get outta the house, you!

tonite, I'm at the riverview in balmain with val gray and the whole band - supposedly after the big football match, which means we probably won't start til after 10pm...

tomorrow, back at the merton from 6pm, and a heads-up for next weekend: friday, 4th august, I'm appearing on the annual jeans for genes benefit gig to raise funds for children's diseases. I'll have a few of the deadsetters as my backing band, and it will be the proverbial hoot. details on my gigs page. call the babysitter, lock up grandma and get down there, y'all.

np - big star / radio city

real men don't read roadmaps

most of you long-time readers know that I've recently shied away from making commentary in relation to geopolitical issues, events and the like. life's just too damn short to argue. and the next person who says to me, "yes, I know what's really happening in the world, I watch fox news" - well......

but the simple notion of loving one another, doing what's right for oneself, one's family, one community and one's God - which seems to be a universally accepted tenant in nearly all major religions - seems to be drifting further from the shore every day.

oh, speaking of "entertainers who speak out", I see the dixie chicks are touring these shores soon. can imagine the number uno question from all aussie journos will be: "wtf was all that fuss about with bush?"

spent most of the day in the studio working on the blues pirates album, got a nice take of the tatt's "bad boy for love", done as an acoustic swing. it'll be on the album later in the year.

as for my own long-dreaded new release, well, who knows. the continuing financial and personal setbacks seem to be conspiring to make that a dream best left forgotten. sorry to sound so down, but I really am. I've also been listening to a lot of great tunes from my old compadres back in the 70's power pop days and desperately trying to avoid collapsing into a thoreauian parody.

do I need to take up a new career as a lobbyist for some useless, but well-paying cause? like recycling old road signs and billboards as sk8 parks? administrative affairs representative for excess chalk in public schools? movement to make belly button bling mandatory in all public offices - for women, too?

and - hello, folks.... we have a comment box at the bottom of each post now. I know there's some 300-odd of y'all who read this, so talk to me, people.

happy b-day to lyn of the irish clan.

np - rain parade / emergency third rail power trip

words to live by

"a song is people put to music"
- freddie hart

where'd the month go?

last time I blinked, the calendar had just turned over to july. now, I'm staring august in the face (and for that matter, so are all of you....). where'd july go?

the sunday sessions were great, the guys from melbourne were sensational. catch them if they're touring near you - jordie lane and chris matthews.

so far, I've spent the entire day lost in paperwork preparing for taxes, etc. is it my imagination, or does this task seem to get harder every year? is my life that's gotten more complicated, or have my few remaining left-side braincells taken up residence somewhere on the numerous hard drives in front of me (none of which that will talk to each other, of course)? do I know what rhetorical means?

np - pandora radio

attention austinites

there's a benefit gig for my pal kacy crowley's husband karl anderson, who is fighting ongoing medical costs after a serious fall. here's the scoop:

Wednesday July 19th
9-12pm
@Threadgills South
Jon Dee Graham and Friends
Troy Campbell
Kacy Crowley
Bob Schneider

the wrath of grapes

this was somewhat amusing: an aussie weekend newspaper sent out a chapter of patrick white's 1973 nobel prize-winning novel "the eye of the storm" to 12 leading publishers - under another title and pseudonym. they all rejected it. dunno if that's a commentary on the current literary market, or the role of today's publisher, but I got a chuckle out of this rainy morning.

however, I was saddened by the news that not only has tuesday's javanese tsunami death toll still climbing (with hundreds more still missing), but also reports that, once again, the alarm did not reach the people in time, in spite of 45 minutes' warning.

thanks to my music critic pal jackson, for this heads up: adrian bourgeois is the son of former bourgeois tagg (and dove-award winning producer) brent. still a teenager, adrian writes some of the best post-beatles/pet sounds pop that I have heard. there's no record deal yet, but check out some of the tracks on his myspace page.

looking good in blues

the unofficial debut of the blues pirates went well, a little rough around the edges, but it's better that way. lots of special guests including the bali brothers kept the nite grooving along. thanks to everyone who made it, especially that last set where you couldn't move in the place. there'll be more soon.

I've enjoyed playing these low-key internet webcasts lately, and I'm thinking about doing a regular weekly spot. might be handy for those of you who couldn't catch the earlier ones. possibly a tuesday nite, 9pm ish west coast usa time, will confirm shortly.

congrats to amy and steve on their impending engagement party. hope dennis hopper will be there.

np - thelonious monk / san francisco holiday

the guys get SHIRTS!

saw this one the other day, go here and turn on your speakers (warning: not 100% work/family safe). it's the evergreen mr paul anka back in the day, berating his band and crew. not quite as vicious as the infamous buddy rich tapes, but very, very funny nonetheless.

for some unexplainable reason, I seem to have come down with a microwave flu. and by that, I mean the instant kind, like our modern day society demands (no upsizing this one, thanks). I still dunno how it happened, about 1am, I was happily playing pool at the monkey bar after val & mitch's showcase, tossing down overpriced local lagers and trying to hold a publican's wife back from busting her pool cue over some deservedly idiotic doofus, then it's 5am, and I'm shivering and shaking like a wet puppy. it's been bad enough where I had to cancel a studio session today, which I hated to do, but probably not as much as they would've hated what I would've possibly done to their microphones.

