

And if you read the fineprint earlier you will have noticed that another one of these growths has sprung up on my middle finger of the other hand. I'm not burning this one off, I'll wait and see what it does.

If anyone has any experience with warts and/or is a dermatologist - please help??? I was so afraid of having ugly warty hands that I may have made a big mistake trying to burn this thing off...

In other news I am cranky with Chester today because he did a big pee on the carpet right by the front door. And this is not an isolated incident - he has done several pees in the house recently. The annoying thing is I can't really even tell him off, it's not his fault.

Chester is totally housetrained and knows not to pee inside. He can usually hold on for a very long time - all night and then some. Since he started collapsing etc, the vet told me to keep him out of the heat, and not take him for walks (there is a strong possibility something around his heart could explode). So I have been keeping him inside a lot. Also when I try to put him outside when I go out, he often refuses to come. And I am a big softie and let him stay inside. Furthermore, he is on fluid tablets which should make him pee more.

So when I went to the gym and it was raining, I let him in the house, and came home to wet carpet. Not his fault really. He is currently outside, squeaking to be let in. I am being strong.

Yes, the gym, I went again today! That's three times this week. It was a good workout today, short and to the point. There was a girl there doing some amazing balancing stuff on one of those fitballs, and I wondered whether she is a gymnast or circus performer. I must have been staring because a middle-aged sweaty man asked me whether I can do that. "Nowhere near," I replied, startled out of my circus fantasy.

I was a bit annoyed because my i-pod shuffle that I used once before it stopped working has been fixed - YAY - but I forgot to bring it - BOO! Putting it in the gym bag right now so I can't forget again.

I bought two tambourines yesterday. Our producer has always complained that mine sounds shit on tape (even though it has cool gold stars on it) and a tambourine part is the last thing I have left to record on the album. So I went to buy a new one and was shocked by just how many different sounding tambourines there are. I thought it would be a straightforward purchase!!! In the end I couldn't decide and they are pretty cheap so I got two - both wooden, one mahogany with one row of "jingles" and one plywood I think, something cheaper, but with two rows of jingles. The one I already have is a RhythmTech, that is the standard professional tambourine and costs 3 times as much as the others I bought. So I am skeptical about whether they'll be better. I asked Robbie about it later, and he said it's not necessarily the brand, but each individual tambourine sounds different. So you can get good RhythmTech ones and bad ones. You have to go through the whole box. Apparently. I'm sure I couldn't hear the difference between them, but there is a surprising amount of difference between the different brands/styles. So we'll see how we go. Surely with 3 options we'll find something that works...

Last night I went to a new little jazz club in the city to see a friend's band play. He's a sax player. And actually he's my ex-boyfriend. Another one. From a very long time ago. Let's call him Grooveboy... (Aha! she finally figured out that if you don't use real names you can say juicy stuff about people!)

So, I went on my own and got there as they were just about to start. I found a stool at the bar & ordered a glass of white wine and watched the first few songs. And thought to myself - it's so weird, I really loved that guy once. I'd say he was my first real love. And you know how that goes, so fierce and naive. And now, I don't. At all.

It's funny what years and life experience can do. I mean I am still friends with the guy, don't see him all that often but I did go to his wedding (well, one of three - long story but he met an English girl on a cruise ship and that meant three wedding ceremonies). Watching him play used to fill me with such pride and admiration, now mostly what I feel is irritation - his ego is so huge, he really gets off on himself and I find that quite annoying.

Interestingly, so does his wife sometimes. She is a blonde dancer who is very down to earth and I think is great for him because she keeps him grounded. During one prolonged solo bit she rolled her eyes and whispered in my ear "Get on with it then! God, he can be SO self-indulgent. This bit gets longer and longer every time!". I had to laugh.

And I had to laugh even harder, albeit on the inside, when I heard about her latest job. She couldn't tell me in front of his parents, she had to whisper that she's working at the Men's Gallery. At first I thought she meant bar tending but it became apparent that she meant dancing... or stripping.

Excellent money apparently.

I didn't ask too many questions although I wish now that I had. I do know that she doesn't make as much as some of the girls because she's not "plastic fantastic" - ie she has a very nice but normal body. But she doesn't leave before she's made $300 a night. And the girls have to pay to work there - I think it was $60/night, so she has to cover that and then start on her $300.

I wonder whether I could do something like that. I don't think so. I'd have to be pretty desperate I think. But if you were a dancer and had lots of confidence I guess it would be easy money...

Four weddings and a...

2007-01-18T16:50:00.000+10:30

It has been a bit of a sombre week.

Bushfires are still raging out of control across Victoria, we have had power outages across the state, it is hot as hell and no-one's allowed to use water. The city is still covered in smoke. Closer to home, Chester has been a rather sick puppy, and my sister's friend's housemate died tragically a few days ago. So when I got a phone call to ask if I could play piano at a funeral, I somehow was not surprised.

I didn't know who the funeral was for, nor did I know the singer I was to play with, and I only had two days to prepare. Well, more like two hours when you consider I spent all of yesterday recording and rehearsing, and I had to be there at 1pm today.

So the whole thing was very underprepared and I felt a bit bad for the family. Not that we completely cocked it up, I think we got away with it, but it wasn't the best performance of my life, that's for sure!!

Apologies to Adam who has heard all about it already, but I thought I'd explain why I felt like a complete phoney...

In the first song, Love Me Tender, the singer had a backing track so I turned my volume down quite low and played along. I thought she was finished though and then the thing kept going so I sat there like an indiot with my hands in my lap while she sang another verse!!

I didn't have the sheet music for the second song, so I turned my volume down to zero and mimed. I have never done that before. I’m not sure if anyone noticed.

The third song was the really important one – no backing track, just me and Debbi (who spells it like that??!). And neither of us really knew the song. I barely had any time to learn it in the end, about half an hour this morning.So we got there early and had a practice, and I made her nervous by being not very good. And she wanted me to sing along (with a microphone and everything) and I said I wasn’t sure if I could but she made me do it anyway.

So it got to halfway through the funeral, when Debbi realised that they had printed the words wrong in the program and so we had to do the 2^nd verse instead of the first. I didn’t have the chords written anywhere near the words of the 2^nd verse, and there was no way I could pull out a pencil and do it during the service. So I think I sang the first line with her and then dropped out to concentrate on getting the chords right, which was more important anyway. The stupid thing was, the congregation all sang along during the chorus, which was the bit we both knew, and then they stopped during the verse which was the bit we fudged. Arrrghh!!

Afterwards the deceased lady’s brother, a rather elderly gent, came up to us and sang it how it was supposed to go. But everyone else seemed pretty happy with it and one of the lady’s daughters came up and gave us both a kiss so perhaps it wasn't too bad!!! But I felt like such a fake! Still, it was the best paying gig I've had in a long while…

Lack of Inspiration = Motivation

2007-01-15T13:40:00.000+10:30

I just got home from the gym. Not so remarkable. But when you consider that I hadn't been to a gym for... oooh... four years??? Now that's news!!

I put my somewhat musty exercise gear on and power-walked to the gym (about 15-20 mins). Then I had to fill out forms and do all the usual crap they make you do, go on a tour etc. I thought the guy would show me how to use the machines but no! So I started with the exercises my chiro wants me to do every day, and then hopped on an exercise bike. Almost 5km, pretty good for the first time, don't want to overdo it and be so sore I never go back!!!

Then I wandered around looking bewildered, searching for some weight machines that I recognised from my old gym. I found one and did four sets on that. Then I wandered round some more, sitting down at a machine, not for the life of me being able to work out how to use it, and then moving on to another one. Eventually I was rescued by Karl the hot Dutch fitness coach, who showed me the correct way to use half a dozen machines. Thank god for Karl!!!

After my workout I power walked home again, along the beach, and felt great! I was absolutely starving when I got home, I had expected to take about an hour and a half, instead I was gone for over two and a half hours!!! I'm gonna be so sore tomorrow!

So what brought on this burst of energy? Well...

Yesterday was my day to practice piano. Well, not the only day, but it was the dedicated day for it. I have been a bit busy since I got back from Brisbane - busy, or was I just procrastinating? I can be really good at doing everything except the thing that really needs to be done. So I had deliberately kept Sunday free to concentrate on this.

I guess I've had trouble getting motivated because the tunes I'm supposed to be working on have not really got me inspired. I can't seem to achieve the sound I'm looking for and don't feel technically strong or creative enough to get what I want. As you can imagine, this is very frustrating. I think the problem is that these two songs have not been workshopped with the rest of the band, as is our usual mode of operation. I have pretty much been sent off to the bedroom to come up with something. And it's just not coming. You may recall I attempted to record these tracks before Christmas, with so-so results. This Wednesday will be the second and hopefully final attempt. So I really am on a deadline to kick these songs into shape.

But, yesterday, I was floundering a bit, and decided I needed some air. I had been in the study for the whole day alternating between the computer and keyboard, so it was time to stretch my legs. I'm really glad I did! It was a gorgeous evening, and I pushed myself to walk fast for about half an hour. I felt much better afterwards. Here are some photos I took along the water...

After dinner I watched Shopgirl (I thought it was beautiful) and then was browsing some blogs (procrastinating again - should have been going to bed) and found Amanda who was talking about trying to get motivated to go to the gym... and I remembered that I purchased a 3-week trial pass to my local gym the other day for $10. Spurred on by my power-walk and increasingly flabby tummy and Amanda's inspiring story I decided tomorrow was the day to get my ass to the gym.

I'll keep you posted with how this spurt of motivation goes, but I really want to keep it up for at least the three weeks I've paid for.

Chester was HEAPS better yesterday, totally himself again, trotting round the house, jumping up on me, etc. VERY happy about this!!! The new medication is making a huge difference. This morning he has woken up with a nasty cough. Which is weird, because his cough has been virtually gone since I went to Brisbane. I gave him some cough mixture this morning and that seems to have helped. We'll see how it goes... honestly, if it's not one thing, it's another!! But I'd rather have a dog with a cough than a dog who collapses and can't breathe properly! Poor little Chester, he's SO cute!! I love him so much!!

The Cara & Adam Weekend Of Awes*

2007-01-14T13:06:00.000+10:30

*"Awes" is an abbreviation of "awesome". It is pronounced like "horse" without the "h". The term was coined by my bogan cousins Josh & James, and I think it's genius. Try it out some time, you won't be sorry!

Cara and Adam had one more weekend left in the sunshine state (oh sorry, the smart state), before Cara returned home to the garden state, oh sorry, the place to be. Thank god they changed that one - not many gardens left in ol Melbourne town now, especially in even numbered houses where one of our two allowed garden watering time slots is 8-10pm on Saturday night. Saturday night! Who is home on Saturday night watering their garden????!!!

Anyway, I'm off track now.

So, how would a Rock Chick and an IT Ninja fill in their last 48 hours together? Well, there are a few obvious answers to that. How about a Rock Show? Followed by a Nerdfest. Followed by... something completely mad, crazy and fun. Hmmm, that's a toughie. Let's come back to it.

The Rock Show. Best of both worlds with both a Melbourne and Brisbane band playing at the Troubadour. Our heroes did their best to look cool whilst scribbling notes and fiddling with the ISO. Cara wanted to talk to the band members after the show but chickened out. Eating pizza by the slice watching drunk Brisbanites stumble around the valley at 1am was fun. The weekend was off to a good start.

Nerdfest II. Plenty has been said already about the cuisine - lack of chicken in the pudding, lack of niceness in the fried ice-cream, but no mention has yet been made of Cara's delicious lamb cutlets which she took great pleasure in noisily gobbling with lots of lipsmacking next to a vegetarian. And much has been made of a young ninja-in-training's prowess with a big stick against the evil spider, but barely any props given to the bravery of the eyewitnesses, both tall and small, who will now be scarred for life. This was a heaps good time which both our young heroes enjoyed thoroughly.

Something Completely Mad, Crazy and Fun. Hmmm.... what to do, what to do? What on earth would take advantage of a day of brilliant Queensland sunshine, allow Adam to flex his muscles and act all manly, and allow Cara to practice her Baywatch Bikini Bounce TM and her Oh-My-God-David Hasselhof/Grohl/Bowie-Is-So-Hot scream???

Where could they go???

I know...

WET N WILD!!!!!!!!

YAY!!!!!

So they rented a cheap-ass Hyundai from Budget, found a cheap-ass room at a fancy five star resort on Lastminute.com, drove to the Gold Coast and had a freaking brilliant day at Wet n Wild.

The sun was out, the school holidays were on, but it's gonna take more than mobs of teenagers and high UV levels to deter our heroes from having a good time. First up was the wave pool to get wet, followed by Mammoth Falls. Cara was terrified by the endless flights of stairs you can see through, clinging to the handrail for dear life, not looking down or sideways and not speaking to anyone. Adam leapt up the stairs seven at a time and waited patiently at the top. This was a pattern that would continue throughout the day. They plummeted down the falls, Cara shrieking in terror while Adam yelled "Righteous!! RIGHTEOUS!!!". This was also a pattern that would continue throughout the day.

After Mammoth Falls they ventured onto the Twister, (scarier than expected - and wedgier!!), White Water Mountian (an old-fashioned sit-on-your-bum waterslide), Aqua races (face first sprint down the hill - Adam sadly 3rd place, Cara proudly 5th place, ahead of a mum and two 6 year olds), Mach 5 (twice - this one was awes!), Calypso Beach (a surprise hit - riding around a fake river in blow-up donuts would seem a little lame-o, but was really relaxing and fun. Adam used his ninja skills to good effect flipping Cara when she least expected it...) and finally, The Tornado.

The Tornado is Wet n Wild's newest ride, the crowning glory in the brand new Extreme H2O Zone. It also looks a lot like this. After queueing for forty-five minutes, Cara and Adam agreed to share a raft with two young boys who looked like they would be very comfortable doing laps on Chapel or Lygon st in their Monaro. As they climbed the 29,000 stairs to the top (or so it seemed to panic-stricken Cara) the boys joked with Adam about how they were going to make the raft do a 360 spin around the cone of the tornado. Cara went white and started to shake. They watched other groups being spat out of the dark tunnel into the huge cone, going higher and higher up the edges. "Let's try and get above that blue section!" Adam enthused. Cara clung tighter to the hand railing. Suddenly they were at the top, legs a-kimbo, clambering into the raft in ankle-deep rushing water. and then they were hurtling through a dark tunnel, screaming for dear life (well, Cara was), going down, down, down, until...

They were spat out into the cone, whooshing up and up, until Cara was sure they were either going to do that promised 360, or, be flung out of the front of the cone onto the onlooking crowd, crushing dozens of people. Best case scenario.

But what goes up must come down, and down they did come, until they were whooshing up and up the other side of the cone. Not again!!! They continued to zig zag up and down the cone while Adam smiled for the camera at all appropriate points, until finally they were spat out the pointy bit of the cone into a pool of freezing water, giggling and grinning like little school girls. Even Cara. Who was also shaking like a leaf. "That was fun, honey. Can we go home now?"

The ever-gallant Adam chauffered the young lady back to their five-star resort where they collapsed in the hot spa and kanoodled. Until a family with a 2 year old and a video camera intent on capturing every second of the poor bugger's life ruined it all. Kids. Should be illegal.

They then retired to their suite where as luck would have it, a David Bowie concert was on cable. Cara had no Oh-My-God-David Hasselhof/Grohl/Bowie-Is-So-Hot screams left, so she had to make do with goo-goo eyes. Adam read a book jealously in the corner.

Dinner was lovely, as the couple had requested a table "as far as humanly possible from any kids please" and were indulged by the waiting staff. Macarena the waitress had a bit of trouble with english, and waiting, but other than that was very lovely and sure knew how to dance.

Retiring early to the boudoir, the couple enjoyed their last night together before Cara would be rudely snatched back by the real world. They rose at the crack of dawn and drove the Hyundai back to the city with one million other commuters, and bid each other fond farewells. They would see each other again in three weeks time, but it felt like forever away. Time is cruel to young lovers.

Warning: this may put you off your dinner...

2007-01-12T20:41:00.000+10:30

This afternoon when Chester and I went for a walk we came across this:

I guess this baby bird must have fallen out of its nest. How sad. I guess what struck me was its nakedness - not a single feather on the creature, and its size - large enough to be a fully formed bird but still quite tiny. In an attempt to show how small it was I took this:

I'm not quite sure if that has the effect I was looking for but anyway the poor blighter was only a few inches long. I wonder if his parents pushed him out of the nest or he fell all by himself. Stupid parents for having a nest so high above a concrete ground, really. Should have been in a nice low tree branch with soft grass below to cushion his fall. It was quite grotesque, just baking there in the sun. No way I was touching it though. Even Chester kept a respectful distance.

Oh FYI Chester seems a bit better today. He didn't collapse or anything on our walk and in fact we made a few new friends. He is a very popular puppy, everyone wants to have a pat and a chat. Even the scary bogan blokes drinking out the front of the bottle-o round the corner. Who needs a pub really when you can just sit outside the local strip shops and heckle poor young girls on their way to the post office? In their defence though, they were actually quite friendly behind the tattooed, mulleted facade. And two of them claimed to have dogs just like him. Ha! Guys like that should have pit-bulls, not chihuahuas!!!

Graveyard shift last night was fun!!! Played vinyl for the first time - Babooshka (all this talk of Kate Bush gave me a hankerin') and Bros - Drop the Boy. Rock on.

Ok better go, two gigs to go to tonight...

Brain Dump

2007-01-11T01:09:00.000+10:30

Lots of random thoughts in my head today that I feel like sharing...

Firstly - YAYAYAYAYYYYY!!!!!! Just found out that Wilco - one of my all time favourite bands - are coming to Australia!!! SO excited!! Details here if anyone's interested...

Chester has not been himself since I got back from Brisbane. He was staying with Amber, his other mummy, and her partner Justin while I was away, and when I picked him up from their place he was acting all sulky and sad. I put it down to him not being impressed about moving again. He didn't eat his dinner. The next day though, when I was walking him, he slowed to a stop, and then went to take a step and his legs buckled underneath him. I had to carry him the rest of the way home. He felt all limp like a rag-dog. It was a bit scary.

He seemed okayish the rest of the day, and even ate all of his dinner, but much less active than usual. Usually he follows me round like, well, like a puppy dog. Yesterday and today he's spent most of the time lying on the ground, following me with his eyes instead. Today when I took him on a short walk, he seemed quite content, if a little slower than usual, then all of a sudden, he laid down on the grass. On the median strip in the middle of the road. This is not like him at all. He doesn't even like grass! I wish I knew what was going on. Hopefully the new medication will sort it out. I've got the capsules but they're too big for him. Amber was supposed to get them halved while I was away but forgot. Oh well... hopefully he'll be ok. It does feel like he's rapidly getting very old though, which is a bit sad.

Got excited tonight and plugged the new mic I got for Christmas into the new amp I got before Christmas (yes I am spoilt) - and it didn't work. I realised pretty quickly what was wrong - the Beta 87A is a condenser mic which requires phantom power. Most PAs have this, but my little keyboard amp doesn't. I would need to use a pre-amp or some other power supply. Bugger.

It was HOT here today. I loved it - well over 30c, dry heat, clear blue skies, perfect. It's only now, after midnight when it's still about 25c, that it feels a bit stifling.

We found out recently that our good friend Sandra is getting married. I found out that she is having seven bridesmaids. Seven!! And was a little bit miffed to realise I am not one of them. Now I know she is an awesome girl with heaps of very close friends, but I count her amongst my closest couple of friends in Melbourne, and it hurts a little bit to know that I didn't make the top seven. But when you consider two of the girls are from overseas and another two are family members, there are really only three girls from here who got the gig - and she has known them a lot longer than me. So I shouldn't be upset. And I'm not, really, just a little... miffed was a good word, let's use it again.

I killed a spider in my laundry today. With a rolled up newspaper and a good thwack. This is unusually brave for me. Me who gets the house exterminated each year so I don't have to deal with spiders...

Got a banjo complete with player for Christmas from Bevis - a generous re-gift from him.

Got the original version of "Don't Give Up" from TT
- it is still a rather sickly song but certainly a better performance by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush than our own Nollsie and Nat. The quiver in Kate Bush's vocal certainly does sound like perhaps there was some smoochy smoochy between her and Gabriel, and as I said to TT, why wouldn't you go for her with those sexy leotards??? Rowr!!

Had a very long band meeting last night - watched the footage from our last show and discussed how we looked. I looked hot.

Seriously though it was good to see it and for everyone to realise that every single thing they do or don't do is exposed for scrutiny by the audience. Sometimes when you play a lot of gigs its easy to forget that people are looking at you, if that makes sense. We also discussed the fact that everyone needs to put in equal effort in terms of promoting the shows. It was good that Paris brought this up because I have been feeling this way for a long time, like if my sister and her friends didn't come there would be no-one there. Dave, the new drummer, has some good, simple ideas about promotion which should hopefully kick the others into gear a bit too. We'll see how the next few gigs go, they are at indie nightclubs rather than band rooms, and I fear we may get eaten alive. We certainly need another shopping expedition before then to get some cool threads happening. The boys are getting there but they still need some work I think.

I miss Adam. Already. It has been two days...

