Drum Circle developments

I finally got word back from the local council regarding facilitating free community drum circles.

The short answer is, they're really not interested.

The long answer is, they can allow me to do it but in light of the girl getting shut down with her lemonade stand, I have discovered that I need two things for a free drum circle.

1. Money - The council wants me to pay them to use the public park I already pay for with my taxes.
2. Public Liability - I need to be insured in case someone drops a drum on their foot and sues me.

This has made trying to get a drum circle up and running a lot more difficult that it really needs to be.

In totally opposite news, I have a good friend who works for Hurstville council and has told me about an up and coming Fair the council is putting on to showcase what they have to offer and allow the community to join together.... hey! A council that encourages community and bringing people together, not discouraging it with insurance and fees, etc.

So I've been asked to provide 10 drums, start playing and encouraging passer by'ers to sit and play some rhythms hopefully to encourage them to take part in getting into the Fair. I'm apparently setting up out the front somewhere.

I'm planning on buying some more djembes and also getting one of those roll out signs made up that you see at conventions and stuff. The ones that you roll open and then stick a pole behind it to stay open. Then take the pole out when you're done to allow the poster to contract back into the roller shutter thingy.

I'll also probably get a small marque. Something big enough for ten people to sit around in a circle. Just to keep the sun off. Though if it's under cover, I won't bother with that expense until I get big enough to bother with that sort of expense.

I've found a place that I'm going to see on Tuesday and try to negotiate with the agent for a couple of months free rent which will allow me to get started without much outlay of funds. I'll have to paint the place and as I get more students I'll start building more rooms.

A fresh coat of paint and some signage is all it needs for now. Stay tuned (pun intended).

I'm riled up

I love sticking it to the man. Any chance I get, there's nothing more fun than sticking it to the man.

But when the man sticks it to a person, and that person is harmless, I get riled up. I get pissed off. I feel like giving the man what the man deserves. A punch in the face.

This article pretty much sums up why I feel this way.

If you can't be bothered reading it, I'll summerise:

A little girl decides to open a lemonade stand. Her mother helps her do it.

While we were young we did this sort of thing, but we did it in front of our house. This girl did it at a Fair.

Inspectors come by, completely by chance and shut her down or she'll get a $500 fine for not having a license to sell food products.

Now, I can see the issue here. What if someone chokes on a pip from the lemon, or someone cuts themselves or falls in front of the lemonade stand, or lightening strikes the stand, with the shock running through the dispenser, into the cup and out to the customer. I can see how this could be an issue.

However, things are very different. There's no glass, there's no pips, there is no lightening. Just a cute little girl trying to be an entrepreneur. Then getting shut down by the man.

Why couldn't they have just turned the blind eye, seen a kid trying to do something positive, and go and shut down the local pizza joint who probably clears all the roaches from the cardboard boxes every evening before opening up the restaurant?

Because they're arseholes.

Point Plomer Photos

As promised, here are photos from Point Plomer.

Kookaburra resting on a tree trunk.

Lorikeet enjoying nectar from the bottle brush tree.

Me, rising out of a pile of turds.

Me, performing on guitar with my Cajon sitting in the background where a drum kit was set up moments before hand.

One of the hidden caves on our walk along the beach.

Alone, midday on the beach.

The tide going out.

Storm coming in from the West.

Nothing like seeing your foot prints on the beach and no one else's first thing in the morning.

I hope you enjoy all the photos from Point Plomer. I'll have more later in the year when I head back in November.

What do you want?

I'm not sure what will be written over the next few paragraphs, so bare with me.

There are things in life one likes and there are things in life one dislikes. It's often seen that in actual fact, we do things and have things we like, and perhaps there are some things in our life that we dislike. That sounds like I am repeating myself, but think about it.

Really think about it. You have stuff, do things, have friends, possessions, work, etc that we may enjoy, but there's always a part of it you don't. With more than enough self-help books out there, with people looking for the ultimate answer on how to put their life back on the straight, why is it that our lives are more complicated than ever?

