Back on board
Well, I’m back again after a long absence. Things have become quite exciting since I last posted to a diary entry on here. I’m now doing three voluntary jobs at 4ZZZ, St. Vincent de Paul’s, and Wesley Mission. Of course there’s no pay, but it’s still rewarding work and in return for my services to them I’m getting some things back that I’ve wanted.
Laissez-Fayre got started up again in late June when I auditioned two singers called Nova Cy’ara and Joanne Ridgeway. I auditioned them at Wizzard Studios and took them on board and we started rehearsing regularly at Red Star studios in Bowen Hills just down the road from Wizzard. Nova went on holiday to Bali about a month later with her friend Jamie, and Jo decided to leave to concentrate on her own solo career, however she still supports what the band is about and she enjoyed working with Nova and myself.
In August I found a keyboard player called Amanda Hurdman after putting a casting call up in Star Now, she had previously been in a rock band in Perth called Oedipus in which she was lead singer. She came up for the audition dressed as a Bollywood dancer and her hair straightened out, but she still impressed us with her singing. Her husband Luke also joined in on a couple of practices for drums until we found ourselves a drummer. Luke is a very talented artist and photographer and he took some photos of us practicing which I want to get copies of to put up on the band’s webpages.
We’ve also started doing practices outside the studio, the first one was at Balkaz naturist retreat for the Free Beaches Australia’s AGM, the next was at a park outside the Brisbane Jazz Club, and the most recent at the lookout in Mount Cootha. They’ve been great fun and had very little complications. I am glad that I’ve finally found some musicians who are sympathetic to my philosophy of life and are willing to make a difference with it, and I think that this upcoming lineup will be the one that will finally break the band in. We’ve also taken aboard a lead singer called Senna Watson and a drummer called Kay Pohe who is of mixed race (half New Zealand, half El Salvador). Kay is only 4’8" but she’s very switched on, friendly and vivacious.
I got up at about 7 a.m. today, mostly posted on the Veronicas board today. I copped quite a bit of rebuke for starting a thread on naturism on there which some posters thought was in bad taste, yet there are two threads on there asking which members are gay and one called "Forbidden Love" which was a pornographic pulp fiction thread that glamourised illicit sexual behaviours. The latter has been removed from there, and the naturist thread put in the ‘old/spam’ department. Hmmmm. Looks like I’ve got a LOOOOT of work to do to convince people that my way of life is legit, healthy and not just for young families or retired middle-aged to elderly people.
Went to the doctor’s this afternoon to do something about my coughing, they told me to keep taking Symbicort and Ventolin (which I’ve already been doing anyway) and given me a prescription for anti-biotics. I did a breathing test for them and they could find nothing wrong with my respiratory system other than a bit of blockage.
Got sent the single "Unconditional Love (Planet Earth)" by Gentlemen Without Weapons from a chap on e-bay this afternoon. Great song, but sounds a little bit faster than the MP3 that I’ve got. The song was originally recorded in 1988 and produced and written by the legendary Kenny Young (who also wrote "Under The Boardwalk", "S-S-S Single Bed", and "Just One More Night" in the 60’s and 70’s amongst many others), Nick Glennie-Smith and Vic Coppersmith-Heaven. There were no conventional instruments used – the song relied completely on samples of animal noises, African Zulu choruses, household objects like squash balls and saucepan lids all put through a Fairlight sampler keyboard with the vocals being the only conventional instrument. The video to the song is awesome and was shown only once on mainstream TV featuring a young man who stresses out after missing the train to work. He is suddenly approached by an old Shaman who mysteriously transports him to a jungle where he learns to live like a Native American and he is seen meditating, swimming in the river and painting his face with exotic designs (the British band James used some elements of this for their video to the song ‘Sound’ in 1991). I’m doing a cover of this song with Laissez-Fayre as well.
Aside from that not a very eventful day today, though I’m planning a Christmas party for the Brisbane Dr Who Fan Club for the 13th December so I hope that someone will show up for it. Wish I could have a regular entourage of people to hang about with rather than categorising everyone I know.