reconnecting and reconnections

Further Out

I thought I could add further text here in connection to this ongoing tour. It has been a very exciting and enjoyable experience and we still have a way to go. No downside at all. Everybody involved is really into the situation and enjoying it. People are really enjoying it. Robin Casinaders idea to play the album in its original sequence has really made it a great, challenging situation. The track order of the album was probably mine and Clare’s ideas of how the album would be listened to - or presented. Then it went out into the world. Some songs lived and others just stayed in the disc and were never played live. One has been performed every time we have ever gone on stage ever since. When we got back together for the first time, about seven years ago, and talked about what songs we should play in a set, Clare and I mentioned that people really expected us to play Rock ‘n Roll Is Where I Hide. Always. Rod and Robin were surprised. It was always a strange song. But it had power.
We flew to Perth early in the morning and arrived at roughly the same time as the plane had left, picked up a van and drove to Fremantle. I decided to wear my Withnail jacket with lime golf slacks, Adidas gazelles and my cap with my Bewdy Of Speed badge. (An art performance we presented at the Arts Centre in 2007. It relates to a Futurist poem called The Beauty Of Speed). I had picked up a few other badges during the week too.

Bewdy badge from the poster designed by Tony Mahony.

We had asked our friend Tomas Ford to open the show - this has been the only date on the tour with an opener - with his WOODY CAMPFIRE character. He sings Aussie style around a campfire with a tenor ukelele. Look out for him either performing or busking. He gets around.

The show had added energy due to us playing with time zone altered delirium. Starting the first set at midnight Melbourne time but 9pm by West Coast hours.

The next day we drove south to the Margaret River area. The show was in a hotel that looked to be either 1930s or the 1980s version of the 30s. It deserves to have a film made within and around it. It reminded me of something that could have been in the story Lolita by Nabokov, which is mainly set in 1940s American motels.

Clare Moore, Stu Thomas, Rod Hayward.

Rod Hayward from his quarters.

I also bought a new leather jacket while Robin and Clare found a puppy to pet.

We were back in Melbourne for the Monday and bade farewells to our two friends from Scotland who had been visiting Australia for the previous month. We also continued discussions with a distributing company in regard to our next album which will be coming out in 2026, on vinyl and Compact Disc.

The next weekend we flew to Brisbane where we played in an old school rock venue right in the entertainment area known as The Valley. This was semi tropical heat Queensland.

Clare Moore, Robin Casinader and Miki who was driving our backline in Qld.

Phillipa Berry sent some pictures from - actually - 30 years ago in Brisbane when I was doing an instore at Rocking Horse Records. You may be able to spot the Oasis posters behind us, eerie that they were touring Australia at the very moment of this tour as well… It was also the time that I bought that Maton EB808 acoustic guitar which I still enjoy playing.

Greg Wadley, a friend from Melbourne, has been living back in Brisbane and took these shots at the show. He was bewitched by Robins Mellotron. The audience reaction here was fierce. A great night.

Fortitude Valley, where the venue was located, is notorious for being impossible to get out of, such is the crush of people. But this was Halloween and the young people of Brisbane had really taken to it. The streets were full of youths in costumes. Clare Moore caught some of the action.

The young men above were dressed as bottles of tomato sauce and mustard. I am still unsure of the condiments being relative to Halloween but it may have been a larger group tableau involved to give their costumes added meaning?

The next show was on the Sunshine Coast which is just above Brisbane.

This was more of a playing to a seated audience as opposed to the fierce Firefight in Brisbane. It suited the first set which is the Soft n Sexy album. It’s a dynamic show. Two hours plus.

We then drove to the Gold Coast which is below Brisbane to set up and make show at Mos Desert Warehouse. Our last time in this area had been at a more arts bespoke performance designed venue but this was a rock n roll setup in a semi industrial aarea. Plenty of parking and no problems with noise as there were no neighbours. A smaller stage but fantastic facilities and all backline supplied. I thought this was perhaps the best performaance so far. Everybody hit every dramatic point so well.