I feel like we are closer than ever at the moment (well apart from being 2 states apart) and I love that feeling. I think I coped pretty well with the shock of discovering a big part of his life that I didn't know about (you guys, duh) and, have I said this before? feel flattered that he trusted me enough at this point in our relationship to share it with me. I decided not to read the whole back catalogue after finding a few bits and pieces that upset me - what's done is done and I am excited about the present and the future. So I will certainly be reading that!

I need to unpack. And do some washing. I can barely get to my bed at the moment for all the crap on the floor. At least I did the dishes!

I also need to take the video back. The Northern Exposure Series I DVD that I have had for about 3-4 weeks now, that I still haven't finished watching. Not that I don't absolutely love it, but December was a busy month!! And now that I have Scrubs IV to get through...

So: what's on the agenda for tomorrow?
-Put some washing on
-Practise piano first thing
-Hang the washing out - inside, it's going to thunderstorm tomorrow.
-Take the Nikon Coolpix P2 to get repaired. (Less than a year old, great little camera, but when you take a photo white horizontal lines appear on the picture, as if you have taken the photo through window with blinds on it. I think it's something serious)
-Go to the Podiatrist (corns & ingrown toenails - ew)
-Help Sandra & Lee move house (called her today to see if she needed help and was terrified that I was going to say "So, Sandra, do you need any help choosing bridesmaids - ahem, i mean, moving house?")
-Perhaps work on my resume some more (attempting to infiltrate the IT world becoming Australia's first Rockstar Ninja)
-Take the fricken DVD back and probably pay four million dollars for it. Should have just bought it instead of renting it but who knew?
-Have a nanna nap
-Get up and go to 3RRR for my graveyard shift 2am-6am.
-Come home and sleep till the afternoon.

The exciting life of an Aussie Rock Chick!!!

Give Up.

2007-01-06T09:36:00.000+10:30

Staying at Adam's has, for better or worse, re-introduced me to the world of cable TV.

At first I was excited by having two 24-hour music channels, as I am one of those music freaks that hangs out for Rage on the weekends. Unfortunately the repetitiveness of the two channels in question is already starting to do my head in after only a week. If only I were in charge, I would do such a better job!!! It has always been my dream to guest program Rage... one day...

Anyway, the reason for this blog is to vent my disgust at the latest Aussie shite to be added to hi-rotation. "Don't Give Up" is the offending piece of codswallop. A charity record, it seems, delivered to us by Shannon "Oz Idol" Noll and Natalie "Rogue Traders/Neighbours" Bassingthwaighte.

Now I expect nothing less than rubbish from young Nollsie. I couldn't stand him on Idol and I can't stand him now. I must say I'm grudgingly impressed that he's still around, but, well, people are idiots.

Natalie though. I have been extremely impressed by the path she has followed recently. Rather than shimmying her way into obscurity as so many soap starlets tend to do after their first single, she has forged a career as a plausible pop vixen fronting the Rogue Traders with oomph and pizazz. Now poor Izzy stands to lose every ounce of credibility she may have had with this abominable contribution.

Now possibly it is not a bad song. I say this because, with research, I have discovered that this is the third time this song has been recorded. And the first two were by fairly notable artists: Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush in 1986, and Bono & Alicia Keys in 2005. Who may have done a good job, I'm not sure because I don't remember either version. Which may say something!

But this recording is the cheesiest, most insincere piece of crap I've seen in a long time. The video makes me want to vomit. Enough said.

Mere Male

2007-01-06T09:08:00.000+10:30

When I was a kid I used to love those Mere Male pages in New Idea...

Listen up
I was telling MM about the book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus - the section about why men don't listen. After 10 minutes I asked what he thought. "Sorry, I wasn't listening," was the answer. Melissa, Toowoomba, QLD

Wet behind the ears
We were running towards my car in the pouring rain when my boyfriend said: 'Who would have thought rain could be this wet'. It wasn't until I started laughing that I realised he meant what he'd said! K Trimper, Renmark, SA

A real one happened to me today:

Soap Suds

I needed to do some washing at MM's apartment and the only detergent I could find was a bottle of Earth's Choice Dishwashing Liquid next to the washing machine. I asked MM whether he kept his washing powder somewhere else. " HOLY CRAP!! I've been using dishwashing detergent to wash my clothes for months, I didn't even notice!! Que imbecile!" Well, at least he was looking after the environment. Aussie Rock Chick, Melbourne, VIC

I'm off to the shops now to get some laundry powder...

Dr Evil

2007-01-05T07:36:00.000+10:30

A few weeks ago Adam asked me what the name of our local GP was. I couldn't remember exactly, but I knew it would come to me. He asked if it was Richard. I said I think so.

He had been watching Today Tonight or one of those stupid shows for the first time in years (It is banned in our house. So is the news: it makes me cry.), and they happened to have a story on a GP who did inappropriate things to his female patients. He thought it looked like our doctor.

Today I was transferring last year's dates into this year's diary (I am such a nerd, but I love doing that!) and came across a doctor's appointment - with Dr Richard Young. I googled him and came up with this:

Melbourne doctor to get lessons in chat

Friday December 22, 2006

MELBOURNE - A Melbourne doctor and former Cleo Bachelor of the Year nominee who made sexual comments to a patient during a pap smear will be counselled on how to talk to women.
Dr Richard Young will continue to practise medicine but was reprimanded and cautioned by the Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria.
The board found Young acted unprofessionally by digitally penetrating the woman in a way that was not medically required.
He told his patient, "Holy mackerel, you are small." He then said, "You're really small, which is great for ... " at which point she cut him off by saying, "Not too good for having a baby."
The board said Young's behaviour was seriously unprofessional but not bad enough to be professional misconduct.
In July 2001, he was suspended for 15 months for affairs with two patients which stemmed from inappropriate comments made during examinations.
Young was ordered to have six counselling sessions on the appropriate language to use during intimate examinations.

Ew.

All I can say is, thank god I never had a pap smear at that clinic.

I always did find him a bit... I don't know if sleazy is the right word... but, overfriendly, I guess. Which sounds fairly innocuous. But consultations always did feel like he was trying to chat me up, rather than make me not sick. This probably sounds like 20/20 hindsight, but Adam has always agreed with me. Which is probably why I have another female doctor in the city that I go to for lady stuff.

I always do find male gynacologists etc kinda creepy. It's just not something I really want a strange man to be looking at. And I have had to see quite a few of them, since I have a wonderful (read: very painful) condition called vulvar vestibulitis (i think that's how you spell it). I have never felt comfortable with male doctors who specialise in this field... if I didn't have such a driving ambition to be a rockstar maybe I'd become a doctor and help all the women like me who don't want some guy who reminds them of their dad/grandfather/uncle prodding at her special bits.

New Years weekend

2007-01-04T11:00:00.000+10:30

On Saturday morning, as I was reading the paper on the balcony, Mich handed me her mobile. Sandra was on the other end.

"Guess what??"
"What?"
"We got engaged!!!"
"Oh my god!!!!! "

This was not a huge surprise, as Lee has been talking about proposing virtually since he met Sandra, but still exciting. I asked all the obligatory "how?" "when?" questions and was genuinely very happy for them. Sandra is an awesome chick and I think she's found someone she's excited about who will make her very happy. She has had some crappy luck in the past with guys, but it looks like Lee is the real deal.

Mich took it quite well considering. I guess she has had a while to prepare herself. She and Sandra are very close, she often refers to Sandra as being her surrogate boyfriend, and they go on "hot dates" together. So you can probably guess that she has had a hard time accepting Sandra's relationship with Lee. Or any boyfriend for that matter.

Anyway, the three of us talked about it a bit, and Mich seemed to be coping quite well. Being the first one to get the phone call definitely helped. She likes to be the most important.

Later we picked up a rental car and drove up to the Sunshine coast for the day. It was a gorgeous day and we had a lovely afternoon on the beach in Mooloolabah before heading back to Brissie for dinner with Kirsten.

Kirsten takes a bit of explaining. She is a very crazy, over the top person with an overt sexuality and an infectious personality. Not for everyone. But definitely for Mich. She has a certain pull over her, which for us is hard to explain.

Over dinner I simply found Kirsten annoying, and enjoyed more chatting with the other random people she'd assembled for her whirlwind Brisbane trip. She was on leave from her work in Sudan with the UN or something crazy like that. A very intelligent, passionate girl. But I just couldn't cope with her exaggerated enthusiasm for everything. And the way Mich became when she was around these people. At one point Mich had a go at Adam which came completely out of nowhere. It was so random I almost intervened, but didn't want to make it worse, so later I took her aside and said "Do you realise just how overly aggressive that was?" I explained what I had seen happen and I think she understood, and appreciated it being pointed out. I shouldn't have to, but if that's what it takes...

From dinner we went to a really bad sports bar with really bad music and really bad dancing. Not good-bad. Just bad.

Adam and I were over it pretty quickly, but we stayed as long as we could handle it for. Mich wasn't really ready to leave, until she noticed Kirsten was outside. Then she practically demanded that we did.

Ok, you've noticed a lot of Mich bashing by now. I guess I need it to be out of my system. Sorry if it is making me sound like a bitch. I'm not really - she's just hard work at the moment! She can be a beautiful, wonderful, fun friend, but sometimes I wonder what happened to those bits.

So... New Years Eve.

We drove in the opposite direction, down the coast to Byron Bay.

We checked into our hotel in Ballina, a very posh one as that was all that was left at the start of December when we booked. Byron fills up very quickly!! It was gorgeous, and with the sun shining in the little courtyard it was almost a shame we had to leave.

By the time we got to Byron to meet up with Sandra & Lee it was kind of overcast. We joined them on the beach anyway, and Lee showed Adam how to skimboard. Such a perfect Adam thing to do!

Another friend of ours, Wilby (her real name is Sarah but everyone calls her Wilby), was also in Byron with three girlfriends. They are all 20-21 years old, and went off to get ready for the party at about 3:30pm. The rest of us sat on the beach for the afternoon, before getting changed in the skanky beach toilet block ready for a big night out.

The nine of us started with dinner at the Hogs Breath (not any of our first choices but try getting a booking for 9 on new years eve in byron bay at short notice!!) and with stomachs sufficiently lined progressed to the main attraction for the night, a 1000-ticket party at Hotel Byron. This place was very well set up for a huge party, with several bars, a huge dancefloor and easy access to the beach. And we had a great time, it was a good mixture of daggy dance music, more current fun stuff, and True Live to top it all off. They were fantastic, a hip-hop band with a string trio, you wouldn't think it would work but it goes off! They played for about an hour and a half, counting in the new year as well. The only bummer was no fireworks. I don't know why there were none at Byron, I'm sure everywhere else in the world has them!! But it was fun all the same. Mich pashed an Adam. Not my Adam of course, but an Adam all the same. We all clapped and cheered when he went in for the first one. She wanted to die of embarrassment. Sort of. I think she kinda enjoyed the attention actually!!

At one point I went to the loo. A very long queue. When I got back Adam grabbed me and told me he'd made some friends he wanted me to meet. I was chatting with them for quite some time, thinking they were random strangers. The girl showed me some pictures of some miniature animals on her camera. A horse as small as a dog. But with a penis the size of a horse. Gross. I thought maybe it was time to ditch these weird new friends and get another drink. Adam came with me.

"Did you work out that I already knew those people?"
"What?!!" Hmm come to think of it the guy had just told me where he worked, and it was the same place Adam used to work in Sydney. I'd told him that, and he'd said "I know". I figured they had already realised that they'd worked at the same place at different times. Duh!!! Of course they were friends back then and randomly bumped into each other tonight. Adam was very happy, because they had never met me before, and had all joked that I was a phantom girlfriend.

By 12:30 Wilby & co were getting rather messy and I was pretty ready to leave. Sandra had been sitting down for the last half hour and I wished I had been. Despite the sensible flat shoe option, my feet were killing me. I found somewhere to sit and wait. Adam was worried about the car, we were parked in a carpark that said no parking after 1am. We didn't want to get a parking ticket, or worse - towed. So the two of us decided to go and rescue the car, and then do laps until Mich was ready to leave or the party was over.

Sandra, Lee and Mich came out not long afterwards. It had been a fun night, but it was time for it to end. The 21 year olds could party till dawn, we'd had enough. And, it had started raining.

The drive back to Ballina was wet, I couldn't wait to have a shower and climb into bed. I was still covered in sunscreen from the beach, plus someone had emptied a drink on my legs near the end of the night. Yuck.

The next day we drove to Kingscliff, where Sandra & Lee were staying with Sandra's family, and spent the day there. It is a gorgeous place, but they were staying at a family resort - read: lots of kids everywhere. Which made sense since they were there with Sandra's little niece and nephew.

We had lunch, I had a go at skimboarding and did a terrific splat on my first go. But got back on and nearly got the hang of it with a few more tries. Adam was by now an expert, which he was very happy about!!

We swam in the resort pool, which was absolutely beautiful, and Mich and Adam beat Sandra and Lee in a pool wrestling match, which they were very happy about. It's the small victories...

That night was Mich's last one in Brisbane. We were all completely exhausterated so watched a few episodes of my Scrubs DVD and went to bed.

The next day Mich and I went to the Valley for lunch before Mich had to head for the airport. We had a good chat about all the stuff that had been going on. I think she wants to change, but it's time to see some action. She knows it needs to happen. Time will tell...

I walked to the city and bought some clothes for Adam in the sales. He needs them. He only has one pair of shorts! In Brisbane! In summer!!!

We met at Southbank to see Happy Feet!!! Yay!!! I have been anticipating this for a while. And while it wasn't as amazing as I'd hoped, it was still super-cute and we enjoyed it. The babies are SO cute!! Yes, I am such a girl.

After the movie and a dinner I scraped together from random stuff in Adam's cupboards/fridge, Adam said he had something to tell me. He looked serious.

"What it is...?" I asked warily.
"Don't worry, it's not something bad. Well, maybe... hmm... you might be a little bit upset."
Well, he knows how to get my undivided attention. I'm riveted to the spot.
"Remember a long time ago, when you said I needed to find someone to talk to about us? Well I did, kind of."
It's true, he used to bottle his feelings up for so long and then they would all explode at once and we would have a huge fight. I encouraged him to find someone he trusted to share things with, to get a different perspective, and just to vent. I find talking to my girlfriends, sister, whoever will listen, about things that are bothering me incredibly theraputic, and he just didn't seem to talk to anyone about us except me.
What he said next was not what I expected.
"So I started a blog. Two years ago. And I would like to share it with you now."

Whoa.

But I was not mad. I was mad when he went skydiving without telling me. This was different. I was glad and proud. And a little nervous.

Glad and proud because he had taken my advice and found an outlet, a sounding board for all his frustrations and worries. As well as the fun stuff that sometimes I might be too self absorbed to give my full attention to.

Nervous because of what I might read about myself.

I asked him why he decided to tell me about it now. Because he has been invited to dinner with some people, and he would like me to come. Wow. This is a lot to take in. Not only is there a whole lot of people with this potentially quite intimate relationship with Adam, but I was about to meet them.

So I sat down to read Adam's blog, and was hooked from the beginning. I haven't gotten very far through it yet... but I love what I've read so far. Obviously I haven't gotten to any bad bits about me yet!!! But he told me that there should be nothing in there that we haven't already talked about, and I think I'll be ok. We'll see...

Well! That's me up to date. Finally.

I thought I said I was going to try to be succinct. So much for that. I think I am destined to write novels, not news articles. Hopefully with a really good editor!

I will try and write things as they happen from now on, rather than an all day blog-fest. I'm exhausted!! Now I think the only thing missing is Hawaii... but I'll save that story for another time.

Brisbane again :-)

2007-01-04T10:04:00.000+10:30

I love Brisbane!! It makes me happy! Not only is my beautiful Adam here, but also the weather is always nice. Sunshine makes me happy. I'm a simple girl, really.

So you can imagine my disappointment when I arrived on Wednesday night to find it had been raining for several days. Mich was not impressed. She flew up on Christmas night and had been driving Adam crazy until I finally arrived two days later. Two loooong days, from what I can gather.

Adam met me at the airport and we found Mich in the apartment looking quite hot in a new white top. We were going to a "white party". Oh great. Loads of tanned, blonde, skinny Queenslanders in skimpy white frocks and singlets, and then us. White, slightly chubbier Melbournites with barely a white item between us. (If it were a black party, we would have been in our element!) Hence Mich's new top. Apparently Glen and Dan had bought it for her. They are a couple of crazy young guys who run a very successful business. Apparently they were behind the white party.

I had a pair of white pants with me (gasp! i know. but since i lost a bit of weight they look ok.). Adam didn't have a single white thing other than a business shirt, and something told us that wasn't going to be the kind of white they were looking for. He settled on a khaki shirt he looks hot in and off we went.

The party was pretty much exactly what I expected. Loads of squealing underage blonde girls in incredibly skimpy outfits (I swear, one girl had just a top on, no pants!). The guys were slightly above my expectations though, in that several of them were dressed up. There were cricket players complete with zinc across the nose, sailors, tennis players - they got quite creative. The girls just used it as an opportunity to show off their fake tan. Or possibly real, since we're in Queensland.

I was quite exhausted from travelling and Christmas and whatnot, so Adam took me home for some you-know-what, and we left Mich in the capable hands of the boys. She came home the next afternoon. Not surprised!

The following day was a pretty lazy one - Adam had to work, and I was a sloth until Mich came home. Then we met up with Paul, a friend of hers who was good value, and had Cold Rock - mmmm... Add Cold Rock to my list of reasons I love Brisbane! I think we have it in Melbourne but I'm not sure where, and certainly not walking distance from my house!!!

On Friday Mich and I clocked up some pool time (yes, the sun came out! finally!!!) and then went to see The Holiday. The ultimate chick flick. We loved it. Jack Black plays himself, as usual, and Jude Law's so cute. And I think I might have slight crushes on both Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet. *sigh*

After we met Adam in the city for dinner, Mich decided to go and say goodbye to the boys, as they are relocating their business to the UK and she wouldn't see them for "five years". Yeah right. Anyway, we let her go and walked home.

At home we had some rather intense discussions about that thing that all couples fight about... money. Adam has been working his little butt off to get him ahead, and he has been feeling like I haven't been putting in equal effort. I think I have been trying, but maybe not as hard as I possibly possibly could, so I will try harder. He made an excellent point that I need to work as hard towards achieving his goals as he does towards mine. As I've said before, I can be pretty selfish. I made sure he understood that while i have been doing lots of exciting things lately, most of them have been work-related, and haven't cost much money. I haven't been buying random things and I don't go out drinking and eating out every night. And he made sure I understood that he has not been going out or buying things at all. He has been putting all his energy into saving and catching up so that we are in a position to do fun things without having to worry.

Of course I feel bad because I am not earning anything, and my career costs money at this stage. We have talked about me working, and unless it is for a decent daily rate, we have agreed that for what I can earn, my time isn't worth it. So I just have to pull my head in and spend as little as possible, knuckle down and do as much practice as I can, help Paris in every way possible to get this band up and running and hope like hell that it starts earning something soon.

Mich came home in the middle of our "discussion", and made a discreet escape to her room to do some reading. Uncharacteristically subtle!

I feel good that we were able to have this chat in a rational way without tears or screaming. Not that we usually scream. But tears are not uncommon on my behalf. I'm not good with conflict. But we talked it out, not without emotion mind you, but in a rational, understanding way. I think.

Showers clearing finally

2007-01-04T09:35:00.000+10:30

The rain has stopped. I have bruises on my wrists from typing on the laptop for too long. I need a walk.

For under $50 I have filled out Adam's spartan kitchen cupboards. Pretty proud of that. We should have plenty of food to last at least until I leave, probably longer. If he is ever brave enough to cook with something I've bought.

I also bought 50c worth of red frogs and gutsed them all. So much for that post-christmas diet.

Third Rock From The Sun is over and now Hey Dad is starting. I can't bear it. So I write some more...

Christmas #3 (The Day Of Boxing)

2007-01-04T07:20:00.000+10:30

Sadly Sash had to work on Boxing Day, so it was me in the back of mum & dad's car all the way to Castlemaine. Castlemaine is about 2 hours northish of Melbourne, in goldfields country. Equally sadly, I inquired as to whether dad thought the cricket (Boxing Day Test) would be rained out. Just being friendly, really. Not an invitation to tune into the cricket for the entire 2 hour drive!!! Mum was not impressed!!

The weather was not really warm, but the rain had cleared up and it was bearable to be outside. My auntie and uncle who live in Castlemaine live on a beautiful property in a heritage listed house. They are a school principle and a doctor respectively, with beautiful taste. Their house is gorgeous.

I should probably explain the Boxing Day thing. I think I've mentioned how humungous my family is: mum has eight brothers and sisters and all but one are married with kids. Which means a lot of inlaws. So, on Christmas day, most people go to their inlaws for lunch/dinner/whatever and the big family gets together on Boxing Day instead. Mum hosts lunch on Christmas day for her parents and those who don't have inlaws available. In the past, we would do Christmas with dad's family in Hamilton the weekend before Christmas. This year, Grandma and Wilma came to Christmas day instead.

