Stormcellar Band Home Page

Hey there, thanks for stopping by.

I've been listening to the glorious sax of Mr Rob Dixon on Heavy Weather. Ah.

We have the desk mixes (version 2) that now contains all the instrumentation we planned on.

Mr Wizard cautioned me years ago against 'Demo Love', falling in love with the first take/desk mix before having a chance to let the piece mature and get mixed properly.

How'd that work out for you?

Yeah.

I'm having some issues with the vocals on Chase the Dragon. I liked the first, flawed, guide track take. The master take we've used had better technique, but less colour. Bugger. I've already been through this process with AJ and we picked the current master track over the original guide after much review.

Now I've changed my mind again. Oh noes. 

With the revised desk mixes in, it's once again time to take the mix away, listen and make notes.

These secondary mixes have now got harmonies, choruses and the solo's added.

Now it's about refining, and often that means removing things rather than adding.

Unless someone has a bright idea.

Then there's the problem of having too many bright ideas. Adding too much stuff.

The discussions, arguments and back and forth is part of the fun and makes ongoing blog fodder.

There's no rush to release, we're dropping stuff out at a rate of an album a year at the moment and I guess i shouldn't mention that we're cooking up another batch right now.

I'd expect to see SC9 out sometime Q2 2017 but the songs are in the set so there you go.

Listening to Jo sing right now. Ahh. I like this bit. got to run. I wanna make some notes.

:-)

SLIGHTLY NSFW (not suitable for work), a bit of swearing, you know how polite we are here normally.

Anyway, I got sick of hearing the same stuff from all the muso's about how hard it is to get a gig. IT IS HARD. For true.

But the world moves , and we with it.

There is some top aussie talent right in your backyard. Allan, Eli, Jim, Mick, all of them, they're all naturals. Bloody hard to get all in the same place at the same time, but they took to this story like fish to umbrellas.

This project is giving a few of them a chance to get some exposure and me a chance to be a harmonica ninja.

If you combined the elements of spinal tap, Cheech and Chong and Houso's and you've got - The Last Gig in Sydney, courtesy of your friends in the stormcellar and their friends in the Sydney scene. This is what we do when no one's looking.

Big ups to Dion. Much much work.

Fund the next ep here: https://www.gofundme.com/the-last-gig-in-sydney-episode-3

With my trusty gopro this weekend we did some timelapse on the drive. Gorgeous drive, rare occasion where there's no one in front of you at all.

How are you?

Our weekend was a long, well spent drive deep into the psyche of New South Wales. It's quite the trip.

I find it so compelling, I wish you could be there to get from it what I get.

See what I mean.

If your world is in part, defined by your environment, then we inhabit a kinder world than many.

It's almost as if the edge of reality, the part that is free from some self imposed version of anxiety, is there, but you have to catch it like riding a wave. It takes awareness and a little balance. Fortunately for me, I have a few friends to steady me when I lose my step. We should all be so lucky.

We have Team of Garry, Jackson, Corine and Chris to thank for their help this weekend. So thank you.

On the way down, between Nowra and Bega I got some great time-lapse go pro footage for a video but I can't figure out which song to use. That's what we'll be doing while we careen the vessel, scrape the barnacles off and take a bloody well earned rest for a month. Except for Theo because he just doesn't quit.

2016 has been good to us and to those we love. I see a lot of online anxiety but I visit a lot of places that live at a different speed. It encourages me that there's more to think than we imagine.

Inside the stormcellar, we talk of Weather Patterns, Tides and Orbits. Chaotic and/or complex interacting systems. It's not certainty. Bummer huh?

But we're ok with High Variability, because we believe it's always been highly variable. Sometimes you just can't see it; sometimes it's very much easier not to see it. Pattern and coincidence. Agency and Randomness. 

For us, there's solace in the work. In the company. In the doing. To quote the master, Harry Manx, your tears reflect the world you make.

The act of kindness to one another seems too weak a force on a global anxiety level, but it's a very strong personal force. It binds us to one another. Each part upon part and so on. Yeah I know, Zen and the art of Harmonica, but as Doc Span says "don't try to the be the best'un, just be a good 'un" and that echoes in everything else.

For us it's some well earned rest. Mixing SC9. Working on songs for Jo, and others beside. Trying to crank out a few more vids, just 'cos.

 We come back on deck in Jan, but we've got fun things to do between now and then.

You take care of yourself and pop by for some chill out time when you need it. you know what we'll be doing.

I got a message from a man at an airport on his way back from Iraq to tell me National Public Radio in Kansas City did a feature interview with DC Bellamy about Kansas City Gold and spun a bunch of tracks.

That means we've been on the ABC of the USA, which is NPR, but is not the actual ABC of the USA. It's more like our ABC here. NPR that is, not the ABC, in the USA.

Clear?

Let me help you out

ABC - Australian Broadcasting Commission, AU Public broadcaster, descended from the BBC

NPR - National Public Radio, US equivalent government/public funded non commercial network

ABC USA - American Broadcasting Corporation - large scale 20th Century TV broadcaster

Right,  I'm glad we had this talk.