The Fall of Saigon

It finally ended. The curtain closed on 3 months of asian rock opera last sunday night. It was a fantastic run, with lots of laughs and thousands of dollars worth of crotchets. Here is a picture of the pit crew backstage before the final performance. Jane and I took off to Margaret River (wine region of western australia) the following for a week, hence the lack of bloggery so watch this space for details...

Cork Youth Orchestra

You probably know that the CYO (Cork Youth Orchestra, the primordial soup that has been a springboard for most of the best musicians ever to come out of cork) is 50 years old this year and is having a few anniversary events. The first will be on April19th in City Hall. All past members are invited back. There are over 100 of the past members who will play for a 20 minute slot in City Hall along with the current members of the orchestra lead by Daniel Lehane under the baton of Tomás and then Terry is going to take the reigns of the Junior CYO, the evening will be hosted by the hardest working woman in showbusiness since James Brown bit the big one in '06, and one of my heros, Evelyn Grant. The programme has all the favourites, Mars and Jupiter from The Planets, Pirates of the Caribbean, a bit of Tchaik (who remembers all the words that Brian Murphy thought us all those years ago...) and of course my personal favorite, The Dambusters March. I have great memories of my first time playing that ditty in a concert somewhere in kerry, picture the scene, back desk of violas with Eoin Schmidt-Martin, sitting right in front of the trombones who were particularly generous with their supply of "condensation spray" from their instruments, by the time we were on the last few lines, the sheet music was drenched and all the ink had ran down the page rendering it illegible so we made up the ending. ALSO not to forget all the sing-songs on the busses and staying up late sneaking out the the pub AND there was that time when Eoin and me got in serious trouble for taking banjo style solo's during a 4 bar rest of jesus christ superstar, happy days. There is a website here and here if you want to contact the orchestra to wish them happy birthday OR to sign up for a tune or two. Keep an eye out for the mother and daughter desk of violins too, my mom and sis are signing up for a play. Happy Birthday CYO!

Overdue update

Well blogfans, just another week of this show then normal service shall resume. In the meantime here is a quick update of a gig we did last week. It was a 12 hour wedding. Yup, 12. We played the ceremony in Kings Park, then went off to fremantle to set up the rig at the hotel. Here it is below. When the guests arrived we stood in anothe rroom and played about 30 mins if instrumental stuff, then came into the ballroom and sat and played for their meal. Then after the meal we did the full band gig then after all that we got to DJ the party for another 2 hours. It was hilarious!!!! It was all going normal, then around about 1130 we decided it was Hammertime, much shenannigans ensued including a full on boys vs girls dance off, cartwheels, full lenght of the dance floor knee slides, kung fu fighting, the works. It was the best fun we have had in ages. I ran the whole gig from the laptop, with the other laptop as backup in case anything microsofty happened AND i think i have finally found a gig easier than playing the viola!

Heres the settup, we had to play different entrance music for each couple of the bridal party and the bride and groom robot-walked in to intergalactic planetary by the beastie boys. Classy!

Other than that all i have been doing is teaching and playing this asian rock opera so nothing much has happenned in the last few weeks other than that. Highlights of the next few weeks include, 2 weeks of total bliss as I hang up the ol viola for a fortnight and take it nice and easy, then a gig with Paul Potts (another link here) in the burswood followed by another with ozzie jazz crooner James Flynn, then back to regular giggery with the band so this years "gig of the year" competition is already off to a good start

Brewday

In between all the giggery and teaching i managed to find time for a wee spot of brewing. I got a special attachment for my kegerator which, for the first time, allows me to have two stouts on at the same time. So the other day I made my two best stouts, which should be ready round about the same time that the show finishes and I am going to have a pepsi challenge type comparison of my two best beers. I have made each of these recipies before but never had both on tap at the same time so it was hard to judge which was better, the jury will decide mid april.

Pink clouds at sunset

Having a routine of showing up at the casino for the miss saigon show every night of the week at the exact same time for the last 2 months has given me great opportunity to enjoy the sunset over Perth. Check out these pink clouds as we parked.

It really is spectacular here, ill have to get a better camera to capture the real colours.


Also, apologies for the infrequent updates, this show is finishing in a few weeks so normal service shall resume shortly.

The Finn Man

Here is a funny photo of Finn from a few weeks ago when he thought the air-con controller was a phone. There is a great posting over on his blog here of Finn getting his first viola lesson. He is a natural, in fact i might get him to dep on a few of my saigon shows.....

Photos from the week

Another mad week this week blogfans. 21 hours of irish music over the paddies weekend on top of the usual12 hours of asian rock opera and a bit of easter thrown in on the side. Here is a landscape we made for Finn with all his chocolate animals and a wee lego farm

This is the countdown to the end of the show. I started counting down a few weeks ago, and we are down to 25 shows left now, its very satisfying crossing out the number during the bows. Jennika (cellist on the show) and I have a few running bets on bits of the show, whether the singers can pitch awkward intervals and the like, tomorrows one is a page turning competition, we both have matching turns so its a race to see who can be the fastest....oh the things you have to do as a professional violist.

