I thought it was time for an update on what’s been happening the past few months. As soon as I got back from Kalgoorlie I started getting ready for a House Concert which is the first one that I have booked through House Concerts Australia.
It was at Arcadia Wines in Kendenup which is only an hour or so away from Denmark. Gaye and John are a lovely couple and they have only had the cellar door open for the past 18 months and they are doing really well. They have award winning wines and I would personally recommend the aged Riesling. Gaye and John are lovers of live music and they are really passionate about having regular live music events which is awesome. All the tickets were sold and we all had a great night. The photo isn’t brilliant but it’s just evidence that I was there lol!
Then a couple of weeks later I took a trip up to the big smoke for a couple of gigs. One in York which is about an hour east of Perth where I played at the Settlers House York, which is a beautiful old heritage building. York is the the first inland town Settled in WA. We had a few drinks at the end of the night and I heard a few good ghost stories which was a bit unnerving.
On Sunday I played at Jackadders Music Club. I had a really warm welcome from Carmel and Ron and we had a lovely afternoon. It was great to hear the audience sing along to my original songs and the whole gig was recorded which was fantastic.
Next was one of my regular gigs at the Earl of Spencer in Albany. Peter Caron joined me on guitar and I love playing with Peter because we have a lot of fun and he adds lots of fancy guitar work to my songs, and the covers, that we do. I usually do an even mix of originals and covers when I do pub gigs which is pretty cruisey and generally good fun. Peter set up the video so we got some great footage of us playing too.
Then last but not least I did another house concert but this time in Manjimup at a beautiful historic building called Dingup House Bed and Breakfast which is managed by Chris and John. Dingup House is one of the first houses built on the original town site of Manjimup until they moved the town a few kms down the road. Chris and John do a fantastic job there and we had a wonderful intimate evening with soup and song. The photo isn’t the best but it just gives you an idea of the set up there. Half the guests stayed the night and the rooms are all beautifully presented with heritage style beds and lovely patchwork bed covers. I would highly recommend a stay there if you’re travelling through that neck of the woods.
WHAT’S NEXT
My son has gone to New York for a school trip so my husband and I have decided to go for a little holiday across to Augusta and Margaret River and I’m going to play at the Goodfellas i cafe in Margaret River while we’re there. I know what you’re thinking….can’t she just have one weekend without playing music…and the answer is most definitely not….lol! It just so happens our friends own Goodfellas and I just love playing there.
Then the following week I’ll be doing a double gig with Peter Caron which means we will be at the Albany Boatshed Markets in the Morning and at The Earl of Spencer in the evening. I’m really looking forward to doing a house concert in Northam in October. I’m also busy planning another Eastern States tour for Jan/Feb or next year which is very time consuming and fun at the same time. I’ve also been busy writing songs for recording next year. That’s it for now folks! Stay warm and dry in this crazy weather if you live on this side of the planet and down this far below the equator.
I’m home and dry now but it wasn’t that way on the East Coast a few weeks ago. I arrived in Sydney on the receiving end of cyclone Debbie that hit the northern NSW coast and there was plenty of rain to make Newcastle, Sydney and beyond very wet and a bit on the chilly side at times. Weather aside it didn’t dampen my spirits and once I arrived at the airport and picked up the hire car I was on my way. I headed straight over to Drummoyne where I stayed with some very good friends for a couple of nights before I headed up to Newcastle with the help of the very lovely lady behind the voice of google maps. We became good friends and she took me everywhere I needed to go as well as a few places that I didn’t need to go too. I started my tour at the Sunset Studio where Gleny Rae was there to greet me for my performance. I had trouble finding the venue because my friend at google maps didn’t know where it was and I guess I could understand her making that mistake when I eventually got there with only 1 hour to spare. The studio was behind a little coffee shop and one person pizza bar in the most unassuming of places, however, it was a lovely room with beautiful wooden floorboards and a grand piano and curtains all round. Gleny is one of the movers and shakers of all things musical in Newcastle and she teaches piano at the studio and holds intimate concerts. A bunch of lovely people showed up and I had a great first gig and I even had a local guitarist come and join me on a song and everyone had a bit of fun singing along too. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to get any photos and the very next morning after leaving my air BnB I headed off down the coast to Shell Harbour where I had organised to stay with Mairi Peterson again for my Illawarra Folk Club gig. Mairi is the wonderful lady that I talked about last time and she’s a delight to stay with and very interesting to chat to so it was really good to catch up with her again and talk about all things political and not so political. I got caught up in a huge rain storm on my way to Shell Harbour and I had to pull over for some time to let it pass with a lot of other cars, it was quite dangerous and I didn’t want to take the risk. Once I got close the Wollongong the sun was shining and I could see the countryside again and I was familiar with the territory.
