Ghost Inputs Live At The Top Pub This Friday
Ghost Inputs (Iain MacKay and myself live) will be playing at the Get Off Your Arts Black Friday Dance Party, which is this coming Friday. We have a few more practices to go to make sure we’re playing up to the same level of energy we had last year. This is straight off the back of a ‘warm up gig’ we did last Friday at a private party in Armidale…
With every gig I come away thinking “now I’ve seen it all” but I keep getting surprised with new random insanities. This last gig hosted all the usual madness of having no run-order, no sound check, and random people everywhere on all sorts of substances. But the cheery on top was undeniably the stage set-up: “erected” in a back yard on uneven ground causing the whole thing to slope forward in differing degrees. To add to the odd situation there was a tarp above the stage which was so low that when you stood up your head disappeared up into it, meaning that the audience couldn’t see who you were! The combination of a sloping stage and the low hanging tarp meant that I had to stoop over to play, which ended up making my back a bit sore. The whole PA and lighting was run off just one power point and there were weird glitches and blips causing the whole thing to feel like it was going to fall over at any second. Iain had no power to his laptop so that decided to make a problem of itself mid set – nothing like a recalcitrant computer to make you feel helpless on stage. Despite all the above we had some ok moments where things came together. I couldn’t help but feel a little numb to everything, perhaps out of self preservation. Yet again I’m scratching my head thinking is it worth it at all, but I have hopes that the gig we have next Friday will be a little better. I’m kinda missing time to work on my own albums…
I’ve been running on empty a little bit lately, hence not much posting here.
Hunz’s RPM Challenge mixing was a lot of time consuming work but also a lot of fun: it’s now all finished and shall be released soon! The album is called “Thoughts That Move”. I will let everyone know when it goes public – you have a good one to look forward to!
Other than that, work has been insanely busy and time consuming due to the teaching semester starting (meaning I’m running around again recording all these lectures). To top it all off R and I have been doing a lot of ‘house hunting’ and ‘property hunting’ in the last couple of weeks. That can be enough to totally do your head in with all the options and possibilities. At this point we’re leaning toward buying land and getting something build for us (not by us), possibly using new green technology and ideas. And of course, we must include somehow a new space for my studio! I’d miss the old roomy acoustics at Galloway Street, but our time here is now limited, and it’s now the moment to commit the ghastly act of conformity and join the property investment game. Part of me feel icky about this, but part of me accepts the inevitability of it all, perhaps looking forward to the quiet modest commitment. I’ll let you know when the decision has been made.
Other parts of me yearn for travel. Sometimes I get cabin fever from being locked in studios all the time, and the cooling crisp air of an approaching autumn beckons me to be on the road. Some new ideas are entering my head either way, but all I have to do is reclaim my time to enact them…
Tags: ghost inputs, hunz