Last week I was listening to the Zed son the bus to work, and the lovely announcer said she had a double pass to Custom Kings the following Thursday for sale. Yours truly was the first to ring up. I mentioned it at the kitchen table a few nights later and Matthew mentioned that one of the girls at Uni wanted to go. Come Thursday night there was five of us, two with free pass and three people faced with a sign on the door of the Troubie that said sold out. Due to seeing the right person at the right time, we managed to get three tickets off a girl who had bought the tickets for her entire group only to have some people pike at the last minute. We were happy 🙂
When we eventually went up the steps, the support act were playing their last song and it would only be a matter of time before Custom Kings took over the stage and had the floor of the Troubie bouncing like I have never seen it bounce before. It was a great night with good tunes and a happy crowd.
😀 I still am not a big fan of the new album but I have waited gee almost half my life or perhaps even more than half my life to see them play live and the time is near 😀
JULY Wed 30 Perth, Australia The Capitol
JULY Thu 21 Adelaide, Australia Fowlers Live
AUG Sat 2 Sydney, Australia Metro Theatre AUG Mon 4 Brisbane, Australia The Zoo
AUG Tue 5 Melbourne, Australia Billboard
Is Helen happy? This is just the icing on the cake! I had a great weekend a post is coming on that.
On the Tuesday, the computer said go to Rics, stay out late and enjoy every minute of it. I did as the computer said.
Grassroots Street Orchestra (herein referred to as GSO because that is a whole lot easier to say and makes me think of a SO when I say it) and Mister Laneous & The Family-Yah (herein referred to as Mr Laneous) played a late Tuesday night gig this past Tuesday and even though I stayed out way past my bed time (am not a uni student any more) as the show started a little bit later than they tend to it was worth every bit of it.
I had seen part of a set by Mr Laneous a couple of weeks ago when they were playing a Sunday afternoon slot at Rics and I had liked what I had heard for sure. This time I got to see a whole set and it was like I am tempted to say a spoonful of sweet chilli philly, though it was a more grittier feel than that. One thing I did make a special note in my diary of was this song which I will call Going Crazy/Crazy for You, which was a pretty sweet duet affair with Mr Laneous and Georgia Potter. Really wish now that I had taken more photos of them but I was a bit slack and I made up for it with photos of GSO.
GSO.
I remember the first time I saw an “ad” for a GSO gig in a Time Off and thinking that sounds like a pretty cool band and I should get up and go to the gig. For some reason I didn’t. I wish I had now because between then and when I first saw GSO live in January, I have missed a lot of opportunities. That is life though and as much as I wish I could go back and start things over I can’t so I move forward.
GSO was raw music, words, reason. It was not really about a band playing to an audience, it was a much more fluid environment with the band feeding off the energy of the crowd and the crowd absorbing every word, note and arm waving of GSO.
Side note: Something else I have come to realise in the last week about local acts over national acts and even more so over international acts is that whilst the sound of a local act may not be as polished or the stage show as an international, I think given the option nine times out of ten now I would pick seeing a local act as they live in the same city as you. They have to deal with the same politics, events, landscape as you and it is through the music that they express how they see it. I rarely accept friend requests on myspace from bands that are not local. I have so many ideas to develop and enrich the local music scene (in fact I have a notebook full) and one day I hope I am able to get at least some of them up off the ground.
Back to GSO. Apart from having total respect for how Surya wraps his tongue around those words, it is just the right music for life at the moment.
I was walking home from the bus stop today for the first time in weeks (I have been getting picked up since I did my ankle), as I was walking past one house I looked up over the tiled roof to the blue sky and though to myself it really is a prefect day. I am walking home from the bus stop, the cake box under my arm is empty, my hair is down, I walked out of work at 4pm and my desk was clear, the sky is blue after it was washed this morning and the temperature is just right. Oh and I was also listening/singing along to This Year. That last bit might have had a slightly bigger impact on me realising that today is a perfect day than say the empty cake box.