So anyway, Boxing Day is normally a huge affair, with about 40 people. It used to be lots of little kids, but we have almost all grown up. I am the oldest of the grandkids, and the youngest were camping in Tasmania. So again today, Jack & Sam, the twins, were the youngest.

I still can't get used to my cousins being grown up. I used to babysit them, change their nappies, teach them piano, and now they're adults. When I started teaching Alex piano she was in prep. I remember this stubborn little five year old, she had the talent but was a bit reluctant to practice. Now she is a stunning 15 year old blonde thing, taller than me, still a bit stubborn I suspect. Her brother Scott was a different story. Two years older, he was very serious about it and practiced a lot. He was great and has gone on to learn guitar. He played his first gig at the Perseverance a few weeks ago (I couldn't go as I had rehearsal but I can't wait for the next one). Luke is the same age as Scott, also a talented musician and sportsman, and about 8 feet tall now. They have both just finished high school, and did really well. They both gave me shit for raising the bar so high that no-one has ever been able to beat it. I didn't mean to get 99 really! But they will never let me forget it!!! Megan is about six months older than the boys, and has always been a bit of a rebel. She belongs to the Castlemaine family and went to boarding school. She has gone through the "emo" phase and I think come out the other side, although she still has black hair and piercings.

The "girls", Elizabeth and Steph, are gorgeous. (Most of my cousins come in pairs) Both turning 21 this year, they are very different - Liz very easygoing, but quite vague and a bit ditsy, Steph very down to earth, practical and confident. Both lovely and very cute. They were very close growing up, and remain so despite Steph's family having moved to Sydney about 10 years ago.

Then there's a whole stack of boys: Matt, Josh, James & Xavier. Matt is the closest cousin to my age, but we don't have much in common. He did come to my gig when we played in Sydney a few weeks ago though. Josh & James are hilarious, they are complete bogan boys who have their own language and I'm sure completely ruled their school. Our uncle Ray calls them Beavis and Butthead. But they are actually gorgeous, hearts of gold and wicked senses of humour. James is a very talented drummer and they are both great at sports. Sport and music kind of run in the family.

Xavier is a little bit younger than Josh n James, and grew up in a very different environment. He's much more worldly, having travelled overseas from a young age with his parents, and gone on exchange to Japan in school. He has since spent quite a bit of time overseas, and actually met up with Sash in Indonesia a few years ago for New Years Eve.

So that's most of the kids, the other Sydney family couldn't make it down so their two are missing, and there were the others in Tasmania, so it's not quite the complete picture. But they're the ones I grew up with, the others are much younger.

The actual grown ups, the mums and dads, would take much longer to describe, but suffice to say they are a very tight group. Mum & Dad don't have many other friends, their best friends are their brothers & sisters. Weird, I know. All the sisters spend heaps of time together, including lunch every Saturday. The brothers-in-law (for most of mum's siblings are girls) share a love of golf, sport in general, golf, drinking beer, and golf. And teasing poor defenseless young nieces. Which is why I think when I got to uni I got along better with guys than girls. They made sense. They were just like my uncles - they operated by teasing each other and whoever else they could pick on.

Lunch was fabulous, way too much food as usual. Pauline had forgotten to bring her tomato salad and was rather dark about it, so the uncles of course mentioned it at every opportunity. "Gee, it would be nice if there were some tomato with this meal..." etc.

After lunch it was time for presents. As the family is so big, we long ago gave up the concept of everyone buying gifts for everyone. It just got ridiculous. So we now do a kris kringle style thing where everyone gets one gift. And the best part is, I'm a kid, which means I don't have to buy anything for anyone. Years ago I said I was happy to buy for someone, but the adults wouldn't have a bar of it. So I just sit back and open my present.

I got a cute pair of summer pj's. Good timing, I had almost bought a pair the other day.

After lunch an even better surprise: Sash arrived!! She had worked till about 3pm and it was fairly quiet so her boss told her to go. She drove up in her work uniform without telling anyone she was coming.

We spent the rest of the afternoon drinking wine and digesting the huge meal. At some stage afternoon turned into evening and people drifted off home. I was staying the night in Castlemaine with mum and dad at some dodgy motel. I took Sash to pick up the key and we checked out the room. The single bed was less than a foot from the double bed. No way I was sleeping in such proximity to my parents!!

Over dinner (yes, somehow we managed to shovel more food down) the conversation became quite serious. There was talk of drugs, depression, all the things that families, or our family anyway, normally steer away from. Alex ended up in tears, I think it was all a bit much for her 15 year old mind. But it was good for us to have those discussions, and good for her to be involved I think. I really did have a sheltered upbringing, it is good that the family is finally discussing important things.

We had considered meeting Megan at the pub, but hanging out with 18 year olds at the local country pub just didn't appeal in the end and Sash and I went to sleep on mattresses on the floor of the spare room.

I was woken up to Sasha's alarm waking her up in time to drive back for work. "I have to snooze or I can't get up" she said grumpily and went back to sleep.

Ten minutes later it went off again.

"FUCK!" Sash said angrily.
"What?" I said, thinking she'd overslept or forgotten something, or some other similar crisis.
"I don't want to go to work!"
Good morning person.

So she got ready and went off to work. I was awake now, so I ventured out to the loo and found Yvette already up. Yvette's the youngest of my mum's siblings and only 10 years older than me. We've always been quite close. We found Terry (the doctor) outside reading the paper over coffee. He had to go to work today. We sat with him and I munched on a piece of toast to tide me over till the rest of us went out for brunch.

Brunch was really nice, Castlemaine is a lovely town and I had a huge pancake. Yum!! Yes, Christmas is all about the food!! We said goodbye to our relatives and drove back to Melbourne. Mum and dad dropped me off at home - I had a few hours to pack etc before flying to Brisbane to stay with Adam for 10 glorious days!!!

Christmas #2 (The real one, 25/12/06)

2007-01-04T06:18:00.000+10:30

Woke up at the crack of dawn to the sound of pouring rain. Not unlike today.

It had been raining all night, much needed rain once again arriving at an inconvenient time. But welcome nonetheless.

Christmas day in Melbourne was seriously freezing. Bear in mind it is the middle of summer. Often it is over 30c on Christmas day. This year it was approximately 10c. And raining/hailing all day. I have never seen so much hail! It was almost like a white christmas! In fact, it did snow on the mountains. Snow at Christmastime - that's unheard of in Australia! Except maybe in Tasmania. It's always cold there.

We got up early - Grandma and Papa were due at 7am for present opening. You would think us girls were four and eight years old, not twenty-four and twenty-eight!!

Grandma and Papa were uncharacteristically late but it was quite nice just the four of us having tea and toast in our dressing gowns.

They finally arrived and we opened a stupid amount of presents. I got some wonderful gifts, including a Shure Beta 87A microphone from Adam. This came with a backstory. He had had to speak to Hayley to find out which model of mic to get, he'd remembered me saying she had a particular mic which was more suited to girls' voices. Then he'd had it delivered all the way from Brisbane to my parents' house, but it had been delivered to the wrong house and they were still trying to sort it out at 6pm on the Friday before Christmas. Somehow, they got it there on time!

I was completely spoilt, with a whole stack of other cool stuff including a cute top from Sash, some red low top Chuck Taylors from mum & dad, Radio City: the history of RRR and Ice Age 2 & Scrubs series 4 DVDs from grandma & auntie Wilma, a radio station from S (well not exactly, more like a donation towards women's radio in Bandeh Aceh via Oxfam Unwrapped) and bits and pieces for the house etc from Santa. Yes, mum still does Santa presents.

Sash, Adam and I gave mum and dad tickets to A Day On The Green with Crosby Still and Nash. I knew they would love this. Mum was so excited!! They had been planning to go but not bought tickets yet.

Lunch was very enjoyable. I know that sounds cliche but it was! It was a good group with not too many kids (nine year old twin boys and a few teenagers). All our remaining grandparents were there for the first time in years. Everyone got along pretty well and no-one tried to kill anyone. Mum & Dad's house looked absolutely beautiful and we just kept being amazed as the hail came down. Everyone was impressed by the deck which is underway on the back of the house. The deck will bigger than my whole house. Seriously. It will be a huge outdoor living space for them to entertain on, leading down to the pool. It really is their dream house, slowly taking shape as they can afford to add bits and pieces. Quite magnificent.

I played Pictionary Junior with Jack which was hysterical. We made up our own rules which he proceeded to break whenever it suited him. He was a better drawer than me. When he had to draw "father", instead of trying to draw his dad like most kids would do, he made his Catholic mother proud by drawing a priest in full regalia complete with challis. Definitely better than I could have done!

Later Louise, his mum, joined in, and it was Jack's turn to draw. He drew someone with a cross on their chest (like I said the rules were relaxed) and it seemed to have breasts so I guessed a nun. No. Sister? Nurse? No. Hmmm... what could it be. Jack drew the arms up in the air with two round things in the hands. I thought maybe it was a prisoner chained to the wall. No.

Time up. "Who is it, Jack?"
"A doctor!!!!" he exclaimed, frustrated.
"What are those things in his hands?"
"The defibrillators, of course!"

This from a 9 year old.

It was a shame Adam couldn't be there. I know he's not big on Christmas, but it would have been great for him to see my face when I opened the microphone, plus I had an exciting gift for him. And the parcel that I'd sent express post to ensure he'd have something to open on Christmas day had been delivered to a post office that was not near his house. Bloody Australia Post!! And it was such a nice day, I would have like to share it with him. Bloody contract work. Bloody Brisbane.

After everyone had gone home and it was just the four of us left, I put on Ice Age 2. Mum hates cartoons and was not impressed, but even she laughed at the antics of the little squirrel thing. He's SO cute, I love him!!! He reminds me of Chester. Not very bright but immensely cute.

What a lovely Christmas. The next day we would drive to Castelmaine to do it all again...

Wardlow Christmas Masquerade Ball

2007-01-04T05:27:00.000+10:30

Sounds fancy, doesn't it?

Well, really just a fancy name for a house party, but boy, what a house!!

My friend Hayley moved house a few months ago - into a mansion. A bona fide mansion with three bathrooms, 8 bedrooms, sweeping balconies, servants quarters and, get this, a turret. It must have been one of the first houses in Melbourne, and even has a bell for the servants in each room!

Hayley's brother found the house up for rent, and quickly convinced Hayley and six other friends to move in. They are each paying the same rent they would pay for a regular share house, but instead they are living in luxury. Only four of them are on the lease, so if the real estate agents find out there are 8 people living there they will probably be booted out. But, as Hayley said, it's fun while it lasts.

And rather than being the run down dump you are imagining, the house is in immaculate condition. Apparently the owners are only away for a year, so have even left all the fittings intact. So there are 2m gilded mirrors, antique dining chairs, fireplace accessories (i don't even know what you call them - the screen thing and the little bellows), etc. Spotless white carpet, a brand new kitchen with truckloads of storage space and expensive appliances, a gorgeous courtyard and stunning garden... quite an incredible place. I can't believe that someone I know actually lives there!! And Hayley has the best bedroom, I would guess the master bedroom with a bay window, balcony and access to the turret. Her harp looks right at home in there. All the housemates are muso types, so I figured their Christmas Masquerade Ball would be a fun event. I invited Sash to come with me, who accepted readily.

By the time I went through the saga of picking up my gear from Pony and returning the rental car (my gear's too big to fit in my Echo), it was getting quite late. I got dressed up and met Sash at her place, not far from Hayley's. Neither of us had eaten so we found a little Indian place that was excellent. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the party, it was too late to remember Adam's Theory Of Parties Where You Don't Know Anyone. Adam's theory is: be one of the first ones there, that way you meet and bond with people as they arrive, thus by the time the party's in full swing, you know everyone. By the time we got there, most people had already arrived and were in various sections of the mansion in various states of drunkenness. Still, we commandeered Hayley's boyfriend Cam to steal us some alcohol (we forgot to bring any) and armed with a glass of pink champagne each, we found some people to chat to. One of them being Magic Tony, the magician who both Sash and I knew through Le Bop, but we didn't realise knew Hayley (not through Le Bop).

We got stuck talking to some geek engineering students and were wondering what to do when someone distracted them for a second. "Quick!" I hissed to Sash, not too subtly. "Let's go! Now!" We made a hasty getaway and found some more interesting people in the courtyard.

Callum arrived later, after he had finished work at a wine store. (Not a bottle-o, a wine store). Callum was my best friend at uni. We were in a band together for four years and bonded over shopping and girl/boy troubles. Callum used to be the gayest straight man I knew. He has gotten less gay over the years. Back then he used to work at Prada and worship the Spice Girls. I know.

Anyway Callum used to date Hayley for a while. They were a great idea on paper but a complete disaster in practice. It didn't last overly long, less than a year I think, and they have been friends ever since, but still I was nervous about him telling her he's engaged. He told me a few weeks ago but asked me not to tell Hayley, he wanted to tell her himself. Apparently though, he hadn't gotten round to it yet. Sasha, a travel agent, is booking his honeymoon, so we both had to be careful not to mention it to Hayley.

Finally the moment was right. "Hayley, I have some news,"
"What?"
"I'm getting married!"
"I SO knew you were going to say that!"
And that was that.

Phew, glad I kept it such a good secret!

After some dancing to bad 80s music (Hayley's brother is apparently addicted to Belinda Carlisle at the moment. What's with that???) Sash and I were knackered and headed home. I think I did pretty well to last as long as I did considering I had only had three hours sleep the night before!

The next day I slept till lunchtime, a badly needed catch-up, before dropping Chester off at Amber & Justin's for a Christmas-New Year holiday, bought my last Christmas present and got picked up by Sash to go to mum and dad's for Christmas Eve.

We watched Carols by Candlelight on TV while mum set the tables ready for tomorrow's "small" lunch for 18 people. It was nice, the first time both girls have been home on Christmas eve for many years. Mum and dad were very happy. Dad realised at quarter to ten that he hadn't bought any white wine for tomorrow. He had been drinking beer all evening so let me drive him in his new car to the bottle-o. We got there five minutes before closing. Lucky!

Showers not clearing

2007-01-04T04:27:00.000+10:30

The time is now 9:57am. I have written 10 posts this morning. It is still pouring.

Time for a shower.

Fucken Blogger

2007-01-04T04:21:00.000+10:30

Goddamn it shitty shitty shit!!! There goes my tourette's again.

I just wrote the hugest post about our Pony gig on the Friday before Christmas, and was almost finished when somehow bumped something and it disappeared. I knew I should've saved it as I went. But fuckity fuck fuck I was so close!!! And it was so long!!! And I even made it interesting. Goddamn it!!!

Ok. Summary.

Got to soundcheck late.

Got absolutely poured on while loading into the venue. Good hair day ruined.

Dinner with Will while others got changed.

First band: Experimental/garage put-the-guitar-on-the-ground-and-kick-it to a backing of metal acoustic bass and roto-toms. Extremely loud.

Second band: Guy fucking around with an acoustic guitar and a laptop. Not impressed.

Third band: Great!

Paris: Trashed. Gaga over new guy she is seeing. Yet another lead singer who will probably break her heart.

Videographer: Strange but lovely. She is a 45 year old transgender film maker & artist we found on the net. She was very excited about the project and the clip she made looks great. Lot of high-contrast close-ups, very dramatic.

Hair: Improved. Dried in ringlets instead of the frizz I was expecting.

Our set: Went really well. Dave the new drummer did a great job. Managed to arrive from his other gig 15 min before we were due to play, a good effort! Last song gave my sister tears.

Party on: When a random guy shouted the band a round of beer after our set, I decided to leave my car there and taxi home. Good decision. Had heaps of fun with the other band members (gasp!) and random others. Great party atmosphere. The 2am band were great too, although the singer got a bit annoying. Ended up chatting to some guy for quite a long time. He was very intriguing. "I don't have friends" he told me. Very intelligent though, and quite funny. Very cute. Once I told him all about my relationship (I was very conscious of doing this after my discussion with Adam) he told me he was wasting his time with me. But he said he enjoyed my company so it didn't matter. We chatted about everything and nothing, he told me my long distance relationship isn't going to work and I assured him it already has worked, is working and will continue to work. I think he got it.

Left the venue at 5am or so, and caught a cab with another random guy I met in the street. Not like me, really. But I made a quick judgement that a) I wasn't that drunk, and b) he was trustworthy, and I was right. Not only that, he was a musician. Currently recording an album for one of the majors, collaborating with someone from a quite well known local band. What are the chances????

Sheepishly let myself into the house as the sun was rising at about 6am, confusing the hell out of Chester. I climbed straight into bed and collapsed into a deep, satisfied sleep.

Discussions

2007-01-04T03:00:00.000+10:30

One night this week, Adam and I had a pretty serious discussion. I had called him, quite late as I had had something on every night this week and we hadn't spoken much. It was midnight my time which meant 11pm his time (Brisbane doens't have daylight savings because they are idiots). Chances are, he'd still be up.

He was not.

So he was a bit cranky at being gotten out of bed. Even though he hadn't actually been asleep. Fair enough though, once you're in bed for the night that's usually it, it's a bit of an effort to get out of bed to answer the phone. I asked if he wanted to go back to bed and talk another time but he said no. We chatted for a while and he didn't snap out of his grumpy mood, which is unusual for him. I asked if something was up. He reluctantly said yes.

There were a few reasons he was upset, and I think most of it boiled down to him being up in Brisbane all alone, starved of affection, and me being down in Melbourne busy every night having fun and only emailing or calling when I need something or want to tell him all about my fantastic day or complain about something. I have been totally absorbed in my own little world and not really interested in his. Also, I had forgotten to update him on the Dave situation, and he was worried about what was happening between us. This sparked a big discussion about trust, which was very hard. When I get very drunk, I do not always do smart things. I sometimes behave in a manner which does not promote trust. I become very flirtatious and do a lot of things that I don't really remember the next day. This has caused a bit of insecurity on Adam's behalf, which is no surprise. I tell him he doesn't need to worry, but it is very hard because I do not remember these things properly and so have trouble explaining even to myself why they happen. So I guess every time I go out without Adam, he is worried about what might happen, and this week with me out nearly every night it was all too much.

As hard as this discussion was, it was very well timed. I really did think about what he said and with all that's been going on I have been very self-involved. I did feel though, that he hadn't given me credit for some of the nice things I had said and done. I'm not saying he was wrong, but that I'm not a complete ogre!! Anyway it was good to discuss it and to remind me that he is very lonely up there and I need to remind him in as many ways as possible how special he is to me. Also, the bit about trust etc, came in very handy the next night...

Final rehearsal

2007-01-04T02:41:00.000+10:30

The final rehearsal before the Pony gig went really well. Dave had done his homework and really learned the songs. We put together a rocking set which even included a new song we had never played live before.

We were ready to rock...

Byte into Christmas

2007-01-04T02:40:00.000+10:30

Wednesday was also the last Byte Into IT show for the year. This is the 3RRR show I push buttons for every week.

Last year I made my debut on 3RRR airwaves on the Byte xmas show. I was invited into the studio to observe, having just commenced my panelling training. During a lull in conversation I popped a champagne cork, completely throwing the presenters and causing all-round chaos.

This year I was in the driver's seat, and another volunteer who has been helping out with the show was taking over the observational duties. Unfortunately no champagne incidents, but both she and I did inadvertently go to air when giggling at a particular funny joke one of the guys made. My sister told me later she heard female voices laughing in the background a few times. Whoops!

It was a particularly entertaining show, with the presenters giving their computing and technology highlights of the year and being generally quite funny. In a sort of nerdy way, but still funny. There was absolutely NO snickering about the name of Nintendo's new game console. It is pronounced "wee". No snickering at all. Promise.

Afterwards we went to the pub across the road (this pub would be closed down if it weren't for RRR moving in across the road!) for a feed and chat before wishing each other our merry christmases and getting on our merry ways.

I had a gig to go to.

Tom, our frontman, has been playing bass with another band for a while. They have had one gig, which I couldn't make it to, so I was keen to get along this time and check it out.

Unfortunately the show was a bit of a debacle, with PA problems, bands not playing on time, crazy nightclub lighting, and I only got to see about four songs before I had to leave. To go back to RRR.

I had a show to do.

The day before, I had been asked to do a fill on boxing day. I was going to be away. "Ok, then," said the ever optimistic program manager, "what about tomorrow night? Midnight till 2am." "Alright." I agreed, happy to be able to help out.

The show was a bit sloppy - the music was ok, but I didn't have anything prepared to say, and I found I wasn't thinking well on my feet that late at night. Afterwards (yes he was still working at 2am!) the program manager burned a CD of the show and asked me to pay particular attention to two things. It seems I use "ahhhh" to punctuate my sentences. Which doesn't sound good on radio. And I need to preview the tracks and work out how long I have to intro them before the singing starts. Talking over the singing is a no-no.

So with that constructive criticism in mind I tortured myself listening to the show on my way home and finally crawled into bed at around 3am. Again.

The voice saga continues...

2007-01-04T02:23:00.000+10:30

On Wednesday I went to see Debbie Phyland, voice expert, again. Last time I saw her she took video of my vocal cords in action and told me my nodules are gone. Since then, about three weeks ago, I have continued to lose my voice any time I go out or have a late night or eat a rich dinner or do anything that bears the slightest resemblance to having a normal life. Grrr...