Photo above and those following by Michelle Cop

I generally walk straight to the merch place after the show and I had to actually do all the work here as we had no person available to do it. I walked quickly through the crowd and a man and woman spoke to me. He said that my music infused and enriched his life every time he sees us and that he was feeling incredibly happy after that. I was myself overwhelmed to hear such talk and thanked them both as I kept walking to the table. The music of our encore was still ringing in my ears. Another woman asked if she could tell me a story. I said, yes but I would have to keep walking. She said that her friend had had a daughter a while ago and read in my first memoir that my mother was called Philomena and so she called her daughter that. Again I was at a loss for words. I thanked her and kept walking to the merch table. A barman had been minding it and immediately handed the situation over to me. A man from my home town was among the people who were purchasing t shirts and books and records and I was weilding a phone and square card. People were being very kind and positive. Some wanted more time than I could give and I was also still exhausted after a 140 minute performance. Eventually I was there with a few stragglers. Then a woman was talking to me and she was one of those people who had an uncanny ability to keep saying the wrong thing. Her male friend had bought a book and asked me to sign it, which I did. She then kept asking what I had written and I said just my name as I couldn’t write whole screeds of text as he seemed to have wanted. She kept pointing at the book and asking what I had written. The man pointed out she meant what I had written in the book. Of course I couldn’t answer her question.

There was a lull and I was packing up and she came back and asked me if I had been the singer of that band that had just been playing? I said yes I was.
She then said “did you used to be big or something? I don’t know…”
I told her that I was tired and didn’t want to talk about my status or position in life or of showbusiness at the moment. She stood back and told me not to take offence and I said well I’m afraid I was taking her talk in a bad way and could she please just step away and quit the talking. She went away and came back with a tote bag she had bought earlier, asking me to sign it for her friend who “might like me”. I did so and she kept holding my hand and telling me to be my best self and to not let anybody stop me doing so and I was asking her to please go away and stop talking and she was then telling me I was taking things the wrong way and I said okay but now was not the time for me to be talking with anybody about my standing in the world and she turned dark again and said “your life is irrelevant to me… “ Eventually either she or I left the space.

Later I went to get our van and she was sitting by it, in the darkness talking with some other poor geezer. They didn’t see me as I got in and drove off.

Rod, Robin and Stu flew back home and Clare and I stayed on in the Gold Coast.

One of our favourite bands of the 2000s were The Brunettes. One of their songs was about a couple being musicians on the road and how lovely it was to be waking in different places every day with animals playing outside the open window of their hotel etc…

It was excellent to have a few days by the beach. And sometimes in the pool, too.

The next weekend we picked up another van and the band flew back in and we drove to Byron Bay which is in New South Wales but relatively close to Brisbane.

We played in a wonderful community theatre right in the middle of the main drag.

photos by Andy Jans Brown.

We stayed the night in Ballina and then drove to Bellingen where we set up to play in an old Memorial Hall. Bellingen is a lovely looking town, full of art deco buildings. It also has a deluxe clothes shop with plush Italian knit wear .
The show was excellent. People were so effusive. There was a whole gang of people madly dancing, including a bunch of teenagers.

photo - Jenny Smith

I keep coming into situations where the band are talking to each other. About what, I do not know.

We drove to Coffs Harbour after the gig, where we stayed the night in a motel and Rod, Stu and Robin left from Coffs airport. Clare Moore and I drove three hours to Coolangatta to drop off the van as hire companies insist you drop them off where you pick them up nowadays.

At the airport we ran into a writer for the Age who writes about television but had once interviewed us about music. In a very Alan Partridge moment he asked us “so are you doing any big gigs or just your own?”
We tried to answer in a nuanced way and he smiled and continued to talk and I asked where the Age actually was situated nowadays? I had been in at the Spencer st 3AW building a few weeks ago and it wasn’t there anymore. He said that things were picking up and that they used to have 450 writers but now they have 130 and “somehow, I’m still there!”. We laughed along with him.

Our shows continue this week. Newcastle, Avoca Beach, Chatswood (Sydney) and Dangar Island and then Adelaide and Tasmania.

Thursday Nov 13th, King Street Bandroom, Newcastle

Friday Nov 14th, Avoca Beach Theatre NSW

Saturday Nov 15th, The Lounge, Chatswood NSW

Sunday afternoon Nov 16th, Dangar Island Bowlo NSW

Friday Nov 21st, The Gov, Adelaide SA

Friday Nov 28th, Royal Oak, Launceston TAS

Saturday Nov 29th, The Pier, Ulverstone TAS

Sunday Nov 30th, Longley International Hotel, Longley TAS

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