It also wasn’t just any This Year that I was listening to either it was from the show at Bottom of the Hill in San Fran last week. One thing I have noticed from listening to the recent shows on archive.org and reading blog reviews is that the shows are becoming more and more a big singalong. Am I complaining? No. Incidentally the Mountain Goats are one of two artists who I have never felt uncomfortable singing along to at gigs, the other is Peter Combe, he is/was a children’s artist, that is expected. A ‘Goats show is really just one big family reunion or perhaps it is the growth of a cult, we all look at this man on stage (JD) and his disciples and we say those words along with them. Saying those words from the bottom of our heart. Where it is ok to say those words, not those gigs where people around you look at you and start “bumping” into you if you start singing along at any level above a whisper. Saying those words like they are going to deliver you from salvation. mmmm perhaps I should just put The Mountain Goats in the religion box on facebook.
Which leads me to the The ‘Goats and their upcoming tour. In just about a month exactly I am going to flex off early from work on Friday and fly down to Newcastle see them play and then go to Sydney for the Saturday night show before coming back to Brisbane on Sunday, catching their Tuesday show at the Zoo before going up to the Sunny Coast on Thursday for the last show. Crazy perhaps but as Mum tells me I am footloose, fancy free and working the 8-4. I haven’t bought my plane tickets or show tickets yet but I will be doing that in the next few days.
This is a photo I took on the way home today. A little lost shoe.
Monday.
I set my alarm for 6:15 this morning. When it went off I was in the middle of a dream. I turned my alarm off and dozed back to sleep in an attempt to finish my dream. I didn’t finish my dream. Mum woke me up at 6:30. Really wish I had finished my dream.
Bus. Work. Bus. Dinner. Iron
Tuesday.
I set my alarm for 6:00. When it went off the first thing I thought as I reached for my phone to turn off the alarm was my name is Helen Palsson. Still thinking about that one.
Wednesday
I set my alarm for 6:00. When it went off my first thought was I wonder how the casserole I had in the oven went over night.
Bus. Work. Bus. Dinner. Laundry.
The Breeders new album, Mountain Battles leaked (how many albums these days don’t leak? I am not instantly in love with it. Which surprises me. I was meant to love it from the very first note I heard. This is The Breeders in terms of shaping musical tastes, they were the first “modern/current” band that I fell in love with. I am going to listen to it for the next couple of days and see how it grows on me. I am on the second run through now and bits are starting to grow on me but it is very much not how I thought it would be.
Life is about arriving home from The Farm on a Sunday sometime round 8:30 and going, hey you know Georgia Potter and Banawarun are playing at Rics tonight and there is nothing stopping me from going. So of course off I went, I packed a bag, grabbed the keys and I was off.
I really need to start writing these posts down on paper when I get home or the morning after to see if I can get more of the words and feelings out of my head instead of sitting here looking at a computer screen trying to figure out how I want to describe something which seems to happen more often than I want it to.
Back to Rics though. It was a delightful close to the weekend. It wasn’t packed to the rafters but it was quite pleasantly full. Just that right number of people. You know how you sort of forget how much you enjoy a band as for whatever reason? Or you forget just how great their music is? Or you forget just how much emotion is in the music? That was Sunday night. Or do you ever think about what it would have been like back in the day, watching those now big artists of the 70’s doing the bar scene? Sitting there thinking to yourself that you are watching something special and that one day, hopefully sooner rather than later that more people in the world will know too? I like those gigs. Gigs where the guitar is just right, the lyrics have meaning and everything clicks together? Or acts that even when sick still have a stage presence that holds the attention of everyone in the crowd or acts that look genuinely pleased and happy to be on stage.
Sunday was one of those nights. Banawurun & Georgia Potter both were delightful. I can not recommend enough clicking those links and listening to them on myspace.
In a dream world I floated out of Rics, although in the real world it was a whole lot more like one foot after another slowly, thinking more about not stumbling/tripping over something rather than the magical music.
This is possibly my favourite image of the night, it was also the first photo I took. It was nearing the end of Georgia’s set and I had spent a lot of time looking at the reflection on the door. Wanting to do something different I took a photo.
