friends – Page 6 – helenthura.com

January 3, 2008January 4, 2008

A Very Voodoo Christmas

Quite a few Saturday nights ago , Mum joined Matthew and I at the Step Inn for A Very Voodoo Christmas. The reason? Cactus Cadillac were playing their second gig, I had missed the last one as I was in Melbourne and Mum didn’t go. This gig though was very much a family affair with numerous friends and family of Cactus Cadillac along for the ride 🙂

I like the Step Inn in theory, I like that they are booking a very wide range of shows from folk to dub to pyschobilly and everything in between. I have a love/hate relationship with the lights though. Sometimes they are excellent, sometimes they are good, other times they are crap and it changes drastically between bands on a night. Cactus Cadillac were the first band and they had dim blue lights on their faces but normal sunlight lights at waist level. For the other bands though it moved to just normal sunlight lights as the whole lighting which was focused at the very front of the edge of the stage which meant that most time band members were in the fall-off, whilst the instruments were in the full light. It was interesting. That is why most of these photos are just photos and nothing more. I would take red Zoo lights over patchy lights any day.

Cactus Cadillac.
Cactus Cadillac is fun. They are boys who have slept on our floor numerous times over. Whilst Carter may be my primary little brother, Tom and Yuki are round often enough as well that they are just part of the family. I enjoyed the set, it was by no means mind blowing it was only their 2nd gig and Carter was distracted by the cricket on the TV at the back of the room apart from that, they are doing what they enjoy 😀

The Dead Ringers.
I only saw a little bit of this set as I went over to Tounge and Groove at West End to see The Chocolate Strings (damm great music) with Clare as her farewell before she headed to Washington DC, where she will spend the next 9 weeks or so as an intern for Massachusetts Democrat Congressman, John Tierney. Jealous? yes. The Dead Ringers were a band that I found on myspace looking for local alt-country bands so I was surprised seeing them at a Bad Moon Show but they do have a fair bit of rockabilly elements in their alt-country.

Foghorn Leghorn.
Some nights you just need some Ska to keep you going and Foghorn Leghorn are always there to provide. They have this absolute cracker of a songs about Emo kids and cheering them up, there is actions that go with it, it is pretty darn amusing.

The Bad Moon Company.
What do you if a few songs into the set the double bass gives up the ghost? You become a rockabilly covers band whilst people attempt to fix the double bass. You get it working, you go back to playing your own blend of rockabilly/pyschobilly. Then the double bass croaks it again, repeat steps from before. It croaks again. You play it to the best you can. Everyone goes home early because it just doesn’t want to work. That was quite sad as I was looking forward to a big night of Bad Moon Co goodness.

To see the rest of the images from the night go here – A Very Voodoo Christmas

December 19, 2007December 21, 2007

a night at the Chelsea

Sunday night saw me jump on the Concord v2 for a special night at the Hotel Chelsea. Well not quite but close. Instead it went something like the following. My not so gallant steed for the night (The Pulsar) and I picked up Thor from her house before we headed into The Valley for some pre-show drinks/chatter/random events with Tom. After a name change issued to me on my behalf, it was into The Troubadoure for a night with a theme of the Hotel Chelsea. (side note, The Troubie stamp is pretty cool, if I got tattooed on my wrist, do you think they would give me free entry for life?) Tom Woodward was in town *for one night only!* and along with Ange Takats and Cameron Elliot they were putting on a show at The Troubie. Titled “a night at the Chelsea”, promising me a night of music by three artists inspired by the music scene at the Hotel Chelsea in the late 60’s. The promise was certainly delivered.

Ange Takats
I have been meaning to see Ange live for a couple of months now, the classic myspace syndrome, all these cool local acts and only so many days in a week. She was well worth the wait, as I was in for a treat. She opened the night by singing a song, just singing, no guitar, no backup, just her. Rather impressive. Throughout the night she by far spent the most time up on stage as at some point during the boys sets she provided some backup vocals. She has a tale/song about the curse of knitting for boyfriends who then leave with the knitted goods (the word on the street is that to stop this happening that you need to marry said boyfriend and then give knitted goods). That got a gold star in my book.

