Mid term gig at the Shark Club last night went well, with some noticeable improvements among several of the class since the beginning of the year. I was playing in an upbeat pop/rock covers band (Sublime, White Stripes, the Hives, Arctic Monkeys) called The Clang, which should raise a smile for anyone familiar with my own music. I had fun jumping around on stage, and being the only sax player on the course, but couldn't hear myself very well in the monitors. And I'll have to get a decent set of musician-quality earplugs, as a year's worth of playing in a rock band five days a week will cause long-term hearing damage otherwise.
I've updated www.fiffdimension.co.nz, added some new information, used more intelligent quotes from the critics (as the great Derek Bailey said, "I just assume the good reviews are all written by discerning intelligent likeable fellows who are a credit to their profession, and the bad reviews are all written by ignorant tone-deaf motherfuckers"), given the layout a spring cleaning -
- and added an entire 5 minute mp3, 'The Greenhough', from After Maths & Sciences. Go have a listen, tell me what you think.
I've got my first proper international gig coming up - at the Liquid Architecture festival in Brisbane on July 1st, and also putting together a music/theatre piece for Dunedin Fringe Festival. Title is 'the Ballad of William Knife' - something about a ficticious schizoid Scottish ancestor in the colonial days who loses the plot and goes bush to become a sculptor, with flashes forward to 21st century Wellington, London and Sydney. Suraya's coming back from London, Chris Palmer's keen to travel down, and I might get a couple of others from Nelson to join in. There's also Lines of Flight (noise festival) there around the same time.
For next year the idea is to see out the summer in NZ, then go to Oz for 2-3 months, spending time in Canberra and Melbourne, then go to Thailand from Perth and onwards through Asia to Europe, travelling overland by rail as much as possible. I aim to play gigs in Scandinavia (have made some contacts in Finland and Sweden, need to find someone in Norway) and there's a festival at CESTA in Czech Republic in August. I may settle in Scotland for a wee while, and also keen to spend time in France, Portugal and Iceland.
And I've done as I said I would and deleted everything pre-2005 from this weblog - now I've got a 467-page diary on my hard drive to print out. The old stuff's now faded into irrelevance and wasn't achieving anything by being in the public domain. (and Stonesoup needs the server space). On the other hand 2005 seems like a new beginning - the best year I'd had for a while, with artistic breakthroughs with Ascension Band and my Australian album, finishing my journalism diploma, and getting out of Wellington.
I also started using 'Dave Black' as a moniker or persona and wrapped up the earlier 'Dave Edwards' albums by making a best-of compilation. 'Black' has numerous resonances, mainly that it's my mother's maiden name (my granddad, James Kell Lamie Black, moved to NZ from Belfast around WW2 and worked as a hydro engineer on the South Island dams - I visited Lake Tekapo recently, where his ashes are scattered) so not too much of a stretch. I got so far into the early albums that they took over my life, and I had very little reward for my eight years work.
The difference with 'After Maths & Sciences' is that it's not about me, it's about my surroundings (ie Australia) while making it. I found a way to mix a drop of politics (the Cronulla riots, bomb threats, climate change) into the music without sloganeering, just reflecting the times: instead of writing lyrics I recorded Aussies talking in their own words (& accents). And as for what I've seen of Australia, they may be more affluent than NZ now, but they'll be in big trouble before long when their water sources run out.
'Black' could also be an allusion to 'the black dog' of depression which I've had to deal with since age 15 or so... rather than getting mired in it, it's now externalised, where it's less likely to damage me? Kind of an update of Johnny Cash's 'the man in black' persona.
"Well you wonder why I always dress in black
Why you never see bright colours on my back
And why does my appearance seem to have a sombre tone?
Well there's a reason for the things that I have on..."