22 Dreams

Last Wednesday night, or Thursday morning come to think of it, Sarah and I were slumped away in the back courtyard of the Bank Hotel in Newtown enjoying post-midnight drinks. We ended up chatting away to this emphatic though rather didactic Australian guy who really liked the sound of his own opinions. He had this effusive, quasi-psychic manner about him that compelled him to point the finger at us to tell us what we were, without knowing anything about us. Sarah was a singer who could pitch five octaves. He told her to just concentrate on the singing, all the while ignoring (or not ‘seeing’) her prodigious songwriting and piano-playing gifts. I caught the finger from Kenny too. Without saying a word about myself or who I was, Kenny told me “…you’re a bass player. I know you are. Look at you! You’ve got the body tone, the build. Stick with the bass because there’s too many crap bass players around and good bass players are needed everywhere.” Well, I do more than just play ba...

Pretty flowers bloom in night skies And at season’s end, so they must die Never to breathe their song again Nor sing their charms and wishes Never to live the love that they were  Always eternal requiem… I see the flowers floundering Watching their petals drop in pain Hear their heartbeat run with mine Heart them dance to the war hero’s march tune We shall celebrate their art once more  Always eternal requiem… And as people match and separate In tact they leave their stamp of hate Love is forgotten in the ashes of war And that’s when I blacken my face once more And walk the lonely crematory fields  Always eternal requiem… To congregate and meditate In shadeless stony fields of slate The distant sound of hazy cathedral bells A clear reminder of your own private hell The lowest phase of a star once known  Always etermal requiem…   Words & Music Copyright Ross B c.1990.1997.2006....

And so, after last night's ego head-up-the-bum tirade of a blog, I've cooled down somewhat. I've pricked that headspace balloon, so I'm no longer a prick. As it is, I'm a bit over the whole muso thing anyway. I'd rather go back to playing the tennis clubs and bowling clubs in sydney's tucked-away leafy north-shore, and pick up the bass and acoustic and play along with others. I can't be arsed writing songs anymore, although that may change and move at any moment. I have my songs and work rotating on my myspace page. That's good enough for me. For now. Take it and leave it is where I'm at today. On the live front not too many people wish to see and hear a Paul Weller coverer . And I'd rather just breathe, take in the sunlight, talk to children and pat the dog, and not be hanging around the pubs watching and listening to blokes with acoustics who do have some good songs and perform them well, but who aren't in any way half the musicia...

(Wed 5 Aug) I have this one overriding obsession in life, and that is to perform music. I've carried this obsession over since my late-teens. It’s an obsession that has not since abated; in fact my musico-mojo becomes more pressing or urgent as the years go by. Perhaps because I was so washed-out with baggage during my early twenties that my need to play dimmed to a large degree in those days. I was still active on the listening side of things though, discovering new and wonderful musical loves all the time. And now, at 39, my need to perform and express myself musically remains as strong as ever. The buzz, in other words, remains eternally addictive. One of the things I regret as a musician is that I haven't played in a great band intensely for a long period of time, a band like say, Cold Chisel. I've got what it takes to be a good musician, more so than the majority of people I observe around the scene. For one thing, I want to play more th...

The following is an article I wrote on Nick Drake that got published in 1999. I have writer's block at the moment so I'm going to dig up my vaults for the blog until it I fall back into 'writer's mood'. The Block may pass tomorrow, like anything else we may care to think about, or mention. Reading back over this article again I'm still pleased enough with the way it reads; it was probably the best piece of writing I'd done up to that point sans my Uni papers. Writing is like walking up a steep hill carrying a 50 kilo backpack with a howling wind blowing directly down your face. Progress is arduous and is apparently slow. But that's my perception anyway and I'm my own worst taskmaster. I'll carry it over to Nick now... Nick Drake was a singer-songwriter from Tanworth-in-Arden, a gentrified chocolate-box township set amidst the lush Warwickshire countryside of the English midlands. He made three albums for Joe Boyd's Island label betw...

I just read an Augusten Burroughs short story. In it he depicts a childhood obsession with his heartbeat. He accounts for all the fears and dreads of the possibility of it stopping beating, and with that, an acute continuous awareness of its presence in his body as something vital yet seemingly fallible, ready to cease beating at any given moment. I couldn't believe I was reading this; I went through precisely the same thing when I was 8-9 years old. I remember nights when it was just me and dad. Mum was at work. It was all weird because we sat in front of the TV in that dank living room and dad never talked to me. All I could do was muster up a fast heart-beat and fill my eight year old mind with worries and neurosis that have taken a lifetime thus far to gently dissipate, waft away, like spots of crude oil drifting away atop the vast ocean. I could never talk about this stuff to anyone back then. I vividly recall worrying about my heart and making myself anxious about t...

I bought an i-Pod recently. I've discovered it to be a most useful toy. It's fun to be able to listen to music in the car shuffled, so that you hear songs out of context with each other. Somehow you tend to listen better to each song, hear it fresh and new, and not take it so much for granted as you do when you're listening to it as part of an album. Besides, you get to hear songs you haven't heard in ages, songs from albums that you don't usually think to bung into your stereo, and that can be delightful to the musical senses! On the flight home from Cairns, as I was gazing down 10,000 metres onto the Queensland hinterland, I had the headphones of my i-Pod firmly entrenched into my ears. Only I didn't shuffle the songs this time, instead I was moved to listen to the Beatles' Abbey Road . As all my close friends would testify I'm a beatlemaniac if ever there was one. The Beatles are in my blood, so much so that I don't really need to listen to...