Kaki King

I didn't know if I was going to make it to this one. The band that I play in also had a gig on that night so I had to 'jet' (I'm so 2008) as soon as we finished to get to the Corner Hotel on time for kaki's set. I normally turn up quite early to get a good position for the first few songs then spend the rest of the gig walkin round getting photos of the band from different vantage points, but I had to settle with something like 3rd row back this time. She was good - I had youtubed her and myspaced her so I knew that she was some sort of guitar goddess who did this crazy tapping shit, ala Andy McKee. It was a good gig and the crowd was digging it but I left early cos I'm old and tired and my feet hurt.

review here

all photos here

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I photographed Perth band, The Chemist at The Grace Darling on Smith Street.

They were supported by two generic tight pants wearing, hollow body Gibson guitar having pointy shoed bands (who were really quite good) but shit man, it's all getting a little long in the tooth - I spent most of their sets wondering what the next fad is going to be (I predict lady bands) and wishing for it to arrive fast.

The Chemists, however, were great. Maybe it's because I think Tom Waits is awesome and there was some Tom Waits influence shining through, maybe it's just cos they were different from all the other bands I have been seeing...


anyway.

Field Day

I almost didn't get to this gig - I had not received confirmation from the promoter (via the Dwarf) come Friday night, so I could have easily left this one and spent a night on the couch.. but I had not received any emails saying I couldn't go either! So I have the Thornbury Theatre a call about 8pm and the friendly guy said I could come along.

I arrived a little late which was the plan, figuring that all the support acts would be singer / guitarists with no bands - which isn't a bad thing, but I was already tired (and Red Bulls were $6). I did see Angie Heart, who I found out during the set used to be in the band Frente! who had a hit back in the day (90's) with a song called Accidently Kelly Street.. what a blast from the past - she still has the voice too..

Georgia Fields' Mini Indie Orchestra came onto the stage while Georgia waited backstage I took the opportunity of getting a couple of really nice shots of her - I think the best of the night! The music was sublime - alot of these bands that I listen to on Myspace sound so much better live - Myspace really does not do some bands justice.

trip to the dead city...

Our poor van is on the out... we have had Tiger for about 11 months and we needed to get Victorian plates, which means having to take the van for a roadworthy, which he will fail, which means we can't get VIC plates, which means we can't drive him in VIC. So we went on a road trip over Melbourne Cup weekend - we thought we would drive to Adelaide!

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NEWS FLASH: ADELAIDE IS A LONG WAY A-WAY

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We split the trip up into 4 days of semi-fucking-huge drives, a quick squizz at Google Maps and we had a couple of cool places to stop off at along the way..

Please note: DO NOT go food shopping before you cross the VIC / SA border, or you, like us, and the other car load of people will be sitting at the border eating as much fruit and veges that you can before throwing them into a bin..

Mount Gambier

I can sum it up in two words: "Shit town, cool crater lakes and a REALLY cool abandoned hospital"

Day two was Adelaide via Naracoorte to check out some caves, which were pretty cool, there was a free one to walk thru, it was pretty great! I am sure the others were better.

We reached Adelaide, had shit service at a pizza place, had a nice sleep in the van beside the beach and a swim in the morning then left... no photos for you.

The next day was a biiiiig drive (650kms) we wanted to do a big one so we just had a small drive back to Melbourne the following day - we headed along some highway, saw a lizard and went through a bunch of cute wee towns and ended up at a place called Sea Lake for dinner and photos:

We drove on into the night and stayed at a place called Charlton which was kinda scary and had a Famer Claus-looking type of fullah looking in the rubbish bins.