siren on myspace

Here’s a funny thing. Lately my life has been good enough, that is, pleasure enough in its own right, that I haven’t had to re/write it to give it sense. This is a new thing for me and is taking some time to sink in; hence no blog entries for rather too long. This won’t do. I may have precious few readers but I have records to keep. Records, records to make, records to break.

Of course that is one of the things I have been doing, making little records, and you can check us out on myspace whenever you please, where we have posted our demo and a few humble words, as you do. There are always more shots up on Flickr, the photo-sharing site we all know and love. I’m in conversation with Lisa Hogben about a studio photo shoot, bodypaint and all. And 6 different programs on fbi94.5 might be playing our music after we took our demo in to their monthly open day. Now all I need is someone to hold my hand while I organise some gigs.
Then there is Lexie. My new flatmate is a bombshell – if she doesn’t kill me she’ll definitely make me stronger. She’s a perfect fit for the house, which is flexing around her in entertaining ways. More, oh, much more will come of this.

my musical map

my musical map

Originally uploaded by Illuminata.

the time has come to bare my musical soul in all its awful glory

it a morphing, forking, howling thing, of course, as you can see

click on the image for enlargement and comment

sometimes lonely journeys

the turn away from the nut rock cafe

Originally uploaded by Illuminata.

Greetings, my dear and patient readers.

I have been away from Daybook (or Ubi Sunt, as it is soon to become) for a month. It is summer, and I still have trouble managing the 60-hour week, though important things are getting done now with a regularity that has shown kind of momentous effects.

Eugene and I are about to demo 10 or so songs. We will shop these around, angling for an album deal, but we’ll also throw a couple on a demo disc so we can go for lots of gigs, starting around the inner burbs and moving out. Naturally them ditties will be downloadable hereabouts very soon, and we also plan to throw demo discs around at gigs.

This morning, Drew and I backed off to flatmate status, officially, for the moment. His plate is pretty damn full also. You don’t exactly ‘break up’ a 10-year open relationship; you just go into and through another phase.

What that’s to be or how long it’s to last… *shrugs jadishly* …we shall soon enough learn. We remain flatmates and close friends and…

Okay, the wrap-up

goddess_p039

Originally uploaded by Martinism.

The second Goddess Project night sold out. The damn stoner video guy didn’t make it (he shot the first night, which was somewhat rawer and to an intimate audience) but there were several cameras in the packed second-night crowd and some of the results have cornered a couple of tags on Flickr. Look here and if only 12 show up (glitch, i think) then look here as well. Financially, we (ahem) pretty much broke even. Another night would’ve been good, but that’s what we tried for originally, and the next week was already booked. Sound quality of the video, meh. But we’ve got documentation and it’ll serve up some good clips and stills.

Then, as you all no doubt saw in yer inboxes, there was the Vic on the Park open mic night, a festive occasion in the hands of the redoubtable Mike Cook. Our two nights – the two Tuesdays after the two Wednesdays of TGP, if you follow – were the Christmas party and the last open mic night for the year, so they were both rockin’. Have a look here at Redeeming Features for our first (to my knowledge, at least) online review.

And so, with modelling work tailing off in a week or so, Drew preparing for a weekend elsewhere (oh, lord, I’m so indiscreet), and Eug holding an entirely justifiable but not always easy distance, I’m off to a nunnery for a couple of weeks. Just kidding. Let’s see, I’m halfway thru 4 loads of washing, I’ve tidied the dressing room (whew), and I’m planning a scarily comprehensive new filing system. I promised myself I’d never blog about housework, but this is psychic overhaul. Now begins the time of the December/January projects – breaking the back, so to speak, of Voting For Democracy, creating the ZenSiren website with Drew, mastering the VotP live recording with Phil Snow and Eug, and by February somewhere releasing the demo EP at the website launch.

Plus I need to swim most days, stretch every day, and keep singing. Hell, I’ve gotta start thinking about Christmas. Damn, I haven’t got time for lovers.