There always seems to be a fix for something. Is it because there's always a problem?

Why is there always a problem? After all, we are in charge of our own lives. So why do we put ourselves into a position where we do things we dislike? We get into awkward situations that we don't want or like. But how does this happen when we are in control?

Is is society? Is it peer pressure? Is it just that things come and go unnoticed?

How do you find the situation you're in? Are you happy or content?

Point Plomer

I've briefly mentioned a place I go camping every now and then to get away from it all. This is not the usual camping trip I take every year to Sofala.

Point Plomer is a place I discovered through a friend over 15 years ago. Sadly, my friend died in a terrible car accident that is a story on its own. Point Plomer is a secret 60's surf spot. Today it's still a bit of a secret. Mainly because the road into the place is shit at best.

I put my little girly sized car through a lot to get there, and return. But she's a good car, and makes it there and back with never a complaint.

This time around was a bit different. I didn't exactly camp at Plomer. I stayed there in a house about 100 metres from where I usually camp. Funny part is, I've never seen that side of Point Plomer in the 15 years I've been going there.

Because of that, I had issues finding the place when I got there on Sunday night. Doing about 20 minutes of driving up to the point where the road had a sign that says "4WD Only".

Turning back around, I found some small houses lined up and then I found the bigger place thanks to my wife jumping out and asking for "The Plomer House"

Arriving there, we unpacked and made friends with some people we didn't know and caught up with friends with did know.

Since most of us are musicians, we had all brought our gear. The friend who organised the whole thing brought in a PA, so we had mics and proper sound. Then this guy rocked up, known in the local area as "Happy Days". A large hippy who lives 30 minutes away in a community share property, however the vague details suggest everyone there lives for themselves rather than communally. Not sure. But what I am sure of is Happy Days is a brilliant musician.

He turned up, set up his drum kit, and while people were a bit "strummed" out with their guitar playing and singing, Happy Days brought in a new breath of life and while he set up his drum kit, I played my bass, providing some tasty low end. He turned his skins and we were off, a bit of drum and bass to get the others warmed up and back into the rhythm of things.

We jammed together for a good 30 minutes before giving up because no one showed up. They were too busy eating, drinking and smoking.

Happy Days played the drums really well. Some of the rhythms he brought out were really technical, but not over done. They were simple, yet intricate.

Later than night he played my bass while I played along to the guys who finally got up to jam. I had jumped on my cajon, which I took up on the trip with my acoustic guitar and bass.

Man, Happy Days played bass really good too.

Later than night Happy Days had a few drinks and got on the guitar, played, started singing and everyone stopped what they were doing to have a listen to him. He was great. What a talented musician.

I won't lie. I was jealous. But my wife told me I was like him too. I just needed to stand in the lime light some more, instead of always trying to take a back seat. She's right. So, I've made myself a promise that I'm going to perform more of my stuff and get it out there rather than kick back and just play along.

The following day was sunny, so my wife and I went on a nice walk on the beach, though there were some areas that we couldn't walk around on the beach because the rocks reached out to the water, and the tide was coming in fast. So we said we'd try again the next day, but leave much earlier. The other side of the beach had some caves and stuff, so we headed back and ate lunch, enjoyed the rest of the day in the sun and played some more music.

Unfortunately Happy Days had to leave. I would have loved to have had more time to jam with him and also talk about the lifestyle he lives, off the land and off the grid.

The following day was much the same. Breakfast, music, walk on the beach, lunch, music. We watched some DVD's of concerts of famous musicians. Eat dinner and then had some nice cake that one of the visitors also staying at the house brought with them, running their own cake distribution business. This was perfect, as it was my wife's birthday. And while the trip away was mostly about getting away and forcing my wife to get away from her job for a short period of time, it was after all a good birthday present. Well, I thought so. The trip was all about relaxing and taking time to clear the mind, regather and head back into town a week later, ready to clear up some mess.

I think the trip worked out great in that regard.

