Fauré's Requiem

Enjoyed an astonishing afternoon with the Adelaide Chamber Singers and Melbourne's Polyphonic Voices performing Faure's Requiem in St Peter's Cathedral, Adelaide, building a cathedral of sound inside the cathedral of stone.

Adelaide Chamber Singers is one of Australia’s leading chamber choirs and South Australia’s only fully professional choral ensemble. It is internationally renowned for its presentation of choral chamber music in all its variety, from ancient and contemporary, sacred and secular choral music to the highest international standards while making it accessible to today’s audiences, performing Messiah in both orchestral and chamber configurations, to being the choir of choice to back the Rolling Stones and other popular artists such as the Hilltop Hoods.

It was my privilege recently to assist this supremely talented group with writing and editing for its successful application for grant funding from ArtsSA for next year’s subscription series of concerts.

Hockey Masters' Gig

The Panorama Room at the Convention Centre is a great venue where our band Wound Up entertained the pre-dinner crowd at the Hockey Masters Annual Dinner this evening. 

Martin, our sax player, is also a Hockey Master and wowed his sporting teammates with his prowess in the musical arena. 

Thanks to Nenad who filled in admirably on bass with minimum rehearsal, and to sound engineer Rocky on the desk for a great mix. The professionalism of the Centre staff was outstanding and helped us give our best.

I'd get the moon for you if I could.

It was one of those days where the moon is bright in the late afternoon sky.

I say to my two-year old grandson, "Look, there is the moon, up there in the sky."

He looks, then says to me, "Get it, Arrow."

I reach up as high as I can, making stretchy noises and grasping motions, then I say, "I'm sorry, I can't get the moon for you; it's too high, too far away".

A few minutes later we are playing an interesting game of putting shiny black stones one-by-one onto a table and taking them off again, then putting the most important ones into a flowerpot.

Suddenly he wanders off and I next see him standing in the middle of the garden, like some ancient druid worshipper, face upturned and both arms reaching towards the silver disk, calling out, "Come down, moon!"

Crossing the Road

It took me eight years to cross the road, from playing in the beergarden of the Blumberg Hotel in Birdwood in 2008, to the stage of the 2016 Rock and Roll Rendezvous 200 metres away in the National Motor Museum opposite.

It's been an interesting journey.

The Show Must Go On.

Ten seconds into the sound check, blood started splashing over the keyboard.

The night before our biggest gig of the year, I got a nasty, deep cut on the tip of my left index finger – the one that 14 hours later I was due to bang on a keyboard about a thousand times and then push and slide on a thin, taut guitar string, playing in the first band at the Rock and Roll Rendezvous. And you can’t play guitar or keyboard wearing a band-aid!

Panic, then a rush visit to the late-night chemist.

Next morning, the “spray-on” bandage lasted less than four bars into the sound check. That’s when I started spraying blood all over the fretboard and keys. Thank goodness I was wearing a bright red vest.

Superglue to the rescue - the guitar player’s saviour! A couple of coats of superglue over the finger tip and we were away.

Ah, show business…

Corpse Flower

At the Bicentennial Conservatory, seeing the Giant Lily, Titan Arum, the "Corpse Flower" for its rare one day in every ten years blooming. 

The Conservatory is open 'til midnight so as many people as possible can get to see this unusual event. 

Great relaxed atmosphere among the friendly crowd, in spite of, or maybe because of the flower's smell of rotting meat.

Oz Day 2016

Celebrated Australia Day early by playing with acoustic group Unwound when they opened the show at Adelaide's Coast FM 88.7 Australia Day Family Picnic in the Park at the Glandore Community Centre.

We performed a selection of Australian-themed songs leading into the City of Marion's Citizenship ceremony.

Welcome to our new citizens and thanks to the Weekend Warriors Music Club and Coast FM for the opportunity to perform and for their support and to Stephen Rees Photography for the photos of the gig.

Arrow and Jedda

My grandson calls me Arrow. He can't yet make a "gr" sound, and his early attempts to say “Grandad” sounded like “Ah-woah”.

His other Grandad Karel (Karl) is Czech. The Czech word for Grandad is Děda, which to an English-speaker sounds like Jedda.

So our grandson calls his two grandfathers Arrow and Jedda, which makes us sound like a couple of retired superheroes.

I quite like it