She looked at the video again to make sure she was definitely right and I didn't have nodules. She confirmed that there was a little bit of swelling there, but no nodules. Good news. But, the anti-reflux medication was supposed to make a big difference, and it hasn't. This perplexed her. She told me to keep taking the medication and do simple vocal exercises like brrrr and mmmm 6 times a day and I should see some improvement. Hmmmm... I'm getting so sick of people saying "this will fix everything" and then it doesn't! But, I will try with the exercises and see how I go. It's going to be tricky over Christmas, but i'll try. She also wanted me to have a day of complete vocal rest. This means going to bed, waking up and not speaking at all (or whispering) for a whole day, then going to bed again. So it's effectively about 36 hours of silence. Try it - it's not easy!!! There's no way I will be able to do this before Christmas time, I will try for early Jan. Dammit!! I wanted an instant cure!! Not exercises and days of silence! One pill to fix the whole problem. I should have known that was too easy!!!

Rehearsal (18/12)

2007-01-04T02:14:00.000+10:30

Part of the reason I wanted to start this blog was so that I could talk about band stuff somewhat anonymously. So I thought it was worth mentioning this rehearsal.

We had a gig at Pony, a pretty hip band venue, coming up this Friday. Our drummer recently announced he was leaving the band. The Sydney show a few weeks ago was his last show with us. So tonight's rehearsal was our first with Dave, the new drummer.

Now I am not sure whether Dave thinks he is our new permanent drummer, or whether it's a temporary arrangement. The rest of us, from what I can gather, are viewing it as a more temporary thing.

Firstly, Dave plays for another band that our producer works with, and when he told them he was playing with us it caused a bit of a stir. We got accused of trying to steal him, etc etc, when in reality we had only asked if he was interested. We hadn't even played with the guy yet, for all we knew his feel would be all wrong and it would go no further. Suffice to say Jason, the singer of this other band, is a bit of a drama queen.

Secondly, Dave can be a bit... stubborn. He had already clashed with our manager over his intention to use an "inappropriate" drum kit (a small jazz kit) for our show (a rock show), sending the wrong message about our image. "This is my image, take it or leave it." he said.

Also, on a personal level, Dave has been very openly flirtatious with me in the past. He and I got along well when we first met ages ago, but since then he has said some very suggestive, potentially offensive things. Despite us both having partners, he openly perves on me. It is quite flattering to a point, which is why I haven't completely discouraged his behaviour, but sometimes it goes a bit far. So I wasn't sure how it would go being in a band with him. I had said this to Paris, and her attitude seemed to be that maybe that's what the band needs, a bit of a spark. Hmmm...

Adam had expressed his concern about this a little while ago, and asked if I needed him to say something to Dave. I assured him that I didn't think it would be a problem in a professional setting, and if it was I would tell him it wasn't on.

After all this, this was so not an issue during rehearsal. So much so, that I even forgot that it potentially could have been. And forgot to let Adam know that it was ok. Which caused him to brood over it, thinking there was something I wasn't telling him. There wasn't! I truly forgot. I think what I do is, when something I have been worried about turns out to be fine, I cross it off my list of things to worry about and that's it. Sometimes I forget that other people are still worried about them. That used to happen a lot at work actually, when I was a PA. My boss would be waiting to hear that a crisis was resolved, but because I had resolved it, I forgot that there had been a crisis in the first place. So she was waiting to hear back from me, and I had moved on to the next thing.

The actual playing part of the rehearsal went better than I expected. Which is pretty good, considering we had a gig in under a week. Tom and Will had had a rehearsal with Dave last week, when I was in Brisbane, to teach him the basics. He had done a lot of homework and written out the forms of each song. It was weird playing with a different drummer after nearly four years with Wes, but we managed ok. We were crammed into the smallest possible rehearsal room, so small I had to go behind the door. Not the best for a five-piece band with lots of gear but oh well.

Dave kept apologising for things but I think he had done a pretty good job of learning the songs and I knew the gig would be fine. We had one more rehearsal on Thursday to work out a set and run it a few times, before the show on Friday. Dave would be doing the superman phone booth trick - he had a gig with his other band in Richmond at 10:30, then playing in the city with us at midnight. A tough ask, but he was up for the challenge...

Christmas #1 (Sun 17th Jan)

2007-01-04T01:50:00.000+10:30

This afternoon was my first Christmas function.

My friends Bridgett, Luke and Claire were coming over to my place for a BBQ, followed by The Messiah at the Concert Hall. Bridgett was performing in the Messiah, the rest of us were watching.

The EAGG lunch had taken a little longer than I'd anticipated, so I was not quite prepared for Bridgett and Luke's ever punctual arrival. I greeted them at the door in rubber gloves, dishwashing suds up to my elbows. The groceries were still in their plastic (sorry environment) bags, sprawling all over the kitchen floor.

"Is there anything we can do?" Luke asked.

I sent him down to the local shop to swap over my empty BBQ gas bottle for a full one. I finished the dishes while Bridgett put away the groceries. Ahh, friends.

I should point out here that Bridgett and Luke are married. They live in a flat in West Brunswick with their two psycho cats (seriously psycho). I used to work with Bridgett, in fact she took my old receptionist job when I became the MD's PA. Both being musicians and too smart to be doing the jobs we were doing, we got along very well. We bonded over the boss's hissy fits and snapped at ungrateful people together. Bridgett is now working in recruitment, and Luke works as a PA at a worker's union. Bridgett was born and raised in the US, met Luke on the internet, moved out to Australia to study music and be with Luke, and then married him and lived happily ever after.

I think I had the dishes done when Claire arrived. Claire moved to Melbourne from Perth this year. She is a good friend of my friend Katie, who I have known since I was in kindergarten, and we have been friends ever since. Katie moved over to WA after she graduated from her journalism course. She has always been quite an independent girl! So Claire is one of Katies best friends, and when Claire moved over to Melbourne, Katie asked me if I could show her the ropes. It just so happened that the first time I met up with Claire (having met her once over a year ago and not even being sure if I remembered what she looked like) I invited her to hang out with me, Bridgett and Luke. They all hit it off straight away and it is a great little gang. I didn't even realise it at the time, but Claire works for an employers union, so she and Luke are kind of like arch rivals. In a friendly way!

The BBQ was lovely, despite the fact that my barbecue decided that only half of it would light up, so we had to cook the food in shifts. We ate WAY too much, and agreed to save Claire's homemade white chocolate chip brownies for after the Messiah. We sipped champagne in the sun (it was a perfect day, weather wise) and played the hysterical "Who What Where" game. You have to draw out three cards, one with a Who, one with a What and one with a Where, and then attempt to draw the scenario. For example, Elton John, playing ice hockey, at the movies. Then you have to pass the drawings round and guess what's going on in each one. For some reason I was completely in tune with Bridgett, I guessed all three of hers every time.

The Messiah. Hmmmm.

Now I am familiar with the Hallelujah chorus, I have sung it several times and in fact really enjoy singing it. And watching it being sung.

The entire Messiah, on the other hand, was a different story.

I have never been so bored in my entire life!

Ok, I'm exaggerating, there was that one time when Adam and I accidentally went to the opera (Romeo & Juliet: we thought it was the play, not the opera). Ok, now I'm giving the impression that I don't like classical or baroque music at all. Which is just not true. You don't study music for four years if you hate classical music. And I have seen two operas I really loved - La Boheme, and Madame Butterfly. So I guess I should stick to Puccini.

Three hours of Handel... I just can't understand how people get so excited about it! I can see how it would be less boring if you were performing it, rather than watching. The parts are difficult to sing, and I can imagine immensely satisfying if you pull them off. And the orchestra (Melbourne Symphony) were great. But oh my god, I do NOT ever want to sit through Handel's Messiah again!!!

Afterwards we went back to my place for a post mortem and brownies. Bridgett was quite shocked that I didn't like it. I hastily added that there was nothing wrong with the performance, she and the choir did well, and the orchestra were great. I was just bored. She asked whether I hated all Baroque music, or just this piece. I thought about it... I love Bach's preludes & fugues, and I love Baroque music when it's played by a chamber ensemble, like a string quartet, or maybe a trio with a harpsichord. So really, it was just the Messiah I had a problem with. I think she understood how parts of it could be boring if you're not performing. But she really does love all Baroque music, including the Messiah... I hope I didn't upset her too much with my honesty. I think she was ok with it.

The brownies were ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS and I will be encouraging Claire to make them at every opportunity. I don't have many friends who bake, so it is quite rare to get a homemade treat like that. But with Christmas coming up... well lets just say those jeans that have recently become too loose, will probably find themselves on high rotation again!!

Einstein A Go-Go

2007-01-04T01:21:00.000+10:30

I may have mentioned that I do some volunteer work for local community radio station 3RRR. Sunday morning, the morning after Bootleg, was the final show for the year for Einstein A Go-Go, the science show.

I am a phone volunteer for EAGG, meaning I am not heavily involved in the show. Every few months I give up an hour on Sunday morning to be their phone answerer. A pretty light commitment. But it is a fun show to be involved in and I quite enjoy it.

I woke up when my alarm went off, groaned and hit the snooze button. I really wanted to get to the show, but getting home after 3am doesn't agree with me and I couldn't drag myself out of bed. I managed to make it in for the last five minutes of the show, and then joined the crew for lunch at the pub across the road from the studio. A very handy location for a pub, I might add!!

The crew is a very large one, with about 15 rotating phone volunteers, I think about 5 regular presenters covering various science specialties plus a bunch of random guests & hangers on. So lunch was quite interesting.

The show is anchored by Dr Andi, who is absolutely gorgeous and completely crazy. She is a very bouncy bubbly person who plays ukelele very passionately, in addition to having a very inquiring mind. Another person who is not afraid to be a complete dag!

Dr Shane is the other main regular presenter, who is kind of the opposite to Dr Andi, very grounded and measured but with a quick wit and great sense of humour. Dr Shane has always made an effort to remember my name and have a chat despite being one of millions of phone volunteers. So I have a lot of time for Dr Shane.

The phone volunteers are a motley crew. Most of them have a strong interest in science, and range from middle aged woman who wears leather and rides a harley, to second year med student who lives in a country town.

Dr Shane had just become the proud father of half a dozen Siberian Husky puppies, and really did look like a proud father as he showed us the photos. Dr Andi was extremely excited and wanted to come over to his house to play with them. He explained what it was like to go out into the backyard.

"They jump up and cling to your legs like a 2 year old child, only there are six of them. It is like having boots made out of husky."

We chatted about lots of things and I enjoyed the conversation about the drought we are currently experiencing. The whole state is on water restrictions are our dams are well below capacity. It has been a very dry few years and there is no relief in sight. It was interesting hearing about it from a science perspective. Dr Shane has a very simple solution, or perhaps not solution, but it would provide some relief. His theory is that if the water pressure were reduced by 50% we would dramatically reduce the amount of water we use. I think he is right. The amount of times I turn on a tap and get splashed in the face because the pressure is too high! And the trigger nozzle on my hose constantly pops off because the pressure in the hose is too strong. Dr Shane also lamented the fact that rather than really educating people about what's going on, the government restricts people. Most people in Melbourne aren't aware that Bendigo, a large country town with, say 200,000 people, is going to run out of water in the next six months. This is serious! We need to know about this! People need to realise the extent of the problem. No-one I know can believe water is still so cheap, given its scarcity. Anyway, I am on a rant. Let's just say the lunch gave me food for thought.

It was time to leave as I had things on in the afternoon, and just before I made my exit I let it slip to Dr Shane that I have been paneling for the IT show, Byte Into IT for several months now.

"Are you saying you can panel?"
"Yes..."
"Great!!! Dr Andi, Cara can panel!!"
"Oh my god Cara that is wonderful!!!!" Dr Andi leapt up from her seat and enveloped me in a hug. Apparently I will be panelling the show from now on. Me and my big mouth!

Seriously though, I think it will be a fun show to panel, the only problem is the Sunday morning thing. But as long as I'm not doing it every single week, I don't think I'll mind.

Bootleg

2007-01-04T00:56:00.000+10:30

Recently, the band manager - Paris - has been ~~strongly encouraging~~ demanding that we get out and see more gigs. For several reasons: to see how other bands perform onstage, to network with other bands and live music fans, to "be seen"...

Now, this shouldn't seem like such a tough ask for musicians who love live music, but for various reasons it is a tricky thing to do. Personally, I have trouble because of my voice. Every time I go out to somewhere loud and smoky my voice is very husky the next day. Which, being the back-up singer, I can't afford. Others struggle for money, time, etc.

So, despite the voice issue, I initiated an outing. There was a band that I really wanted to see who have been overseas for most of the year, and this would be their first show back. Not only do I quite like the band, but they have done a lot of recording with our producer, and have gone on to make it quite big. Touring o/s with bands such as The Dandy Warhols and Brian Jonestown Massacre, which I think is pretty impressive. I guess they are my proof that a band who has been down our path can "make it". So, I was very keen to see how their show has improved and what all the fuss is about.

Paris has been working for us for nothing so far, as we have not finalised her contract. I think this is because we are all a bit crap when it comes to this legally sort of stuff. It's all a bit too official and serious and scary. So we postpone it. But she has been feeling the pinch and was keen to get it finalised soon. So we decided to meet over dinner to discuss it and then go to this gig. Tom and Will couldn't make it, so it was up to Ric and I to negotiate our future.

Now I'm not going to bore you with the details of the negotiation process except to say two things. The first is that when you hire a manager, a big part of their role is to negotiate on the band's behalf. So you hire someone who is a skilled negotiator. Which Paris is. She can out-negotiate Ric and I any day. The second is that it went pretty well, considering. We were in agreement most of the time, and I did hold my ground once or twice. At this stage anyway, its in all our best interests for Paris' earning potential to be as high as possible, otherwise there will be nothing to motivate her to work for us. We all agreed that things can be renegotiated down the track.

Anyway, we finished our pizza and headed to Bootleg. Bootleg is an indie nightclub in the city, spread over three levels, with bands and DJs. I immediately had flashbacks to about 10 years ago, going to indie nightclubs like Collision and Goo. At Bootleg I felt kinda old. And not very fashionable, despite having put on my best trendy outfit. This is a place where Paris, with her dyed green, shaved at the sides, designer mullet, fits in. And I realised that these cool indie kids are the audience she thinks we should be targeting. Thinking of our less than cutting edge dress sense, our lack of onstage antics and the proportion of receeding hairlines in our band, I made an observation to Ric. "We would get eaten alive here."

There were seven bands on, all of them bands of the moment - hip, happening, cool. The headline band (let's call them Not The Dandy Warhols, or NTDW for short) were scheduled to play at 1am. Oh jesus. I am such a nanna but that's way past my bedtime. Oh well, I just had to suck it up and stay awake.

I passed the time by bumping into a few people I knew (accomplishing the "be seen" objective) and hanging out with Ric and Robbie (our producer). Paris flitted about, shadowing a cute boy who's also the lead singer of a local band. She was in her element. She informed us at quarter to one that NTDW had been rescheduled to play at 2am. Why? They were not here yet. They arrived casually at 1:00. For a 1:00 gig. How cool is that?

They put on a great show, I'm glad I stayed. The band has one girl in it, Aimee, and she was very inspiring. She plays mostly tambourine, one in each hand shaking them above her head. She also plays the odd keyboard and guitar part and sings as well. The band lined up across the front of the stage with four microphones and often all four sang in harmony, which was great. I wish we could do that. They also all looked cool, all the time. Especially Aimee. Never daggy or awkward, just totally cool and in control. Very impressed!

It was an extremely late night and my ears were ringing the next day, it had been so loud. I am definitely getting old. But if my whole job now is to be a rockstar, then this is what I have to do, and really, I do enjoy it.

Sleepless in Brisbane

2007-01-04T00:18:00.000+10:30

I was woken this morning by the sound of traffic and pouring rain. I tried to ignore it and go back to sleep. My bladder made this impossible.

I got up and went to the loo. It was bucketing down outside. It was also 5am.

I climbed back into bed and tried to find the land of slumber. I am a crap navigator.

So here I am at ten to six, writing on my blog. I decided now would be a good time to make a start on catching up the last few weeks. It seems I am always playing catch-up with this thing. But there have been so many newsworthy stories!! I guess the end of the year is always a busy time. So I will try to be as succinct as possible and we'll see how it goes...

The Famous Spiegeltent

2006-12-28T11:54:00.000+10:30

Ok, I have kept you in suspense long enough. Sorry folks... life gets in the way sometimes!!

So... I went to the hairdressers first thing in the morning - I had John this time who is Irish and a bit deaf which makes for some confusing conversations! He is also very rough... and, he has never got my fringe quite right. I think I will have to make sure I don't get John in the future. I managed to fix the fringe at home later in the shaving mirror with hairdressing scissors I keep for such emergencies. Phew!

I spent a lot of the day practising and before I knew it it was time to get ready. I glammed up in the new frock I bought in Brisbane for the occasion - black strapless with a pink beaded floral design on the front. Sounds gross but looks stunning! Yes even I do say so. And, it was quite chilly so I was able to wear the extremely glamorous Alannah Hill coat Adam gave me for my birthday. I didn't expect to be able to wear this in December, it is fake fur, a deep pinkish red, very wintry but worked with my outfit.

My taxi was half an hour late so I was a bit panicky by the time I got there, but they were still setting up the drums and I really wasn't needed. Rebecca introduced me to the other band members - Ross, the bass player, and Ian, the drummer. Or Kit and Caboodle as Rebecca calls him. Ross was funny, he had been joking about what a bitch I am and how he's going to freeze me out of the band, before he'd even met me. Ian was very lovely and friendly. They were both GREAT to play with. It's amazing how different it is playing with different musicians, especially ones as experienced as these guys. During sound check we didn't have much time, but ran through the songs I was doing and they ran pieces of a few other songs as well. Ross and Shane offered some suggestions which I tried to incorporate, and they seemed pretty happy with things. The sound in the Spiegeltent is quite weird, the foldback wasn't very powerful, and I couldn't hear much piano or vocals. Funny since I was playing on a huge grand piano. But once you get drums in the mix you tend to lose those frequencies. While we rehearsed, Harry (their son) wandered round taking digital photos of us. Official photographer extraordinaire!

The show was a sell out, and soon it was time to let the audience in. We were all a bit nervous I think, and hovered between the storage area behind the stage, and the "band room", a little portable room behind the tent. Rebecca looked lovely, she had on a silky dress in a similar colour scheme to mine. Shane got changed into a great shirt, a country style black number with a red and green floral design studded with diamentes. Rebecca proceeded to call him Mr Fancy Shirt for the rest of the night.

At the last minute Shane said to me "I hope you're not offended but I don't think you should play Nobody Breaks This Heart Of Mine. It's just that the band doesn't know it very well and we always stuff it up." I was slightly disappointed as I had worked hard to learn the song, and it was my favourite recording on the album, but I understood exactly what he meant. As we hadn't had the chance to rehearse it properly with the whole band, if they mucked it up and I played what was on the CD, or vice versa, it would sound terrible. Plus, this was the song I was least comfortable with anyway, so that would certainly relieve some stress. I told him it was cool.

The Spiegeltent is an incredibly intimate venue, a round room lined with mirrors with most audience members seated in rows in the centre, and booths around the perimeter. The audience were seated, with all the seats full and lots of people standing at the back.

"Ladies and Gentlement, would you please welcome to the stage, Rebecca Barnard!"

It was on. The four band members filed onto the stage and I stood somewhat awkwardly to the side, waiting to be invited onstage. The audience could mostly all see me, but there was nowhere for me to sit so I just had to ignore them and watch the show. I did so, sipping champagne to calm my nerves.

Rebecca was on fire. She is hilarious onstage, completely comfortable with herself and the band, and most importantly, the audience. She's not afraid to be a dag, something I've always admired her for, but she can also be very quick and witty. I noticed even my dad was laughing at her banter. He can be a tough nut to crack, I was impressed.

They started fairly upbeat, meaning "Nobody Breaks..." a slow sumptuous jazz number, was stunning. I was so glad I wasn't playing it, it was perfect as it was, really minimal and heartbreaking, really. I had tears in my eyes by the end.

Finally I was invited to the stage, getting a huge cheer from my fanclub. Mum had bought about 10 tickets and they were all sitting together yelling "Cara!". Also I spotted Hayley down the back with her friend Inneke, who was getting right into it. I clambered onstage quite unglamorously - the piano stool was right at the front of the stage and the people in the front row had their drinks all sitting on the stage, leaving nowhere for me to step.

The band immediately included me in their onstage banter, and with Ross bagging me out to everyone, saying I was a Myspace stalker, I immediately had the crowd on my side. Plus Rebecca told everyone about how she had looked after Chester, so I really sounded like a stalker!!

We started off with the "Bob" (To Make You Feel My Love), which went really well. It's so much nicer playing on a grand piano than the digital one, and Rebecca's delivery was so smoky and beautiful. Then the band came back and we did the other two, "As Free As You Can Be" and "Fortified", which went well. The la la la backing vocals in the first one are heaps of fun, I love singing backing vocals! Most of Shane's last minute instructions flew out of my head but I remembered enough and got a great reception from the audience.

