That'll do for now

OK, I felt last time I posted like something had got to give. And something gave. I'm not over the moon, but I'm not under the train. Christmas time, and we give thanks for small miracles and pray for those bigger miracles to come. Another year over, a new one just about to begin, it is an easy time to reflect on the accomplishments of the last year. We were in Kanazawa this time last year, driving around in the snow. We played those last three shows in Japan, worked at ECC for the first few months, flew back to Sydney, then worked in Hobart for those months, mid-year, moved to Melbourne in August. Played shows all along the way, went to New Zealand for our first overseas tour in November, played multiple shows in Melbourne and Hobart, and here we are. No wonder I'm weary. It's been a big year.

So, New Zealand! Wow, what a beautiful place! Just flying over the South Island, I felt the power of the landscape deeply, volcanic rocks thrusting skyward, cool air tumbling down the snow capped mountains... my Tasmanian soul identified with these extremes. Green fields, rich soil, fresh air, clean water. Christchurch felt like Hobart - be it, with earthquake damage. An inviting, quaint little town with a decidedly English feel. We wandered through the gardens, and strolled around the streets. The weather was pleasant and sunny on the day we arrived, but on the day of the Thrall show, sleet and rain set in, and the cold weather proved an adequate deterrent to keep a fair few potential punters at home. We met Marko, James and Scott of Creeping at Al's Bar fairly early in the evening, and my oath, those guys are cool fun. I would gladly hang out with those heads any time. The show went well, Tom and I played hard, fast and loud. Got a few new friends from the experience. Those that did show up had an awesome time at the show. It wasn't a big show, but it rocked hard, and everyone who made it to the show seemed to dig our vibe. I'd be happy to do it again. Any time Christchurch, any time...

Creeping and Thrall got on the plane the next day for a snoozy flight to Auckland. Maria and Sarah met us at the airport, and we quickly got about catching up for the last five years. Maria was a superb hostess, and plied us with delicious home marinated olives and excellent beers. We then headed down to the venue for the show, The Whammy Bar. Wicked venue! Awesome organic dark beers galore, friendly staff, laid-back vibe. Totally loved playing there aside from an annoying pylon in the middle of the stage.

One major drawback was that Pacific Blue lost my kick bag on the way over. So I had no sticks, no kick pedals and no merchandise to sell at the shows. The bag turned up the day after the Auckland show. Apparently they'd delivered it to the wrong address the day before, and if they'd got the address right, I'd have had my stuff for the show. Instead, I ended up getting to carry it around but not use any of it. Nice one, Pacific Blue, you pack of wankers.

Verdict: Playing gigs in New Zealand is COOOOOOOOOL. I'm of the opinion that Thrall will be returning to NZ in the summer of 2012... yessss... we'll try make that happen, yeah. Any time Creeping want to come to Oz, we'll line it up on this end, yes-sireee! NZ/Tas

We came back to Australia, and I went straight into a new job. Executive Assistant to the General Manager of the area I had been in before. I felt like I was just starting to get my head around the job just when I finished it up, but those three weeks were pretty cruisy, so I was happy enough to just get some cash. I lined up a couple of weeks of work with Fiona for Tom and I to work at the Energy and Water Ombudsman just until Xmas to fend off the poverty, but going back to a call centre based position was just a reminder that we don't want to do that kind of work any more. But some happy news happened whilst we were there. I was contacted by the guys I'd been doing the Executive Assistant job with, and they wanted me to come back to an Executive Assistant position on a longer term basis. Like, a review date, yes, but no end date. So that means that next year, I don't have to look for a new temp job every couple of months. So I'm feeling like the pressure is off a bit. It doesn't start until the second week of January, so I have to be careful with my spending a bit until then, but it does mean that I will have a job next year. I'll apply for the 2012 graduate intake in the Victorian public service, but that will take some time to happen, and until then, I'll just sit in and grow some moss around my toes. Sounds like a nice thing to do for a while.

After we came back from New Zealand, we felt like we were walking on sunshine with the band. It's so nice to headline and be the out-of-towners. We then played the worst gig of our careers at the Lithuanian Club, a gig so disastrous that we lost $66 per band. It was a truly miserable state of affairs. Then we did another gig at the Espy the next week, which was a benefit gig. At least with the Espy gig, we didn't expect to make money, but we weren't especially chuffed at paying to play for two gigs in a row. That kind of malarky for two gigs in a row is enough to put our little band in the red quite quickly, and we need to pay for some new merch and mastering Vermin to the Earth soon, so we're quite keen to do some proper paying gigs and piss this paying to play shit off, for good!

(For the benefit gig: to the kids in Haiti, I don't begrudge you your orphanage. Sleep tight, kids.)

Other than that, Thrall's going OK. We're not selling anything much at our end. But we've run out of M size t-shirts so that tells me that someone must have been moving. We're writing the Aokigahara Jukai EP that we'd been planning, and my ex-student Kunihiro translated a poem for me to do as a spooky ghost in Japanese. It's gonna be creepy as.

Somewhere in that time we had dinner with Dave Scully in the lightning and rain with his nice lady and her nice kid. Retrieved the banjo Dave had been looking after for me for a few years. Went off and sold it a couple of weeks later and used the money to buy a work desk. I like the desk way better than I liked the banjo.

We also had dinner with Zoe and Michael just before they moved out of the old house and into the new. Fun times, also.

Had fun times with Monte Pemberton getting drunk in the park and being eaten by mosquitos. We swung on the swings, and swang on the monkey bars. Parks are awesome. I recommend them for drinking fun any time in the dark when it's not raining. They're not so fun in the rain. Saw Tsui Chan the next day at the house of Haig. T'was fun.

Went down to Tassie for a show on the 23rd of December, and dovetailed that with seeing the family down there for Xmas, which was nice. I got a cold for Xmas, but even that didn't manage to dampen my spirits too much. The show was an awesome success on several levels. Tom played fill-in bass in Ruins. Lots of cool old heads turned up from many years ago, I saw Dan Cross and Mark with red hair in the street, Chris Arnou-Clark, Luke Ray, Matthew Barnes, Andrew Tanner, Duncan Robinson, Miles Brown, Stewart Lawler, Nathan and Sooz, Leigh and Elissa, Dave Scully, Sam Greener, Ingrid and Alex, Byron Wardrop, and lots of other cool people who I've probably forgotten to mention. Had a nice chat with Gibbo and Casey at the far end of the bar in the afternoon, and felt happy that The Brisbane continues to be a venue that not only exists, but always seems to be improving. Keep it up fellers.

Other than the show, I got to have fun times with Gwen and Marina, Tom's Granny and Grandpa, Winnie the sister-in-law, some randoms from Dodges. Proper meals were enjoyed with Leigh, Elissa and the ever increasing in size Archie, and Jess, Sam and the sleepy Lucas. So many babies. At least, a lot more than I remember there being about a year ago. Rachel and I went wading along the beach but it was too cold for a swim. Then we went to Ziggy's Smallgoods and bought fists full of delicious Polish chocolate and Rachel read me all the names and told me what they meant. Had Christmas lunch at my Great Uncle John's house. Rowan and Cassie got married on Xmas eve. Had a sleep in the car at the top of the mountain. Had a barbecue at Marina's. Very busy days.

Back to Melbourne now, hanging out with Tom and Dave, we're a funny household without the girls. I slept off my cold pretty quickly. I like to hibernate when I'm sick. Dave, Tom and I tried going to the zoo today, but found out it was $24.60 to enter per-adult. And that just seemed a bit too steep for us. So we went and bought a moderately priced carton of beer and saved at least $20. And I think we might grill some meat and have a beer this afternoon. Nice.

It's been raining non-stop this November and December. The grass has been growing faster than we can keep it mowed, and the days where it doesn't rain are one in five, or maybe one in seven. I've never seen Melbourne so wet in summer. It's quite peculiar, and I wonder if it has anything to do with that climate change I've been hearing about so much.

