Don't eat the Yellow Snow

Just returned from the snow with The Soul Predators, probably the best season in a decade, unfortunately I was unable to partake as much as I would have desired in the Alpine Activities. I some how contracted the KILLER SNOW VIRUS or KSV as it's commonly known. I don't know who started it initially, but my hunch is that it was someone who ignored the centuries old warning, "Don't Eat The Yellow Snow". 

Despite coughing like a badly tuned Kingswood and reaching temperatures that would make Amazonians flee, I did have some good times with the boys, and the band was cooking. Here's some shots I managed to take between shivering & coughing.

Eric/Gerry

There's something special about artists who say so much with so little. For me these people are the home base, the foundation, the place we all run to when we need to be reminded what it's all about.

I remember being a kid sitting with my ear up to the speaker of our record player listening to Eric Clapton playing in Cream, pushing hard against the speaker listening for the last notes of a fade out. It's a pure sound; one guitar, one amp and buckets of emotion. There's been a myriad of technically better guitarists over the last century but it's the ability to simply and beautifully convey an emotion that to me makes a great artist.

On a parallel to Clapton is legendary '70's surfer Gerry Lopez. Gerry lived and surfed at Pipeline on the North Shore of Hawaii. Mastering the wave like no other before or since. Gerry made extremely difficult and life threatening situations look simple and beautiful. So much so that the term "walk in the park" was used to describe the way Gerry surfed the Pipeline. Just like Clapton, Lopez captured and transfixed people with his style, simplicity and emotion.

To me this is what it's all about.

Youth/Cougars

It was sometime ago now but I still remember it clearly. I had been spending a bit of time going back and forth between NYC and Sydney, on this particular trip I happened upon Lenny Kravitz playing a week long residency at the hallowed Fillmore East.

Seeing as I was in NYC courtesy of the Tax Office (I'm a muso, it was research), I thought it my duty to go to the gig. So off I went to the Fillmore East down in Irving Plaza, and made my way up to the mezzanine level to wait for Lenny to do his thing. I was milling around by myself taking some shots when I noticed that the majority of the audience were women who probably had hit their prime in the 90's.

 Upon reflection I realised that Lenny also hit his prime in the 90's so this probably makes sense. This proliferation of women of a certain age didn't bother me, but rather intrigued me, so I found myself catching little pieces of their conversations. It was at some stage during these observations that I heard the tail end of a conversation, it went like this, "Yes, there is a lot to be said for young sperm".......  I think it stands as  an enduring statement about New York "women of a certain age".

City/Country

I'm a lover of the city, although as Howlin Wolf famously sang, "I'm built for comfort, I ain't built for speed". This places some strain on my lifestyle, I love to stay out all night playing and listening to music and hanging with friends, but when the sun comes up, all I want to do is go surfing. Inevitably one of these has to suffer, either I stay out all night, sleep the next day and miss the ocean at it's best, or I get to bed early, miss the nightlife but experience the joys of the sea.

This got me thinking what the ideal scenario would be, I came up with a few options I would like to pursue this year:

option a) Move to the inner city, pretend the ocean is not locatable.

          b) Move to the country, surf non stop. Tell me myself the city holds no appeal

          c) Make some more money, have a city house & a beach house

          d) Forget it all

I'm thinking of combining all 4 in some sort of goulash of lifestyles and locations.

Young at Heart

Young: not the act of being a certain age, but Young the place. If you want cherries you go to Young, it's a fair drive, about 8 hours from Sydney in fact. If you want just about anything else, don't go to Young. But here I was, in Young, and I don't even really like cherries.

In their infinite wisdom one of the band agencies I was working for decided that Young needed to be entertained by a very average covers band I was playing with at the time. So we packed the commodore & hit the road, arriving the Saturday afternoon of the gig ready to show Young what real music from the big smoke sounds like. After loading in from the ute filled carpark, we kicked in to our first set of covers, needless to say, our version of the Kylie & Robbie Williams hit, "Doin it for the Kids" didn't go down too well with the boot scootin' crew.

At some stage thoughout the night boredom struck, if my memory serves me correctly it was midway through "Mustang Sally". I thought that a sure cure for this boredom would be to run out on the dance floor and take my next solo with the guitar slung behind my head..So off I went, out on the dance floor, slung my guitar behind my head and shredded out a rockin solo..

While I was soloing I couldn't help but notice the lead vocalist looking at me with a cross between worry and laughter, this puzzled me a little, but I figured that my amazing solo just had her entranced. It wasn't until I brought my guitar back to it's normal position that I noticed a lady rubbing her very sore forehead.

It seems that as I lifted my guitar up to play behind my head, I had failed to notice a fairly drunk woman attempting to dance next to me. As I lifted my guitar up above my head I whacked her "smack!" straight in the noggin with the headstock of my guitar. Throughout my whole solo the band were in fits of laughter watching this woman stagger around wondering what had hit her in the head. I'm not sure how I didn't see her, although looking back now I remember that she was fairly short, with short hair and a holden racing team shirt on; for the town of Young this constitutes camouflage. Needless to say I beat a hasty retreat back to the safety of the stage and hid behind the drummer for the remainder of the night...

Take 'em off

So many stories from one little cupboard:

There I was, a resident in one of the many small spaces I've worked in. This particular one happened to be frequented by a small child of about 10 years old. One week as I was teaching him, I noticed a reddening of the face and a narrowing of the eyes.

I thought, "maybe he's a bit shy or a bit hot" so I offered some comforting words and continued with the lesson. As I continued with the lesson the redness turned into a full red balloon, looking a bit like Augustus Gloop did when he got sucked up the big pump in Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. This was followed by a shaking leg, neck, and popped out eyes. By this stage I thought the worst, epilepsy or some sort of bad reaction to the G major scale. Before I could grasp what was going on he muttered the strangled words, "can't...hold....on....any....more!" and then it was all over, wet carpet, wet guitars, wet kid, wet, wet, wet.

I grabbed him by the shoulders and carried him dripping to the foyer where his dad was waiting. Being a thrifty sort of fellow his dad simply took off his sons pants, then took off his own pants, and put them on his son. He was a tall man, so the fit left much to be desired. I was puzzled by this, but continued teaching as if nothing had happened. As the lesson concluded I returned the son to his dad, thinking that of course the dad would have gone to the car for some new trousers, especially as the foyer was in a shopping centre. I was wrong, the dad had simply waited in the foyer, in a shirt and his undies. I returned the child as if that was normal, and continued on with my day......

Fully Nelson

I spent some time in Indonesia a while ago, surfing & hanging out. A good time was had by all. Although strange thing occurred while I was a little way through my indonesian adventure; I became someone else.

Lord Nelson. I must say he is a fine looking person to turn into if you are going to turn into someone else, lot's of hair and a really nice suit. This metamorphosis occurred upon introduction to some Indonesians, it went something like this, "Hello, mister my name is Wyan I will drive your car", "Hi I'm Nathan, I don't need a car." "Oh Mister Neslon! Yes you need car, and a massage." From that moment on the transformation had begun, I was no longer Nathan from Sydney, But "Mister Nelson".