Sorry for the lack of information yesterday. It would have been nonsense anyway; by the time I got home from our friends’ Andrew and Vicki’s house I was totally pissed on the ‘finest wines available to humanity’ – Andrew is a serious wine lover, complete with set of Riedel glasses, and has just returned from the Barossa Valley in South Australia. There exists a simple formula: (Barossa+Shiraz) × Recent Trip by wine lover = YEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAHHH!!!
Serious stuff. I was in heaven. He has a couple of lovely old guitars too, including an old Gibson ES-175 – lovely. Had a bit of a play, which was cool. I’m actually playing tonight in a little pub called the Shakespeare over in Surry Hills, Sydney, with another friend. A guy called Stuart Hunter will be there, playing keys – he’s just back from touring with Silverchair, probably Australia’s biggest band (probably only known in the UK because their lead singer is going out with Natalie Imbruglia (lucky bastard)) so I’m looking forward to meeting him, just to get out with that old Telecaster and make some noise.
Supergrass are tearing my stereo to shreds just now – MOVIN’, JUST KEEP MOVIN’ – Great track!!
Thanks for all your OneLine[Message Box] messages. And I’m glad Happytown is going down well – please distribute at will, but make sure you tell them to sign up to the S*T*U*F*F mailing list!
23:55 I’m just back from Corinne’s gig – it was quietly fantastic, actually, to play again. Stuart had his old Wurlitzer EP down there (reminding me of the great Scarface McClintock) so it was pretty much a chilled affair. Some guy, a complete basket case, sincerely believes he owns Corinne, and got a little precious about the other musicians joining in… very strange vibe for a while. Still, after the half-time whistle and a couple of Cooper’s Greens (best beer in the world?) it felt cool again. I hope to meet up with Stu at some point soon, see what happens. The other guys from the potential line-up of S*T*U*F*F get back from their tour tomorrow, so I’m getting pretty excited about the possibilities – just hope I can make it happen. It was a bit like dragging a wet alsatian backwards through a hedge before, they had so many other gigs on just to make a crust. Thats the big difference in London – you can do a cool pop gig, get all the TVs maybe a tour or two, some recording and you’re set for a while. Here, there is no such loop – its pub gigs all the way. The ‘pokey machines’ – gambling machines – have killed Sydney’s music scene. I heard a statistic that ten percent of the worlds pokey machines are in New South Wales – scary! About eight years ago it was apparently pretty hip… plenty happening. But now its history, the fading bones of a killer whale on the sea bed. I hope to throw a spanner in some works, somewhere in this city – but it will have to be somewhere off-the-wall…
On the way home tonight we stopped into one of the coolest places I have seen for years, called ‘Incubator Studios’, a funky warehouse all decked out with movie-prop quality furniture and stuff, hired out for photo shoots, uber-cool happenings… I fell madly in love with it. Thats where I want to launch the record. What a place! Between that and ‘Reverse Garbage’ over in a suburb called Marrickville, I have found something of my perfect space. I hoped Incubator would have a website, but it seems its under construction. Even the Flash splash page they have up is cool. I have added the link below anyway, so add it to your bookmarks and have a look in a couple of months. Just plant the seed.
The Wimbledon final is on, D. is leaving in two days… I have to go. See u 2moro x