Anyway, that's what we've been doing for the last couple of months. Next year I'd like to: (a) get the car serviced, (b) go for a drive down the coast with Rachel, (c) get into the graduate program, (d) buy a new drum kit, (e) make enough money to pay my taxes, (f) master Vermin to the Earth and have it put out on a cool label, (g) watch Tron 3D, (h) buy a new computer for the studio computer and record Aokigahara Jukai, (i) buy some new shoes for work.

That'll do for now. That's a lot of writing, and I'm getting distracted by the box of beer. Hope that you're all having a good time this holiday season, and you get to watch Tron 3D or something like that in the New Year.

Permanency

I don't want to sound like the typical Generation X-er, belly-aching about getting a raw deal, but I gotta say, I can't help feeling like if I had been born 30 years earlier my life would have been easier. The prosperity, high employment rates, career stability, real estate prices, blind self-belief in relation to parenthood, unfettered access to welfare support, and vertical manoeuvrability that the Baby Boomers enjoyed. I would have liked some of that. I really would have.

Sometimes it's hard to tell which parts of my life path have been chosen by me or for me. Being born in the year I was born to the parents I was born to, I am not eligible for the UK passport that most of my cousins enjoy. Europe was an unattainable dream. To this day, I've never been there. Moving out of home at 18 so that I could attend university, digging myself into debt through the Student Supplement Loan so that I could afford to live in housing that was of an acceptable standard. I didn't do as well at university as I could have. Looking back, for the first two years of university I didn't really know how to study properly. My study habits were sporadic, undisciplined, and unfocused. By the time I had learned how to study, I already had earned myself two years worth of average grades when I should have been excelling. My father died, and the ensuing self-destructive depression that accompanied my mourning took years to come through. I acted like a jerk, drank too much too often, but I didn't know how to access mental health services that would have helped me through that time. My honours year was a debacle, unhinged by an unsupportive supervisor. Upon finishing university (and I think this happens to every student to an extent) I was directionless and lost. I tried getting government jobs, but had no luck. Turned away by graduate intake programs, I ended up debt collecting in Melbourne. When that job threatened to do my head in, along with the floundering relationship that I had come to Melbourne to pursue, I arranged to go to Japan the first time. I wasn't running to Japan, I was running away from what had happened to me. Japan is the only place where I have had a stable income, a stable job... and in many regards, I think my great affection for the place is based largely on the economic stability that I enjoyed there. It's the only place where I have ever had the opportunity to make plans and know that I could go through with them.

When you go through university, there is this tacit idea that you are setting yourself up for a career. When that career doesn't eventuate, the anger and bitterness starts to set in. When you end up working in administrative support for people who did the same degree, but just had luckier upbringings: stable households, supportive middle-class parents, less financial stress - sometimes it's hard not to feel like someone's rubbing your face in it. Raw talent is nothing without perseverance and focus. Learning how to focus and persevere is a lesson that I feel like I am continually having to learn.

Six years after my first flight to Japan, twenty temp jobs later... I'm tired. I'm tired of feeling like I'm stuck on the outside looking in at the prosperity and happiness of others. I want permanency. I want the opportunities that come with being able to plan further into the future than one or two months. I want this craziness, all this, to end.

Look, I'm sorry about this post. But I just don't feel like I can do happy faces today. Applying for jobs always makes me miserable. I've applied for at least 50 full time permanent positions over the last six years, and I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. If I put in for jobs that are too low for my experience level, I don't get them. I assume it's because they think I'll leave. If I put in for jobs that are a bit above my level, I don't get them either. I assume it's because they think I won't be able to bridge the gap. And you can never really anticipate what the rest of the field is going to be like. In Tasmania, an over-abundance of over-qualified people applying for mid-level jobs created a paucity of opportunities for someone like myself. The employment market in Tassie is awful. But even in Melbourne, nothing seems to match my experience and education level. How can you succeed in life if there's no avenues of opportunity? I've done my best, given the resources and experiences I have, and I've got nothing to show for it except an accumulating sense resentment and alienation. It's gotten to the point now where I am starting to experience anxiety symptoms, especially at work. I'm easily upset and cry at the drop of a hat. And that's no good. No one wants a temp that keeps having to run off to the bathroom for a little sob. The pressure of perceived expectation and reputation building adds to the overwhelming pressure and feeds back into the anxiety loop. Sometimes I feel like I'm cracking up.

The list of things that I can not do because of the lack of stability in our incomes is long and sad. I can't buy real estate, or get a mortgage. I can't get a gym membership because I don't know if I will be able to afford it next month. I might have to cancel my private health insurance. I can't offer my potential children a life. My savings may soon be gone, just paying the rent and eating. I haven't been able to afford to go to the physiotherapist for the last month, and so my knee injury is worsening again. I can't take my car to get serviced (it doesn't need to be serviced until February, but I'm concerned that I won't be able to afford to get it serviced then either). Living from week to week in a cycle of job applications and rejections, it has started to get into my head, and destroy my self-esteem. I feel timid and unworthy. I haven't been able to stand up for myself when I should have, I have been saying "yes" with my mouth, when my heart has been saying "no." The anxiety worsens...

I need a lucky break. I need to start making my own luck. But in a negative cycle, it's hard to get out. There is a certain amount of optimism required just to apply for a job, and after so many rejections, the well of optimism begins to run dry. Every hope that you pin on an application is a disappointment waiting to happen. It's hard to keep committing scarce resources to an avenue that doesn't seem to be bearing results. It's hard to keep submitting yourself to a process that seems destined to fail. It's hard. Sometimes I just want to give up.

Sometimes I think about my situation and remind myself that my lot isn't so bad. My friend Belinda lost a child last year. A little baby. I don't know the details, but Belinda's little girl had been pretty unwell since she was born, and was in and out of hospital for the entirety of her short life. I only know from watching the facebook status updates. And one day she just passed away. So unfair. After Belinda and her husband had fought so hard, the little baby they'd cherished so much and sacrificed so much for was just plucked away. No reason, no rhyme, just plain unfair it is... I think about their struggle, and I feel like such a douche for complaining about my lot in life. I've not suffered at all compared to what they've lost. They're often in my thoughts, even though I haven't seen them in the flesh for a very, very long time. It's a reality check. If I know anyone who deserves a lucky break, it's Belinda.

Maybe this is the only permanency we will ever really know in life: the permanency of death. The death of loved ones and the absence it creates. From my father, to Belinda's baby... only never is forever.

People say glib shit: "life only throws at you what you can handle." I'd just like to say: that's bullshit. Life throws stuff at you that no one should ever have to deal with. Life is unfair and asks too much of some people, and nothing of others. People say glib shit: "you make your own luck." That's bullshit too. Sometimes your luck makes you, the person that anyone becomes is partly born from the circumstances they find themselves in. People say glib shit because they don't want to hear it anymore. They're busy with their own problems. A heightened level of interconnectedness between people results in an overload of emotions, people screaming into the Web 2.0 void. We are all too much for each other to bear.

Trying to find a path in life that is not dishonourable and soul-destroying - trying to find a path in life that is fair... stuck between letting life wash over you and trying to make your own destiny: what is a good way to live your life? What should you do when it feels like there is no point? These questions... there's no easy answers... I wonder what life is like for people who don't think about these things? It must be nice to be ignorant sometimes...

I'll tell you about New Zealand and Thrall and other stuff in another post. For now, I'm just going to go back to looking at job websites and try and find those last little bits of optimism to throw at these potential employers. I'm sorry to be a big whinge-bag, but sometimes life gets you down. And you know, it's all part of being human. It's a long and winding road, and sometimes you find yourself in a place called "here" in a time called "now" that you hate. The next step in the journey is the question; and after feeling like so many steps have ended up being the wrong steps, it takes a lot of courage to make a decision about what to do next.

I'm going to go have a cup of tea with my friend Fiona this afternoon. Maybe that will supply some solace, clarity, and perspective? Tea often helps.

Tumbling rain

It rains a lot here. I wonder if it rains more here than it does in Tassie? It's good when it rains because it's very dusty in Melbourne a lot of the time. Washes my car for me. Softens up the ground. Rinses the washing. That kind of thing.