It was over all too quickly and I went back to my leaning position at the side of the stage for the final few songs. The Spiegeltent is run like clockwork, they have 3 shows a night there so you have to finish your set in the allocated 70 minutes or else!

The other Bob - "Boots of Spanish Leather" - brought the house down, just Rebecca singing accompanied by Shane, and then the band came back for the encore "I Hurt". I really would have loved to join in on this one, if we'd had a proper rehearsal I think that might have happened. I had jammed on it once just with Rebecca, and I could have done it quite easily, but I thought it would be a bit presumptuous to climb back onstage uninvited so I stayed put and enjoyed.

Afterwards I congratulated the band backstage, and they all complimented me and said I did really well. They were all glowing with that post performance buzz... this is what we do it for. It's certainly not for the money!!!

I went out and found my mum, dad, aunties and friends, who all thought the show was great and I was wonderful of course! Nothing like your family to stroke your ego. I apologised for only doing 3 songs, they were all there just for me and I really didn't do very much. It would have been more but it just didn't work out. They all brushed it off and said I looked beautiful and sounded great, etc etc. And all went and bought a CD from Rebecca, got her to sign it, and introduced themselves as "Cara's mum", "Cara's aunty", etc.

They invited me to have dinner with them, and Hayley invited me to have dessert with them, but I politely declined. This was a night for hanging out with rockstars. Or adult contemporary stars with kids in tow. But whatever. Rebecca had alluded to going out afterwards so I assumed I was included but thought I'd better check. I asked Shane what they were doing.
"I think we're going to get some food."
I was starving. "Do you mind if I tag along?"
"I'd be offended if you didn't!!"

So that was that.

I joined Rebecca, Shane, Harry, and about7 or 8 other people for Peking Duck at Southbank. Including another female rockstar & her husband and son, a well known radio personality and a pirate. We consumed lots of delicious food and wine and enjoyed good conversation. They were genuinely interesting and intelligent people who had a lot to say and were genuinely interested in me and what I had to say as well. There was so much affection around the table, I felt extremely comfortable and had a great night.

Shane and Rebecca wouldn't hear of me catching a cab home so I climbed in the back seat of their Avalon and they dropped me off on their way over the Westgate. They came in to say hello to Chester, and he was all shy sleepy and cute. I was so happy, the whole night had gone so well and I felt that, whether or not I played any future gigs with these people, we would always have a lot of fondness for each other and I would see them again. I am so happy that I was brave enough that one day to track down Rebecca's email address and write to her.

I sent Rebecca a copy of Casbar's Rock - the mixtape I make every year at Christmas and send to my special people. She called me when she got it and she was so excited.
"They are such great songs!! Did you make this??? Thankyou so much!!"

So hopefully this story is really the beginning of a chapter rather than the end...

Photos pinched from the Spiegeltent website . I will add a couple from dinner later.

One more sleep...

2006-12-15T18:44:00.000+10:30

So... I'm playing with Rebecca and her band tomorrow night at the Famous Spiegeltent. Well, tonight, technically. Very exciting!!! I can't quite believe it's really happening... the Spiegeltent is one of those legendary venues that sounds amazing to play at but you never think it will happen to you. Well I didn't.

We had a little run through this morning, the songs I'm doing sound lovely with piano, can't wait to hear it with the whole band. I've even got a new frock for the occasion!! And it's sold out - mostly thanks to my mum i think!!

Wish me luck - I found out Tim Rogers will be in the audience, as if playing with Rebecca & co isn't nervewracking enough!!! Holy crap!

I return to a city shrouded in smoke.

2006-12-14T15:42:00.000+10:30

I return to a city shrouded in smoke. It sits thickly in the air like fog on a mid-winter morning, and like in mid-winter, you know it is not likely to lift by lunchtime, like it would have in the spring time. The sun is a pale pink disc hanging in the gloom, casting an eerie light over the grey city.

I have only been in the city for six hours but already I am feeling nauseous from the constant inhalation of impure air. Lucky I escaped the worst of it.

The weekend in Melbourne was reportedly horrendous. Forty three degrees (celsius) on Sunday, with bushfires burning out of control across half the state. While I was two states away, cruising in a convertible on a perfect day up the Sunshine Coast of Queensland.

After Sydney Came Brisbane...

2006-12-14T10:40:00.000+10:30

Brisbane was great, a few days of relaxing with my boy.

Our friend Sammi has been living overseas for several years, but she is home for Christmas and was staying at her parents' flat on the Sunshine Coast. They were in Brisbane for the day, so she came to visit us and stayed the night. Sammi has recently gotten back together with Marc, her Canadian boyfriend, and is very excited about it. She sounds pretty sure that this time it's for real and I'm so happy for her. She is a gorgeous girl, very happy go lucky and positive and she deserves someone wonderful. Which by all accounts, Marc is.

The next day, we rented a convertible and drove up to the Sunshine Coast with the top down, singing at the top of our lungs. And I wonder why I had nodules!

The drive up was great, and when we reached Mooloolabah we had fish n chips by the beach. Awesome fish n chips!!!

We went to her parents' apartment and got ready for the beach. By the time we got there a big wad of clouds had made their way in front of the song, which was a bit disappointing. I didn't end up going in the water, I'm a complete wuss. Next time!!

Before the sun set Sammi wanted to take us up the mountain to check out some views, so we drove up with her in the driver's seat and me navigating! Ha, that's a joke. We managed not to get lost and the views were pretty spectacular. The town at the top of the mountain reminded me a lot of the towns in the Dandenongs in Victoria. I guess touristy little mountain towns are the same everywhere.

We topped off the day with dinner (Moreton Bay bug curry... mmm...) before Adam and I drove back to Brisbane.

Another day I walked the half an hour from Adam's apartment into the city to meet him and some work friends for lunch at one of those sushi train restaurants. It was nice except for the fact that he only invited me 10 minutes before I had to be there. I was quite happily lying on a banana lounge by the pool reading my book and soaking up some sun, when my phone rang. I quickly put some clothes on and headed to the city but they'd all pretty much finished eating by the time I got there. Oh well. It's always nice to remind people that I actually exist, I'm not a made-up girlfriend!!

I spent the rest of the day shopping and found a hot dress for my Spiegeltent gig. I always went into Allans (music store) and practiced the songs since Adam doesn't have a piano in his apartment.

The rest of the time I spent lounging by the pool, dealing with band emails (work doesn't stop when you go away) and practising songs on the tiniest little keyboard imaginable (the keys are like those on a kiddie keyboard).

So that was Brisbane, a nice change of scenery and a bit of a break from the insane Melbourne weather.

Sydney

2006-12-13T22:10:00.000+10:30

It has been a busy week with my birthday amongst other things.

On Wednesday I was a freelance page turner (paid!) for the cast recording of a new Australian musical. This followed by my usual job (unpaid) as co-producer of Byte Into IT, the computer nerd show on RRR.

On Thursday I had to take Chester to the vet to see how the new medication is going and get more supplies. The good news is one of the tablets is definitely doing its job and his blood pressure has improved markedly. The bad news is his cough is still pretty bad so there is still some swelling around the heart obstructing his airway. There is another drug that might help this, but it only comes in a dosage for larger animals. It is in a capsule because it tastes foul, which means it's not as simple as breaking it in half like I do with his other medication (bear in mind he's only 2.5kg). There are a few alternatives but they all involve extra effort and expense. Of course I will do what it takes to alleviate his discomfort, but this is getting to be a pain in the butt. For someone to look after him for a few days, they will need to put half of one tablet and a quarter of another into his food and watch that he eats them, and either a capsule which he won't want to eat and will have to be shoved down his throat, or a syringe of paste into his mouth. Plus I will have to go to a special chemist place to get the capsules or paste made up.

Anyway, at least he's improving.

So the rest of Thursday was spent preparing for our gig in Sydney the next day, and my holiday in Brisbane following that. I had to pack (including clothes for the gig plus 5 days in Brisbane, as well as instruments, merch & other gig related stuff), make phone calls organising all sorts of things, pick up my reflux medication from the pharmacy, learn 2 more songs for my gig next week with Rebecca, pack Chester's things and drop him off at Rebecca's house to be looked after (she took such a shining to him right from the beginning), check out some shoes at Sportsgirl a friend had on yesterday that are awesome and would be perfect for the Sydney gig outfit, put some music on my new birthday ipod shuffle to listen to on the plane and by the pool in Brisbane.

When I was dropping off Chester, Rebecca told me she had had a vision, and asked me to learn another song - You Am I's "Heavy Heart". It is a beautiful song, I agreed readily but then wondered how I am going to nail all these songs since I will be in Brisbane without a piano for the majority of the week. I decided to take the little tiny synth we have borrowed for the gig (my vintage analogue synth is too delicate for the road) up to Brisbane so at least I could practice the chord progressions. It wasn't until later that Ric told me his friend was picking up the synth on Monday so it would have to come back to Melbourne with him. Shit, how would I learn these songs???? I begged him to call her and ask if we could keep it longer. He did so, without disclosing the fact that it would be travelling to Brisbane and back, and she consented. Thank God!

That night by about 9pm I was almost packed. That is, I had everything I needed laid out on my bed. I got the suitcases down from on top of the wardrobe. I had two small wheelies that I figured everything would fit into, and with any luck I could even send the one with all the musical gear in it back to Melbourne with the others rather than lugging it to Brisbane. I neatly packed everything into the cases and then retrieved the little synth from the next room. It was an inch too long for the biggest case. SHIT!!!!

There was another suitcase on top of the wardrobe, a humungous wheelie I didn't really want to use. Looks like I had no choice. I repacked everything into the huge case and zipped it up, hurrying as I had to catch a bus. Oh yeah I haven't explained this part of the plan. We were leaving on the first flight out the next morning: 6:15am. I was the only one who lived on this side of town and I didn't want to cop a $50 cab ride on my own. So I would make my way to the other side of the city and crash on Tom & Ric's couch for the night. Only problem is, there are major parking restrictions around their house and they don't have a visitor's permit, so I would have to catch the bus. This was fine, it was from the end of my street to the end of theirs. Not a huge deal. I dragged my suitcase to the front door with great difficulty. It was heavy thanks to all the musical gear. But it shouldn't be this hard! I looked at the base of the suitcase, sure enough, one wheel was broken. I remembered now, we had broken it moving Adam's stuff back from Sydney last year. There was no way I'd be able to wheel it to the bus stop by myself. Shit.

I called Ric, knowing he'd be on his way home from work. Good timing - he was just leaving and reluctantly said he'd come by. Reluctantly because it's SO not on the way. Oh well. Then I called Paris to explain my luggage crisis. I thought she might have a decent suitcase and since she was only going for one night and doesn't need an instrument, she might be able to lend me something. She answered the phone from work. At the bar. She told me that she was supposed to work till 4:30am. We had to leave for the airport at 5am. Uh-oh.

She did have a suitable suitcase, plus she offered for me to stay at her place where there was ample parking. She was going to find someone to replace her shift at work, and would be home soon. Perfect solution! I called Ric just in time to say don't bother coming, and to make sure the taxi stopped to pick us up at Paris' house on the way to the airport. Then I unpacked again and put everything back into the small suitcases. Much easier for me to transport and then Paris could use one of the small cases for an overnighter.

By the time I got to Paris' place I thought she'd be well and truly home but she was not. She arrived about 15 minutes later, apologising, saying it was tough to find someone to replace her. She'd had to offer $50 cash to get someone in. By now it was midnight.

At around one thirty I'd had enough of watching her check her emails and eating rice cakes with cheese and announced I'd be cranky as hell if I didn't go to bed soon. She laughed, remembering how tired & grumpy I'd been the day after my birthday party. "Go right ahead," she said, indicating the direction of her room. I got changed and took myself off to bed, hauling the piles of clothes off the unmade futon before setting the alarm on my phone for 4:45am and climbing in.

I didn't sleep too well and vaguely heard Paris climb in beside me much later. It seemed like a minute later and her phone was buzzing wildly on the chest of drawers. I picked up my phone. Four thirty. I looked over at Paris. Dead to the world. I curled up and waited till my phone went off fifteen minutes later before reluctantly heading off to the loo. I felt like I hadn't slept at all.

Suddenly the toilet erupted in shrill ringing. My phone. Was ringing. Loudly. At 4:45am. While I was peeing. With Paris' housemate asleep in the next room. Whoops.

I grabbed the phone, trying to mute the shrieking, finished peeing and answered a groggy "Hello?". Tom's voice was on the other end. "The taxi's at our place now. We'll be there soon."

That was an understatement. They lived less than two minutes away.

I immediately went and woke up Paris.
"The taxi's there. They're on their way!"
"What...? Shit, I haven't even packed yet."

I had tried so hard to get her sorted last night but eventually figured she was a grown up, a manager no less, and it wasn't my responsibility. Now, it was.

I rapidly dressed and took the small wheelie down to her room where she chucked some clothes off the floor into the case. I left her to it and went to brush my teeth. There was no time to put in contacts, I would have to wear my glasses. I never wear my glasses.

I got Tom to carry Paris' fairly large suitcase filled with my gear out to the maxicab, where the boys all made snide remarks about girls and clothes and was this a joint suitcase for everyone?

I sat in the cab for a while waiting for Paris, as the meter went up and up. Eventually I said, "I'm going in."

I went in to find her picking up various clothes off the floor and putting them down again.

"Are you ready?" I asked unecessarily.
"I can't find my jacket..."
"Which jacket?" I asked, scanning the room.
"My only jacket. It's black."
I left her searching the room and emerged a minute later from the living room. "This jacket?"
"Yes!! Where did you find it?"
"It was on the clothes horse. Now let's go!"

I was a bit frustrated that she, the manager, was holding up proceedings. But also a little bit pleased that it wasn't me. It usually is.

Ok it's getting late and I need sleep so I'm going to attempt to summarise from hereon in. Summary is not my strong poing! Attention to detail, that's what my resume boasts.

We made the flight even with the hassle of checking in guitars etc. Our friend and fellow musician Renny picked us up from the airport in his station wagon, a huge favour. He also lent me his 88 key digital piano - a lifesaver.

Paris didn't like the scungy cheap hotel in Kings Cross I had booked us into and refused to stay there. So we found another scungy even cheaper hotel with less old men hanging round it. This was more to her satisfaction, despite the rooms being like prison cells.

Ric borrowed his cousin's car and proceeded to almost kill us and several locals throughout the day. I don't blame him, Sydney's roads are horrendous.

Rehearsal that day was, interesting... the rented amps were atrocious, but I got a feel for the borrowed keyboards I would be using and also managed to see some semi-famous Sydney musos hanging round the rehearsal studios, and get a few minutes of shuteye waiting for the first lot of gear to be ferried to the venue (the borrowed car was not a station wagon).

Dinner was great, we had "The Best Thai" (yes the restaurant was really called that) and some wine to get the good vibes flowing. It worked, by the end of dinner we were in high spirits. Paris had spent the day meeting important people so was still buzzing from that.

The 3 boys leaving Sydney at 6am the next morning shared one prison cell and Paris, Tom and I shared the other. This caused Tom to OD on oestrogen and have to leave suddenly. I understood.

The venue, Candy's Apartment, was fantastic. The perfect size for us, nicely decked out with cute little private nooks and a big dance floor with about 50 mirror balls hanging above it. That was my favourite part. I've always loved mirror balls. Ahhh....

The show went surprisingly well. Considering half our gear was borrowed, we had all been up since 4am, and we were completely unknown in this city, we punched out a killer set and rather impressed the audience. Being on first, the venue was virtually empty for our first song. But by the last it had filled up to a respectable number. My cousin Matt and his two mates were there, and seemed to really enjoy it. Matt couldn't believe that this was the same band he saw up here 18 months ago. "You guys were SO much better than last time!" he kept saying.

Straight after the set we each downed two tequila slammers to get the party started and took lots of stupid photos on my camera. The other bands were really good, particularly Miyagi. Very post rock, more so than us, and very good at it. Dawn Collective were a very different band live to on record. Much better I think.

It was a fun night, I felt great in my new dress and enjoyed floating between various groups lapping up praise and discussing music, Sydney and random shit. This is what it's all about!!

For me the night probably should have ended when the bands finished and the DJ started playing bad techno (i thought that went out at least 5 years ago...?) but against better judgement agreed to go out with Paris. After the Unmentionable Taxi Incident (if you really want to know i'll email it to you, it's not something I want to blog), we met up with a friend of hers and went to some places that really weren't my scene. Eventually I disappointed her and took myself home. I had really only come with her so she wouldn't be alone, and now she was with people who would take care of her so I didn't feel too bad. I could feel my voice going and I needed sleep badly. I had been up for almost 24 hours.

I crashed out on the bottom bunk amid the smell of stale cigarette smoke, sweat and foot odour, satisfied that the night had been a success.

Enough for now!

Another year older...

2006-12-05T20:36:00.000+10:30

Yesterday was my 28th birthday.

After a long weekend of birthday funness, I feel like the most loved and spoiled person in the world.

Adam flew down for the weekend, making it already special.

On Saturday night, 25 of my closest friends and family gathered for dinner at a Thai restaurant on Brunswick St, where everybody sits on cushions on the floor and eats way too much food and talks way too much crap. It was a great mixture of people from all my random friendship groups, and all got along well - some a little too well! I was given an astonishing array of gifts which I didn't expect, including an iPod shuffle, an amazing book about the gigs that changed the world, perfume (j'adore), champagne, vanilla vodka... the list goes on. And one group of friends all put in for a shopping expedition for "rockstar clothes" (more on that later).

I had a brilliant time, it was hilarious to see everyone including my dad sprawled on the floor sharing thai dishes and chatting to random people. A few people started to leave and I felt the night drawing to a close so asked the waiter for the bill. Ross was the one who said "but isn't there birthday cake?"

So we did birthday cake and then sorted out the bill which went remarkably smoothly given the number of people and the fact that everyone had eaten/drunk different things, shared meals etc.

Then a select group moved on to the Black Pearl, a gorgeous cozy bar just down the road for drinks. A few more people met us here and we stayed until about 3am drinking and talking yet more crap.

The next day I felt rather shabby, and unfortunately had to be at rehearsal at noon. Adam loaded up the car for me (not a small deal given the hundreds of kilos of gear I possess) and I headed off reluctantly. Usually I love rehearsal, but today I was a bit tired and cranky and just couldn't be bothered.

Rehearsal went ok anyway, and afterwards we headed to a nearby pizza shop to discuss our upcoming Sydney trip and the general future. At about 9pm I bailed, exhausted, bringing a takeaway Margarita home to my boy.

We sat on the couch, watched the end of Empire Strikes Back together and went to bed early. Couple happiness!

Monday was my actual birthday and we met Sandra for breakfast at 9.30 near the Botanical Gardens. She was her usual fun self and there was lots of sunshine so a brilliant start to the day.

Then Adam and I headed to Brunswick street to start the rockstar shopping expedition while we waited for Mich to join us. We found an amazing Alannah Hill furry coat majorly discounted (it's summer now) and a cute lightning bolt necklace. Adam bought me these. Spoiled!!

By the time Mich arrived I had found the perfect rockstar dress. I tried it on again to get her seal of approval and we agreed it was awesome. By this time we had been there for so long Adam was serving customers in the store.

All day text messages and phone calls were pouring in wishing me a happy birthday. I didn't know I knew this many people!! So lovely!!

We met Amber and Justin for lunch and then all five of us traipsed around while I looked for a belt to match the dress. Justin came up with the winning one.

For dinner we had dessert.

Amber works in a restaurant called Hot Chocolate, which only serves coffees, cakes & desserts (oh and cocktails) so we completely pigged out on sweet things until we felt completely sick.

Then I drove Adam to the airport (sniff), and went to RRR to fill for Local and/or General - a new music & demos program. By this time my voice was exhausted from partying, talking, singing and drinking too much for the last few days, so it was a bit of a flat show. I think the music was good though. Just struggled to get much sparkle into the presentation. Oh well...

I fell into bed at about 1am, pretty damn pleased with the great weekend I'd had. Lots of people don't like birthdays because either they don't like getting older or they don't like people making a fuss over them, but I love it!!! The getting older thing is starting to be less fun, but I always used to want to be older than I was so I have never really minded it. Now that it's getting closer to the big three oh it's a bit daunting, but I know heaps of people in their 30s having the time of their lives so I'm really not that worried. And as for people fussing over me... I love it!! What can I say??? Once a year I love having a good excuse for everything to be all about me and I don't think I'll ever get tired of that!

Spiegel Spiegel!

2006-12-01T17:43:00.000+10:30

Right! So! Earlier this week I had some exciting news... I had an email from a famous person wanting me to play with them.

I responded to her email immediately and then spoke to her on the phone the following day. I asked her which songs I should start with (I had spent most of the day working out several of her songs on the piano). She surprised me by saying "Do you know Bob D - oh what am I saying - of course you know Bob Dylan,"
"Yeeees," I replied tentatively. "I don't have all of his albums or anything, but I am familiar with him..."

She then proceeded to give me half the name of the song she and her husband had been working out. She told me she'd send me the Mp3 later when Shane was home to do "all that techo stuff". I spent the ensuing hours trying to locate & download a copy of the song, to no avail (I don't have itunes or anything). It finally came through and I had a listen.

