back in black - almost

broadband's back up, and hopefully, so will I.

still doing a few more days at the geetar store, which I've really enjoyed so far. quality instruments, great guys, good customers... nice change from the years of music retail I've previously endured.

casey-lee started her new school on tuesday, so far she seems to like it. I went to the parent/student orientation (which I had a private non-pc chuckle at, as half the kids there are asian). got the info, signed the forms, ensured all was well, checked out the milfs, all the stuff a good dad is supposed to do, right? still sorting out the rose's school stuff, we may have a better alternative than what was planned.

doing a show tomorrow night with my pal gwyn at the bridge, should be another night of good music and bad comedy duo, as was last time.

speaking of pals, I forgot to wish my old buddy, part-time sneaker from the 70's, w.c. handy award nominee and killer blues player henry a. cooper a happy 50th for last saturday. send him an email, all you oldschool oregonian fans.

happy invasion day

the wave of political correctness continues to send common sense cowering into the corners. one of our largest annual rock concerts, the big day out made headlines when it was revealed that there were plans to ban people from bringing the australian flag onto the grounds. oh, and it's australia day here, our version of the states' independence day, etc.

so I did the proper aussie thing and took the kids shopping in chinatown. I'm now broke, but the girls are happy and that's all that matters. I'm sitting here in my office with a nice cold beer, the bar's open downstairs til late and I have a great view of the harbour (I'm only pointing this out to piss off my pals in the uk who are freezing - hello, pinny, ang & syd). I'd be happy to sit here all eve except I'm taking the girls to watch the fireworks.

no broadband yet, my wonderful new isp has run out of modems, in spite of informing me on several occasions that one had indeed been dispatched. never having been one to shy from a good shitfight with a telco, I'm going to war. anyone else have similar experiences? lemme know.

my daughter now has her own myspace page. I'm a little wary about kids on the net in general, and while I've grudgingly allowed this, I'm monitoring it closely. any friends or family who wanna see it, email me. I'm not going to post the addy here, as there's a few screwballs out of the 400-odd folks who read this journal, from what I gather.

happy b-day to the chookasaurus supreme, my long-time buddy theo. hope I can hi-tail it out of my sunday session to make it to your bash with the pornstar rockers at the untidy, er, unity. save me a guitar and a few tunes.

speaking of long-time buddies, gwyn ashton is back & touring here. I'm opening the show for him next thursday 1st at the bridge hotel in balmain. gwyn, theo and I played in a band together back in the 80's, we had a residency at this sleazy bar out in the sydney 'burbs where the over-40 desperate & divorced hovered like vultures on a roadkill. quentin tarantino woulda loved it, as would david lynch.

there's been a few last-minuteish gigs which have kept things hectic. last saturday I had a solo gig at the riverview, which was meant to be a duo, but.... anyway I missed out on the lime spiders' annandale gig which I hear was a killer. last night was an aussie day eve impromtu at the bald rock, tomorrow's out in the westies, then sunday as mentioned before. hopefully we'll get the blues pirates album finished shortly, then I can focus on getting my compilation album (my greatest non-hits) mastered and ready for release.

and big congrats to michael & robyn on their new film, the mind of henry lime winning the best comedy award at the smtv film festival in mumbai, starring my buddy and occasional duo partner, burton "de niro" jesperson. the u.s. premiere is in los angeles on march 3rd, go to the bbg site for details.

np - butterfly 9 / dorothy.

cletis interruptus

didn't realise that my primary domain name had expired and the auto-renew function was off for some reason. so my site's been offline for a day or two, but seems okay now.

still on dialup, so posts are still slimmish.

scorchio!

40c degrees today (that's 104f for you northeners). too hot for the pool or beach, even the markets had less than a third the usual stallholders. so today's sunday session, usually hot as the pub doesn't have aircon, will be a sauna. jackie bristow's guesting today, and I'm sure she'll pull a big crowd.

broadband's connected to the new office, but my modem hasn't arrived yet. but I should be back on deck this week.

I'd post more, but it's too hot in this room right at the moment.

it's just not cricket

yes, after twenty years of residing in a commonwealth country, I can now freely admit that I have become a cricket convert. after growing up on a steady diet of baseball, chevrolets, and mom's apple pie, I can now appreciate the subtleties of what I used to joking refer to as the 'slowest form of animal life', yes, a cricket test match. how any sport that could take five days and still end up in a draw became appealing to someone of my somewhat short attention span...

anyway, back to cricket. perhaps it was the rather unsportsmanlike jeering at the poor english side as they were decimated faster than a drink with shane macgowan. or a date with shane warne. but, I have to admit, I'm now hooked.

but not to worry. lawn bowls is a long way off still.

other news: the new office is settled and functional, although I won't have broadband for another week (thanks, telstra). so if I haven't gotten back to any of your emails, apologies as I'm now back on dial-up, which in comparison is like sucking a basketball thru a garden hose.

rosie & michael are here and are having a ball. my kids are now arriving on monday or so, as they decided to spend the first half of the month with their aging grandparents. a couple new gigs are coming up, check the gig guide. the next two sunday sessions should be huge, then there's the chookman's annual birthday jam on the 28th.

and go the baggy greens!

