The basic body of the work is five tracks recorded for a short film my brother wrote and directed in 1995. I think it was one of the first soundtracks I was really ever involved in. I read somewhere the great Memphis producer Jim Dickinson saying that putting music to pictures is one of the ultimate creative undertakings and I guess he is pretty much correct in this. It certainly is where a lot of my energies have been concentrated the past few years.

This whole collection of tunes is a bit of a creative snapshot for me – of the people I was involved with and the way I was making music at a certain period (around 1995 – just as the Weddings were starting to think about finishing up). And listening to it I can still hear (and see) the first basic recording set-up that I actually bought to record the first Waifs album in Jen Anderson’s basement in Fitzroy. I actually had to take out a small loan and while I wasn’t too happy about the debt if it meant we were up and running then that was enough I suppose. It pretty much ended up being the rig with which we recorded Donkey Serenade for the Weddings so in a sense it was happily ironic in that it was that album that basically managed to get WPA out of debt.

But it’s all here – some songs I wrote and finished with Sherry Rich, a duet I recorded with Nick Barker, a cover of a tune I learnt from the recordings of Tex Moreton. A lot of it recorded in Jenando’s long gone basement and some of it done in the studio at my current address where the new behemoth of a recording rig blinks at me beguilingly (it’s all done with computers these days!). And where all this collection was brought together and mastered hopefully into some sort of coherent offering. So any tick of the clock now it will all be up and out there in the market place once again to begin it’s second life. Left Luggage indeed.

In terms of the recording after the giant task that Spin! Spin! Spin! turned out to be it was a very enjoyable concept to go into Audrey (Craig Pilkington’s studio) and just do one track from start to finish. We did a full number on the song with Squeezebox Wally and Anna Burley both contributing heavily to the track which seems to have taken on a bizarre Mariachi/ Euro-romantic / James Bond-esque kind of feel. It was a lot of fun and I actually shot some video footage so hopefully I can get my head around the editing and get a little clip up in the next couple of months.

Speaking of ‘getting my head around things’ it certainly has been a time of grappling with new technology, that’s for sure as I daily try and come to terms with the digital behemoth (protools) that has taken residence in my studio and  begin to wade through the mountain of prospective material for the Monthly Music Club. But I’m not complaining as there has been a great response so far which is really really nice for us as it has been a lot of work to get it all up and running. But up and running it certainly is and so tell your friends to sign up as I reckon we can sustain a really high quality output of material for the rest of the year.

While we are on the Music Club next month will feature music by Jen Anderson and myself from a short film  we did about 15 years back called Left Luggage. There is some really nice stuff on there, in particular a ballad I wrote with Sherry Rich called Slipping DOwn which she sings a treat. We are just chasing some graphics and footage from the actual film so as to give everyone a decent idea what it was all about. Time to get  to work.

One last thing, commiserations got to family, friends and former bandmates of Alistair Hulett who died last week in a Glasgow Hospital. Alistair was the singer in Roaring Jack a band who were contemporaries of WPA’s in the Sydney music scene of the late 80′s and early nineties. He has since played steadily around Europe and has managed to keep on working, finding an audience for his writing and performing. I last spoke to him at the National Folk Festival about four years ago and he was as boyant and doggedly optimistic as ever. I’m sure the tributes will flow – along with the tears and whiskey – in the coming weeks.

Mick Thomas, Northcote, Feb, 2010

We were playing the Capitol Theatre and the way they ran the show  was after a short set from a couple of up and coming local kids Felicity and her band took the stage for half a dozen tunes before inviting me up to play mandola on a song I wrote with Felicity and Chuck Jenkins called Ernie’s Daughter. (Which Felicity promptly began in the wrong key forcing my stomach into the involuntary convulsion you have when you think you have totally stuffed up in front of 350 people). Then she and her band left the stage while I stayed on with Michael Barclay playing a grand total of three tunes. After this the band returned and we dueted on As You Lay Sleeping and before you knew it we had finished the gig.

Afterwards we were pretty tired and so headed back to the accommodation where Michael tucked in early leaving me up to await some of the others at the house who were returning home from the big show of the evening which was Guy Sebastian playing with James Blundell, Wendy Matthews and Gina Jeffreys. It was a controversial bit of programming as this year there has apparently been rumblings amongst the older country music fraternity that the festival should be returning to it’s country music roots. The trouble is, it’s an ad hoc programme where the pubs, peformers and venues all take care of their own shows and promotion and everything is ticketed separately. So basically people are likely to put on whatever they reckon will get people through the door. Anyway – it was good to reacquaint  myself with a few people from last year’s festival and get some of the good gossip before heading down to the automotive suite for some well earned slumber.