Tom Woodward
Well there was that rather very interesting guitar tuning interlude. There were a handful of new songs. There was “my song” (publicly known as Reminding me of Your) played in the December 07 style rather than the August 07 style, which is a bpm increase of oh about 60% and a much edgier sound, very different and I don’t know which version I prefer. It was top shelf stuff, could it have been any less? (that answer is most definitely no). I can’t yet offer any soundbites/textbites for the new songs though. Other than that that there is a video clip for one of the new songs at the end of this post. Press that play button!

Cameron Elliot
I didn’t get to *really* hear much of Cam’s set as I was chatting up the back. Which means that I can’t really offer any profound or non profound as the case often is about Cam’s music other to say that I did quite enjoy what I heard though and will be keeping track of him. Cam was the Tom Waits or perhaps the Leonard Cohen of the night, he was one of those two as Tom was the Bob Dylan and Ange was the Joan Baez/Joni Mitchell.

After the “solo” sets were over they got together for some good old fashioned supergroup fun. One of which was of course I shall be released and there was another really great tune they did which I can’t recall at the moment.

Then some time later the music ended. some time after that the night ended with this. Tom and Thor on the footpath. In the light of a streetlight.

I almost forgot, a Troubie shot 😀

November 30, 2007December 24, 2007

nothing but blue skies

Totally an overstatement as we have had lots of grey skies here recently.

I went out to dinner last night with Ms Andrea as a last supper of sorts before she heads off next week to spend a week with her maternal family in Nebraska. We had dinner at Tomato Brothers. I had a semi-decent Tomato and Fetta salad (it had more rocket and pesto than it had fetta), she had the Mediterranean salad, we shared a Veg Out pizza. It was good, though when you put roast potatoes on a pizza I really think they need to be thin, not thick slices.

We ate, we talked, we laughed, we gossiped, we debated, we laughed, we ate. Then it was time for a good bye. Andrea going in one direction with a pizza for her boyfriend to have for dinner, I went the other way with this photo.

November 9, 2007November 9, 2007

Cooloola w/e

Last Saturday morning, Mum and I packed up the car and headed north, first stop was the Eumundi Markets, which were interesting, I picked up a dress, a long dress as in down to my toes dress. I have always thought that long “maxi” dresses look weird and never tried one on. This one doesn’t look too bad at all. It also means I think that I have more dresses than I do jeans or shorts. If you had told a 17 year Helen that I don’t know what she would have said.

Back to the weekend though. After cruising the markets for a while we met up with Hilary, her daughter Erin and nephew Sam, or a Fairy and a Pirate as their painted faces suggested. Once we were done with the markets we headed north again to Gympie and the Tin Can Bay rd, which would lead us to our first destination of Seary’s Creek for lunch and a paddle.

Seary’s Creek by mum

Seary’s Creek. This is a most wonderful place. A decent creek flows out of a swamp and is just a nice creek – “they” have put in a lot of board walks etc to two swimming holes and you can float / swim from one hole to the other. On a body board, you just float down – very pleasant. Both pools have “tame” yabbies. The yabbies come and nibble / tickle toes if you stand still. We went both days and the first day there were kids catching and releasing them with a net. The second day Helen gave up trying to catch them with her hands as she wasn’t quick enough but managed to catch quite a few with a bowl. Sam was not successful, but he had a great time trying.

After we were all nice and cool we headed down a side road to explore and to see if the flying duck orchids that were in flower 6 weeks ago when Mum was up there last were still in flower and they were!!

Then we drove in to Poverty Point, which is a campsite at the southern end of Tin Can Bay. That was my first real experience driving through sand which I quite enjoyed. There were a few loooong stretches of deep sand that made me glad to have AWD on the car. We camped about 10m from the sand and our fire was just on the bank above the sand. Hilary and Mum both brought along a box of fire wood and Hilary had remembered to bring the marshmallows. Mum and I seem to always take the firewood and then forget about the marshmallows.

This is how Mum described the beach.