So it's raining again today, and I thought I should probably tell y'all about the last few weeks since our last update. It's been an intense time.

The trip to Tassie for the Zeni Geva show... I hardly know where to start to tell you about that one. I was excited about it, that's for sure. After getting Mr Kishino down before for the July Thrall/KK NULL show, I was super pumped to be playing with Zeni Geva. In the days before the show, things slowly began to unravel. The show was supposed to be on Thursday 30 September. On the Sunday before the show I was contacted and asked to arrange the "backline" (instruments for the touring band to play for those of you who are not touring musicians). It was well hard! I don't live in Hobart any more, and people generally don't have great gear in Hobart. After a few emails and phone calls, I had it all pretty much arranged. Then on Wednesday the promotor said that he didn't want to come down anymore, and could I look after the whole show. I felt like "this is unusual, but OK..." Then I couldn't get hold of him to ask him for the info I needed to take over. I called the venue to ask them what was going on, and they said they didn't know. Whilst talking to me, they managed to raise the promotor on a chat client. The venue guy sounded confused... but willing to continue. But it became apparent as we were talking that the promotor had put a door price of $12 on their website for the Hobart show. I heard it happen, then and there... we were talking, and then there was a pause... the venue knew that it was a Thursday show, where there had been inadequate postering/press, from a relatively obscure Japanese act. The venue had not set the door price, and the promotor had committed the venue to charging $12, thereby making it impossible for venue to make money from the show. And so, the show was cancelled. The promotor had booked the Hobart show - secured us as a support act - but he hadn't promoted it on the ground, and he did not book the airline tickets. It's like he never really committed to the show. He could pull out: after all, he hadn't booked any tickets.

Well, I sure as hell couldn't!

I was furious. Our non-refundable tickets to Hobart, unpaid days off work, all for nothing... it was highly unlikely that we were going to make money on that show, but to have it cancelled and not even get the experience. I felt de-prioritised. Made me angry and indignant the way that the kid who always gets picked last for teams must feel. Just because I'm from Tasmania... grrrr...

We went down to Hobart, regardless - it was a real toss up... stay, go to work, get paid, maybe get to see Zeni Geva at one of the Melbourne shows, or go down, catch up with Trent, touch base about Vermin to the Earth. I felt like I was damned if I do and damned if I don't. So we went. Stayed with Nathan and Sooz (who are both twinkling gems of friends and I'm very excited about their nuptials next year). Saw the besty Rachel, my sister Maddy, Leigh, Elissa, Astro, Christian, Tim P., Mary, Trent, Kristy, Luke R., Gwen, Minnie, Winnie, my Ma, Ross and Tom's Granny and Grandpa. It was tiring, and I was disappointed, so I didn't really feel like I had my best face on. Thank you to everyone who put up with my sour puss. I will remember each of you in my best thoughts.

Back to Melbourne, back to work. Felt pretty good about where I was going with my work. I had been hired to compile nine regional reports to explain some blah blah that Department of Education and Early Childhood Development had undertaken in the last year. There was already a statewide report, so I was charged to make nine regional reports. I thought, well, that they would have wanted me to do nine small reports, with tight, well-collected and verified data. I was a bit concerned that I had not been getting much feedback from my supervisor. Well, to be perfectly honest, I got no feedback at all. The supervisor always seemed busy and unapproachable. When I finally got some feedback, it turned out that the didn't want nine smaller reports. They wanted nine regional reports that exactly mimicked the statewide report. And with one week left until the end of my contract, I managed to whack together one of the nine reports that I should have done. I know, I can't hold myself solely responsible, but I feel very bad about my work. I also feel quite resentful because I don't feel like I was given the tools to succeed by those who should have been guiding my hand. Anyway, last day is on Monday, I will be finishing up that one, lonely report, and turning my back on what has been an awful debacle.

I have been crippled with my recurring knee injury again. Back to physio. I have been laid out in bed for the last 5 weeks pretty much, feeling frustrated like a caged tiger. Getting better is hard work but we're making progress, slowly but surely...

In early October we did a show in Melbourne at the Arthouse. We opened the evening. I think we left people with a very unique flavour - I don't know if people in Melbourne are used to bands like us. Anyway, I thought it was a successful evening for the most part. Leigh came over from Tassie to play, and did an awesome job. Just pounded that bass into oblivion. The other bands that played were 1,000,000 Dead Birds Laughing, Fuck! I'm Dead, and Ruins. All the other bands were ace, and I really enjoyed Ruins. It was great to hang out with Alex properly (a rare chance for we three) and bask in the light of his humour, intellect and enthusiasm. He's a rare creature, our Al'.

In the last couple of weeks Leigh and Elissa had a baby! Archer Lee Wildcat Ritson! What a fantastic handle for a young chap to get. Very excited to get to meet the young man, as I do love prodding other people's babies.

Next we are off to New Zealand for a tour! Meeting up with Sarah and Maria from the Nagoya house promises to be extremely fun, and a great moment to cast my mind over the last five years since we three were all in the same place at the same time. We've also got a show in Tassie on the 23rd of December, so it looks like we'll be in Hobart for Christmas. How surprising! I'm just hoping that we get some work pretty easily when we get back and continue to be able to keep our heads poking out above the water... money's been tight, and I've been feeling the pressure. Still applying for permanent jobs, but no joy yet. I hate job hunting. It's soul destroying. It's been a really tough ride. Jobs, disappointments, injuries...

Hopefully by the next time I write for the blog, the rain will have stopped falling on me.

The Opening of the Victorian Era

Testing, testing... Hello Nagoya? Hello Hobart? Hello Brisbane? Hello Osaka? Hello Melbourne!

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, we all evidently are ladies and gentlemen, here in the Victorian era. We've travelled forward in time until we arrived back at the dawn of the 20th century. The Victorian era: scones with jam and cream, unemancipated women, and a dower looking female monarch. Maybe? Maybe not?

We left Tasmania in a similar frenzy of activity as to when we arrived. Slammed the door on house-sitting and low level admin temping and pushed the pedal to the floor up the Midlands. Personally I couldn't wait to get out. The list of things I won't miss about Tassie is longer than the list of things I won't miss about Japan. 10 miles longer. Depressing vibe. High-unemployment. Lack of permanent jobs for a lass like myself. Ever-present threat of abject poverty. Crumby temp jobs. Over-priced food. Over-priced real estate. Over-priced utilities. Crumby weather. Parochialism. Stiflingly familiar. Lack of anonymity. Lack of freedom. Lack of culture. Lack of public transport. Lack of things to do.

Get me out of here now! Get me out of here yesterday!*

*However, I will miss Rachel heaps. I feel like such a douche for not hanging out with her more whilst I was down.

We sailed over on a haunting full moon on an almost glassy, calm Bass Strait. Loved the boat this time (because we had a cabin and I slept the whole damn way). Arrived at the new house, gob-smacked by its loveliness. High ceilings, wooden floors, modern kitchen, plenty of space. A great start to the second Melbourne mission. We're paying a tad more than we were in Osaka, but we're able to have band practice at home, which actually makes up the difference. Went to a few employment agencies. Had to wait a couple of weeks but within three weeks of arriving managed to secure a job for myself (Tom got a job first this time). It's hard, because we did lay down some cold hard to get here, I've had to live on the credit card for a while which never feels good and I'm just about to receive my first pay packet and start clawing my way back to $0. But I feel very optimistic about the beginning of the Victorian era. I'm getting paid exactly twice as much as I was in Tassie to do a job that is inspiring, conceptual, difficult, but over-all, pleasant and well-suited to my qualifications and temperament. There's a list of things I want to do as long as my arm, and I am about to get down and do some of it.

