Thursday night was spent sorting out the final parts, sequence and length of our live set. For me the parts were starting to be solidly internalised, like reflexes sparking off the fingertips. Iain and Becky had a bit of this too, but only to be balanced with a creative uncertainty of songs so young in their life undermining confidence. Then Iain came close to over straining his voice, so we decided not to push too hard for the remainder of the night.
As you will see in the picture below, our set list finalized to: ‘House Mouse’, ‘Free Her’, ‘Flowers And Towers’, ‘Don’t Smoke’ and ‘Let Television Be Your Guide’. I’ll briefly describe each one. House Mouse is an uplifting funky electronic groove that cycles between Iain’s bass samples and voice samples, all the while Becky and I improve a similar uplifting melody set on accordion and keys respectively. Free Her is a slower two chord lament with Iain touching on the sad absurdity of Bindi Irwin’s public grief – it can be quite a soulful song where in all comes together. Flowers And Towers is a fun contradiction of my sludge-nu-metal chugging down low as a brooding bass with Iain and Becky doing a contrasting jubilant melody/lyric on the top. Don’t Smoke starts off with minimal synth-funk with Iain ranting about the topic, then moving into a harder uplifting groove with Becky soaring long moody notes over the bouncy mechanics. Lastly, Let Television Be Your Guide is an oldie from the Unity Gain days mutated into a hilarious cheese-funk stomper, with Iain in full blast rant mode about many unconnected absurdities regarding local celebrities and ‘the good life’ down Bellingen way.
Last night, Friday night, was gig-time. Luckily we had a chance in the early evening to do a complete run through of the songs up in the artspace. I wish I had recorded it, as we played the songs better than ever before and better than the gig. Free Her was completely moving and sequenced near perfect enough for a ‘final take’. As soon as we were done it was time to pack up and go.
The following should be of interest to anyone who wants to get into playing live music and has a romantic vision of the whole operation. Reality is far from any glory you might have dreamed up.
Packing up, moving, re-setting up gear (often multiple times in one night) is a very real drag and often a mood killer of being in the musical zone. It’s mostly stressful and things often go wrong, get broken or lost. We were ok this time though, and we helped ourselves by leaving behind a lot of gear we didn’t need. In fact, we couldn’t afford one piece more of anything because as we turned up to the venue we found someone had made assumptions about just how much space we needed to perform. 1 by 3 meters was doable, but awkward to be jammed between band gear, foldbacks, and technicians still crawling over everything (including leads). It made for another stressful experience to further prohibit ‘getting in the mood to perform’.
It’s tight work maintaining mental clarity with unnecessary pub noise and dealing with people coming up to you while you’re trying to set up. It’s hard enough dealing with over-enthusiastic organisers attempting to inflate your ego, drunkards talking utter nonsense, or confused engineers slowly dealing with a band that does their sound a whole lot differently to your average pub rock ritual – let alone maintain your zest to nail some weird and delicate tunes. Very young tunes.
Eventually everything gets set-up and the show is ready to roll. House Mouse begins and the rhythm is thankfully going along fine. But I could already tell that Becky, having only played with me twice before on this track, was still not sure where place herself. There are the usual nerves as well. While the track was ending crazy Pete felt it necessary to come up on stage with us (read, squeeze with us) and yell his approval at the top of his lungs. It was kinda funny and kinda off putting, if you can imagine. No applause. 50 people in the pub and their all chatting away as if nothing much is happening.
Free Her resulted in a bit of a wobbly grasp in the dark for the previous magic we had earlier on, and we didn’t get it. Disruptions had destroyed the vibe. It wasn’t a train-wreck though, and I was happy enough with some melody I got in. Then it was time for some cheesy metal antics with Flowers And Towers, although my rhythm wasn’t as sharp as I would have liked.
Iain produced an excellent ironic rant in Don’t Smoke and the strong rhythm saved us enough from the uncertain structure. He tried to bring a vocal melody from a different older song (Brothers Sister) but it seemed a little alien to what was going on. TV was lots of fun – Iain blasted away with his words with full energy. We finished up, received a small applause and encouragement to keep playing as there was still time left to do so. Having nothing prepared meant that we had to improvise on the spot. Iain was gracious enough to let me play his drum kit thus putting him on keyboard duties. We moved through a variety of grooves, with Becky warming up to her usual Arabic themes, and Iain producing complete blip-blop weirdness on the Juno. If the rhythm were tighter it could have almost past as a serious part to Disco Volante.
Then the set is over. And what are you left with? No glory here. Just the feeling that you’ve now got no more than 20 minutes to pack up all your stuff and get the hell out of there. Doesn’t even leave much emotional space for ‘ahh, that’s over phew’. And the usual debatable verbal praises are coming forth, pawing you for more commitment to the cause, more conformity to the larger entertainment machinery. I hope by now your possible romanticism of live music playing has now dissolved.
Didn’t I say earlier on, not only a few months back, that I didn’t want to do this anymore? What’s changed here? Despite the above complications I have come to an arrangement in my head. It begins with two axioms regarding keeping ambition of playing live in Armidale within realistic expectations:
1. There are too few people here.
2. This town is too straight.
Locking onto those points prevents me, or others under my direction, from getting involved with epic dreaming and scheming to possible events and projects that will flop because of their own inability to conform to stagnation and boredom. Now, where does my compromise lie?
I actually like very much being creative with Iain, and Becky too when she’s along. There’s no other active performer that I know of here that has such consistent intention to work at music (although what we attempt is very much by his control and by my support). I need that social interaction as an artist and musician. It is enough. It’s not an absolute ideal, but an absolute ideal right now is not necessary. It’s my version of going down the pub after work (although I’d argue it’s a healthier version). If this means we do odd things here and there in Armidale in the form of performance, then that is OK – there is currently no ambition to elevate that to something more ego inflated. I possibly would entertain the idea of playing more serious music festivals if we had the material to support it, but it remains to be seen if that develops. There is no formal statement of intention in that regard yet, and that is fine. In the meantime I can get on with my more precious projects at home, slowly.
Anyway, after packing everything up we attempted to socialise a bit and to see what the other bands had to offer. Disappointingly I left early, after having two rock banks blast our ears with clichéd sludge, made worse by an overly large PA and the pub’s acoustics. Coming back to an ultra quiet flat, eating toast, reading, and being a house mouse myself, was the preferable option. Realisation seldom happens in a drunkard cacophony, but silence (in full unsympathetic terror) offers the true gold of growth. My early conclusion? Indifferent.