Guess I’ll make it how I can. ;)

(Hot shot, by the way, Martinism…*smirk*)

web of world music women

the week ends with a bang as dave (this is dave) does his magic high over south king street till very late saturday night.

it’s been a heavy month; modelling-wise september is mercifully light – hopefully i can now fit in rest, recuperation and musical progress.

tonight i’ve been listening to angelique kidjo… ayé, what a woman… and to Nübun, a kurdish band whose music is banned by the turkish government in an attempt to suppress kurdish nationalism, and marvelling at the jawdroppingly bold beautiful vocals of Nure. that tape was given to drew and me by kurdish carpet sellers in istanbul.

and i was giving the iva bittova tape a bit of a spin a while ago… i think i’m sensing a pattern here…

music excuse us

and so i come to the daybook in the middle of the night…

…with a reaction to reading chunks of Hopkins and Sugarman’s No-one Here Gets Out Alive while rereading Pat Kennealy’s Strange Days: my life with and without Jim Morrison. A reaction too big to get down but it doesn’t matter, because i have hit the computer with a truly Morrisonian realisation:

we are a dying race, and if what’s left by the time we have nuked and/or eaten each other is but these gleaming machines containing our records, then this life better be there. Addictions, restrictions, dissenting bloody bad attitude an’ all.

As for the race, I don’t think the music will excuse us.

ray

eug and i went to see ‘ray’, a film of ray charles’s life starring jamie foxx in an award-winning performance… a research project, really, more in the need-to-know than love-his-music way. we’re not big blues fans – eug even less than i, but out of respect and curiosity…

a good film, a fine film, and musically rich, as one of my tafe teachers said in recommending it, though I fear some of the subtleties of mr charles’s particular innovations were lost on anyone who wasn’t a blues and soul afficionado – ‘yo’ cain’t mix gospel with rhythm n blues!’ cried his opponents, utterly scandalised. but i can barely separate them… it was a pre-motown world, which is a cultural map near unimaginable to us post-sixties kids.

so what can i draw from this evocation of that evolution? do i, in my own teenage churchgoing, hymn-harmonising distant history, have a ‘pre-motown’ era of my own? and am i moving towards a synthesis between it and my pop/punk/grunge/indie real-world influences?

we can only hope so. if you have a god feel free to pray. if, like ray charles and me, you know we are our own only ultimate authority, i’d be honoured if you’d wish, will, make a small sacrifice (don’t kill anything; i recommend giving away some money, preferably directly to someone in need) or cast a spell in my favour.

i promise to use any powers i might gain only for good.

about gigging…

today i was given the lead part in a class version of ‘killing me softly’ – teacher on keyboards, 3 guitars, drums, and 5 other singers on harmonies – and afterwards michael (brown, teacher) said as we put the gear away in the side room that i should be gigging, i should be getting out there. i said yeah, i’d love to, but i’ve given up on the trauma of trying to organise the goddamn things, how do you do it? so we talked about ways and means, with contribution from andrew, the drummer, who plays regular originals gigs with a band called joey rocket and also does session work. michael said networking is essential and he’d give me some numbers of people who organise bands and gigs, but they both also said that once you get it rolling the gigs come to you…

boy am i looking forward to that.

about gigging…

today i was given the lead part in a class version of ‘killing me softly’ – teacher on keyboards, 3 guitars, drums, and 5 other singers on harmonies – and afterwards michael (brown, teacher) said as we put the gear away in the side room that i should be gigging, i should be getting out there. i said yeah, i’d love to, but i’ve given up on the trauma of trying to organise the goddamn things, how do you do it? so we talked about ways and means, with contribution from andrew, the drummer, who plays regular originals gigs with a band called joey rocket and also does session work. michael said networking is essential and he’d give me some numbers of people who organise bands and gigs, but they both also said that once you get it rolling the gigs come to you…

boy am i looking forward to that.

we get deep rhythm

i fight for time and headspace to balance this journal between my tafe course documentation and my life.

i’ve hardly time to breathe. i swam twenty laps today just to remember what it feels like.

sunday night eug will come over as usual, but this time we’ll be hosting Mia and Kerryelle(!), bass and drums – dinner, beer and a jam. Finally, maybe, a new rhythm section for Siren – after a year of searching and searching and messing around and giving up… now this drummer who is a life model like me (and a good one like me!) and her rhythm section compadre from Taffeta Punk show up. she gets called KL, Mia said… please god tell me they’re good, tell me they’re hot; tell me we vibe all over the place, go on, go on -

just make it happen, baby