Morning of the Earth part two - rehearsals

1) Brian Cadd sings a verse of Simple Ben 2) Old Man River's Ohad sings his song

3) Robyn and Katie of the Moisturisers 4) Mark Johns has the biggest pedal board in the Universe

5) Kere Buchanan 6) Uuummm - it's Vic! I knew I'd remember his name eventually..

7) G. Wayne Thomas 8) Musical Director Jamie Rigg has me pegged as a trouble-maker

9) Brian Cadd has a moment of ecstasy 10) Percussionist Sunil de Silva works it out

11) Stage Manager Dugald McAndrew 12) Associate Producer and all-round good gal Robyn Jelleff

home of New Found Frequency, with whom, you might remember, I had discussions about recording Spectrum at the Queenscliff Festival performance. It's a tiny studio, but it was crammed full of bodies, a lot of them carrying serious looking cameras. The first thing we had to do (for the cameras) was perform a mock up of our recording, and it was about here I met the other guest performer on the bill, Lior, (pic 3) for the first time. Lior, Brian and I bumbled our way through a chorus or two of Simple Ben whilst trying to look photogenic, and then we sang bits of a verse each - I was severely handicapped by not having my specs to hand and consequently sang a load of gibberish. Lior and I were then interviewed about the show, and I had to confess that I'd not seen the movie and wasn't much interested in surfing for that matter. Lior wasn't even born when the movie came out, but managed to say some flattering things about the music and the other old bastards on the show.
As it happened, Lior's recording was up first, and the control room worked the lad really hard, but he bore up to the pressure manfully and acquitted himself to everybody's satisfaction, before rushing out the door to some other project. I don't think he was crying.
Than it was my turn. There were a couple of words in the lyrics I'd been given that didn't make sense, so we sorted that out first, but if I thought they'd worked Lior hard, then they'd saved some extra hard yards for me. Added to which I had to demo someone else's verse as a safety and add a harp solo and squeeze in a lunch break. By the time we'd finished I was quite fagged out. (For my American readers, that's not what you think).
The most annoying thing about sessions like this is not really knowing if you've done what they wanted, with the result that you feel just as insecure when you leave as when you arrived. More of this saga to come..
Listen to the 'radio edit' of Simple Ben

The lost weekend continues..
4.8.08 - It wasn't as though I ended up with nothing to do on the weekend. Bill invited me up to Rosewood to add some harp to his song about Pedro the goat, and so I trekked up to Strathewen half-listening to some irrelevant AFL match on the radio. I'd had to get up fairly early to feed the cats, so I was hardly feeling any more rested than the previous day (see article below) - and I had to do the cats' evening shift as well. It was good to catch up with Rosemary and Celia (pic) and the Pedro song was fun to do. (Bill says it still sounds fine).

and I agreed we should vary our eating arrangements for the next game.
After all that I was thoroughly knackered, but there was another commitment I'd agreed to that didn't even begin till bloody midnight - Triple R's Headley Gritter had been in touch about appearing on his late night program, The Party Show, and, although I'd thought we might be able to dovetail it with this coming weekend's appearance at the Lomond, (which is just across the road from Triple R afterall), Headley insisted that I had to be there from the start of the show, so I'd re-scheduled my appearance for this vacant Saturday night instead.
As I wearily walked along Blyth St to the Triple R studios, a small black terrier attached itself to me in the nonchalant way that small dogs occasionally do. I refrained from saying anything to it in case it decided that I might be a candidate to be its life companion, and I tried not to look as it recklessly charged across the intersection at Nicholson St. I needn't have worried - the little fella was clearly a veteran and knew exactly what it was doing.
As I dithered trying to read the sign next to the studio intercom, a voice beside me said, 'That's a nice dog you've got.' I realised the voice belonged to Brenden Mason at the same moment the door swished open, revealing the ebullient personage of none other than (I assumed - he didn't actually say) Headley Gritter. (pic 3)
Headly whisked us into Triple R and escorted us to the coffee machine, pointing out the guest vocalist waiting in the second studio as we sailed past. We were presently joined by one Jeff Jenkins, co-host of an apparently famous show called The Chartbusting 80s and author of a new and substantial looking treatise called 50 Years of Australian Rock, and he and Brenden engaged in a no doubt fascinating discussion while I skulked off to the toilet. (pic 2)
When I returned everyone had adjourned to the studio, and Headley had adopted a combative standing position behind his mic. In the meantime I discovered my chair had adjustable levers (fatal - if it's got levers I fiddle with it) and, sure enough I sank down to a child's level peering helplessly over the desk. That took a good ten minutes of fiddling to rectify, by which time we were well into proceedings. Headley threw us a stubbie of Crown lager each, setting the tone for the discussion, replete as it was with jovial banter and old school songs, (as it seems just about everybody but me had been schooled at Melbourne High School).
Every thirty minutes or so, Headley and the engineer (Dee Dee?) would dash into the next studio to nurse a song from young Ella, and then dash back and resume the riotous discussion with Brenden, Jeff and me. Jeff was pretty well acquainted with the Spectrum/Murtceps/Ariel story and asked some very good questions, but it was hard to stay on track for too long, and every topic ended in much laughter - and quite a bit of yelling for some reason.
As we spilled out onto Nicholson St at a few minutes after 2.00, Brenden, Headley and I mumbled piously about how tough it was for young Ella compared with us at the same age, but honestly I was thinking more about my warm bed waiting for me at home than the trials and tribulations of some young person with her life ahead of her...