Concert-wise, so far, went to see Bastardfest and Coffins. The Bastardfest line up was Blood Duster (silly grind bastards), Mindsnare (slightly too serious about themselves hardcore), Psychroptic (blistering tech death), Extortion (thrashy heavy hardcore) and The Kill (not my favourite - can't really remember). Liked Extortion a lot. And really getting into some of the newer Psychro tunes. Awesome fun. Saw the perennially friendly Dan McKay, got to do some excited Tassie ex-pat chat. Went to see Coffins (who are wicked death doom from Tokyo) with support from Gospel of the Horns (Venom worship), Cauldron Black Ram (kvlt fat metal), The Day Everything Became Nothing (brutal death), Clagg (sounds like Electric Wizard with Phil Anselmo singing - unfortunate), and Ignviomous (death metal wearing BM pants). I was too late to catch Whitehorse and for that I am a dickhead. Got to see Rob McManus, Rob Mason, and arrange a jam with Nick Warren. Fun times!

Anyway, Mayhem (the very significant Norwegian Black metal band) are playing next week, and if all goes well, I'm gonna try catch that show too.

Thrall's been offered two shows already and looks like we'll be hitting the stage with Ruins at the Arthouse in early October at this rate. Awesome.

Get this:

- I am saving $50 a week so far on groceries because I am not in Tasmania. (Aldi, Victoria Street Richmond, Gangemi Fruit and Vegetable market, Mediterranean supermarket).

- I am getting home 20 minutes earlier and spending $20 less per week on transport because I am not in Tasmania.

- I have attended two concerts so far, seen more than 10 bands. I really enjoyed most of them (which is a pretty good strike rate for a picky bugger like me). Because I've been going out at night, I've not been hitting the turps too much, which also saves me money.

- We are paying exactly the same amount of rent as we were at Napoleon Street five years ago. Five years ago I was working that horrible call centre job with unfixed casual hours, Tom was a student, and our earning potential was significantly less.

Things are looking up! They really are!

On a sad note, Tom's computer got knocked off the table and the screen came off, so, much like when Snowy ibook died for me, Tom's in a similar state of computerless misery. On the upside, he's doing well enough in his job that he will probably be able to replace it very soon. Great things are about to happen, but like any bold move, you have to be brave for a moment first. It's not all worked out perfectly, but I feel pretty good about where we are right now.

To finish this post, I thought I would share my newfound aphorism for you all that I found in a news paper article.

"Look for opportunities to do something better. Accept risk as a necessary evil. It thins out the competition. Goals aren't enough. You need a plan. You need to learn from your mistakes and alter your plan as you go. Don't re-invent the wheel. Learn from others. Make sure the math works. If the math doesn't work neither does the business. Make sure everyone understands the mission. There will be difficult times, but you will work through them. Whining is a waste of time. There will be sacrifices. Work to find a balance. Don't be a financially successful loser. It's not about the income, it's about the outcome."

Off into the distance once more...

Slipstream

Gonna put out the washing in a minute...

Gonna put out the washing in a minute...

We're leaving. Again. Thought I would have mastered the art by now. But no.

Had lunch yesterday with Sallie B. and just felt like I was a whirlwind. Came in the door, threw the furniture about a bit in a torrent of quick catch up, and bustled out again within 30 minutes. Had tea yesterday with Maddy, Mindy and Hol's. Again, did feel a bit like the quick in-and-out, take-no-prisoners, bank-robber-type interaction rather than visitor. Everything turns into a swirl of colour and motion, some of it feels kind of stiff.

Gonna put the washing out in a minute...

The last week of being in a place is so hard. You have so much to do, and everyone, and I mean EVERYONE wants to catch up. People you haven't seen since Primary School come out of the wood work, acquaintances, avowed enemies, people you haven't even met, EVERYONE, I mean, EVERYONE. My sister suggested that maybe I should try just skipping town without telling anyone, but that would feel kind of cruel. But then again, catching up with people and being lame, tired and grumpy, is that any better?

Not sure.

OK, gonna put the washing out so I can actually explain how we got from there to here.

Right, washing out, next load on, where was I?

What happened was:

When we got back we said to people: "we don't plan to be here for long. We expect to move to Melbourne by September." Kerry and Dave (our repeat visitors in Japan and now good friends) had offered for us to crash at theirs when we moved over. However, their landlord had decided to start building something monstrous in their yard, so they decided they didn't want to live there anymore. So we suggested that we all go in on a share-house.

[I know, I know, shut up already... I haven't really enjoyed share-housing much in the past, but to get a foothold in a new town, I thought it'd be worth it, and who knows! It might be one of those terribly functional houses, like living with Emma and Adrian or something...]
Anyway, so Kerry and her sister Sarah (who will also be co-habiting with us) went house hunting. Found something they liked up in West Brun-ahs-wick. We popped in an application thinking "first application, probably won't be approved, but hey, you never try, you'll never know."

AND IT WAS APPROVED.

So then we were like: "Fuck! Better get cracking on the move, because otherwise we're paying rent on a house that we're not living in," and that's the kind of expense I can not afford.

So we called the removalist.

And the removalist took our stuff.

And we quit our jobs (effective tomorrow).

And we packed our car.

And on Monday we get on the boat.

While all of this has been going on, we've played a fairly big show with Psycroptic, Astriaal and Lacerta. It was a pretty good gig. I didn't feel that great about my performance. I was a bit sloppy, kinda overwhelmed by it all. We didn't get to sound-check (why is it always us that gets skipped in the soundcheck?) I mean, we brought the evil, but I would have liked to feel like I planted both of my feet in the landing a bit more, if you get my drift. Anyway, more people got to see us than at the gigs that we played before (metal shows are awesome) and there were quite a few people who came up and said "nice drums" so to all those people, hey, thanks... but I'm usually actually better than that!

Everything has a momentum about it at the moment. We're about to take off again (and after everyone was saying that the Hobart-gravity would catch us and we'd get stuck here again), the band has got some cool shows coming up (managed to wrangle that Zeni Geva support I've been angling for), and signed to Moribund (oh, yeah!), and we're finishing up these stupid jobs we've been stuck in Hobart (don't want to blow my own trumpet or anything, but I think I might be a touch overqualified for Admin Assistant/Reception roles). So over it. Ready for the next adventure. Cock the hammer, and... FIRE!

And so, here we are. Might vacuum the house now.

You can build so much momentum in your life, and you can feel so much inertia at times, and there was a moment there where maybe we might have not just packed up and left again. I mean, I love living in the bush, and I love the air down here. But I don't think I'm ready to admit defeat yet, and coming back to Tassie always feels a bit like back to square one. I didn't go all that way just to come back here! At least, not yet I haven't! Right now I feel like I'm being pulled out of here on the tide, caught in the slipstream of my own life. It's kinda cool, and kinda scary, but definitely feels like I'm getting some kind of direction happening here...

No Routine

It’s quite hard when you have no routine to find time to do things like update your blog. I apologise. It really has been a huge upheaval. We both have had our moments where we have struggled with our Return to Oz. Much like the “Journey of the Magi” - everything was as we remembered it, but somehow ineffably not. Part of going overseas and living abroad is that you end up with a set of experiences. These experiences are valuable, but cannot have a dollar value assigned to them. The more that you see, the less content one feels at home. Tom said to me once, “I wish I’d never gone away at all sometimes.” As we watch people in their twenties locked into permanent jobs paying off mortgages, whilst we are admin temping and living in the houses of our relatives and friends, I have questioned why we have ended up here. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I was never going to be one of those people who comfortably slips into a public service job straight after uni. I chose my destiny because that destiny was not mine. When life serves you lemons, export them to Japan for a handsome profit.

So, since arriving back in Australia in late April, we visited Jonathan and Denise in Sydney. Sydney is an amazing city. I love the surf beaches. The actual city itself has lovely historic quarters, and a recently rejuvenated rail network. So my overall affection for the place has increased in recent visits. I also had the pleasure of spending a night with my Aunt Mary and Uncle Rodney, both of whom are always fun to hang out with. Like most cities, money is required if one expects to enjoy one’s self, and being newly broke after living it up in our last three weeks in Japan, it felt a little like standing on the outside looking in.