blogging v2

haven't been able to post for a few days, my blog service has upgraded and naturally, it didn't load properly for a while. it's always a delight when the propellorheads decide to take a perfectly functional bit o' software and rework it until it no longer functions as it used to.

and while I'm having a gripe, why is it that some people, when leaving a voice message will say "how are you?", as if there's an immediate answer available?

two of the four kids have surfaced. rosie and michael flew in today, and the usual debate over where/what to have for dinner is now into it's second hour. feels like home. casey-lee and cal will arrive anyday, then the brady bunch resumes. I'm a happy boy.

had three good gigs over the weekend, a last minute private function, which I performed with my pal john lee on fiddle & mandolin. saturday nite, we resumed the monthly gigs at the bald rock with val and justin, and had a rockin' good time. the first sunday session of '07 was much better attended than I'd expected for this time o' the year, miko and yaved were back from bali and thrilled the gang. miko's been working on his engrish pronunciation as well, so the bob marley tunes didn't raise snickers as they used to.

speaking of attendees, it was great to see sue reed, freshly out of hospital from massive brain surgery following her quadruple aneurysm early last year. she's still not recovered by a long shot, and seems to be having lots of short-term memory problems, but she looked to be having a ball out in the live music scene again.

posts may be a bit thin this week, as I'm moving the rest of the office into the new digs and may be without broadband for a couple days.

lost friends and misplaced heroes

a quick nod to some of those that left us in '06, and that touched me in some way:

peter wells, 27 march. god bless you, pete, it was a good ride indeed.

ian rilen, the tatts wouldn't have happened without you.

grant mclennan. genuine nice guy and fabulous songwriter.

james brown. too many owe too much to even contemplate.

syd barrett. to say there'd be no pink floyd would be superfluous.

bruce gary. loved the knack, and had a ball jamming with bruce in topanga canyon, a million years ago.

billy cowsill. one of the first albums I ever bought was the cowsills. what a tragic two years this family has had.

sandy west. possibly the first great female rock n roll drummer of the modern rock era.

lou rawls. soul never sounded so good.

wilson pickett. wicked's off to the land of a thousand dances.

buck owens. one of my dad's faves, and one of my early ones.

june pointer. the youngest of the gals, and far too young to go so early.

billy preston. "get back" wouldn't have been the track it was without that solo, not to mention all the others.

ahmet ertegun. the absolute mensch of rock, blues and soul music.

ian copeland. eldest of one of rock music's families.

arthur lee. way too underrated seminal psychedelia hero.

vince welnick. great keyboardist from the tubes and the grateful dead.

freddy fender. tex-mex pioneer, and another of my dad's faves.

boz burrell. one the great bassists with a few of my most influential bands, king crimson and bad company.

ali farka toure. a seminal african musician that should have been a household name.

ruth brown. what a voice.

floyd dixon. one the greatest early rock pianists.

not being maudlin, just remembering and cherishing the memories. dig out their tunes, play 'em loud and proud.

oh, and...

.... for a week or two, I've placed four older tracks as free downloads on my myspace page:

www.myspace.com/cletiscarr

enjoy!!

top albums '06

try as I may, I just can't manage a complete list of ten. so, here's my top nine, in no particular order:

prairie wind / neil young

living with war / neil young

orphans / tom waits

bridges / jets overhead

having / trespassers william

okonokos / my morning jacket

modern times / bob dylan

highway companion / tom petty

love / the beatles

and as I haven't very diligent about listening to too much, here's the albums I either don't have yet or haven't gotten thru:

black cadillac / rosanne cash

fox confessor brings the flood / neko case

nashville / solomon burke

the river in reverse / elvis costello & allen toussaint

a blessing and a curse / drive-by truckers

the life pursuit / belle and sebastian

the avalanche / sufjan stevens

rabbit fur coat / jenny lewis with the watson twins

the greatest / cat power

rockford / cheap trick

honorary mention to yo la tengo, for best album title: “I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass”

honorary mention to pere ubu, for worst album title: “why I hate women”

Happy Noo Year!

so after spending most of the day in the kitchen helping the gypsy gal prep for her catering gig, I played the merton for new year's eve. most years, I end up chasing the money, as it's about the only time of the year where musicians actually get paid properly. but that means I'm often out in the burbs or the bush, crawling my way thru all the top pubrock classics on autopilot to a handful of disinterested tourists. this yeah, I decided to stay nearby and have some fun with friends and fans.

miko's back from bali and guested for a set, as did hunter & suzy. jason did his rap bit, complete with capes n all - yeah, you had to see it. there's a few good pics, I may post some over the next day or so. I blew the midnight countdown though, as I was going off the pub clock. I was almost ready to break for the last minute when all the fireworks kicked in over the harbour behind me. ah well, was a long and fun night.

speaking of the ol' merton pub, happy b-day on saturday to the genial publican and my good buddy gary.

I've never been much of one for 'resolutions' as such, but I'm certainly gonna try and get a little more fit this year. after spending the day painting the new office, my sore muscles reminded me of how out of shape I am.

my kids should be arriving in a day or so, and the gal's two shortly after that. will be great to have a full house again, even if only for a short time.

more later as I gather some thoughts.