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Ye Gods.

So much for getting anything done this week. Everyone has a cold.

I got through last weekends shows and then this week, wiped out.

Sniff. 

Even the video project stopped because...the editor has a cold!

omg.

And the Wednesday night jam that Mr Wizard was going to? Postponed this week due to...everyone having a cold.

Welcome to Winter in Sydney. Sniff.

I missed a chance to work on new songs in rehearsal last night and instead opted to rug up and sleep.

With luck I'll be in singing form again for the coming stuff this week.

Meanwhile, rest, tea and the occasional cold pill is the order.

Blechh.

Ah that's bittersweet.

A good last hurrah; a last hurrah, still.

On the wall at the venue, I spotted a coming gig poster for the 18th of May. Yeah. Ouch.

I have 'the night they drove Dixie down' playing as I write :-)

My voice was not in tip top fashion thanks to a cold we all picked up recently. Thankfully Jo was there to help.

That was a hell of a show. Michael Hawke played some monumental sax. He's a gifted performer.

This rubs off. Rosie was on fire too.

So here's a pic of Paul.

From our end of the farm, the larger show format is awesome. It allows us to add the Walnuts, as Rosie puts it.

Without walnuts, no Waldorf, right? This does make sense, it takes a little time to unpack :-)

For some of the songs we've written where we feature guests, they sound better....with guests!

What Jo does for the vocals, Michael Hawke, as a multi instrumentalist, does for Mandolin, Acoustic, Vocals and Sax. Add flute and clarinet when we get the chance.

Now we need Fiddle, some more percussion, 1 more guitarist and some singing and then we're done.

Pretty much.

Except maybe for a few extra horns.

And a cello.

Also some Mongolian throat singing.

You can surmise the challenge posed by putting on all the extra trimmings.

With luck, a tailwind and some chutzpah, we'll get close. On the occasions when we can. And it'll sound beaut.

(sigh).

As for the Hawkesbury, its demise is caused somewhere between the generational and social change of Australia and...business factors.

In the 21st Century, alcohol does not play quite as big a role as it once did in Aussie life.

Less drinking, less money. Less money, fewer pubs.

On this blog, we've talked about the myriad of changes in how we interact with music, on a personal and societal level.

With new laws to suspend your license for 3 months for a low range drinking offence, we are enforcing Societies mandate to curb drink driving.

Cool.

But kind of like the ol' butterfly effect, a combination of factors have removed the coral reef that once supported musicians, and replaced it with.

and

 (sigh).

As we find each time we play, music still has the power to lift you out of yourself. I don't think it's going away any time soon.

How we interact with it and access it, changes over time. That's to be expected.

So as we shift from Booze & Pies to Quinoa & Speed, where we meet may change.

Heh. Pic's relevant cos they found a Breaking Bad lab under it. Heh.

Thus we come to Bury the Hawkesbury, not to praise it.

It's a tough gig living in the margins.

Things will make more sense as we finally let the 20th century go and start living in the now (sort of) or more now-ish.

We're never going back to what we were before. 

It is written in Stormcellar Lore, Mutate Early and Often.

Thus:

Farewell Hawkesbury, long live Live music

(yeah I know the Live/live thing, I know you're doing it in your head right now huh?...hmm...maybe we need a better slogan)

Another opportunity to work on the larger format shows this weekend as Jo comes up to Sydney and multi instrumentalist Michael Hawke joins us, appropriately, at the Hawkes-bury hotel in Windsor (see what I did there?).

Theo, Mr Wizard and I are all recovering from colds, so it'll be good to have some company. Besides which, we always sound better with Jo.

The full sound with Jo and Hawkie is glorious, worth an extra effort to see :-) 

We're lucky to get to do this stuff :-)

Facebook is now telling me how long i take to respond to posts. I am getting judged by my social media robot. It's like the toaster giving me a review for how i put bread in. Shut up toaster.

Red Dwarf fans will feel me.

Two shows this week. You know where we'll be :-)