The first of many clips from the Sinatra Highway tour. Please help me make other people see it. If you like it, that is.
Raise Your Hand is sewn together as an afterthought having filmed it at the following locations:
Meningie Lake, Meningie The Breakaways, off Stuart Highway, nr Coober Pedy The Lakeview Hotel, Locheil Somewhere between Rainbow Valley and Kulgera, Stuart HIghway Semaphore 'festival (!)', Semaphore, Adelaide El Gordo,Bendigo And the unfortunate kangaroo was on the way to Princess Margaret Caves
The DJ lights get an outing for the beginnings of a new song - the first since moving away from the desert to the hills of Victoria.
I'm itching to have band mates again so if you live to the East of Melbourne and think you could add to songs like this then hunt me down. I'm thinking horns, strings and drums but'll give anything a try.
I went through a few guitar teachers between 8 - 16 years of age. Being thoroughly bored by the first few, I was pleased to find Andy Read. He showed me 4 chords and sent me away to write a song (though there was more to his lessons than this :)). I've been writing ever since.
There are no rules for songwriting but there are a few useful guidelines, techniques and unblockers I'd like to share with you, whatever level you're currently at. I write predominantly alternative/folky/postrocky songs but will help you write whatever style you want. Be it metal, blues, opera, hip hop, jazz, or a sweet combination of the lot.
If you want to, we can record your new songs and send them off to radio stations for airplay and stardom.
I'll also be happy to teach you guitar and/or bass techniques.
I've just moved to The Patch, nr Mt Dandenong, in the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne. If you live nearby lessons can be at yours or mine, though recording anything other than demos had better be at mine, in the studio.
Prices are (Aus);
- $25/half hr
- $40/hr
-$350 for a 10 hour block, usually used in ten 1 hr weekly sessions.
Here are a few of my credentials...
- Been writing for over 15 years
- Degree in Commercial Music from University of Westminster
- Nationwide tours of Australia and the UK
- Nationwide radio airplay on Triplej, ABC Radio National, various community stations, and internationally, including the BBC.
- Have run various Songwriting workshops, most recently throughout Central Australia in various remote Aboriginal communities.
And here's a tiny selection of the music I've recorded / songs I've written since 2004...
Between Saturday the 24th's gig in Alice Springs and the 25th's at Kulgera Roadhouse I had some time to kill. I pulled over at the Rainbow Valley turnoff I to relieve myself. Looking around I found the surroundings aptly filmable and gave it a go. I enjoyed this activity as a day filler and repeated it at various locations along the Stuart, and Princes, Highway(s)... The Sinatra Highway tour. I'll upload complete songs and videos as and when they're edited. If anyone else would like to fiddle with the rushes get in touch.
Depression is a shit. Still, I seem to be over the hill, or more like on my way up out of the valley. Playing music and being a nomad weren't doctor's orders but they're a fair whack more effective than the drugs.
I'll update this blog site with videos and recordings from up and down Australia in the coming weeks, when I'm reunited with my computer. Keep eyes out.
In the mean time, if you live in Melbourne tonight, in Bendigo tomorrow, in Licola on Sunday or if you're hanging out at Melbourne open mics on Monday and Tuesday I'll see you there :)
oh, and another note... to all those poor suckers that haven't received a cd from me yet in the post, my utmost apologies. Depression is a shit. xxx
I just received the uplifting news that funding for the SINATRA tour from Darwin - Adelaide - Melbourne in September/October 2011 is going ahead. Yay me. Full dates to be confirmed but so far it looks like this:
Not exactly set up for this to shine but I'm starting to stream my rehearsals. Should you wish to witness my mistakes and soon-to-be-forgotten ideas (or maybe just to see if my dogs walk on by) leave this window open for ever, while I come and go.
SINATRA finally arrived on my doorstep, and will hopefully soon land on yours also. If you're in Alice Springs come and help me launch SINATRA in style at Watch This Space, on George Crescent.
Also performing:
Desert Mulga - Desert Reggae from Nyirrpi and Yuendumu, one of 2010's Bush Bands Bash highlights.
Miko Zaire - Alice based horizon shifter and music mogul.
Start: 7:30,
Friday 13th May
----Free Entry----
Drinks: $5
Thanks to everybody that bought a copy in advance :)
Here's an animation Mimi made for idn while we were living in Yuendumu last year. The Alice Springs tune jumped back into my head recently so I thought I'd revisit. Think I'll try and turn elements of it into a song. Any ideas?
And... if you've heard the rumours but haven't wanted to accept the truth, I can confirm the UFO conference has been cancelled :(
Seldom Party will be performing at Wycliffe Well's inaugural UFO Conference, buried in the depths of the Northern Territory. More importantly, plenty of talks from real-life abductees (with DNA proof) & presentations on Higher Patterns of Supernature will be going on, as well as guaranteed ufo spotting over the Devil's Marbles.
Half an interview & Raise Your Hand, recorded live on ABC Alice Springs.
The other half & Good To Me fell foul to a technical glitch. When I left the building I saw a couple of Telstra engineers fiddling with wires. Perhaps it was them.
Things have been a bit quiet here recently as I've been recording new music and keeping it to myself.
SINATRA is finished and will be released on Friday 13th May 2011.
All songs have been properly mixed and mastered (by a guy in Albuquerque) unlike the demos previously available up here.
If you want it, and it's 8 page lyric book, please go here
Sinatra Had His Time
Good To Me
I Am A Diva
Raise Your Hand
I Will Sing
Ghost At The Piano
My Literary Kingdom
Your Love Is Dead
Right now it's available on preorder as I need to amass some funds before getting the CDs printed.
Any orders will be of great help!
Buy it at the following link and 90% will go towards the CDs.
ok, ok. with 3 months to go until the greatest sporting event of the known world, I thought I should take off my sober hat and express my happier emotions. And thus my Three Lions was born:
As I am about to send out the obligatory 'please listen to my song and tell me that you love me' emails, here's a note to say that, barring the increasingly frequent powercuts, I'll be playing a couple of songs live to my webcam again on Saturday at 7pm Central Australia time. Find out what time that means for you on this.
And then again on the last Saturday of every month, if you'd care to join me.
Will Jones do the doggie dance again? Will my housemate-to-be arrive mid-song to see he's to live with a nutjob? Will I fall off my chair? OMG? Find out here LIVE!!!
excuse me.
In the mean time, please listen to my song(s) and tell me that you love me:
Will you stand against the rope,
raise your hand and take a vote.
For or against,
the hapless relent,
with consequences greater than you think.
As two of us reside,
the rest of us divide apart -
you laugh as that's impossible.
As that's impossible,
you raise your glass instead,
place the hatchet in my head
and turn.
The very smile that got me here,
the very smile that interfered
with every odd decision made -
well worth the wait as I am caught at last -
I turn to Gold.
And now I am unstoppable,
you laugh as that's impossible.
As that's impossible,
you raise your glass against me.
Against me
again.
Well who am I to represent?
Who am I to upend?
Who am I to overturn?
Now I turn to Gold
and I've become unstoppable.
Your laugh becomes hysterical.
The rope's too close to hold,
but still you won't. You won't let go.
The Commons' sense a world apart,
it's with a heavy heart
I turn against me.
Against me
again.
Based loosely on the noisy neighbours (occasional verbal-fight noisy compared to our regular drunken-food-fight-Bonnie-Tyler-appreciation noisy) adjacent to my old bedroom in South London, this is an over-dramatised account of the night when in between the usual heated arguing and emotional swearing were the lines 'PUT DOWN THE KNIFE, JUST PUT DOWN THE KNIFE'.
ABC Interview
My Literary Kingdom