Next day we started with a couple of radio interviews which were surprisingly good – once we had established that yes, Father’s Day was our 90′s hit, but no, Hunters and Collectors wasn’t the name of our band. The second interview we ended up joining James Blundell for a version of Moving On which was exciting as the station was in the Centrepoint Mall and so was a bit of a fish bowl with the punters totally involvd in the whole thing. After that we had to go straight to the Family Hotel for an APRA songwriting session which was basically hosted by James with myself, Felicity, Dianna Corcoran and Lianna Rose. It was a really well attended show and we all basically played one song each and then answered questions from punters for a couple of hours. It was the second of these APRA sessions I have done and they are really enjoyable and instructive things to be part of. I reckon the performers get as much out of them as the audience. After that with the evening to ourselves we proceeded to crawl our way along Peel St checking out as many bands as we could, thanking our lucky stars we had such nice sedate shows playing to decent attentative  audiences. There’s some people putting in really marathon gruelling performances up there that’s for sure. The highlights of the night were probably the Perch Creek Family Band in the mall and The Pirates of Beer (Sarah Carroll and Chris Wilson) at the Courthouse Hotel. Bullit and Thirsty Kirsty were pretty good as well.

Friday we played an early show opening for James Blundell back at the Capitol which was again really well attended and had the distinction of being the only time I have ever seen an audience member ask for his money back because the main act didn’t go on first! The band were really cooking after a few songs and James played a cracking version of the Don Walker song Silver Bullet before getting me up for Moving On. We all jumped up for Way Out West in the encore before realizing it was 5.30 – the show had gone  nearly four hours!

I had a nice chat with the Tasmanian author Rachel Treasure at the merch table before heading straight from there to the West Diggers Club where we had one final show with Damian Howard and the Ploughboys. It was their only show and they had really done some work advertising it so it was good to see a few punters rolling up. I think Michael and I enjoyed the opportunity to play within a more traditional set structure and basically have the space to get a few more songs in. (We even did The Year She Spent in England in honour of our geographical proximity to the song’s origin). Afterwards Michael went off for some Chinese food while I sat and watched the Ploughboys who were really entertaining and a nice alternative to the barage of country music the last few days had thrown up. Leigh Ivins from the Re-mains was sitting in on the pedal steel which was a nice touch. They were driving through to Victoria after their show and once again Barclay and I thanked our lucky stars that our whole Tamworth experience was so comparatively gentle. After a short session back at the accommodation it was a short sleep then an early start and before we knew it we were back in the (seemingly) peace and quiet of Melbourne.

Next day we woke to the news that Felicity had taken out the Golden Guitar Award for Best Female Artist and we were absolutely overjoyed – and somehow this made the whole expedition seem slightly surreal. Our shows had been apparently well received  but ultimately we hadn’t sold a lot of CDs and you end up wondering just what your potential support is at an event like that. But what I’m getting at is you play some shows, you make some friends up there and all of a sudden it doesn’t seem anywhere near as foreign as it once was. Congratulations to Felicity and you know, I’ll be surprised if we don’t go back a few more times.

Anyway – back home and the Monthly Music Club is pretty much a reality. Jen has spent the whole weekend knocking the graphics into shape and it is looking fantastic. I am incredibly positive it is going to be a great thing. Just as it is with gigs, ultimately all we can do is put together something we are really proud of and hope people feel the same way. SO…..it’s on the website now. Have a look and tell us what you reckon.

Last night I was going through a soundtrack I did for a short film that was shown on SBS about ten years back and I discovered a song I wrote for it that was only played for about twenty seconds over the credits – and there it was in full with Jody Bell singing it beautifully as always and I had clean forgotten about it. (Keep an ear out “A Different Song” from the Albert’s Chook Tractor soundtrack which should comprise a large part of the Music Club offering for April by my reckoning).

Adding to my stress I have even invested in a new protools rig in order to start getting it all into shape and if any of you could speak to the people around me in the recording industry you would know just what a commitment that is on my part. They are even calling me “Digital Guy” down at the local pro music shop as some sort of sick joke. I’ll show them. I just have to learn how to use the damn thing first.

Anyway, it’s time for Digital Guy  to pick out a couple of cowboy shirts, run through a few ballads, restring his guitar and head to Tamworth.