"You might not like it," she had warned. "It's really sweet, almost too much so."

To Make You Feel My Love was indeed very sweet, but not over the top and I could imagine her doing a beautiful version. She has a rather husky, quite low voice, and I was excited to hear how it would sound.

At first I was a bit daunted by the number of chords in the song. I managed to find a few versions of the guitar chords on the net (all conflicting of course), and extracted the correct progression, then transposed it into the key Rebecca wanted to try. I was hoping like hell this key would work because it was a bitch to transpose and I didn't want to do it again!!!

After a few plays through I realised it was quite a simple descending pattern and could easily venture into cheesy musical theatre territory. I would have to keep it very simple. Which suits me fine, I can only think of one thing at a time anyway!

She mentioned another song of hers "Keep Smiling", might also work well as a duet, so I spent the next day working on these two before our scheduled rehearsal at her place at 4.00. "Are you sure you don't mind coming to our place?" She asked. "I don't want to put you out." I don't think she understood that for me this was an opportunity of a lifetime, something I never thought would happen, and I would have driven to Sydney if I'd had to. Plus she lives just over the Westgate bridge from me, so it's literally a 5 minute drive.

Their house was just as I would have imagined it. Beautiful, slightly wild garden, lots of artwork and books everywhere, and of course music. Several guitars, piano, a wall of CDs... mmm.... heaven.

And Rebecca was gorgeous. She's much older than me, closer to my mum's age, but not condescending at all. We bonded immediately over dogs - their little bundle of energy Foxy greeted me at the door and I told her he was not much bigger than my little Chester and she demanded to see photos of him. I found some on my phone and it was love at first sight.

I met her husband and son who were off to cricket practice and we got down to business. They had a lovely upright piano in their living room, so that's where we rehearsed. It was very casual, but she was SO encouraging. After we ran through the Bob (as we called it) once, she said "Awwww, that was beautiful!!" And during another song when I piped in with some vocal harmonies she said "and you sing like an angel!". Which I know is far from the truth but it certainly bolstered my confidence!! Our voices did blend well together, we both have quite a breathy sound and she's so easy to sing with.

When I made a mistake & played the completely wrong chord, we would both burst out laughing and the same when she stuffed up. I'd say it was the funnest rehearsal I'd had in a long time.

We ran through several of her songs before deciding on Fortified as the one to do if they wanted a second song for the radio show we were doing.

During the session we had a visit from her mum, as well as several phone calls from musicians, some quite famous. No names, sorry!

After her son came home and kicked us out of the lounge room so he could watch Foxtel, we gravitated to the kitchen/dining area, a huge room with a massive table. She went to her computer to check out myspace... one of the musos she'd spoken to told her about a girl she was seeing in a local band & she wanted to check it out. She ended up asking me for help with adding videos to myspace and i became her favourite person!!

They ended up asking me to stay for dinner so I found myself sitting round the dinner table with two bona fide rockstars munching on Cambodian take away and sipping pinot gris.

I headed home after dinner to pinch myself and figure out whether the last few hours had actually happened. The best thing was that Rebecca was happy with how we sounded so I was definitely doing the live radio broadcast from the Spiegeltent. YAY!!!!!

****

The next day between practising the songs, I looked up the Spiegeltent website. I couldn't find the live broadcast anywhere. Hmmm... maybe try the ABC. Yep, there it was. Big Top Radio. Live from the Spiegeltent Forecourt... hang on. The Forecourt?

The whole reason I was doing this with Rebecca was that there is a grand piano in the Spiegeltent that she was dying to use. The Forecourt is the area outside. There is definitely no grand piano outside. Uh-oh...

I emailed her immediately. She responded later that day confirming that we would indeed be outside and this does indeed mean no piano. Bugger. But, she said she would come over the next day anyway and see what it sounds like with my Roland digital piano.

Arrgghhh! It dawned on me I was going to have a celebrity in my house. Better clean up!

I did a bit of tidying that night, and did so much more last minute tidying the next morning that I had just made breakfast when she arrived. So she sat on the fitball in the kitchen while I scoffed my sultana bran, muesli, yoghurt & fruit concoction and we discussed naturopaths. I gave her the card of mine, I think she's going to go see her.

You can probably gather by now that we really clicked. I don't know whether maybe she's the kind of person that really clicks with everyone, but if you think about it we're very different in age and experience and it's not a given that we would get along so well. But we did.

Anyway rehearsal went really well, by now I had memorised the songs and was feeling pretty confident. She was happy with how the digital piano sounded and so it was on! Yay again! She was going to pick me up at 8.00 and then afterwards I would go with her to see her husband play at the Spanish Club.

****

I don't want to tell you how long I spent getting ready, but lets just say that once I picked the dress, I tried on about 8 different bras to find one that worked, ended up wearing the first one i tried on but pulling my slip up over my boobs so that the lines of the bra weren't so obvious. Then I couldn't get my hair to do anything. I tried replicating this amazing french roll thing I fluked the other day, but of course it wouldn't work, and by the end there was so much hair spray and crap going on I didn't know what to do. Finally I shoved a comb in the top bit and pulled the rest into a low side pony just over my shoulder - sounds awful but actually very cute. And since I was wearing a yellow frock I bought in Hawaii and cute pink heels, cute was in order.

I was ready and had all my gear packed up when she got there (thank god I'd started getting ready so early!) and we got there in excellent time. I was surprised (for some reason although I'd texted just about everyone I know) to see several familiar faces sprinkled throughout the audience.

After a nervous wait, we were finally on and to my horror I could barely hear the keyboard at all. Due to this I got distracted and played the intro progression of Bob once instead of twice, without even realising it until Rebecca said 'sorry' under her breath, as if she'd missed the entry, not that I'd stuffed up. What a professional. I just played the first chord for a bit longer and she started and the rest went without hiccup. Oh, if you don't count the marching band and opera singers going on behind us in the Spiegeltent. And the music playing in the bar nearby. In fact, it's surprising anybody heard us at all!!

The second song was much easier, Rebecca was playing guitar and it was a lot less chords. And I got to sing.

While the presenter was chatting on air to Rebecca between songs, I went to the sound guy & asked if I could turn my keyboard up a bit, I could barely hear it. They ended up turning a speaker round for foldback, which made things much easier.

So Fortified went really well and I even managed to look up and smile at my friends, who were snapping away with their cameras.

Afterwards, Rebecca leaned in to kiss me on the cheek and looked happy with how it had gone. "That was great!" she said. Phew!

And my friends all congratulated me and said I looked "amazing". Which was pretty good considering the 8 bras and bad hair day!!

These are the photos Sandra took.

****

In the car afterwards Rebecca was very pleased with how it had gone. I said to her that I know it was a risk getting me to do it and thanked her for taking that risk. She shrugged it off but I was glad I'd said it. She certainly did not have to get some unknown piano player half her age to play a gig with her, but she genuinely seemed to enjoy it.

The Spanish Club was fun. My sister had achieved her monthly target in her travel agent job, scoring her a trip to New Zealand. So she met us for some celebratory sangrias. We met Rebecca's friends and various rockstars, and at about 11.30 Rebecca dropped me home, helping me unload all my gear and seeing Chester one more time. I think she might look after him when I go to Sydney/Brisbane next week. Oh, and in the car on the way home she talked about rehearsals for her real Spiegeltent gig coming up in 2 weeks.

"So, for the Spiegeltent gig, we could just use the piano at home again, and rehearse there if you like?"
In my head I'm going: "YES!! YES!!! AWESOME!!! WICKED!!! FUCK YEAH!!! WOO HOO!!! I'M IN!!!!"
Out loud I said: "Yeah, that sounds fine."
I guess I knew that tonight had been a sort of audition for the real show, and this was the final confirmation that I'd passed. Yay again again!

This morning I was a bit tired and slow-moving due to overexcited and vodka, and I never want to hear Bob again... well at least for a few days, anyway...

Microlaryngoscopy Part II

2006-11-29T22:47:00.000+10:30

Ok so I'm sure you're all dying to know what's happening with my voice... what did the other specialist say? Am I having surgery?

I'm going to try to keep this quick because I'm tired and need to go to bed, but here's the lowdown.

Last week I went to get a second opinion about whether I need surgery to remove my vocal nodules. This time the appointment was with both a surgeon and a speech pathologist, both at the same time.

They looked at my history, asked a lot of questions and then said my symptoms don't sound typical of nodules. Then they squeezed my tongue very hard again and put a metal tube with a camera on the end of it in my mouth (not up my nose thank god) and my vocal cords appeared on the TV screen. They got me to do various things with my voice (while still depressing my tongue) and watched the way the cords move. It's really quite amazing.

Then they said I don't have nodules.

And they showed me how the vocal cords were smooth and bump free. There is a slight swelling where the nodules used to be but certainly not the hard callousy lumps I was imagining. They said they couldn't operate because there was nothing to remove.

They also said my voice box is very "frothy". They showed me the froth around the larynx that shouldn't be there. Apparently it is acid from the stomach. Which is not good for the vocal cords at all. This could be the whole cause of my persistent voice problems. Which explains why my nodules have improved so much since I changed my diet.

They have put me on anti-reflux medication and said I should notice a difference in about 2 weeks. It has been a week and I still wake up with a very dry, burnt feeling in the back of my throat. I wonder if and when this is supposed to go away.

I also wonder how much the disappearing nodules can be attributed to change of diet & lifestyle, and how much is a result of the stuff one of my naturopath's gave me to put in my water (yes, one of my naturopaths!! i know...). It's very hard to say... the first surgeon said I definitely had nodules 3 or 4 weeks ago. I started putting the stuff in my water that same week. So maybe this is a wonder-cure or maybe I was just having a "good" day this time. Who knows???? Sometimes I wish I had an identical twin or a clone so that I could conduct experiments and her as my "control".

Anyway, the upshot is I'm not having surgery and in another week or so things might be looking dramatically better for my singing career...

2006-11-26T17:40:00.000+10:30

Funny how things change.

I had to log straight back on after publishing that last post, because I am now grinning like a loon.

I signed out and quickly checked my email before shutting down, when I got this:

Hi Cara

For a start you have one of my favourite names ....

Thanks for your email and Im sorry I havent got back sooner.

Im quite taken by your offer and reckon we should have a go.

Im actually doing a show on ABC radio this Thursday

live from the Speigeltent . Have you got any time between

now and then ? Maybe you could do a song with me and see how we go .

What do you reckon ?

Mobile is 04XX XXX XXX or email.

Best wishes Rebecca x

Ok, the backstory. Quickly, because now I'm running late!

Last weekend I heard an Australian singer/songwriter who shall remain Rebecca, talking on the radio about her upcoming Speigeltent show in December. She mentioned she would love to get a piano player in. I was feeling particularly cheeky that day and decided to send her an email, offering my services. Sometimes I get these urges, and I knew I'd kick myself if I didn't at least ask.

I expected nothing to come of it, and so you can imagine my surprise at getting a response a week later. It sounds like she must be doing two Speigeltent shows, and wants to use the first one as a tryout for the second one. Maybe. I will have to chat to her when I have some time.

I sent a response saying thanks for making my day, and letting her know I have plenty of time on my hands since I "work from home". I am now bursting with excitement and nerves!! Yay!!

Ok really gotta fly... Espy calls!!
XO

Recording Blues

2006-11-26T16:56:00.000+10:30

Feeling a little... glum.

I can't remember ever using that word before, but it's the only word that feels appropriate right now.

Two episodes of Sex and The City and a walk in the sunshine have failed to lift my mood. Hmmm, definitely something wrong.

I had a recording session for the final three album tracks scheduled for 11.30 this morning. It was teed up earlier in the week, and I had been looking forward to getting these tracks down and getting the album finished. In anticipation, I'd borrowed a Hammond organ and I even had a guitar lesson with Ric yesterday after Paris inspired/commanded me to learn guitar on a couple of songs, in a conversation that went something like this:

"I didn't know you played guitar!! Awesome! Learn as many songs as you can."
"Uhhh, I'm not very good..."
"Doesn't matter. How cool would it be at a gig to have you up there playing guitar on a few songs?"

I'm inclined to agree with her. I have been trying to teach myself guitar for the last 10 years, with not too much improvement. I am not, however, a very disciplined student.

So, I figured out my lead line for Better Than Life on guitar, plus chords for a few more songs, and went to see Ric the guitar guru for some polishing. He was extremely helpful and I am actually feeling optimistic about my future as a guitar goddess. Unfortunately that was only yesterday, so it hasn't all quite had time to sink in yet.

Nonetheless, I was up early this morning (despite being up till 2am and our newly wedded friends Louise & JP's house playing Monopoly). I did some cleaning that desperately needed doing, listening to Laura Veirs, Wilco and David Bowie for inspiration. Then I sat down at the piano and jammed along with a few songs to get warmed up.

By the time Tom arrived at 12.15 (he's not known for his punctuality), I realised that I probably didn't know these new songs as well as I should have, I'd spent a bit too much time on the guitar and not enough at the piano cementing the chords in my brain. Oh well... at least you could do multiple takes in a recording; more than one chance to get it right.

I'll spare you the blow by blow description: the recording just wasn't happening. I think I understood what I was aiming for, but several things were keeping me from achieving this. Firstly not being familiar enough with the songs. We'd played them in one rehearsal several weeks ago. Then the drums & bass had been recorded, which had been sent through via email. I'd listened to them and jammed along a bit, but it takes longer than that for me to really know a song. I'm just not a fast learner when it comes to music. Also since then, they have put down the guitar parts, so there's a whole lot on the recording which I'd never heard before and was supposed to fit in with.

Secondly, not being familiar enough with the Hammond. I was having trouble getting a sound which suited the track, I think we got there in the end, but I didn't know it like I know my instruments.

Thirdly, just not being a good enough piano player. One of the tracks that needed piano has a great feel which is a bit like Heroes by David Bowie, and also a bit like a Wilco song called Handshake Drugs. This song has a fantastic piano part, really bluesy sort of feeling and loose but tight if that makes sense. I realised yesterday that this song had a similar feel to ours, and had been trying to internalise it, and completely independently today Tom said "to get some ideas, maybe you should listen to this..." and played the exact same song. I laughed and said I'd been listening to it all day. But as we found out, it's gonna take a lot more than listening for me to be able to emulate something like that on the piano. We tried it, but after one shitty take I said I think I need to work on this a bit more.

Same story for the Hammond on the next track. It just wasn't happening and I couldn't work out why. I kept stuffing up the chords and couldn't remember for the life of me what I'd played in rehearsal that day. I know I was happy with what I did then, but I've no idea what it was. We had a listen to the recording we'd made that day, but it was too crappy and neither of us could make out the keyboard part. I realised later, that was because the majority of what I was playing that day was on tambourine!! No wonder I didn't know the song. All I was doing last time was keeping time!

So then we came to the guitar part, which fortunately worked better than the keyboard stuff. My hard work had paid off - mind you I still don't think I got one take of the verse perfect, but hey, I guess rock n roll's not meant to be perfect. At least this time I knew what I wanted to do, it was just a matter of getting it right. I think I got enough bits right for him to be able to cut & paste it together. My left fingertips are very sore now. Need callouses badly!!!

So that was it, and I feel crap about it. I should have been much better, but it's not all my fault. I hate this way of doing things, showing us a song once and then expecting us to record it. It's not the way I work well, something needs to be really in my bones before I feel comfortable enough to record it. In the past we'd worked on songs for ages in the rehearsal studio before recording them, and I know there are drawbacks to this but it's definitely my preference. Either that or spend months in a recording studio with someone else paying for it and have the chance to jam, experiment, etc until it feels right.

I asked Tom to email me the two new tracks with the guitar parts so I could practise with them. I'm going to have to ask if I can keep the Hammond for a couple of weeks I think, it will probably take me that long to get these tracks down. I'll have to try and learn that Wilco piano part and practise some blues... maybe that will help this little white girl get some soul.

Now I'm off to the Espy to help out on the door for RRR's 30th birthday gig. A great lineup - including Ground Components, Black Cab and Macromantics. Hopefully this will put me in a better mood!!!!

Microlaryngoscopy

2006-11-22T22:00:00.000+10:30

"Microlaryngoscopy is a procedure that means the vocal folds are looked at in great detail with magnification. The magnification may be with a microscope, endoscope or by video enlargement. It is often accompanied by some additional procedure such as removal of a mass, swelling or tumor. Long delicate instruments or a laser may be utilized. It is sometimes performed in the office, though more typically it is performed in the operating room."

Sounds like fun...

For several years now I have been having trouble with my vocal cords. Whenever I get a cold, or have a big night, or yell too much, I lose my voice.

I think part of it is just genetic bad luck - my grandmother has a very scratchy voice and my auntie (her daughter) is practically hoarse. My sister also suffers from the same problem, you can tell when she's had a great weekend by how her voice sounds on Monday morning.

This wouldn't be much of a problem for me, except that I sing. I'm not an amazing singer or anything, but I love to sing, and have done so for many years, mostly in choirs and bands. I love harmonising and have always taken the alto part, as it's lower so easier for someone who loses her top register all the time, and also more interesting because it's hardly ever the melody. Which is why singing backing vocals in a band suits me, I love doing all those harmony parts. Except that my voice is so weak and unreliable that it has become a bit of a stressful thing.

About four years ago I went to see an ear nose and throat specialist, who stuck a tube with a tiny camera on it up my nose and down my throat to have a look at my vocal cords. He showed me where the nodules had formed, like callouses, from the cords banging together too much in the wrong way. When you speak and sing, the cords are supposed to come together in a wavelike motion to form the sound. When you yell and cough, the cords bang together harshly, and if this happens frequently nodules form. When nodules start to form, the cords try to come together when you speak, but can't close completely because of the lumps. This means more air gets through than usual, giving you a breathy, husky voice. Because it's now more effort to get the sound out, most people find themselves trying to force the sound out. This causes more banging and more breathiness and it's a vicious cycle.

So, I was referred to a speech therapist to teach me how to use my voice correctly and avoid this happening.

The problem was that while I understood what I was doing wrong, I was not prepared to change my lifestyle to fix it. I did the exercises I was given, sporadically, I admit, but having a job where I was on the phone all day, and going out a lot and yelling over loud music in smoky pubs & having no sleep did nothing to improve the problem. Eventually I stopped seeing the therapist, I was having no improvement and I hated feeling like crap every time I turned up for an appointment with no voice.

So, four years later, I still have nodules, only now it's more of a problem because it's interfering with the band. I want to be a reliable backing singer and I really want to improve my singing and make it more of a feature of the band, but every time I try to have singing lessons the nodules get in the way. My voice gets exhausted before we've even finished the warm up.

My singing teacher, Hayley, who I studied music with at uni and is now a professional singer & teacher, has had a few run-ins with nodules, and encouraged me to try two months of being a hermit - not going out, eating steamed vegetables & salmon for dinner every night to avoid reflux, no alcohol, no smoky places, less talking, etc etc to see if I could make them go away. That was in May. It's now November. I have noticed a little improvement, but as soon as I get a cold, or go somewhere unavoidably smoky, I lose my voice again. Hayley urged me to go back to the specialist and find out how the nodules look now, so I made an appointment.

The specialist kept me waiting for an hour and a half - thank god I wasn't trying to do that in a lunchbreak!! There's one of the many pros for not having a job. Finally my name was called and I was ushered in to a consultation room with about fifteen university degrees, doctorates etc on the wall. This wasn't like last time. I didn't see any cool video thing hooked up to a chair. That must be in an adjacent room.

The specialist finally came in, and while it's irrelevant to the story, I must make mention of his facial features. They were all extremely - big. I don't know how to explain it except that he looked a lot like Willem Dafoe. Not in a good way. In a creepy way. It was quite distracting.

Anyway, he looked at me expectantly and I started telling him why I was there. He cut me off. "So you're doing all the right things and nothing's changed?"
"Yeah, I guess so." I said.
"Let's have a look..."

He took a lighter out of his desk draw and lit a little lamp on his desk. He then produced a little mirror like the ones dentists use and held it over the flame. I guess to sterilise it. I thought this was the 21st century!

He put a tissue between his fingers and grabbed my tongue, squeezing hard. This was painful. Then he checked out my vocal cords with the mirror, getting me to make various sounds while he looked. Eventually the pain in my tongue became too great and I started replacing "ooo" with "OWWW!!". He got the message and let go.

"Well, you've got nodules," he said. "They're not huge, but they're there. I think you should have surgery."

Even though part of me was expecting this, I was a bit shocked. Surgery? I've never had surgery before. I had a burst blood vessel on my chest burned off when I was in primary school; it barely even left a scar. I didn't even go to hospital to have my wisdom teeth out, I had them yanked out one by one in the chair. Surgery on my voice sounded so scary - what if his hand slipped while he was cutting and I was left with no voice at all?? What if I never woke up from the general anaesthetic???

When I enquired about the chances of these things occurring he laughed and said there's no chance. I don't know how I'm supposed to believe that. He said the biggest risk is that they might chip a tooth because of all the stuff in my mouth.