I saw a side of Point Plomer I had never seen. I met some interesting people I'd like to see again. I gave my wife a good present. I had a break and caught up with friends I hadn't seen in a while.

I'll post photos over the next few days.

Gig last night with Craig

I haven't kept too many people in the loop on my cajon playing. There's a tonne of stuff about them on my website. And I have been playing a lot of gigs lately with the cajon. But last night was something else.

Craig, the legend from St.George Shire (hahahah), has a bucket load of good old fashioned Australian folk songs he recorded just as good old vinyl was being phased out, and CD's were the latest fashion. Sadly, he spent $4,000 on the record when it would have cost $40,000 to produce the same thing on CD back then.

When he got all the copies to distribute, people were buying CD players and throwing out their old record players on the street.

He later put his songs on CD, but the spark had fizzled, and people were listening to other stuff by then.

If you were to ask me "What's Craig's music about?" It's Australian folk. Good, honest songs about Australia's past and present.

I'm not in this video, but here's a sample of Craig's stuff.



Last night we played a couple of songs at Allawah Pub, which holds an open mic night courtesy of a good friend of mine in a neighbouring music school, Village Guitar. Which you might remember I spoke about when looking for a new career about 8 month or so ago.

Well, Craig and I were up there and we played two songs. We played them well. We played them so well than we won People's Choice award. And we were called up for not just one encore, but we did two more songs, finished up, and we were encored again.

People couldn't get enough of us. I wish someone got a recording of the night, but no one did.

What they did do however was sing along to the songs during the encores. There are two things a performer loves to hear the most. Applause and the crowd singing along. Amazing stuff.

Ah well. The night was enjoyable, and that's an understatement. Everyone was pumped up.

I love it when a gig goes that well.

Drum Circle

I was asked to facilitate a drum circle on Saturday. I was excited about it, being my first one on my own, as Revolution Guitars.

I had the help of Aurora Percussion who provided me with a great deal of the percussion instruments that I tried my best to provide, but ran out of money and time to get everything.

Fortunately one of the music shops I went to gave me a significant discount on some drums and hand percussion once I spoke to him about what I needed.... lots of drums, cheap as possible.

I got talking to the guy and found out he wanted more cajones, which is the plywood box drums I mainly play that originate from Peru.

He said he's been looking for an Australian supplier. So I told him I'm the guy, here's my card. I'll call him next week for a catch up now that I've spoken to my cajon supplier who is bumping up their system to have more in stock.

I went to see them yesterday and we worked out some issues of stock control, handling, shipping, etc. Also more on drum circles too because I had a muslim woman ask me about facilitating a drum circle, to which I said yes to. However, since being a man might be an issue surrounded by scarfed women, I suggested my cajon supplier might like to do that one. Don't you love how after so much progress, there is still segregation amongst human beings? Regardless of background, belief and culture.

Anyway, back to my drum circle I did on Saturday. It was great.

I started off introducing myself, then I asked everyone if they had ever been in a drum circle before. No one had. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing, a bad thing, or just not a thing at all. I decided to take the latter. It didn't worry me.

So I started to play a rhythm on my cowbell and asked everyone to join me when they were ready. They did, but there was no rhythm. I completely expected this, so I continued, un-phased.

5 minutes into it, 55 minutes to go.... Someone picked up on the rhythm I was playing, and then it spread like wild fire. Everyone got into the groove and off we went.

We played around with various drum circle games and before I knew it, my 60 minutes were up.

I thanked everyone for participating and hoped they all enjoyed themselves. Everyone appeared to love it. I called it a success, packed up my stuff and let the rest of the day continue.

My first official drum circle, on my own and 22 people in a circle around me. This is on the larger side for a single person to facilitate.

Looking back at it, I remembered a bit half way through when the beat started to fizzle out, but I stuck to my rhythm, strong and steady and let it all come back. It recovered well and carried on until my time was up.

A fantastic event, a good turnout, the feedback was positive and I enjoyed myself. Made a few dollars on the side which pretty much covers my time and setting up of the whole thing. There will me more, much much more.