And here is a little bit of easter from the pit yesterday, a little egg on my stand. Thanks Jess.

Hanging out with the hounds

Its been a while since I blogged the hounds, so here they are in their usual perches about the house. Fionn (above) likes to hang out in the doorway to the kitchen, just to keep an eye on things and Reilly likes to pan out on her back as often as possible in the hope than any people passing by may give her belly a rub. She is hilarious, she'll walk into a room where we are, then keel over and wait in this position indefinitely.

The ascent to Hamburger Hill

You may remember me blogging about a rare hamburger joint right behind the Burswood dome, its a rare find over here, a food outlet with little to no regard for the general health and wellbeing of their customers, the stuff they serve is soo greasy, it doesnt just turn the paper its wrapped in transparent, if you were to rub it on a wall you would have an extra window. So, yesterday between shows, off I went to see if there had been any change in their culinary standars since last year's show

The first obstacle, many steps.....

The second obstacle, more steps, 4 lanes of traffic and a bicycle lane.....

the view from the top of hamburger hill.

Hamburger hill part 2

And here we are, at the summit, basking in its general meglagence complete with newly added shrubbery also i may add

This is the good stuff right here folks, the Kitchen Sink burger. Its got the lot, a 4 course meal between two buns, and to realy cap it off, the same crazy thai lady as last year with very leeeetle eeenglish was working there too!

So, a mini game of food ordering charades later off i went to eat my burger and chips under a tree, twas great!

Then I went and had a beer by the pool whilst I read my book for a few hours, then had a wee snooze as the sun set, then went back inside to do the second saigon show of the day, which finished at 2246, and I was ready onstage across the way from the theatre for our irish band "paddies weekend" gig by 2250. Awesome Day!!!

The Lads

Remember these guys, Oliver and Finn, well here they are about 8 months later hanging out with the band at our photoshoot. They are both walking now and are nearly ready to start learning the viola.........

Loads more photos of the Finn Man can be found here

More photos from the pit

Remember I was telling you about the percussion settup in the show? Well here are some of the guys sticks, they dont have time to put them down and pick up different ones so all their sticks have double ends. Its like watching a pair of ninjas play the drums they move around so quick!

And here is another shot of the perc room. I reckon they recorded the first night and just press play on the ipod when nobodys looking and just hang out eating crisps for 3 hours.....

And here is the latest string change update (riviting stuff....) , a complete set of those Pirazzi's, the sound is out of this world, and thanks to these I can just about hear myself in the pit.

And get this, we have a fair few gigs on this weekend to multiple festival crowds, so Jane, in a moment of inspired rock'n'roll glee, went and bought these special pens so we can give out autographs. Outstanding!

Photo backlog

Here is one of me for the album we did, looking very adventurous here in the jungles of Bedford...

And here is the man behind the lens, Martin, in action, of course his job was made much easier by the fact that his subjects were extremely photogenic.

And here are a few snaps from the recording, above are my two axes, the viola came in handy for the slow airs with the low C and below we are in full diddle-eye-aye-dee-dooo action.

What a week

Well blogfans, what can i say about this week. I broke my personal record for the amount of gigs done (again) at a grand total of 15, got all manner of new violin students at my schools, some newbies and some absolute mutant legends, and I managed to get a phonecall from this guy (above) , Mr. Hank Marvin, guitar legend and inhabitant of Perth, looking to start a Django/Grapelli band and I got the call today at 3pm to see if i wanted to go in for a jam. Well, 5 students, 11kms and 2 hours later i was sitting in a room jamming with a guy who has been churning out gold records since the 60's, twas incredible. What else, on yeah, gone way over the halfway mark with saigon, 35 shows to go and still rockin. Also, got a hell of a paddies weekend ahead, get this, the place we are playing at is the same place I am doing my saigon show (burswood casino) at so on sunday I am 12-3 irish band, 5-8 saigon, 8-11 irish band right ourside the door of the theatre on an outdoor rig. huzzah

Anyhoo, at home now, just back from the show beer in hand, Axel Foley wise-talking his way around beverly hills on the telly, Jane and the lads just entered the bar so signing off for now. Sorry for the lack of updates lately, as soon as this weekend is done i will catch up on the backlog of photos.

Later dudes

Our first album

We finally did it, our first album. Its called Cash , Gatts & Mangle, or translated for non-corkonians, "money, drink and food" which is what we like to recieve at all of our gigs.

Its a 4 bage booklet, pretty standard stuff, this is the inside two pages

Back page

And this is the image on the CD. It is at the printers at the moment, but as soon as they are available I'll let you know. We are getting about 2000 of them so be sure to order some for ALL your relatives......