From Sydney we flew to Hobart, into the waiting arms of our families. My mother put us up for the first couple of weeks. My brother put us in his shed for a couple. Then we came into this housesit at Pete and Shirley’s house in Kaoota. Two springy spaniels and wide-open spaces. Staying here really made us question whether we would like to stay in Tasmania. In Tasmania, we could have a bush house. We could make a racket and be outside of earshot of the nearest neighbours. But as always, in Tasmania, we could be stuck in temporary and contract jobs forever, and be paid half as much for the same work in Melbourne. In the end, the employment situation forced our hand. We have to leave again.

When I said I have had no routine, it’s not entirely true. I have had a routine that doesn’t involve being on the computer quite so much. Monday to Friday I’ve been working at the Public Trustee as an admin/shit-kicker. It’s a fine job, not challenging, but I do feel like I’m making a difference. It does require early starts and commuting. But I’m home by 6pm most nights, and still able to assemble dinner. On Saturdays I take the dogs for a big run down the hill. Then we water the plants. I do the shopping for the week. I take Tom for a drive. Do the washing. Play some drums. I like this life. I could definitely handle it being mine…

On the musical side of things, slowly but surely, a little bit of buzz is starting to pick up around the Away from the Haunts of Men release. I don’t expect that it will be an overnight success, but I do think it will sell out its run of 500. We had our first interview the other day in a blog called “Lurker.” The questions were mostly of a philosophical bent, which was an interesting challenge. I don’t really have a philosophical outlook that is set in stone, and it definitely doesn’t come from my university studies or sit neatly in some kind of “ism”. It sits somewhere between “try your best” and “don’t be an arsehole.” On a personal level, I am totally into the idea of progress, and bettering yourself, but on a political angle, I think the modernist project was an abject failure, and we are stranded here in a world governed in the “least worst” way possible. As a species, on our current trajectory, I don’t see any possible future beyond total annihilation on a planetary level at some point in the future. I despise the “green gestures of a dying planet – an endless debate only to be too late!” (Jaz Coleman) We talk the talk, but to actually curb our population and find some kind of balance to allow us to live in harmony with nature is beyond our ability. I find it deeply ironic that the first world might wipe itself out with its gluttony and over-abundance before the third world is wiped out by disease and famine. With medical science we cling to our lives for longer and longer. Be at one with nature! Surrender your resources! Compost! Go laughing into the abyss… don’t be an arsehole.

Easy to say. Harder to live.

We’ve played a couple of shows. First show home was really good. Tom and I were focused and fierce. The second show we recruited our old and good friend Leigh Ritson to play bass. The show was with KKNull, which is the name that Kazuyuki Kishino from Zeni Geva uses for his solo work. We picked Kazuyuki up from the airport, took him for a sandwich at Pete and Shirl’s house (I thought he’d like the opportunity to play with the dogs – turned out he’d been staying with a Jack Russell terrier in Melbourne!) and then got told off by the venue for picking him up. Apparently it is in a written contract that the venue owner picks up the talent from the airport. The venue-owner went to the airport (late, mind you) and of course, couldn’t find Kazuyuki. He knew that we were friends/fans of Kazuyuki’s, and could have let us know, but the same could be said that we could have let him know that we were going to get him from the airport too. I don’t expect Kazuyuki to pour though an English language contract and understand it all. Either way, we played the show on Friday, were asleep by 5am Saturday, we dropped Kazuyuki back to the airport at 9am and loaded out at 4pm. Bloody knackered, I was. And I wasn’t quite so convinced of our performance. Kazuyuki’s set was really interesting. He’s moved beyond solo guitar improvisation (which is what he was doing the last couple of times he came to Hobart) and has now moved into a sample based exploration of found organic sounds and inorganic post-production. The result is extremely cerebral, a rush of rhythm and squalls of insect calls, bird sounds, water sounds. Perhaps it was a bit too cerebral for the punters at the Brisbane. Most of them didn’t seem to get it. Off the back of this experience though, Zeni Geva have been booked to play at the Brisbane on the 30th of September, and we’re currently pestering everyone to make sure we get the support.



The tracking for the second album Vermin to the Earth has now been finished. The raw tracks just sound massive. The arrangements and instrumentation sit somewhere between ABBA and Avsky. Words that spring to my mind are “virulent,” “misanthropic,” “catchy,” “hypnotic,” “abrasive,” and “listenable.” It’s a very strange combination of adjectives, but that’s where we’ve ended up. Like fish-hooks in the mind, riffs get stuck in your head like a Lady Gaga song, but with a much darker, scarier aesthetic. I think Vermin to the Earth will be an awesome album. But for now, it will have to wait to be mixed and mastered, and after the almost three fucking years of waiting for Away from the Haunts of Men to be finished, I know that for now, some patience is going to be required.

1. Vermin to the Earth
2. Plague of Man
3. Oblivion
4. Disease’s Maiming Caress
5. Mass Extinction
6. Ecstacy not of the Flesh
7. Vita Vacuous Voluntas
8. Meius Quietus Nex

It will probably take us another couple of years to write the next album. We’ve got a couple of very rough ideas for the Aokigahara Jukai EP that we’ve been planning. I’ve written some lyrics, started playing with some artwork ideas. We’re thinking that EP would be a nice piece to record ourselves, using our own equipment, and release on one of the smaller labels that showed interest in Away From the Haunts of Men but missed out.

Killmister’s getting those final vocals that it needed from Rachel, and so we should have the album finished before the end of August, when the recording deadline will suddenly be upon us. Arrgh! Am I about to embark on another journey into oblivion? Seems I am.

Funnily enough, I have amassed about 2/3rds of the Fryktelig Støy album about 8 years before I said I’d be finished. I think I will self-press a limited run at some point. Listening to it, it really has those feelings of desolation/oblivion that I’ve been wanting to capture. It’s a very personal project, that’s constantly been relegated to my second, third, forth priority, and so to have the end in sight is quite exciting.

1. Black Mass
2. Sutra
3. Horsemen
4. I’m Happy in this Cave, Thanks
5. Somnambulist
6. Awaiting a Public Hanging

Well, at least I’ve not been idle. Ha ha, like that’s ever going to happen. It’s funny. The busier I get, the more I manage to cram in, the more I’ve got going on, the more I get going on. I used to think I was busy when I was at Uni. Now I know I wasn’t even 2% busy!

That’s my Sunday lie in accounted for. Can’t even relax in bed without being a busy bee! I’d best put on the onions for the French onion soup I had planned for lunch with Sam and Jess, wash the car, that kind of malarkey. We’ve made some plans for moving in with Kerry and Dave in Melbourne. If that works out, it will be awesome sauce for all involved. Dave’s need for a house where we can make noise is as pressing as ours, and that should ensure that we all get a house that doesn’t suck. The future is always popping up in these blog posts, because we’re such compulsive planners. I’m always happiest when I’m booking in the next bunch of plans, making things happen.

Hitting the ground... running

Well, here we are. Back where we started.

And yet, so far from there.

And now it is time to understand what it is that we have lost in all of the moving.

I have my allergies back. I am allergic to everything in Australia. Miserable, puffy-eyed, runny-nosed allergic. I can barely visit anyone without being allergic to their house.

The pertinence of these allergic reactions is that due to my allergies, the house-sit that we had been given through our friend Jeremy was impossible for me to stay in. It had a straw lined ceiling. No good for Little Miss Allergy me. No sir.

We stayed on the floor at my Ma's, and we stayed in the shed at my bro's, but after all that, we scored a house sit for June-August in Kaoota with two springy spanials on Umfreyvilles road.

Busy, busy, busy... started work a week after getting back to Hobart. Receptionist/Admin/Shitkicker at the Public Trustee. Work is workish, and I sway between finding it easy to deal with and maddening. Like any job, really.

It's good to stem the outward tide of money, as we've been struggling a bit since finishing up at ECC. Couldn't stand that job, but loved the holidays and the pay.