the fever broke about midday, and everyone that's been thru that process - which I'm assuming is most people - knows that it comes equipped with some very bizarre dreams. I spent some time this morning trying to make sense of them all, which of course is usually a pointless exercise. I've never put too much stock in to the new age 'dream interpreters', especially when they all seem to totally contradict each other. but clearly, the subconscious is a very busy beast when the rest of the body is at rest, and there's obviously a reason for that. one that I'm sure our tiny human brains cannot comprehend.

hopefully, I'll pull up okay enough for my usual sunday gig, chris turner and myself are gonna road test some of the new blues tunes we've been recording for the blues pirates. I have suggested that in order to attract a larger audience of middle-ages females, we change the letter 'r' in 'pirates' to an 'l'....

see emily play

well, he's gone. syd barrett, the much loved, much maligned poet/genius founder of the pink floyd has died, aged 60.

so may people only seem to know the floyd from their post-dark side work, after david gilmour had 'replaced' syd. but herein was a true visionary, who went on to lead the classically tortured life after his withdrawal from society.

if you're not familiar with syd-era floyd, go dig it out. you'll be amazed.

there's policy, and then there's policy....

"I support gay marriage," Friedman said in 2005. "I believe they have a right to be as miserable as the rest of us." -

kinky friedman

monday is the new sunday

since my weekend shows culminate in the sunday residency (and often, kicking on afterwards if some pals are playing down the road), mondays always feel like a sunday to me. I wish the various salespeople, bill chasers, clients and biz partners would understand that....

on top of that, I stayed up all nite to watch this morning's world cup final, although I opted to stay home rather than join the ten-thousand strong who swarmed the streets of sydney's italian district. might as well have watched the first 20 minutes, then tuned in for the extra time penalty shoot out. it did seem a bit anticlimatic to have the world's most watched sporting event [sidenote to nascar fans: 1.2 billion] decided by a couple of free kicks, but them's the rules I suppose.

it's still sunny and somewhat warmish during the days here in the depth of the aussie 'winter', such that it is. hope you northern hemi folks aren't sweltering too much. the house cd stacker is pumping out richard marx tunes as the gypsy gal is getting primed to join a few o/seas pals and catch up with her buddy richie when he plays in town here soon. hey, I don't mind ol' handsome dick. we unfortunately shared the same manager once, but he's cowritten some great tunes, has a very cool wife, and he ain't billy joel.

I've also been enjoying getting back to playing more slide lately. I've been very fortunate over the years to have worked with so many great slide and steel players: henry cooper, garrett costigan, chris turner and of course pete wells. so I've been prowling around a bit looking for more resonators etc, and justifying the idea to the gypsy gal by assuring her that pete's spirit has told me to.... or else.

art n alt.country

did another internet radio thing today, yeah I shoulda listed it, but there'll be more. this was a bit of 'friday nite US time' party thing anyway, so I just played a bunch o' covers.

off to catch mark lucas and the band, and am going to do my damndest tomorrow to get to bernice davies' exhibition. if you're in sydney, it runs for another couple of weeks. details on her site.

tomorrow's the usual sunday gig too, with mr. flew returning after a spell.

oh, and i finally got around to rebuilding my design site, well, most of it anyway. still need to update the flash files n all, but at least it's recoded properly.

np - crosby and nash / to the last dolphin

the beat goes on....

yesterday's webcast went well, after a few inworld hiccups. seems the 'promoters' of the event hadn't thought about a backup venue, and when stream problems couldn't be solved at the original venue, the whole shindig was moved at about 2 minutes to airtime. so those of you who tuned in and wondered why it was all running late, there's yer answer.

yes, I've reverted to typing in lower case here, anyone who gets my emails knows that's my preferred lazy type option, and I have always had a kind of e e cummings fixation of sorts.

so italy beat germany in the world cup semi finals.... lots of partying going on in leichhardt, sydney's italian district, and I'm still hearing horns blaring up and down the roads here.

here's a very cool story, if any of you missed it - this guy in the states, who after spending 20 years in a post-accident coma, has revived somewhat after his brain neuropathways 'reconnected' themselves. his then baby daughter is now 20, and he's understandably perplexed. apparently he still thinks ronald regan is president.... which might not be such a bad thing, considering....

happy 50th b-days to jake, and to ruth.

np - joni mitchell / taming the tiger

New financial year, new musings format

This is the new format for musings, I hope you'll find it workable. All the previous archives are accessible thru the archive index. You'll see the comments box below each post now too, hopefully it'll get used this time.... heh.

Weekend's gigs went very well again, I always enjoy these first o' the month gigs. Had some friends in town who stayed, and was great to see some new faces as well.

The Internet radio webcast is 10am tomorrow morning, my time. Now I've gotta drag myself out of bed early enough to warm up my throat and fingers. Hope you can tune in. Open your fave media player (Windows Media Player, Winamp etc) and plug this into the URL field: http://www.wickedkarma.com:9051

np - Phil Keaggy / Acoustic Sketches