More party photos

Here is the wanted sign we had up all over the place. A bargain of a bounty too at $60.

The meeting of ethnic minoritys in the bar went well....

Jane and one of our harp friends Yi Yun provided the music early in the evening, then we had hank williams and other such western stuff piped through the band PA system for a few hours then Adam and out mandolin player did a set. Everyone thought it was great

Denis's birthday photos

Here is janes mom Ann and her brother Big Chief Sitting Mike

Here is Micheal again in search of the birthday boy

Here is Fin the Kid moseying with hsi posse

Denis arrives, check out the manly moustache on Fin

School staff room

One of the schools I teach in has about 15 teaching rooms, all named after a famous composer. I get the kids to remember the names by making up stories like "Debussy was a famous composer who played the violin and liked chocolate cookies", that kinda stuff, they think its great. The staff room is particularly well named on account of how we all hide there between lessons.....

Last post of WOTW

The gig went really well last week, 15,000 people came and saw it. This is how close I was to the giant screens.

Here is the airlock we had to enter through. Just like doing a gig on a submarine!

And here is a shot from backstage just before we went on. Hello Perth!

Welcome to the wild west.....

Twas Janes dads 60th last weekend so we had a fancy dress suprise party for him, western theme.

we decked the bar out like a barn, bales all over the shop and even got a noose for the ceiling.

It all went well, everyone put in a real effort in the costumes and if anyone wants a good deal on straw I can help them out.......

Stuff i did today

HOT off the press, a few of the more random things i experienced today

I bought 10 bales of hay (thats $85 bucks of cow munchies) as props/scenery for Janes dads 60th birthday party which is a western themed fancy dress party, so we are decking out the bar like a barn (sans mooturd)

Found a backdoor shortcut to the place where I am doing my war of the worlds gig, unfortunatly i forgot my ski's.

Climed to the peak of hamburger hill (its a real hill with steps and altitude and everything) and had a 'kitchen sink', the burger that has it ALL, AND more. I think i may have found the antipodean successor of matie kiely's!

and, came across this sign at the rehersal this afternoon, a sign that all conductors should wear when giving involuntary double-downbeats.

Well, thats pretty much it for today, at home now, not at my usual friday gig on account of a late reheresal in the dome, so kicking back in my comfy chair with the hounds, having a few beers, making 2 new batches of brew, should be ready in a fortnight, kegged two other beers which have been fermenting for two weeks (twice as long as normal so theey should be eeexxttrraaaaaa nice) a stout called ULLA (the call of the martians in the gig I am doing, its a nice robust stout, nice bitterness and about 4%) and a delightfull belgian wheat beer called 'Yellow Snow', you all know the winter rule 'never eat yellow snow', well this is a 9% cloudy beast of a beer and unles you have a few days free stay WELL away from this one.

Tarraa all, its been a nice week keeping the blog updated, i hope you all enjoyed it, i play here all week, dont forget to tip your waitress's, taxi for McCarthy........

War of the worlds: 2

There are a lot of special effects in this gig, most notably being this 3D hologram of Richard Burtons head which appears periodically to narate the story. If you are trying to figure out exactly what kind of gig this is, think: rock opera on steroids.

This is one of the keyboard players pads. He has a few different sound effects mapped to individual keys, here we have "the punch", "the fall" and the "martian heat ray". I wish i could illustrate my violin and get away with it......

War of the worlds watch: 3

Well, we ran the show last night, full costume, all lights and pyro's/smoke etc. and i have to say, i have never enjoyed a rehersal so much! What a show! There is a trailer HERE and a dodgy video from a guy in the back row of the uk gig HERE on youtube which gives you an idea of whats going on. The scale of this production is MASSIVE and its great working with such a professional outfit

Here is the crew synchronising the 4 projectors to get a seamless image on that HUGE screen behind us.

Here is that martian invasion machine that lands on the stage mid first act.

This is how close I am to it. it lights up and vaporises the audience with its heat ray and can also boil a kettle of water in 3 seconds.

Apparrantly the reason they have so many strings on the gig is because they have a high rate of decending martian invasion machine leg 'vs' violin mortaliy rate.

Also, heres an interesting fact. Phil Lynott was in the orginal crew of the show.

The Hooner 2

We went and got another car. Now that we both are freelance muso's we need to be able to get around a bit more than usual, so we got a new car. Its got 4 wheels, a few doors and an engine somewhere under the hood.

War of the Worlds: part 1

I arrived on stage this arvo to be greeted my these electronic music stands. I blogged one of these about a year ago here and now I finally get to use one. Its sheer bliss. The screen is clear and illuminated, it has several zoom features and you can edit, draw pictures etc. all touch screen stuff.

Here is the foot pedal for turning the pages

Here is some of the display, it was on camera phone under stage lighting but you get the drift. I have 3 different notes on this page (tricky stuff.....)

And here is the man behind it all, Jeff Wayne a bit of a legend.

Big toys

On the way to a gig this afternoon and i ducked through the car park as a short cut and look at these beauties I came accross.

All fancy stickers so you KNOW they go fast.

Clearly someone at this gig was in a rush home afterwards.......i hope it isnt the person paying us!

Gadget-time

Ok, most of you know I am kinda into things that make life easier, such as slip on shoes (tying laces takes up valuable sleeping/drinking time) , shaving (extra valuable minutes in bed each day) and gadgets. Well my latest has been the Palm Treo 750. What a beaut. Just to give you a run down, this is what my treo did for me last saturday:

7am, wake up alarm, tell me (it actually speaks) my agenda for the day
8am, first student, it tunes the violin to A44o, and i use it as a metronome throughout the lesson.
9am, my first student gave me a present of a CD, so I copied it onto my phone for later
955am, reminds me that next student is due, off to the music room i go and use it as above
11am, finish teaching and activate the GPS (tomtom 6) software to direct me the 1st gig of the day, a brewery in the valley. I also activate the media player so I can listen to that CD the first kid gave me.
1pm, gig starts, use the phone as a stopwatch to beep after 45 mins to tell us when a set is complete AND use it as an MP3 player with the interval music through the PA rig.
2pm, a punter asks us to sing "the streets of london", i quickly hop on google on the phone at the break, get the lyrics, scribble them down and we are performing it 1st song after our break
4pm, gig finishes, activate GPS to get me to the next gig 1 hour away, there were a few roadworks and traffic jams so when i veered off route to avoid, the phone recalculated the route and updated me with new directions, i also ran the MP3 function through the car stereo and listened to the soundtrack of the War of the Worlds which I am playing at this weekend. Recieve a few phone calls about gigs etc, all routed through the bluetooth earpiece, all other audio is muted until the end of the call, as I say goodbye to the client, the music fades in and the GPS voice (john cleese) updates me with a shortcut to the next venue
530pm, get to gig, take a few photos of the place as a possible wedding venue, use the tuner for the other players to tune to
8pm, finish gig, gps directs me home, via a food shop and a video library.
930pm, i sit at my bar waiting for the phone to pour me a pint!!!

So there ya go, I thought i had to make a tribute entry for my new and ever-evolving no.1 gadget. Beat that Ned......

Head of the table

We went out for a meal last night with Finn, he was great craic.

Its his birthday next week, he will be 1 year old.

A taste of home

We do a gig once a week in the Irish Club here in Perth, the only place in town with decent pints and a limitless supply of de 'ol taytos (at 3 dollars a pop)

A fair warning...

As all of you may know by now, i have become a full time musician. Gigs, teaching, the works. This is a sign up at one of the schools I take orchestra at.