Played two shows so far. The albums didn't turn up in time for the album launch. Nothing seems to be selling. It's making me a little nervous, because I so dearly want Thrall to become something that can sustain itself - the money from selling the albums paying to make the next recording, the money from the merch going back into making the next batch of merch, that pays for the tours that sell the albums... but so far it continues to drain money from our jobs and our savings. It's hard. Anyone who hears Thrall or sees us play can understand that this is our passion, and that we make something amazing, but it's hard to get people to invest that first try, or pay money for music.

I'm at work, so I'll have to go now, but yes, I exist. We exist. We haven't stopped existing. I'll write more later. But yeah, Em and Tom are in the world. And we're making the next bunch of plans that will hopefully result in us being a little bit more in the world than we have been of late... if you get what I mean.

Arrived

Touchdown! Sydney. Now for the "reverse culture shock." Denise and Jonathan have been kind enough to let us ease into the day through their house.

I cried on the plane as we took off from Osaka. It has been such an eventful, hectic two years, I would never take it back. Osaka has been so good to us, and if we were in slightly different circumstances, I would never want to leave. But as it stands, I can never have the job I would want to have in Japan without being a totally different person. So back to Australia, hopefully to find a better balance.

5 days in Sydney, then off we go to Hobart to try and amass the collection of crap that we own, then head on to Melbourne. Will it be one month or six, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure it's definite.

More news soon...

Simulacra

Since ancient times philosophy has been preoccupied with the nature of, and the interpretation of, the "real." No where does this seem more pertinent than a place like Japan. The Japanese have a wonderful way of mythologising their nation, the characters of their cities, and their sense of insider and outsider.

Always an outsider... it's not such a bad thing, you know.

Travelling through Japan for the last two years, I have sometimes felt the experience of "Japanese-ness" must be quite restrictive. Many of the people I have met do not seem to feel or react to the societal expectations I have observed here. However, others seem hyper-aware of the imposition of being Japanese. Strict roles produce excellent rebels. As rare as they are, the Japanese misfit is one of my favourite beings to encounter. That said, many traditionalist elements sometimes surface in those who would seem to be out-and-out rebels, and even in those who appear to conform to their basic societal roles often have the misfit lurking just below the surface.



Part of the mythological "Japan" lies in the dichotomy of the traditional and the hyper-modern. These images are seductive and delicious. Camera lenses are always hungry for the sea of neon, or the gentle tilt of a temple roofline. For an outsider it is easy to enjoy this veneer, gliding over and past "Japan-land" in a glazed, sight-hungry tourist manner (see Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation). The closer you come, the more you hear the din: the pachinko parlours, the racket of competing stereos, the footfall of the march of the corporate commuter, the shrieks of children - the human experiences within the aesthetic exterior.

Is this the "real" Japan?



We finished recording the drums for Thrall 2 on the 7th of April, and went for a day trip to Yoshino on the 9th. Yoshino-yama is namesake of the Japanese floral emblem, the Yoshino cherry blossom, and has over 30,000 cherry trees in and around the village. The effect of the the masses of pink blossoms in different stages of opening, from the bottom of the mountain to the top was a lovely sight to behold. The sleepy little mountainside village was bustling with tourists, and is famously busy at this time of year, but for the rest of the year, Yoshino remains a quiet, authentic feeling town. The feeling of unity with the seasons, deep appreciation for nature... it is a truly beautiful country.

Japan's nature seems bounteous, inexhaustible and vigorous. Rainfall is high and one of the predicted effects of global warming is that Japan will receive a higher rainfall than it currently does. When I have explained the idea of Australia being a barren place that can barely sustain human life, timing showers, and water management, I have been met with vacant stares. The whole concept that something might be finite seems incomprehensible. Particularly something like water. People use strings of unfilled vegetable plastic bags to cushion their shopping over here, and "eco" bags are often only used as covers for plastic bags. The wastefulness of many people I've observed over here is quite boggling.

On the 11th we went to enjoy dinner with my ex-student, Eishi. He and his lovely wife Hanae put on a delicious spread of "do-it-yourself" maki-zushi. It was a very fun meal, and Eishi, being in one of his cheeky moods, teased Glenn, our friend who was also there for being American and terribly into red meat. It was a very tender moment, and I will miss Eishi. He is a scientist working on the human genome project. His English is pretty hot when he bothers to study, but recently he hasn't been coming to his lessons... naughty Eishi! I've always found Eishi to be self-effacing, intelligent, observant, and engaged with the world. I hope he comes to visit us in Australia.

Prior to dinner we went to Daigo-ji, one of the many UNESCO world treasures throughout Kyoto prefecture. Unfortunately it was too late in the day for us to see the top of the hill. The cherry blossoms were fading, and in comparison to the mountain-top beauty of Yoshino, something desperately inauthentic pangs me about Kyoto whenever I visit. Here, in the heavily touristed swarms of the ancient capital, we are in a carefully mediated experience, much like a theme park, a Disneyland dream-world. In Kyoto, the myth of Japan is presented to us in an imperfect fantasy, drab ugly city fringes blurring into temple grounds. But we are definitely in "Japanland" more-so than we are in Japan.

Is there a "real" Japan?

After a couple more days of sorting out boxes, sending guitars and LPs through the mail, we went for a brief sojourn to Tokyo. We were going to make a pilgrimage to Aokigahara-jukai, but on the day that we were planning to leave for Fuji-go-ko, we got some terrible news. The master CD for our upcoming album, Away from the Haunts of Men, has gone missing somewhere in the Bulgarian postal system. After news of such gravity we were paralysed with shock. We are still waiting for it to turn up. The $1000 master has gone missing... I really hope it turns up. We don't have $1000 to loose!

We arrived in Tokyo on the 15th and went to the Natural History Museum in Ueno. That was quite diverting. Our hotel was in Shiodome, just south of Ginza. It is one of those places in Tokyo that just feels like dust never falls on it. Huge cavernous, modern spaces, gleaming tiled expanses, scurrying salary-men and women, the other glittering fantasy world Japan, the hyper-modern, neon dripping glitz. The next day we ate a 6 course degustation menu at Kaishoku Michiba, rounding out our aim to eat at three Iron Chef restaurants before leaving Japan. It was truly delicious, delicate, and unmistakably Japanese. Wonderful that we chose Michiba's to do last, as it was a lot more affordable than Sakai's, but more satisfying than Chen's. We then missioned to the top of Roppongi Hills once more to take in an exhibition of emerging Japanese artists titled "Can there be art?" There were some ordinary pieces and some extraordinary pieces. My favourite was Aikawa Masaru's work, where he painstakingly creates oil painted replica's of CD covers, and then makes vocal tributes to his favourite music. The view from the Mori is always beautiful, and it gives the feeling of endless city, and endless possibilities that a place like Tokyo presents. Psychologically, it's either crushing or freeing, given one's own state of mind when taking in that view.



The next day we went to Koenji, in search of some record stores and a legendary punk scene. But apparently since the 20000V Club burnt down (four people died) the punk scene has shrivelled. We found a few clothes shops, but no record stores. Very disappointing. But perhaps that's part of the vulnerability of a place like Tokyo. A specialised scene can pop up around one club, but without integration, the scene is susceptible to a calamity like a fire to actually take out the whole scene, not just a venue. In that regard, the Punk/D-Beat scene in Osaka is safer than the Koenji scene was, and now, the Koenji scene will seek a new home. Earthdom is the temporary home, but Earthdom has it's own centre of gravity. We'll see. I hope next time I come to Tokyo, I'll be able to find some of the heart and soul of punk that I can access so easily here in Osaka. We then hooked up in the evening with Luke Ray for our final yearly visit. Luke was in good form, and was very sweet to us. I think maybe he'll miss our yearly visits... we ate out at the fierce, firey Szechuan place in Ikebukuro that he had introduced us to two years ago, and soon after I had to go home with a crook tummy. That said, if I had my time again, I'd do it all the same. That food's worth a crook tummy. It's that good. We went for a stroll around Harajuku/Aoyama before jumping on the train home again. It was Sunday, and I remember 5 years ago coming to Harajuku and seeing the cos-play zoku in all their finery. Now there are more tourists than there are cos-players. Change in Tokyo is so complete, so fast, so uncompromising, every time I come, there is a different city awaiting me...