It has a lovely little sandy beach and when the tide goes out it is sand flats rather than the expected mud flats. There were these things washed up on the sand that looked like wafer thin dried apple slices – but most were only 3/4 circles – we realized that they were dried snail egg masses. Erin found a fresh one in the water, which is what we normally find washed up on the beach.

After Erin and Sam had gone to bed, Helen and I went walking on the sand flats in the low tide where we found all sorts of things; little soldier crabs having a feed and a wide array of shrimps, little fish, hermit crabs, snails and other crabs that were left behind in the sting ray feeding holes.

On Sunday morning, Sam and Erin had had breakfast and were in their swimmers by 6.00am!! It is a great beach for little people as when the tide is in it is a long way to deep water.

Once we had broken camp, we went for a short walk to look at the Orchids that Mum had found on her walk yesterday as well as just generally having a nice stroll in the bush. It smelt marvellous. It seemed to have a crisp apple aspect to it. Which is not at all what the bush normally smells like.

After we went on another walk/paddle in Cooloola Creek, we headed back to Seary’s Creek for lunch on the boardwalk, a swim, some yabbie catching and general fun.

Then it was time to start the drive home. We took the Cooloola Way home from Rainbow Beach which was a nice drive back to Gympie. We had a quick stop in Gympie so that I could have a looksie in the windows of a bank that my company has done a lot of work in. Driving home we stopped to have a look at a large colony of fruit bats just north of Nambour. There were 1000’s roosting in the trees beside the highway for a good 500m-1km.

In pictures instead of words there were…..

… plants

… a sunset

… people

and there was my newish Crumpler bag that I love to bits (a Barney Rustle Blanket).

October 31, 2007October 31, 2007

Sunday in Brisbane

Sunday, Mum and I spent the day doing some cultural sight seeing around inner Brisbane. We started off at Southbank before getting on the City Cat down to the Powerhouse to check out the new photography exhibit (not the biggest fan of it) and then back on the City Cat to Bulimba to the Queensland Centre for Photography where my Aunt is currently exhibiting some work.

Then we met up with Georgie for a quick stroll on Oxford St, a browse at Riverbend books and a bite to eat (the above picture, which we split into three parts). Then it was back on the cross river ferry to Tenerife and the bus into the Valley where we browsed in Mod Cons and then finally the bus home.

A very nice day indeed.

October 30, 2007October 31, 2007

Unlike a yoyo craze, unlike a marble phase

I love it everyday – Spaghetti Bolognaise!

Life is an interesting thing. Or perhaps more the internet is an interesting thing or even more precise Facebook. Last Sunday night Mum and I went to see Peter Combe. The very next day I got a message on Facebook saying that Catherine Riddle had added me as a friend.

Catherine and I grew up together. A fair swack of my childhood was spent playing in Catherine’s back yard, swimming in the pool, playing dress-ups in her Mum’s old ballet costumes and generally just having fun. We went to the same primary school but after her dad spent a year on exchange in England and they went up to Charters Towers to live/teach we pretty much lost contact. We have seen each other a few times over the years but I don’t think I have seen Catherine for probably four years now. I nearly fell off my chair when I got the notification on facebook because a few weeks before when I had joined facebook again as it now seemed like all my friends had it now, one of the first people I searched for was Catherine but she wasn’t to be found.

This is us when we are young tykes, Catherine and I had just turned 4 ( our birthdays are 10 days apart) and Matthew was/still is my little brother.

What made it all the more special was that the night before as Mum and I were walking down the steps out of the Zoo after seeing Peter Combe, Mum was commenting on how Margaret (Catherine’s mum) had introduced us to Peter Combe as I was mentioning that a lot of my friends had not been exposed to Peter when they were young and that she was going to send Margaret a letter and her Peter Combe ticket.

Peter Combe was a fantastic night. The Zoo was sold out and it was full of newspaper hats and pure glee amongst the punters who had forgotten just how much we had loved Peter Combe as children and that we would still sing those songs word for word. I can’t wait for him to come back north again as I would be there in a split second. I have gone to a fair amount of concerts and whilst there was no fancy lights or sound effects, I have to say I think it was the only concert I have been to where every single person there had a huge grin on their face all night long.