Hello 2022

 Hello 2022. Have I got the year right? Time is all scmmozzled up or something. Fast and slow, then dead slow and then all slippery and getting away from you. 

Clare Moore and I had released our album Everything Was Funny and were doing online shows and videos and anything we could to get the word out. Us being actual Outsider Artists you know.  We filmed a performance for an online music show called Muuzostream that was such high quality. It should be shown some time in February or March. 

We had also started work on a new album - for 2022 release -  and once again it was just the two of us as it was too hard  for many logistical reasons to get together to rehearse with Stu and Stuart from the mistLY and to get time in our favourite studio, Soundpark. So Clare and I laid down guitar, bass and drums and keys for about nine tracks. We also had about the same number already  in progress in our own studio. Its sounding great! Hopefully another session with the mistLY to get down four specific rock'n'roll songs that need all that oomph from a band. 

Idge went fully crazy on the bass drum mics...

The pandemic, thats the thing. Just six months ago we were all locked up in Melbourne and the business groups and federal politicians were screaming about "opening up" and insisting on a  timeline for doing that. Then they got all that - mostly courtesy of the State of NSW and their then leader (who had to quit due to some pesky corruption allegations) opening up restrictions all through the state and then opening travel to the other states and things yeah, just slipped away from all the public health officials and the QR codes and the contact tracing and all that stuff was soon forgotten. Last years things.

 

 

We did a show in Victoria that was quite nice - outside and well organized and then headed into the end of one year with an eye on shows in a new year and it all seemed quite reasonable. But the cases kept rising - though we were now being told not to look at that. And the deaths started to rise - but we were advised that was always going to happen. And today the schools are opening again. Its a New Normal the Liberals keep telling us, but they are such liars you wouldn't believe anything coming from them. 

We drove to South Australia in December, stopping in the town of Penola to visit our favourite vintage shop. Jills Vintage.   

We spent a few weeks by the beach in Adelaide, swimming in the day and watching 70s Australian tv soaps like The BOX and SONS AND DAUGHTERS and THE YOUNG DOCTORS at night with Clares brother Patrick who collects all these otherwise mostly unobtainable shows on DVD from the original production companies.

To get into South Australia we had to have proof of vaccination and also  proof of a negative Covid test within the last three days and then we had to line up for another one the day after we crossed the border. We did this in Mount Gambier and after being in a queue of cars for two hours and looking at another several hours in the same spot, we heard that they were dropping this regulation as the pathology labs in three states were being overwhelmed. We drove out from the queue and continued on our way. 

We came back through Mt Gambier on our way back to Melbourne as I wanted to visit the farmhouse where my mother had grown up along with her eight brothers and sisters . A helpful friend from Social Media sent some directions to the farm and also got in touch with the couple who were living on the property now and they allowed us to come and have a look. 

First we went to visit a tiny abandoned school house nearby where my Grandfather used to be a teacher. Stewarts Range School. The school had about 16 kids at most and the majority would have been his own kids. They travelled to and from the school during the war years (WW2) in a horse and buggy. 

It was quite eerie. Just an old tin building at the end of a dirt road outside Naracoorte, the only building nearby being a CFA shed at a nearby crossroads.

 

We drove onto the house and the lovely couple who are going to renovate it let us walk through the old house. I stayed here once or twice when I was a kid and it was quite magical in many ways. It had an old train carriage out in a paddock which was where the chickens lived but I had to get past a nasty Billy Goat to get there. The carriage was long gone. The surrounding countryside is quite classically Australian. A large lake area called Lake Ormerod just beside the house. The lake was dry of course.

 

 

It was quite an experience for me walking around the place. 

We stayed in Naracoorte for the night and went for a swim at the beautiful swimming lake. 

We then drove back to Melbourne and have been housebound for most of this month as - like everybody - we tried to work out what was real and what wasn't in regard to the ongoing pandemic. Its been like that for two years now. Personally I can't make a switch to a "New Normal" that easily.  

We had a run of shows booked and some of the venues have fallen over and some have had to change a little. 

We are going to do shows but I have to say I don't feel right in being a voice out there saying "come along to my shows". I don't want to be another voice saying "its all normal now". So we are doing shows - yes. But...

 We are making sure all the venues are serious about Covid arrangements and that they are outside if possible. People should wear masks and be triple vaccinated.

Friday 11 February 2022 Dust Temple

Currumbin, QLD

 

 

Saturday 12 February 2022 The Citadel
Murwillumbah, NSW

 

Sunday 13 February 2022 The Eltham Hotel Nsw
Eltham, NSW

 

Saturday 19 February 2022 Grand Ballroom, Palais Royale
Katoomba, NSW

 

Sunday 20 February 2022 Smith's Alternative
Canberra, ACT

 

Sunday 27 February 2022 Northcote Social Club
Northcote, VIC

 

Friday 01 April 2022 The Barwon Club Hotel
Geelong, VIC

 

Friday 22 April 2022 Volta Arts & Culture
Ballarat, VIC

 

 In regard to time - here are some other photos .

Wearing my East Gambier lace up jumper my mother Philomena made for me. 

 

 Marist Brothers High- grade four or five. I left the  Catholic school world and went to a state school for Grade 7 and then to High School. Thank God. There were places of punishment more than education. The fellow to my left is the Liberal Treasurer for South Australia in the current state government. Usual penny pinching privatizing punisher. These are all the kids who were top of the class. It wasn't hard as there were no girls at the school.

 

 

While in Mt Gambier I asked my brother Sean about things to do and he suggested a drive to the wetlands known as Picanninnie Ponds. I had never been to this beautiful area before. Freshwater ponds right next to the sea. There are huge underground caves that people go diving in. The sound of frogs in this place was terrific!