By the time you understand it, it's already changed.

And so, that brings us up to now. We met up with Andy last night, had a drink or two. We'll miss him. Tonight we're playing our last Japan show in Kyoto. I'm feeling pretty tired but relaxed at the same time. So glad to have made the inroads that we have while we've been over here. It's been hard, bridging the language gap, and trying to make a name for ourselves, but I think we've done pretty well, all in all. We'll be going back to Australia with nothing. No savings. But we got lots of nice things whilst we were over here, so I suppose we'll be able to enjoy them for many years to come. At the end of the day, at the end of one journey, the next journey beacons.

Wild Zero Drinking Game

Wild Zero.

Guitar Wolf.

Bass Wolf.

Drum Wolf.

Zombies.

Ace face.

Aliens.

Transvestites.

Katanaguitar.

What's there not to love?

You must drink when:

- someone on screen drinks.

- someone combs their quiff.

- someone says "ROCK AND ROLL!"

- flames shoot out of something.

- a zombie's head pops.

At least 2L of non-happoshu beer recommended for consumption during game.

Thank you to Helen "Rock'n Reilly" for introducing us to this novel form of inebriation.

Musing on Music

We finished working! The cherry blossom came out to co-incide with our last day, and we've been enjoying a few days of basking in the sun and drinking in the park. Of course, we've been mega busy as well, but it's a really lovely atmosphere in Japan at this time of year. The winter slowly breaks, the spring emerges in a riot of fluffy cloud like cherry blossom, that drifts into the humid muck that is summer.

I love rehearsing in Japan. It's great. For years in Australia we were unable to make a racket without risking pissing off the neighbours, but here, we just roll down the street, there's a drum-kit and guitar amps already set up. It's all just there for you to use. We've been able to take Thrall from a frustrated bedroom black metal project into a full fledged band (admittedly only two piece, but Trent will be joining us on bass if all goes well), and it's largely due to the fact that we moved house to a place where we are 5 minutes bike ride away from a fully equipped rehearsal space. Subrock: thank you.

However, we couldn't record at Subrock because it's under a train line, and I just don't believe that we'd be able to get a recording that isn't riddled with outside noises. So that's why we asked Chew where Corrupted record, and he put us on to LM Studios and more importantly, Ippei Suda.

Suda-san is just one of those people who puts you at ease. He laughs at your jokes, encourages you when you're nervous, and generally just engenders a good atmosphere. And he knows his recording studio inside out. He has some amazing equipment, which I might take a photo or two of, but I'm afraid Suda-san won't be appearing because he's really not into his photo being taken.

So, anyway, today we're starting day two of recording the drums for Thrall II: Vermin to the Earth. The first day was awesome. There are two takes that are just so good, I doubt I could ever top them, and two takes that sound good enough to keep. Now we've just got three songs that need to be sorted. From 1pm today, that's what I'm going to do. Kick some ARSE.

Wish me luck everyone... or to break a leg or whatever you're supposed to do. This is the clincher.

See you all on the other side!

Japanese Music - Part 4

D-Beat

What is d-beat?

According to wikipedia, d-beat is this:

C: | x - - x - x - - x - - x - x - -:| | C= cymbal

S: | - - o - - - o - - - o - - - o- :| | S= snare

K:|o - - o - o - - o - - o - o - -:| | K= kick

There is some debate over the origin of the d-beat, some attributing it to Filthy Animal Taylor, others saying that it was used by heavy psychedelic bands before Motörhead got their hands on it.

Yeah, whatever. BTW, the wikipedia entry on d-beat sucks.

So, we're back where we started. What is d-beat?

Urban dictionary has a good definition: "D-beat is basically crust punk without the hippy part."

D-beat is a style of aggressive, hard-core punk rock, modeled on the concept that Discharge are the best band to have ever existed. This is a good concept, and I subscribe to this theory whole-heartedly. For no adequately explained reason, d-beat appears endemically in Sweden and Japan. Osaka has, as I've previously mentioned, a kick-arse d-beat scene, populated with all manner drunk-punks, operators, thugs and misfits. The music's not as shabby/hippy as crust-core. It's a lot heavier than most hard-core, with bigger, fatter, yokuzuna-sized guitars, wild thrashing vocalists, and drums that sound like a herd of charging rhinoceros. It's really charged, stirring music and I find it extremely listenable. D-beat remains thematically fixated on concepts such as human annihilation (black metal anyone?)... and most importantly... I really like it.

Bands that might be called d-beat include:

Disclose

Framtid

Gloom

D-clone

Disturd

Redrum

Unarm

Reality Crisis

Fortitude

Punk and Destroy Record Store

Look, I don't claim to be an expert on these things. I'm just an enthused antipodean BM drummer, so don't get too upity if I've got d-beat on my crust, or some metal in my punk. But yeah, if you can, listen to all of the above bands. Especially Discharge. They're ace.

The list

Kyoto Prefecture

Ginkaku-ji

Tetsugaku-no-Michi

Honen-in

Shimogamo-jinja

Sanjusangen-do

Tofuku-ji

Gion

Yasaka-jinja

Kōdai-ji

Kiyomizu-dera

Maruyama-koen

Chion-in

Heian-jingu

Nanzen-ji

Tōji

Kyoto Imperial Palace

Fushimi Inari Taisha

Kitano Tenman-gu

Nijō-jō

Daikaku-ji

Sanzen-in

Shiga Prefecture

Hikone-jō

Hyogo Prefecture

Himeji-jō

Kobe Port

Nankinmachi

Kitano Area

Rokko Island

Nara Prefecture

Tōdai-ji

Kasuga-taisha

Nigatsu-do and Sangatsu-do

Mie Prefecture

Iga Ueno-jō

Ninja-mura

Wakayama Prefecture

Okunoin

Kongobu-ji

Tokugawa Mausoleum

Danjogaran Toto

Daimon

Osaka Prefecture

Sumiyoshi-taisha

Shitennoji

Ame-mura

Dōguyasuji

Dotonbori

Den-den Town

Osaka jō

Tempōzan

Ryokuchi Koen (and the Open Air Museum of Old Japanese Farmhouses)

Ishikawa Prefecture

Kenroku-en

Kanazawa jō

Higashiyama district

Omicho-ichiba

Nagano Prefecture

Matsumoto Castle

Hakuba

Gifu Prefecture

Eihō-ji

Aichi Prefecture

Nagoya-jō

Atsuta-jingu

Inuyama-jō

Haritsuna-jinja

Tagata-jinja

Hiroshima Prefecture

Gembaku-domu

Kagawa Prefecture

Kompira-san

Ritsurin-koen

Tokyo

Tokyo Imperial Palace

Tsukiji

Akihabara

Ueno-koen

Hibiya-koen

Ginza

Sensō-ji

Sumida-gawa cruise

Odaiba

Shinjuku

Kabuki-cho

Shomben Yokocho ("Piss Alley")

Harakuji

Aoyama

Shibuya

Roppongi-hills

Ikebukuro

Hokkaido

Hakkodate

Toya-ko

Sapporo

A Sense of Scale

With each week that passes, the end creeps closer. A few weeks ago I could barely detect it, now I can smell it in both nostrils. No doubt in a couple of weeks it will be a deafening roar in my ears. This is the last of our days living in Osaka. This is the beginning of the end.

On the weekend of the 6th through to the 12th of May we had our first return visitors! Our first visitors Dave and Kerry, came back for a second time. We all got into the food and drink when they were in Osaka and then we all jumped on the shinkansen and went down to Hiroshima. Great company, but unfortunately for us, shit weather. It sleeted for the entire two days we were there, which meant that we couldn't make it to Miyajima. Poo. However, we ate a lot of delicious okonomiyaki - in both Osaka and Hiroshima - ate oysters, we sang karaoke, we did photobooth, Kerry and I went to the public bathhouse and enjoyed some Japan style retail therapy. It was all extremely pleasant, until poor Dave was struck down with some kind of mysterious stomach bug. It caught Kerry the day after they left our house. Whether it was food-poisoning or a 24 hour virus I don't know, but he went down like a sack of potatoes on the Tuesday night, but had been resurrected in true Easter style by Thursday morning, back on to the shinkansen for Tokyo and skiing with Luke.

