"one more fuckin' imponderable!" thundered Al Swearingen when the greasy mayor inquired as to why he seemed to dread the arrival of the telegraph in Deadwood."One more fuckin' imponderable."
2014 I have sometimes felt beset by many imponderables. Mugged by gangs of stinking imponderables. Still, we must go on.
The "Fearful Wiggings - in concert" dates shave been going very well. The music and the players have been the greatest. Mostly Stu Thomas on baritone and Clare Moore on keys and percussion - occasionally joined by Stuart Perera on electric. I've been playing two guitars through my Crate acoustic amp. This amp is a powerfully clear solid state box and I put my Maton six string and KYairi 12 string through one channel and my 1959 Ibanez Salvador archtop through a sansamp into the other channel. For the acoustics I also go through a BBE preamp and an Aphex acoustic exciter.
Playing older songs I haven't touched in years has also been enriching.
FYI we have been playing stuff like...
scorched earth love affair - 1995
you wanna be there but you don't wanna travel - 1991
where the trees walk downhill - 1981
chads car - 1982
the birds and the goats - 1995
I'm gonna live in my own big world - 1995
the sheriff of hell - 1997
I'm just havin' one of those lives - 1993
Mogambo - 1995
as well as a healthy serving of songs from FEARFUL WIGGINGS.
We started off in Castlemaine- a town where people go to avoid other people.They successfully avoided us - and our very good fellow travellers TEETH AND TONGUE.
Mt Gambier was a date at the City Band Hall. I was last in there three decades ago on a boyhood whim to play in the marching band. A beautiful 70s looking place out on the east side of town. I always wanted to get back in there and a local friend, BUGGO, helped me to achieve this.
We drove for many hours to get there and were greeted by a welcoming group of people. Some looked familiar. One was a woman who insisted o hugging me and then wiped her nose, sniffed and said she was really sick and that she'd probably given me something. For some reason she took poor Clare aside and informed her she'd never heard my music and was not coming to the show and wanted to talk about a party. It was positively Shakespearean. I mean she should have had two other crones by her side and all of them around a bubbling cauldron!
The night could have gone off the rails at any moment but never did. Quite a magical evening. BYO and all over before 11pm. People brought eskies full of booze and sat around the trestle tables. Marvellous.
Other shows that we did like this- at venues where people set up shows in off the main tracks type rooms - were really great. Always surprising. The Piping Hot Chicken Shop in Ocean Grove, which is actually a chicken shop. Smiths Alternative Bookshop in Canberra.
The more we drifted toward "normal" rock'n'roll joints- the less enjoyable it was. More uptight generally. Dead zones.
The record was album of the week on Triple R which was a great honour and a great lift for us. Community radio in general has been very supportive.
We have more dates to do and then Clare Moore and I will be playing in NEW ZEALAND - see below- and then accompanying Harry Howard and Edwina Preston to Europe. We play bass and drums in Harry Howard and the NDE.
I am hoping to do a few shows of my own in Europe. I'll post the dates soon.
Clare Moore's band , THE DAMES, are playing a rare show on Sunday 3rd August at the Post Office Hotel.
Harry Howard and the NDE are also playing at the Post Office Hotel on August 9th.
Thanks to everybody who has come to a show or bought a cd.
No comments:
Post a Comment