I asked as many questions as I could think of, which wasn't many since I wasn't really prepared for this. He gave brief answers and volunteered very little information about the procedure. He did recommend I speak to Debbie Phyland, one of the leading speech pathologists in Australia, who has lots of experience with singers, to find out more. But he really didn't offer very much at all. I left feeling slightly baffled and nervous. I made a tentative appointment for the surgery, figuring if I spoke to Debbie and decided to go ahead, it would be good to have it all booked in already and not have to wait until next year. The surgeon said I would be singing three weeks after the operation. That to me seemed a little bit ambitious.

I went home & spent the rest of the day researching the procedure. Googling microlaryngoscopy gave me a world of information that my doctor couldn't be bothered to provide. The best website was here. By the end of the day I'd decided that the procedure was a pretty safe one, and that it might just be best to have the nodules removed and get on with the rest of my life, but I wasn't too keen on having someone operate on me who kept me waiting for an hour and a half, for five minutes of his time, and couldn't even produce a leaflet or website or anything about a routine procedure he performs all the time.

I spoke to Hayley and asked what she thought about it all, and she suggested I go to the place she normally goes to for her nodules. This is where Debbie Phyland works, and they have different surgeons there who do the same thing as Willem Dafoe, but she said they are much more sensitive about singers. She said she would come with me and ask lots of questions and remember the answers with me.

I made an appointment for two and a half weeks' time, but couldn't coordinate one at a time when Hayley was available. She promised to write down some questions for me before the day. I ended up organising Paris, our manager, to come with me, partly for moral support and partly because if I was going to make a decision about when to be out of action for 3-4 weeks, I was less likely to cop flack later if she was involved in the decision-making. Also she's smart and I knew she'd ask good questions.

The next few weeks positively flew by, and soon the day of the appointment approached. The situation was not ideal, it turned out I had a graveyard shift at 3RRR the night before the appointment. So I would be broadcasting from 2-6am, and then the appointment was at 9.45am. Not really enough time to get a sleep in between, but then what else would I do? I tooke everything I needed for the appointment with me to the station just in case.

THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT
I have been volunteering at RRR for over a year now, and I love it. It started with answering phones for their annual subscription drive, then I started doing the schedule for the weekly IT show, then I learned how to panel for that show (push the buttons to make things go on air) and then I was thrown into doing graveyard shifts. Once a month for the last few months I have been arriving at the station at a ridiculous hour with a huge bag of CDs under each arm, ready to fill four hours with music until the breakfast crew takes over. Fun parts: playing whatever the hell music I want, getting phone calls from random people listening to the station & enjoying, meeting the presenters before & after me. Not so fun parts: staying awake for a ridiculous number of hours and having your body clock fucked for the next 3 days, talking myself in circles so the whole world can hear it, getting phone calls from random loonies/stalkers. But overall I enjoy it and I know it is a stepping stone to something slightly less - inhumane.

THIS graveyard shift was different, I was going to have company.

Back in the uni days, I used to co-present the breakfast show once a week on Monash radio. When I say co-present, I mean I read the news and weather, and generally laughed at the other guys' jokes. The other guys were Disco Don (my boyfriend at the time: a very intelligent, slightly obnoxious guy who had a lot to say about everything) and Maximum Joe (his best mate: ditto). Together, they were Maximum Disco and I was their sidekick. Don and I took great pleasure in scouring op shops and cash converters for music to play on the show. It was a point of pride that we never paid more than a few dollars for anything we played, meaning we ended up with everything from Lionel Ritchie to Louis Prima. Despite the ridiculously early mornings, we used to have a ball.

So, recently I was chatting to Don and mentioned that I was doing some shows at RRR, and he expressed interest in getting back into something like that. So now, here we were, about to do our first radio show together in over five years.

It may sound weird, doing a radio show with your ex-boyfriend. But Don and I have remained friends, and I was hoping there would still be a good on-air chemistry between us. I have been trying to think of a way to sum up our relationship... I think that we were the right people who met at the wrong time, and with the combination of bad timing and even worse judgement, we both hurt each other quite badly. But somehow, that doesn't seem to have destroyed the respect we have for each other. I know I learned a lot from him, about who I was, who I wanted to be, and how to be brave enough to be that person. I guess I've never forgotten that he taught me those things, and the shit that went down between us is less important than that. That's my take, anyway, his may be completely different.

Anyway, I was right about the chemistry, we were great on air together. Once I got past the initial shock of having someone else in the studio with me, I relaxed and began to enjoy myself. Between songs we chatted about lots of random stuff, and it was lots of fun delving into his iPod to mix up the music selection a bit.

Adam listened to the last hour or so of the show, and said I was even funny!! ME!!! Amazing.

I was very happy with how it went and hopefully we can do more together in the future. Unfortunately Don told me he's moving to London next year, so the next few months might be our only chance. Oh well, it was good while it lasted!

After the show I was rather tired. I'd been awake since about 11am Wednesday and it was now 6am Thursday. I went home and hopped into bed for a few hours, before I had to get up for my voice appointment. I sent Paris a text saying I would be up at 8.30 and to call me after that. Then I put my phone on silent, set my alarm for 8.30 and went straight to sleep.

****

I woke with a start. Somehow, I knew immediately that something was wrong. What time is it? Shit!!!! It's 10.30!!! My appointment with the voice people was at 9.45. What happened to my alarm?? Sure enough, I had set it to the right time, but forgotten to switch it on. Dammit!!!

****

I rang the clinic and they were very understanding, and rescheduled me for the following week. Then I rang Paris to apologise for booking her in and then not turning up. We ended up talking for two hours or more, about the band, and life, and the future. It was a really good discussion. The more I get to know her the more glad I am she is involved in the band.

Then I cancelled the appointment I'd made for the surgery with Willem Dafoe. I just couldn't let someone like that cut me up. When the receptionist asked whether I wanted to reschedule the surgery, I said "Can I be honest with you?" and told her all about how I didn't feel comfortable about him and that he hadn't given me enough info etc etc. She was very good, and asked whether I would like to speak to the surgeon about it when he was in next.
"You know what," I said to her, "I think I'll skip the uncomfortable conversation thanks."
"Ok," she said. "We'll pass on your feedback."
I just didn't feel like saying all this all over again to someone who was probably going to get defensive about it and make me feel like shit. I just needed to get it off my chest, to someone.

So, the new appointment is for tomorrow, at 2.30. No-one was available to come with me this time, so I'm on my own. I have a list of questions from Hayley, and a whole lot of print outs from the internet, so I'm already much more prepared than last time. Wish me luck!

Yesterday and Today

2006-11-22T12:26:00.000+10:30

Yesterday was a beautiful day.

Really hot & intermittently sunny, the nice dry kind of hot, not the crappy muggy kind of hot. It got to 36c I think, just how I like it.

Late in the afternoon I took Chester for a walk to post some letters, coming back via the beach. I'm not sure if I've mentioned yet that the beach is virtually at the end of my street. A dodgy man-made beach with water as flat as a pancake, but a beach nonetheless.

We took our usual route down the walking track, diverting onto the sand where I removed my thongs and headed down to the water. Chester looked at me doubtfully. He does not like sand or water. He likes paths and straight lines. I think he is borderline OCD.

I stood with my feet in the icy water, soaking up the heat of the day and watching other people play with their real dogs. Chester stood at the water's edge, looking at me as if to say "can we go yet?". Occasionally one of the real dogs would come up to say hello, and Chester would be mean to them as usual. They soon got the message. He's such a grumpy old man.

I took a few photos on my phone of Chester, my feet in the water, and the mysterious plume of smoke on the horizon.

Today was not so photogenic.

Again, really hot and dry, but a horrible, overblown, nasty sort of hot. The northerly felt like it was blowing straight off the desert, even though there isn't one for hundreds of kilometres. The sky was dark and dirty, like it would pour down muddy rain at any moment.

I actually didn't realise how hot it was until quite late in the day. Google got the forecast wrong again, and it wasn't until I had to visit my outside loo at about 4pm that I felt the heat. I decided to take Chester to the beach again - he seems to sleep for about 23 and a half hours a day, so I try to exercise him at least once a day.

There were a few families scattered along the shore, I chose a spot not too close to any and again headed down to the water. An energetic setter bounded towards us and Chester bared his teeth in a low growl. Friendly. At least it meant the dog didn't clamber all over me with its wet paws. I don't love wet dog smell.

Chester laid down in the sand this time, surprising me. He will spend the rest of the night getting the sand out no doubt. I think he realised it was the only way to get cool without going in the water. He walked up quite close to it at one point, a few cms, but when a wave threatened to lap his paws he retreated. I toyed with the idea of splashing him but if I did that I'd never get him this close to it again. For a dog with such a tiny brain he has a good memory for some things. Like the vet.

I decided it was home time just in time. As we were walking back the wind picked up and it became almost unbearable outside. Chester picked a fight with a big, scary looking dog. Chester is a 2kg ball of fluff with no testicles. I don't know why he does it. Maybe it's small man's syndrome.

Just before we had a power surge and I think it's going to rain soon. No plans for tonight, looks like another round of Sex & the City DVDs & maybe some keyboard practice. I got a new amp to try out yesterday. A Hartke KM100. It sounds pretty good but I'm not sure whether it has the balls to cut it with the rest of the band. I need a new amp because the one I have at the moment is a Yamaha KS100 which is a huge heavy thing that I can't get into the car. Probably weighs about 60kg. We got it for free ages ago and it sounds fantastic. It's just a bitch to move. I'm hoping the Hartke is good enough because i get a really good price through my uncle. If not the Roland KC350 is exactly what I need, I will just have to pay a bit more and get that one.

Anyway, enough tech talk... here comes the storm. Enjoy.

Brisbane

2006-11-15T14:43:00.000+10:30

Brisbane was lovely.

I had worked so hard leading up to the launch I just needed a break, to get away from my computer and to spend some quality time with Adam. Which is exactly what I did.

The weather was much warmer than it had been in Melbourne, although it did rain a bit and there were a few cloudy days. There was one gorgeously sunny day that I spent by the pool in my bikinis, the other days I spent a lot of time on the couch, watching TV. I walked into the city most afternoons, where Adam would meet me after work and we'd walk home together.

Adam's apartment is in South Brisbane, right next to Southbank. It has a big balcony & a great view of the river that snakes through Brisbane, and is about a 20min walk to the city. And about a 10min walk to Cold Rock, the best ice cream in the world!! If I were not in a band I would definitely move up there with him. Brisbane is a really pretty city, and what great weather! Apparently it gets too hot in summer, but the winter was glorious!

Adam has Foxtel up there and had gotten into Rockstar Supernova, and taped the last few weeks for me, so I totally got into that. I'm obsessed with Australian Idol, I've always liked talent shows, I was brought up on Young Talent Time, Pot Of Gold and New Faces, so Aust Idol is the natural extention of this I suppose. But Rockstar is SO much better!!! Everything about it - the lighting, the songs, the talent, the band, the judges... just so much better. Idol is quite shit in comparison. But I still love it!!!

On Sunday night we went to a salsa club in the Valley called Allumbra. There is an Allumbra in Melbourne but this was heaps better. A decent sized dance floor & not lumpy like the Melbourne one, a good band and heaps of good salsa dancers. We tried, but salsa's quite new to us and we're not very good yet. It was great just to watch the real dancers at work, I was particularly admiring one girl who had a hot pair of white capri jeans on. I decided I wanted a pair. The body to go with it would be good too but the jeans would be a good start.

Later on we were attempting to dance and mainly getting in everybody's way when i felt this sharp pain in my calf, like i'd been stabbed. "Motherfucker!" I shrieked (an involuntary response) and at the same time whipped my head around to see who had kicked me. To my horror, the owner of the offending 4 inch stiletto was none other than girl with hot white capri pants. The best dancer in the place. The one i wanted to be like. I had just called her a motherfucker. Whoops.

"Oh my god I'm sooo sorry!" I gushed. "That just came out, I didn't mean it."

Later when I was nursing a bruise the size of a tennis ball (how does a stiletto heel cause that?) I decided my swearing really was justified, it must have been a very hard kick!

The next night Adam and I attended salsa class to brush up our skills a bit. It had been a very long time since I'd attended a dance class of any kind, and I struggled a bit with the concept of learning a routine. Compounded by the fact that they had started learning the routine last week, so I was coming in half way through. I got through it ok and managed to enjoy it but realised I need to do a lot more work if I want to be a confident salsa dancer.

It was great spending so much time with Adam. We have been apart for over 6 months now, and weekend visits every few weeks are never long enough. This would be 10 days in a row, including the CD launch, my week in Brisbane, and Adam coming back to Melbourne with me for the following weekend. What luxury!!

We cooked dinner together a few nights which was nice, I get a bit over cooking for one and I think he does too. We also went out a few times, including one night with Adam's friend Rob. We met up straight after work and saw An Inconvenient Truth, which definitely got us thinking and talking. After that went to a pub in the city that had comedy/theatre sports on, and had an appalling counter meal while watching some fairly funny people do their thing. It was a weird combination of activities but a fun night, and I really like Rob, he's a lovely guy. I'd met him before, briefly, at a work lunch with lots of other people, so hadn't really spent any time with him. But I feel good now knowing that Adam has a friend like him to hang out with, see movies once a week and be hilarious with. I do get worried about him being lonely up there. It's ok for me, I've still got all my friends around me and life goes on, poor Adam sometimes only has Foxtel for company. Not the funnest dinner date!!!

The week was over way too soon and we flew back together (a rare event for us!) for a weekend of chaotic funness.

Saturday: Adam plays Paintball Skirmish with a huge group of our friends. Cara is too much of a wuss so goes shopping for Derby Day (horse race) with the girls - Bridgett & Claire - also too wussy to do Paintball. We spend the day looking at shoes, dresses and fascinators. Fun!! Sore feet ensue.

Saturday night: Adam's friend Mimma celebrates her 30th birthday at an italian restaurant in Werribee. A very enjoyable gathering despite us both being rather tired. This is a group of friends we don't see very often, and I feel my age when one couple are just back from their honeymoon and another bring pictures of their new baby. We are grown ups now!!! When did this happen??? As the dinner came to a close we reluctantly headed to the city to see some friends who are leaving to live in New Zealand. We really couldn't be bothered going to the city but they're leaving so what can you do? It was horribly smoky & loud in the club (what did I say about getting old?) and we stayed the minimum polite amount of time before racing towards bed.

Sunday: Lots of sleep. Can't remember much else. Must've taken Adam to the airport. Did a fill on 3RRR 10pm till midnight, the third one i have done for this timeslot recently. It went well, although my voice was feeling very tired after a full 10 days of being able to talk to Adam whenever I wanted to.

Tomorrow: an appointment with the voice specialist to check out my nodules and see whether he thinks they're improving or not. Dummm da dum dum!

The Launch

2006-10-27T13:48:00.000+09:30

The launch was... a success. If you're pressed for time I guess you'd need read no further. For those interested in details, I will try to provide some. Try.

Unlike Tuesday, Thursday was one of those days where everything seemed to be going right. It started earlier than I'm used to - since I've been working from home my alarm goes off at a lazy 9am most days and hit snooze for a good half hour or so after that. But today I had things to do, so at 7.30am I woke to the beloved sounds of 3RRR's Breakfasters and hauled myself out of bed. My hair appointment was at 9am on Acland St (St Kilda) and I figured I would need to leave by 8.30 to make it, despite only living a few kms further round the bay. Peak hour in Melbourne is real, and very scary.

I shovelled down my Sultana Bran Crunch mixed with Apricot & Almond Natural Muesli, topped with low fat vanilla yoghurt and a sliced fresh pear. Not exactly a rockstar breakfast, I know, but I have been working extremely hard on my diet to help overcome my vocal nodules. I realise what I eat for breakfast seems somewhat unrelated to the callouses that have formed on my vocal cords but my singing teacher & naturopath assure me that they're very much related. Something about gastric reflux.

So... I bolted my breakfast, showered, dressed appropriately for the stunning late spring morning that was shaping up around me, and got out the door by quarter to nine. Late. No-one, including myself, understands how it can possibly take me more than an hour to get ready in the mornings. It could be the breakfast, but it was the same deal back in the 2 pieces of toast with vegemite days as well. Maybe other people just don't eat breakfast??

By some freak of nature I actually arrived in St Kilda before 9, parked my car, and powerwalked to Smik Studios, entering at 9 on the dot, before they had even had a chance to turn around the 'closed' sign on the door. It's a good day!

The stylist was an older guy with a large pot who looks like a rather camp hell's angel. If that makes sense!! Greying handlebar moustache, tattoos, tobacco smell that lingers... you get the picture. But a hairdresser... which changes the picture somewhat.

I've never actually had him for a stylist before but he's the one they always get to fix my fringe when someone else has mangled it. So I was extremely pleased that he would be doing my hair on the BIG DAY despite the slightly nauseating odour.

"What are you having done, darl?"
"The usual, just refresh the colour and a bit of a trim please"
"Looks like chocolate... have you been here before?"
"Yes, I always have my colour done here." I said rather curtly, miffed that he didn't recognise me although I was in his salon every 6 weeks without fail.
He disappeared and re-emerged with my chart, smiling to himself. "Chocolate, I thought so" he said smugly.

While my colour was doing it's thing, I whipped out a ziploc bag from my handbag, containing everything I'd need for an express manicure. Nail file, clippers, nail polish remover to fix the mistakes, a very red shade of nailpolish, and superfast drying topcoat. I was halfway through the left hand when a voice behind me said "do you want a hand?"
I looked up and there was a stunningly made up girl who I'd seen behind the counter, chatting to the other hairdressers. I'd assumed she was one of them.
"I'm a beauty therapist. Let me help you with that."

I gladly relinquished my hands to her and 15 minutes later was blowing on ten professionally manicured fingers. I thought it would be pushing my luck to whip off my shoes and ask her to do my toes (mental note, do toes later).

My colour looked great and the cut was expert. I was a bit worried when the stylist started drying it wavy, not straight like I'd asked, but he'd assured me it would be fabulous. He was right.

By 11am I was driving back down the coast on this glorious morning, ready to tick more items off my list. The day went smoothly, I even had time to take Chester for a walk down to the beach and eat my lunch there. I also scored a free upgrade on the car I'd hired, since my tiny Toyota Echo was no match for my fully weighted 88 key Roland keyboard and big mumma amp. They were out of Subaru Forresters, so I scored myself a gigantic Nissan Pathfinder for the same price. Adam joked (via sms from Brisbane) that he was picturing me riding round in a Humvee and the name stuck. I was a bit worried at first, but drove it like a pro - even in four inch heels. Makes me rather grateful for the four wheel driving course a previous employer (Landrover) had sent me on. Who knew it would come in useful for getting myself to gigs??

I managed to haul all my gear into the truck (on my own) without any tears or bruises (not always the case) and made it across town to the East Brunswick Club for soundcheck about 15 minutes late (not too bad for me). To my surprise everyone was there except Ric, the guitarist, who was working and only had a 30 minute window to soundcheck before going back to work. Our challenge was to have everything set up so he could just walk in and play. We didn't quite get there. Still, we did get to run through one song with him and it felt great. The East has a kickass new sound system, and we've never played on something that good before. The sound onstage was a whole new level of awesome and Tom's voice through the PA... *sigh*. I never get tired of hearing him sing.

Once we were set up it was time to get ourselves ready, and I realised I'd forgotten one thing. Undies.

Of course I was wearing some, but they were grey Bonds, not the sexy black I wanted to show if by some chance the audience should catch a glimpse under my black above the knee country/noir style dress.

Shit.

Going home wasn't the best option, as I live on the other side of the city and it was now peak hour. Our drummer Wes needed to find batteries for his metronome, and Tom came up with the answer. Kmart.

We took my truck the short drive to Barkly Square, with Wes all the while asking "can I drive it?" No. "Can I drive it on the way back?" No!

We arrived at Kmart & both made a beeline for our requirements. We must have looked rather odd going through the checkout, with two bottles of Lemon/Lime Powerade, a pair of black lacy knickers, and a ten pack of Double A batteries!!

We went back to Tom's house as he lives locally, and I got dolled up while the boys played Guitar Hero on Playstation. A great way to get amped before a gig!!

I emerged from the bathroom a different woman and we headed back to the venue where Adam was waiting for us (YAY!) at a table with Ric, Will (the bass player), Paris (our new manager), and her parents. I almost walked right past the table because I'd never met Paris' parents and didn't realise they were with us!!

Dinner was pretty uneventful and then it was showtime!! The doors opened at 8.30 and the first band, Winterpark, went on shortly after. The next two hours was a complete blur, with more and more people arriving, hugging & kissing me and me trying to have 50 conversations at once. It felt like I knew everyone there. Our merch table was set up and the badges I'd had made up were selling well, my friends kept coming up to me to show me they were wearing one. Cute!!

Winterpark were great, I really liked their set and thought they were the perfect opening band. The Beings came on and were much rockier. I'd been worried that they might blow us off the stage, but when it came down to it, most of the people in that room were there to see us, and by the time we went on I was pumped!!

I went to the loo twice before the set, reapplied my very red lipstick and was ready to roll. We walked onstage to what felt like a roar and played a massive set. Immediately when we'd started I needed to pee again. Anyone who knows me knows this is not unusual. I also realised that I'd left my minidisc out the back in the band room. Bugger. I was hoping to record the show for posterity. Never mind, there were plenty of cameras and video cameras around, there should be plenty of posterity.