Genbaku, the A-bomb Dome was a stirring sight. I know it is truly impossible to know the absolute decimation that must have ensued after the atomic explosion, but this building is an eerie and evocative monument to an event that truly opened Pandora's Box. The accompanying museum also has a sensitive, even-handed exhibit that outlines the human side and the administrative story of this horrific event. I defy anyone who goes there with an open heart and an open mind to remain dry-eyed.
However, there were a few people amongst the visitors, let us say from a certain country that finds this event particularly difficult to interpret in a favourable light for their own purposes, who were being quite disrespectful about the museum. I heard one middle-aged man say "I get the gist, let's get out of here." I mean, why did you come here? Did you think this was going to be a "U.S.A! All the way!" experience? This event happened, and it was the United States Army that decided how this was going to go down. The funniest part was that this certain specimen of historical denial was only in the first room, in the first few exhibits. He hadn't even gotten to the far more moving exhibits about the hibakusha (a-bomb survivors) upstairs. The pain, the poisoning, the instant deaths, the prolonged suffering, the lurking cancers - some skin and flesh was vaporised, others skin and flesh harboured the poisons that would ultimately kill the victim years later - the potential lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals, wiped out.
Parts of exhibit made me quite angry, particularly the written evidence that the existence of this new, more deadly weapon was hidden from the Japanese and the target city was chosen because of its high civilian population. It was a scientific curiosity for decades after. There is something very cold and calculated about such a decision being made in the name of science, as well as military merit of the bombing, as the penultimate event in the series of reversals against the Japanese army that ultimately resulted in the decision to surrender.
Genbaku (A-bomb Dome) and Hiroshima A-bomb Museum
The atomic bomb museum seems like a very poignant place to commence "The Beginning of the End."

V.V.V. by Thrall
It's the beginning of the end, and it's the beginning of the start as well. Next adventure, here we come. Thrall has done the last Osaka show (thanks to Elsa for the above video footage). As usual, we got offered another show off the back of that show, but it was on after we are gone, so we had to decline. We had lots of people turn up to show support, which is seriously sweet of them, as I know that many of them are not the kind of people who usually (a) go to shows, or (b) listen to misanthropic antipodean black metal. We soundchecked for a good 10 minutes. God, it made all the difference. That, and that Tom bought a line splitter so he could play through two amps at once (which really helped thicken out the sound). We played hard and fast, we roared through all the lyrics, and the crowd stood around and nodded their heads approvingly. It was a good little reception for our last Osaka show. Next we have the Kyoto show, and then it's Sayonara!
So, we've been busy, busy, busy, and to round out our busy time in the last few weeks we went to a very interesting festival, which I shall enter into this blog at a later time...
I recently went back to Nagoya, the town where I spent my first solo year in Japan. And it was tiny! Living in Osaka, the second biggest city in Japan, Osaka is just so much bigger than little Nagoya is. Nagoya just falls asleep at about midnight, the venues close, the bars lock you out, and there's no street culture compared to the vibe of Osaka. I remember when I first arrived in Japan, Nagoya just seemed so enormous, and now it just feels so tiny. My sense of scale has been completely skewed by living here. I really wonder how we will fare when we return to Australia... will it just feel too small for us to fit there anymore?

Things I'm NOT going to miss about Japan

4. The Language Barrier.

I did a year of Japanese in high school, but dropped it in favour of studying French. This was partly because of my French ancestry, partly because of my high school French teacher being a pretty cool specimen of teacher, and partly because my Japanese teacher could competitively bore paint off the wall in the olympics for her country. French sounds sexy, my image of French people being relaxed, effortless hedonists, all contributed to my lasting desire to learn this language. I plan to re-commence French lessons at some point in the indeterminate future.

French also has one other major advantage. Although being riddled with difficult to master pronunciation sounds, it uses a familiar looking alphabet, albeit with grave, acute, circonflexe, tréma and cedille thrown in. If aware of the rules of French pronunciation, one can say the words by sight-reading them without knowing their meaning. French, being a European language shares a lot of words with English. Basically, compared to learning Japanese, just the action of deciding to learn French gives you a good head start on mastering the language.

Because everyone knows that Japanese looks like this:

And walking down the street in Japan looks like this:

And a lot of stuff in Japan is a bit, WTF? anyway, so when you're not sure if it's a cultural or language barrier that exists between you, things can get mighty confusing mighty fast.

For those of you who aren't so au fey with Japanese, here's the situation.

Japanese is phonetically an easy language to learn. The vowel sounds are short, there are no weird hissing noises or guttural grunts to contend with.

Grammatically, Japanese is a bit backwards compared to English. Verbs come at the end of sentences, but you can get used to that pretty easily.

Listening can be a bit of a problem, especially living in Kansai, because the local dialect is quite distinctive.

Reading and writing... now there's the problem.

The Japanese "alphabet," hiragana, consists of somewhere between 45 and 47 characters. These represent sounds, and are used to spell words that don't have a kanji (Chinese pictograph). Hiragana is only used for Japanese words, and there is a separate alphabet used to describe the sounds of foreign words, the mutterings of animals or other onomatopoeia. So, just to master the alphabet, you've got to get your head around 90 odd symbols.

Then there's the kanji. To be considered literate enough to read the newspaper somewhere between 2000 and 10000 of these little babies have to be shoved into your brain. They all have a stoke order which must be adhered to. To move your pen up and to the left is totally different to moving your pen down and to the right. Simple kanji may have only one or two strokes, difficult kanji can have up to twenty or more.

Kanji have at least two readings. There's the onyomi reading and the kunyomi reading. The onyomi reading may have four or more sub-readings, all phonetically different, sometimes with different meanings, and the only way you know how to say the character is by it's context. Hence, for the not-so-avid student of Japanese, you get stuck at this point. You could study your head off and conquer this... or you could not. I mean, I have a life, you know. Lots of things to do. People to see, gigs to play, drums to practice, films to make, blah blah... I just can't be arsed. For people who are looking to bonk Japanese girls, this is a major study incentive, as Japanese girlfriends often like their gaijins to speak Japanese to them. But I'm married, and Japanese girls, by and large, are not interested in me.

The other thing about learning Japanese is that this language is spoken... where? Japan. And Japan alone. Learn Spanish, travel South America, learn French, go to New Caledonia or Quebec, learn Japanese and well, that's it. Japan or nothing! Being a native speaker of the global juggernaut of languages, learning second languages doesn't seem as pressing as learning to double kick at 220bpm.

Consider the following Senryū (social commentary poem following the 5-7-5 pattern of haiku):

You look Japanese

But you don't speak Japanese

ARE YOU RETARDED?

In Japan, it is expected that thou shalt speak Japanese despite being obviously not Japanese. The Japanese service industry tends to be staffed by extremely patient people, who will help you flap your way through your terrible inability to make sentences - they might even break out the English if you're lucky. Friends of Asian descent who are not Japanese speakers aren't afforded the same patience, because the Japanese can't process the idea that you might look Japanese but not be Japanese (and anyone who tells you they can tell the difference between different Asian racial sub-groups on sight is deluding themselves).

Anyone who thinks that by virtue of the fact that you have chosen to live in a country means that you should master that country's language within 10 seconds of arriving is a bastard. I'M LOOKING AT YOU, AUSTRALIA.

Not wanting to learn Japanese desperately does have the unwanted side effect of not always being able to express oneself clearly. At the doctor. In the store. At the swimming pool. On the street. All of these places become kind of daunting if your language skills are as crumby as mine. Really looking forward to being able to speak my language.