TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Monday, December 20, 2004

10:49 PM
Posted by jodi rose

warning shameless name dropping alert. but it's in context, I promise. and they're very obscure names really, not like the time I met Kylie at Matthys Gerber's art opening in the sarah cottier gallery and she was so glamorous and tiny with amazingly buffed smooth calves, stood and greeted a line of trying-to-be-cool starstruck scruffy art students and was incredibly gracious, chatting to everyone, told me to keep at it, you know it took me years to get where I am.... to which I replied, I know, you used to be called the singing budgie. oooops, talk about a conversation stopper. didn't meant it to be offensive, but she just glided right on by to the next waiting artscruff.
so tonight I dragged myself unwillingly out of the house, to go see some live improvised music. It's been a strange weekend, had a delayed reaction to yet another romantic disappointment (just give me a moment of cynicism and bitterness about arty boys with long eyelashes and no intentions... it will pass) and felt flattened and unable to face being out in the world for days, then cranky that I'd missed all these fun outings to picnics and drinks and the beach. although that last was in company with 5 rambunctious kids, so maybe it's not all bad - although I'd like to see colin and archie doing something other than hanging out on our verandah asking for money, a feed or a lift. but they're ok, street smart and very entertaining, doing backflips off the rocks at bronte, apparently. so where was I, that's right out of the house. at last.
It's a strange disjointed life I'm living right now, all this energy and time going into the friendships and projects I'm involved with on the other side of the world, and not really having a sense of connection with the people in my life who are actually physically here, and in the day to day world. so I'm trying to work out that balance, reconcile the desire to be somewhere else doing these major events and kooky art things, and then the reality of being here with lovely people around me, lots of interesting music and things happening in my local community, trying to give them attention and energy. it's slowly evolving into some kind of equilibrium, between the kids banging on the door every day, and lisa taking me with her on adventures and always being there when I invite her to do stuff, like listen to the archipelago program with me, and then hours of production meetings with sophea in helsinki, working on the wiki, finalising remixes for the CD, planning launch parties around the world.... it's never been this intense for me before.

www.thenownow.net say if you like improvised music, we like you. and I do and they do. program launch for their festival next year, @newtown (refurbished rsl, very new orleans flocked wall paper, comfy lounges) with some great performances. tim o'dwyer did an incredible sax solo that sounded like wild animals - insane breathing technique just blowing across the reed, and the clicking on the keys making an incredible range of sounds, it was gorgeous. heard lions growling, insects buzzing, waterfalls - a trip in the jungle. Followed by Anthony Guerra on tabletoop guitar & Monica Brooks playing accordion and laptop, who created an oceanic sound immersion that built textures and layers until there was a tsunami of noise crashing around our ears, then sudden cut. very francisco lopez, but beautiful and totally rearranging the cellular structure of your brain. which is always a good thing, especially when no side effects. final solo by chris abrahams on piano, always a treat, making sounds that you could imagine coming from all kinds of instruments, percussion, crazy whirlygigs - I don't know, words fail me. It was truly lovely and everyone needs to go and check out the festival from january 19 - 22. support live experimental music. it's fun and sexy and cool!

But I was there alone, feeling kind of sad for about the first half hour, until I started chatting to karl next to me, then steven adams from classic fm arrived and hung out with us, after the gig I went up to the bar and introduced myself to tim, and then met clayton and chris, and lisa styles (?) came up and said hi, she'd heard the bridges on the radio all last week and we haven't seen each other in years, she's working in alice springs... so it was all good and just shows that if you leave the house on a monday night then different adventures may befall you.

tomorrow I'm meeting the lovely Kate, who will be playing with us in Helsinki and then making the final final final decisions on the remix CD before taking it in to be mastered. if you need a cd produced, I'm onto it.
decided to call my label 'sonic artstar' and have a few other works planned for release, julaine's seismic remix project, maybe some of mukul's stuff, there's plenty of sound artstars out there who need CDs!