It’s been about two or three weeks since I was last in the studio. I went on an adventure to Frazer Island for two weeks. Ah Frazer Island. I was very fortunate to grow up half in Sydney and half on this bizarre giant sand monstrosity where great white sharks circumnavigate the wild weather beaten shores and funnel webs shift in the sand under your feet. Carpet snakes curl in the rafters of the solar powered house that my parents built many moons ago on a sand dune in the midst of a dingo haven.
Here is a little story I wrote about my Island adventures…
Uh hum (inject sound of throat being cleared in preparation for short segment of speech)
‘Well, well, well here I am in the sand duned oasis, deep in the heart of the wilderness and the fern clad terrains…. The sun has retired for the evening leaving the horizon a golden hatchling of crimson delight, stretching its way across the infinite sea.
Here I sit in perfect white sand goodness silently observing this natural wonderment in similarity to an Eskimo. You see it is TERRIBLY FREEZING. It is so god damn cold I could be an Eskimo sitting in or on a white powder-puff of snow. Quote my Father, “It’s like fucking summer up here! Lucky I was completely absurd and brought faux fur…
Traveling back from the Artic,
The Island is regally beautiful.
The melodies of Mr. Hendrix danced me to sleep last night as my Father jigged around the room high as a kite and we all ate vegetables and talked about the universe.
And then…today…I was listening to Floyd and traveling into a psychedelic land…. until coming face to face with a man-eating dingo!
Staring into my eyes fiercely it wanted Dibbs limbs for dinner, reaching into my bag for my bow and arrow I instead found an apple, and catapulted the fruity weapon with great vigor, he ran away with tail between his legs…however, he followed me all the way home and I am happy to say I was not dingo dinner.
My brother accidentally caught a seagull this evening and an eagle came and tore it from his line and then ate it on the beach.
There have been wallabies and cane toads and shark and whale sightings… the Island is still as wild and untouched as ever…’
A snippet of a distant and dangerous land.
Having time away from the studio proved highly beneficial as I listened to the recordings and realized there were quite a few things I wanted to change and modify.
One thing that came to mind whilst strolling the beach was the idea of an all male pirate choir. This was inspired half by a barnacle covered rusty mug I found in the middle of absolutely no-where and half by a Viking choir that I have preformed with a few times over.
So I asked Raymond & Ian & Gene if they could join me in a vocal pirate banter.
To which they said yes.
Out came the Ho Hums, but by God Gene won the award for hilarity in the theatrical vocal sphere. He let out a voice from within that was truly astonishing and I laughed/cried with the sheer ridiculousness of it all.
Today was also a day for body percussion.
‘Lullaby’ is a contemporary classically inspired track, which takes a sixties surf guitar turn in the chorus. I imagined these kind-of claps that weren’t exactly beat perfect so we all took turns to clap and sing our way through the night….
We also tried to record an instrumental piano track tonight called ‘Black & White’ (inspired by the funeral parade and march sometimes present at Oxford Arts Factory) on Gene’s kitchen piano. This method proved to need microphones inside the lid which resulted in the actual clicking of the keys shining through on the recording which I took quite a liking too…however we decided it wouldn’t really work with the different piano tone present on the rest of the tracks…
So with that we closed the lid on the night and said our good byes and
Goodnights.
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