Oh my heavens it has been good to call a halt to work.

Whew...

Also: New South Wales is burning.

Our mate Vertical was on the phone to me while the water bombers were dropping water.

It's Spring.

No climate change eh?

This is such a regular part of the Australian experience. Also: Sorry California and Spain about those Gumtrees. Hardly little suckers. Flammable tho'

This fire has been a killer. 

Bah. Yuck.

I change subject because there's not more that we can do than offer comfort to those affected. 

So let's practice what we've always tried to do here, be a place where you can take a time out.

Speaking of time outs, I have benefited from a few days at lower pace, intentionally.

Had some tech challenges during the week, and we're a band made of humans so we have our ups and downs of how much energy we have.

Fortunately for me, I'm in the positive balance on that, but sometimes things take the time they take.

I opted to tell myself I was off work for the rest of the week. Pulled the show today.

There was a welcome sigh of relief from the crew.

Right call.

Have I ever fessed up and said my Leadership hero is Jean Luc Picard? hells yeah, as friend-of-the-band Roscoe says.

Not kidding, I read this book back in the day.

I don't wander around saying 'make it so' but I own my fanboy love for both the actor and the character.

I got a call out of the blue the other day from Millage, to ask if some early January shows would impact the tour. No worries there.

He asked how I was doing, I responded truthfully. 

He chuckled and told me 'I've been doing this since '66. this is hard.'

Dawayne tells me he's been doing it since '56.

He also said he's happy to be doing even one show with us.

Of course that made me a tad emotional. Bugger.

It also was the universes way of saying G'day and I paid attention.

Today the cellar fellers are doing their own thing. i'm listening to Safe Harbour as I write. Yeah, it's aging nicely, fine moods for a Sunday morning.

Figured I might as well run through some of the stuff that we're up to, as I've been too busy to blog.

US tour 5 - The Travelling Roots Revival Show.

Scheduling. That's a thing. Working on it.

Arranging times for rehearsal and recording.

Oh yeah. Didn't mention that bit. Wait for it.

Live Video

First part of the Be Who You Are project is up online, but it's hidden.

You'll get it if ya get it. You can always ask a cellar feller :-)

We're working towards more of that.

Salon project

Crossfire was a winner. Mr Wizard has something in mind for Steve Edmonds. I'm writing for a few folks I have in mind, and having recently been inspired as hell by both the work of Den Hanrahan and Sam Joole, I'm at it too.

We might have a shot at something spontaneous developing from the mass gathering the night before CRAB TOO.

CRAB TOO 

Arranging the logistics for CRAB TOO is almost complete. This is gonna be a killer line up.

PLUS we get to hang out the night before around a camp fire. HELLS YES!

ROAAAAAD TRIIIIIIIP

It's been too long since we hit the road.

New old songs, new-not in set songs and New New songs 

It's been a year since we released an album and the songs have been banking up.

We spent some time last week looking at songs we have rotated out of the set as they have been replaced by ADVANCED POKESONGS!! POWER UP!!!

 Not all the songs have aged well, some have been replaced by better ideas, some were signposts rather than destinations :P

It took a 6 hour rehearsal to attempt to review half a dozen.

There are some songs that could do with a new arrangement, or a new approach, or being pushed out of an airlock by vogons.

I reckon I have a little Vogon in my words.

On a positive note, we got sidetracked by a brand new song we've written ostensibly for Millage.

I say that cos it's up to him whether he digs it. We can hope.

(still listening to Safe Harbour. Damn this album is relaxing, Rosie dude, what a job.)

We also still have a few songs from Rogue State that aren't in the set. 

Much work on that front to keep it fresh.

New New Songs and next projects

After a little more effort, we'll hit the End Of Year quiet patch and see if we can knock out some more tunes, then it'll be off on tour, then back here and on to the next projects we're lining up for 2020.

Nothing too surprising, in order to record the stuff we'd like to make, with the people we'd like to make it with, it takes programming.

That's why we tend to work a little in the future and then run back to the present to see what's really happening :-)

Stormcellar Department of Factual Latitude & Propaganda

'Roger' tells me he is in active mode on promo for the US tour.

That may mean some potentially odious marketing efforts.

If we can catch him and stop him, we will, but he seems incredibly slippery. He tells me he has our best interest at heart, but you know Roger.

We have fired him at least 4 times but since he translated himself into a digital AI form, it's been hard to keep him out of my emails.

Still, they say that a Virtualised Manager and OI Platform was the hippest new trend. OI stands for Organic Intelligence.

I think they make this stuff up, and i think I make them up.

But that's the joy with your friends in the stormcellar, the latitude is wide and some of the most interesting stuff is true!

Now I have some relaxing to get to.