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.

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.

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!