22 Dreams

Saturday 21 November was Songwriters Day at Darling Harbour, Sydney. The event is hosted annually by the Darling Harbour Authority for Australian Music Week, and organised and co-hosted by the SSA, the Songwriting Society of Australia. Of this purely volunteer organisation, it is Ken Stewart of the band Urban Guerillas who does the lion's share of the organising and groundwork, so that's a terrific effort Ken! There's been a heatwave over Sydney during the past three days, and even though temperatures didn't reach quite as high as anticipated on Saturday, it was nonetheless pretty damn hot. It was clammy and humid with no refreshing breeze, but thankfully the event was on the Saturday rather than on the Sunday as the Sunday had become very hot indeed. People came and performed and put on a good show despite the heat, and the sound quality was good, so all were happy with that. This is Pete Scully, president of the Society. He does good work liaising with other son...

Today's the day I bussed up to the Prince of Wales outpatient clinic to collect the results of last week's blood test. I had to make an appointment at the clinic to collect and consult with the medico. It's been 9 months since I last had a blood test, and preceding that test by 3 months was a previous test. The star figure, the number in question in all my blood readings, is my HbA1c. Today's was 7.2. In Nov 2008 it was 7.3. I improved it down to 6.6 by February 2009. Now it's climbed back up. In short, the HbA1c measures the amount of glucose present in hemoglobin over a period of about 10-12 weeks. It's a fairly good indicator of how one's at with diabetes control, in measuring the average amount of glucose in the bloodstream over a period of three months. And my control ain't disastrous, but it does need improving. Otherwise they're gonna force the meds back on me and this time around I won't be in a position to turn the other cheek an...

Canberra, May 2002 I haven't been motivated to read or write much over the past two weeks. I suppose I needed a break from it all, just give my head a rest from it. I've enjoyed that liberated sensation of vacuousness, a clear head. But invariably I'm drawn back to the computer, to chow down another set of whimsical musings, or otherwise. Even though I've just downed half a bottle of wine! *burb* Last Tuesday night I had an urge to simply lie down and pull out some Eva Cassidy CDs. Eva Cassidy's songs are always around me and yet I hadn't actually listened to the CDs themselves for quite a while. I suppose I'm falling into the mp3 pit that seems to be the happening place listening-wise these days. Eva Cassidy sounds perfect on CD, and I think CD suits her better than the hypothetic vinyl. Eva doesn't require the warm, chocolately analogue grooves such as would suit a Janis Joplin - the more metallic flavour of compact disc somehow suits Eva's...

Those who are fans of Paul Weller would know that his father and manager of some 30 years, John Weller, passed away earlier this year. He was 77, or 78. Paul Weller has gone on to say that his dad was the best drinking buddy anyone could ever have. But it's quite obvious he was more than just a drinking buddy, and much more than a maverick rock manager even. The man was just plain extraordinary. There he was, uneducated, a worker, a former boxer, turned into one of Britain's most successful and enduring rock managers, charting and following the path his son led as one of Britain's most loved performers and songwriters. People will associate the immensely musical and talented Paul Weller as the star with his incredible body of recorded work, his awesome live shows and his perpetual suave mod looks and fashion sense. Yet John Weller had that extra-special something, you just have to watch and listen to him talk on videos to see that. He appeared to possess a most con...

where to begin, where to begin.... October 1998, me, a 28-year old fresh-faced lick-wounder carries his technics p50 didji piano caveman style to the excelsior hotel in surry hills for a chancy singer-songwriter night and meets a chessboard of players who would determine his next decade's moves and beyond with paul the nice but loopy mcgowan and vee nee vesna who was making a film and i had it on vhs and now it is lost and ahhh and the egghead guy from the blue mountains is there and yawnly interviewed and pennie lennon who's now on the other side of the mountains discusses women and age and rock and she's still wonderful and i find out later she had an album produced by the bass player of the church and i go ga ga and james was pres and he was long haired and audaciously rocked who leads me to a fetchingly passionate guy who's slightly balding and overweight holding pen'n'paper to write the same reviews for the same ol axe-wielders and he's an editor of a...

(This article will be published in the 'Songsmith'. But it'll need more proofreading & editing before I submit it.) “REVOLUTION is Nick Puñal’s first fully produced album. After several years and many trips to Sound Dog Recording Studio recording a song here and there (with plenty of breaks in between) the album finally came together in 2009.” These are the introductory words to Nick Puñal ’s official blurb & credit sheet for his new album, Revolution . The most striking facet of this album release is that it’s only available to download, through iTunes . Those who prefer the more traditional approach of a CD release would likely frown upon this venture, but a line has to be drawn between what is traditional and that which is practical. No one these days – particularly a self-funded artist – is expected to release his or her music on vinyl. The iTunes release is a crafty and intelligent way of selling and disseminating this music. For those who purchase th...

we all face eviction from our dwellings, possibly but from our bodies definitely we plan and dream for endless tomorrows and splash around the black muck pool of yesterdays that have gone forever yet live eternally in our emotional inventory there's no end to it so better to end it and to be here now because 'now' is all there ever is and that psychic double awaiting us at that moment of eviction is as far away from us as cigarette paper we can feel it within us those times where we not our memory or our name our pride and prejudice we awaken from a delightful morning's sleep and we sing like perfect nature's glowing, gorgeous morning until we remember our selves and slump down like a few tonne of bricks it is whispered among circles that continually spiral away that the moment of release is ecstatic there is a registration of aliveness and survival the supernal knowledge that there is no "life after death" there is only ever "life" in its positi...