The set seemed to go very quickly, and there was a weird silence following the applause for each song. This was not a rowdy crowd. To be fair, we are not a very rowdy band either, so that makes sense. But their appreciation & support was genuine, and the odd "we love you Cara", countered by "we love you Tom" from the other side of the room was entertaining.

The set was a little rougher than it should have been for a launch, since we have stopped rehearsing twice a week (due to the drummer living in Bendigo - 2 hrs from Melbourne) we can sometimes be a bit sloppy. It's weird because in a way our live show has improved a lot in the last year, we look better and play with more confidence, a bit more swagger. But every now and then a gig feels under-rehearsed, we screw up tempos or just make mistakes that shouldn't be there. Anyway, it wasn't terrible but it wasn't our best performance. But regardless it felt great and by the final song we hit our stride. This song, Onslaught, has recently evolved so that it starts out very small, with just Tom singing & strumming gently, then i join in with piano & harmonies, and at the end of the song the band joins in and we jam it out. It has become a bit of a showstopper. And we played it very well that night.

We quickly left the stage and were brought back for an encore, a triumphant rare performance of Down the Road. Making my mum & dad very happy - it's their favourite song and we never play it!

After the encore we had a group hug in the band room (possibly our first in over 3 years of playing together... awwww) and went out to work the crowd. It's always fun lapping up the praise after a gig like this, and there were big smiles all round. I made sure I went straight up to Paris to thank her for all the work she's done. In her short time with us, she has achieved a remarkable amount, and I really think she will help push us to the next level. She and I work well together, we bounce off each other and push each other, and I love having another person who's so committed to making this happen as I am. It can be exhausting pushing when you're the only one doing it.

The venue were really impressed with the numbers, apparently it was great for a Thursday night. I was happy, we (just) exceeded my estimate. Trying to sort out the money with Paris afterwards was the funniest thing. She had had one too many drinks and we were just not getting anywhere. In future I think we should just take it all home & sort it out the next day.

Adam my wonderful partner and roadie extraordinaire packed up most of my gear for me while I was chatting to people and I helped him load it into the hummer ready for home. He was flying back to Brisbane for work in the morning so no partying on for us. Paris badly wanted us to go out to Pony or somewhere... apparently "the band" turning up somewhere after their launch is the cool thing to do. But Wes had to drive back to Bendigo, we had to go home, it just wasn't going to happen. I hope she doesn't leave us when she realises we're just not true rock stars! I thought she already knew that but maybe she thought we'd change...

So overall it was a successful night. Taking into account everything we spent on advertising, etc, we just broke even, which is not bad for us! Definitely could have gone worse! It turned out Jess, the brilliant sound guy, borrowed a minidisc recorder from the chef at the venue, so we even have most of the set on tape! Now we just had to hope someone was there who might write a review, and that the photos worked out ok so we would have some decent live shots to give our publicist.

The next day I would be on a plane to Brisbane for a week in the sunshine...

Murphy's Law

2006-10-25T05:39:00.000+09:30

On Tuesday I had one of those days where nothing seemed to go right...

I woke up with a start at 11am realising straight away that I had overslept and was late taking Chester (the tiny crazy robot dog) to the vet. He was booked in for an x-ray at 10.30am. Whoops. Plus I had a sore throat. And my band's CD launch was in two days. Great.

I sprinted through the shower, chucked some clothes on, bundled Chester into the car half strangling him with the doggy seat belt I'd bought recently to prevent him from hurtling through the windscreen at 60kph should I break suddenly.

Made it to the vet in record time explaining breathlessly that I'd overslept and I would understand if I was too late and had to reschedule. "Don't worry," the vet nurse said, "I slept in today too, it's fine." Phew!

So I left Chester in her capable hands, him giving me dirty looks as I said goodbye. Last year he had seven teeth removed under general anasthetic at this surgery. He has never forgiven me.

I dashed home to get some work done before coming back to pick him up in a few hours. The vet took me into her office and showed me the x-rays. "This is his heart. It should be much smaller than this and less round. See here, it's putting pressure on his windpipe which is what's causing the coughing. There's also a build up - here - of fluid around his heart." Diagnosis: congestive heart failure.

I should point out here that Chester has always been a bit of a cougher. And he has a heart murmur. Chihuahuas apparently have soft palate issues, and so sound like they're clearing their throats a lot. But recently, his cough has gone from a little throat clear to a full chested old-man cough. Which is why I mentioned it at his recent immunisation appointment. I should also probably mention that Chester is a non-yappy long haired chihuahua who absolutely adores me, and although he is very dumb he is also extremely cute and I am a bit in love with him. So this is not good news.

The vet prescribed some tablets to help his blood pressure and reduce the fluid build up. I was hoping this wouldn't happen as it's a pain in the ass to medicate dogs, and I didn't want him to be on medication for the rest of his life. He's only 10, which is kind of middle aged in small dogs, so that could be several years. But I also didn't want the old man cough to continue so I had no choice.

She took me out the back to collect Chester, who was sitting in a cage glaring at me. The nurses all fawned over him, saying he's the only good chihuahua they've ever had, or as the vet put it, he "gives chihuahuas a bad name."

I gathered him up and paid the two hundred and something dollar bill (thanks very much, not only do you give me the news that my cuddly companion is seriously ill, but you sting me $200 on the way out) and headed home.

You should have seen me, tiny little tablet in one hand, schmacko in the other, trying to get Chester to take the tablet. He's not as dumb as he looks. Every time I tried to give him the tablet, he turned and went straight for the schmacko. Finally I just shoved it in his mouth, figuring he didn't have enough teeth left to bite me. He spat it out. Little bastard! Eventually I got a spoonful of canned food from the fridge and buried the tablet in that. This is what I have to do every morning now. Great.

I had plans to meet my friend Sandra at 3:15 to see the new dancing movie "Step Up". Sandra is a friend from Le Bop, and we were about the only two dancers left who hadn't seen it. She is just finishing her teaching degree and working odd part time jobs, so like me was available during the day for such events. The beauty of my current employment status is that work can often be shuffled round to fit in with a social life, rather than the other way round.

I gargled some Betadine sore throat gargle in the vague hope that it would kill the sore throat that was nagging me and hopped back in the car.

I was driving into the Jam Factory (a shopping centre with a cinema on Chapel St) carpark at 3:18pm when my phone beeped. Oh shit, she's been waiting for ages and I'm late. But it's not like her to be so anal and ring me when I'm 3 minutes late. What's going on??

The message read: "I'm in Scooter buying shoes". Brilliant!

By the time I parked & arrived at Scooter, Sandra had already bought one pair and was trying on a second. "Why don't I go get our tickets?" I volunteered. The movie was due to start at 3:30. So I scored the tickets and came back to check her progress. "I feel like my mum in these," she was saying. They were a little mum-ish, but she needed sensible work shoes with low heels that looked professional. These shoes fitted the bill. But, they were not yet on sale.
While she deliberated, I wandered to the bargain rack at the back of the store. Within about 30 seconds, I had tried on a gorgeous pair of open-toed snakeskin heels, noted the bargain price, and handed over my eftpos card. I shouldn't really be buying shoes, but they were so cheap!!! And hot!!

We made it into the cinema just as the opening credits were starting. We were the only ones there. Excellent!! We spread out and settled in to enjoy.

The dancing was amazing, the storyline so cliched I could have written it, and the male lead super hot - all the perfect ingredients for a great dancing movie. We came out thoroughly satisfied and Sandra was pumped for the ballet class she was about to take. Her dance partner and her had done a deal - he needed to improve his spinning and she needed to be more glamourous. He agreed to take spinning classes as long as she took ballet.

So Sandra rushed off to ballet and I headed home. I was absolutely starving by this point... lunch hadn't factored into my day yet, so i heated up some leftover salmon & veg stir fry and settled down at my computer to get some more work done.

At some point I realised that if I wanted to wear my new shoes for my CD launch I'd better wear them in. I pulled the SALE sticker off the sole and sprayed them with waterproof & left them to dry. When I finally pulled them on and took a few steps I teetered. Huh? They had fit like gloves in the store. I had tried them on in a hurry, but the clincher in buying them was that they fit perfectly and the leather was so soft I thought they'd be comfortable and easy to walk in. I took a few more steps and each time I did the slingback on the right shoe fell off causing the shoe to wobble. Not good. Cranky at my poor impulse buying I yanked them off and went back to work.

I had a break to watch Australian Idol at 7:30. I'm hopelessly addicted and this was a world first - the remaining 7 idols were to perform their own original songs. Yay! It was I think the best show so far this year, and they should always be allowed to play their own songs. In my humble opinion!!

During an ad break I picked up one of my poor discarded new shoes to examine it. They were so gorgeous, what a shame I would have to take them back. Something caught my eye. On the inside of the shoe I was holding, there were some tiny silver letters and numbers. D40752 9. The first part was obviously the model number, I had worked in retail long enough to know that. But 9??? I would have guessed that was the size. I am not a size 9. I turned the shoe over and my suspicions were confirmed. Imprinted into the sole below "Made in China" was the number 9. Definitely the size. No wonder they didn't fit.

I picked up the other shoe, which was a size 8. 8!!!! So somehow between me trying them on and getting the box from out the back the girl had managed to switch one of the 8's for a 9 and box them up. Dammit!! Well at least that meant I wasn't going crazy, the shoes had undoubtably fit in the shop, it was just that I was trying to wear two different sizes now. But it also means I have to go all the way back to South Yarra tomorrow and swap the 9 over. On the day before my CD launch. Who has time for that??!!! And knowing my luck they would be the last 2 shoes left and they wouldn't be able to track down the other size 8 and I'd have to give back these gorgeous shoes. Dammit.

After Idol I set about crossing some things off my list. I'm a bit of a compulsive lister. Leading up to the CD launch there was a lot to be done, compounded by the fact that I was flying to Brisbane the following day for a week's holiday with Adam. Adam is an IT contractor, currently working a 6 month contract in Brisbane, a two hour plane ride north of where we live in Melbourne. I had booked the flights a few weeks ago... the launch preparations had been quite stressful and I figured a week in the sun would be just what I'd need. But I didn't really factor in the increased stress that would be induced by having to get everything finalised before then. Oh well, only a few more days and I'd be there.

One of the things on my list was the washing. I had done most of it over the past few days but had a few items that needed to be handwashed. One of them being an amazing red & white candy striped dress I'd found recently on sale for $40!!! I had worn it twice, once in my band's recent photoshoot and once to a wedding. I was planning to wear it to Derby Day - part of Melbourne's Spring Racing Carnival. It was a perfect dress for the races, I couldn't wait to find a hat or fascinator to go with it - I had a girly shopping outing already planned for this purpose. So, I filled the sink with warm water and plunged the dress in. The water started to go pink. Uh-oh. Should've used cold water. It'll be ok, I'll give it a rinse and a spin in the machine & it'll be fine. Shit. It's not fine. The bottom half is still red and white but the top half is now red and white!!! Shiiitt!!!!

"Hi dad, is mum there?"
"Hang on"....

"Hi, what's up?"
"Oh mum I've just ruined the best piece of clothing I've ever owned!!"
"Oh no, what happened?"
"The red and white stripes have turned red and pink!!"
"Oh dear. I'm not the expert on this..."
"I know but I LOVE this dress!! I HAVE to fix it!!"
"There is something called Run Away you could try."
"I know, I already thought of that, but I've tried it before and it says on the packet it's only for use on white fabric."
"Hmm... maybe you could try it anyway. Go to the supermarket and see if there's anything else like that. If not maybe you'll just have to try it. You probably can't make it much worse!"
"Thanks mum, you're a lifesaver."

I went to Coles (i should point out it's about 10:30pm by now) and found the sachet of Run Away. I read the back carefully, and it said NOT FOR USE ON COLOURED FABRIC. Dammit. It also said FOR COLOURED FABRIC, TRY COLOUR-SAFE RUN AWAY. Bingo!!
I sprinted up to the counter. Do you have this for coloured fabric??

Several phone calls later the poor check out chick established that not only this store didn't have it, but neither did any in a 10km radius. Panic was rising in my throat. I decided to buy the sachet anyway, like mum said, I probably couldn't ruin the dress much more. In the car I had a thought & pulled out my phone.

"Safeway Prahran, please" I said to the call connect operator. I realised that just because Coles didn't stock the product didn't mean their competitors didn't.

Half an hour later I was driving back from Prahran (my second trip to Chapel st in a day) smugly with the sachet of Colour-Safe Run Away tucked in my handbag. Disaster averted. Maybe.

I followed all the instructions and pulled the dress out of the machine half an hour later. It looked better... but still not perfect. There was still a hint of pink in the white stripes. Bugger. After all that! But it was better than before, maybe when it dried it wouldn't be noticeable at all. Adam suggested maybe I could go back to the store and buy the dress again, if it was so cheap and I loved it so much it would be worth it. It was a possibility but I was pretty sure I had gotten the last one in my size so I doubted they'd still have it. Oh well. At least it was immortalised in the photoshoot. I guess if it looked terrible now I'd just have to find a new dress for Derby Day, wouldn't I?

So that was my terrible Murphy's Law day, I went to bed in a foul mood with a nagging sore throat thinking I just wish this CD launch could be over so I can be lying by the pool in my bikinis, book in one hand and cocktail in the other, with all this stress a distant memory.

A beginning...

2006-10-24T05:33:00.000+09:30

Well I have restisted this for a while, but it seems I have too much to say and too strong a desire to say it.
So here I am, this is not my first blog, there are attempts on a myspace page, but it is too closely linked to my band to be able to speak completely freely so this might be a good alternative. We'll see how it goes. It is quite possible that like with many things, i'll be all enthusiastic at the start, but gradually the enthusiasm will wane and my entries will become as sporadic as phone calls to my grandmother. We will see...
Hmm where to start???
I guess by explaining the name.
I have played the piano since I was seven, and have sung in choirs since Mrs Mac finally let me in the prestigious A Cappella Choir in Year 9, following an audition of Mary Had a Little Lamb. In Grade 5 my friend Bianca and I used to play Record Companies, setting up an office in the family room, making mix tapes of our favourite Kylie & Jason and Bon Jovi hits, and taking orders on our Care Bears phones. We also used to dress up my cousins and make them mime to the B52s and Milli Vanilli for our film clips. Other early indicators of my rockstar ambitions were getting up at 6am on Saturdays to watch Rage & Video Hits (not cartoons like the other kids), holing myself up in my bedroom every Saturday night for four hours to tape my favourite songs from Take 40 Australia, organising a concert every Christmas where my poor long-suffering younger cousins were forced to dress up and mime as my backing singers/band to Right Said Fred, Belinda Carlisle and god knows what else.
Fast forward to the summer of 1996... I had just graduated from high school, turned 18 and discovered boys. I was a very late bloomer, thanks to being a scholarship student at an outer suburban all girls private school, and not being able to afford to take ballroom dancing classes, tennis lessons, horse riding, or any other of the expensive ways my friends met boys.
During the latter years at this school my musical tastes had become more refined, culminating in an obsession with Pearl Jam. This had led me to bond with a couple of girls outside my usual group, and I started going to underage gigs with them. One of them had a twin brother, and I started to hang out with him and his friends a little bit. Of course I was completely terrified of boys, and had no idea what to do when I liked one, but it was a start. I invited this gang to my 18th birthday party and had in turn been invited to a few others around the same time. Things were developing...
So, I think the turning point was New Years Eve - at least half a dozen of us loaded up the Bruiser (blue land cruiser) with alcohol and sleeping bags and drove down to Lorne for Rock Above The Falls - a 3 day music extravaganza (now known as The Falls Festival). During this time I sealed my new friendships with spumanti under the stars and a smorgasbord of indie bands and hare krishna food.
You can imagine my delight when the boys invited me to come 'jam' with their band. I was very nervous, especially when the audition involved me being shut in a room with a tiny keyboard and a 4-track. I was to come up with an organ track for their new song.
Somehow i passed the test and jamming with the band became a regular thing. They didn't have a name, or any gigs, but we had a ball playing covers of our favourite Radiohead and REM tracks.
This band lasted for four years, during which time we found a drummer who could actually play, went through 4 guitarists (one twice!), worked on some original songs, made a demo, and played at almost every small band room in Melbourne. I was convinced we were going to be huge, we just needed a bit more focus (all our drummer wanted to do was play Alice in Chains covers down at the Berwick pub) and enough money to finish the studio (the singer's parents had generously donated their double garage to be converted into a recording studio. this project was neverending.) Then our bass player went to London to do the UK working visa thing. Work on the studio continued, but rehearsals and gigs were not an option. I decided that it was a good time to go overseas myself, as there wasn't much keeping me in Melbourne. I applied to do my last uni semester on exchange in Canada and was accepted.
Bored yet? I didn't expect this entry to be my whole life story!! But now that I'm on a roll...
So, had a brilliant time in Canada, made some life long friends and got a new perspective. Four years studying music at uni had been tough, standards were high and I had found it very hard just to pass the performance part of the degree. So the break from music was very timely and allowed me to focus on other parts of who I was.
After my semester in Canada i wanted to backpack around Europe, visiting the friends I had made in the last few months. I started with my old pal, the bassplayer, living in London with his girlfriend. He gave me his blue acoustic guitar, saying he didn't want to lug it around when he went travelling, so I carted it round with me instead, feeling very bohemian. Unfortunately I'm not very good at the guitar, but noodling around on it gave me something to do when I ran out of money.
When I got home from my 'big trip' I started working full time almost straight away in a finance job. It wasn't what I really wanted to be doing but I had bills to pay and this job sounded like a 'great opportunity' and would give me excellent 'transferrable skills', you get the drift. So I worked hard and soon had a company car and was living in a share house in South Yarra, a rather posh inner suburb of Melbourne, home of the shopping mecca Chapel Street. During this time I had been dragged along to a dance class by a friend, loved it, and had become obsessed. I was terrible at first, but improved gradually and to my surprise was asked by an advanced guy called Adam if I would like to compete with him in a national competition in Sydney. Yes! was my immediate answer (he told me later he was prepared for all the possible ways I would reject his offer but not the yes I blurted out!!) and we began rehearsing a routine to Vanilla Ice and Salt n Pepa. Yes, I know, it was 2002 but we wanted to stand out from all the J-Lo routines happening at the time.
Adam and I were a hit, we didn't win of course as I'd only been dancing for a few months and it was an open competition, but our musical choice and entertainment value gained us respect from the other dancers and many laughs on the night. Shortly after the competition, a friend had a party, Adam and I got very drunk, and the rest is history. The next day I fell off a horse.
Don't worry, I was ok, if this were a movie I would have been in a coma and there would be a montage of all the beautiful moments Adam and I had spent together before he had to switch off my life support system, but just before he does, I blink, and he pulls the tubes out of my mouth and we kiss passionately and live happily ever after. This is not a movie.
What happened instead was that I got very bruised and sore and have since had chronic neck & back pain. It is much better now but has taken a long time to heal. Which meant dancing started to be less fun.
Also, I was miserable at work. It had been great for a while, and I did indeed learn lots of great skills and make good money, but my boss was getting on my nerves and I felt like my life was getting a bit off track. I hadn't spent 5 years at uni studying music/commerce to spend my career selling loans for cars which cost more than a house and land package in the suburbs. I hated the clients I was dealing with, I hated car salesmen, I hated being one of the only females in the workplace, I hated maths (and was doing lots of it) and I missed playing in a band.
Adam, being his wonderful supportive self, convinced me to take some time off and look for a new job and maybe a band to join. I found a couple of bands whose demos I liked and started jamming with them, and things started to look up. Shortly afterward, I found a new job at a books/music store and things felt a whole lot better. Sure, I took a paycut going from a fancy finance job to a lowly bookstore clerk, but I was finally working with people my own age who shared my interest in music & culture, and although customers were still a pain in the ass, they were only buying a CD from me, not a two hundred thousand dollar loan, so it was easier to not let them get to me.
Gradually a few bands became one and now, in October 2006, we have just released our first official CD. It's a 4-track EP with an album waiting in the wings. The Melbourne EP launch was last week and went brilliantly, and it feels like although we have been playing together for several years, the journey is just beginning. It is a very exciting and busy time, and a few months ago I left my full-time job as a PA (yes the bookstore didn't last long, I'm just too ambitious darnit!) to concentrate on my music career. I did a short course in small business management, and the band is now behaving more like a business than a hobby. In the last month or so we have taken on a manager and a publicist, and are looking to tour interstate at the end of the year. I am very excited about the challenge of taking the business from a money pit (recording is SOOO expensive!!) to a profitable business - at this stage I predict that it will start breaking even in about 12 months, and by the end of the second year we will have recouped all personal investments so far. Time will tell I guess...
So that's how I came to call my blog The Trials & Adventures of an Aussie Rock Chick - not the most catchy name, but hey I'm a musician, not a writer. But I'm looking forward to sharing my adventures with you, and having somewhere not affiliated with the band that I can whinge, bitch, spread viscious rumours, etc etc. Oh, and get excited when something good happens!!
I hope you enjoy - and maybe one day you will be able to say you knew me when...
ARC xo