I had a fantastic night at the Illawarra Folk Club and I got to catch up with some folks that were there last September and a lot of new folks too. I was the support act for a fantastic Canadian folk band called Les Poules a Colin. I actually managed to get a photo just to prove that I was there and once again the audience were awesome! It was lovely to see Russell Hannah again and catch a bit of his wit on stage. The next morning Mairi and I went for coffee in Shell Harbour and Russell and his wife were there with a couple of friends too so we had a chinwag about all of our favourite things political and musical and the like.
Then I headed up the Thirroul to Kathryn White’s home where she very kindly allowed me to stay in her lovely Self Contained cabin in their garden and the next day I got myself organised for a house concert in the main room of the cottage which was lovely. Once again it was a very intimate all acoustic concert with family and a few friends of Kathryn and Andrew. Thirroul is a lovely spot and I would definitely recommend a drive along that coastline there’s so many lovely spots to check out. But I had no time for that because I had to get back to Sydney to get myself organised for the next gig which wasn’t until Wednesday but I just wanted to get back to my friends so that I could have a few days rest. It was lovely to see Scott and Nicole again and have a few laughs and tell them about my travels and about the funny and not so funny things that happened especially when the google lady took me to a steel recycling centre in the middle of an industrial estate 1 hour before my gig. There was another surprise when I got to Sydney and that was that I got to meet my 2nd cousin for the first time since we were kids and I had no idea he had been living in Australia for the past 17 years. So it was lovely to catch up with him and his partner Anne and they both came to my gig at Sappho Books, Cafe & Bar. That was a really lovely spot to play, it’s a beautiful bookshop/bar in Glebe and I had very appreciative audience. Paul is a great photographer and he also has a really good camera that could do video’s so he took some videos of me playing which you can see on his youtube page.
Humph Hall was one of the highlights of the tour. The venue is owned by Wayne and Gial Richmond and it’s an old church that they bought to create a music venue. Wayne had a dream to do it many years before and when the place became available he went ahead and it is now a music venue and their home. The church hall is where the music happens and it’s a fully professional set up where Wayne has stage lights, condenser mics (to record the performance) and video cameras set up throughout the performance. I played a set of songs and a lovely couple by the names of Greg and Lesley played a set and we then did an encore together where we got the whole audience to join in. It was a magic evening and I met a lot of lovely people. I forgot to mention the most important part of it was that I showed up a whole day early and didn’t realise that the concert was on Saturday night and Wayne was totally ok with me staying 2 nights after much laughter about me showing up early. I felt that I did my best performance at Humph Hall and to my surprise I have found that I perform at my best to a fully attentive listening audience which I never expected. I thought I would be more nervous but I find that the pressure makes me concentrate more and I can be really focused and I can really engage with the listeners.
Here’s some of the video’s that Wayne took: Women of War:
Perfect Haze
It was you
Then on Sunday I had to get my act together pretty quick to get to the Petersham Bowling Club for my next gig at 4pm. I was really excited about playing here because I was in the same lineup as Moondog and Monuelle Monuelle who are Eamon Dilworth and Henry Manuel. Moondog is my favourite man of blues and I just love what he does and I was so excited when he said he would come from Canberra to play at the Petersham. Eamon is a lovely young man I met early this year when some friends came to stay and he was in town too. He’s a fantastic trumpet player and he plays for an awesome band by the name of Tijuana Cartel. It was a great night and some friends from Sydney showed up which made it even more special. All in all I had a fantastic time and lots of adventures and I learnt heaps about how I would do it next time. I know I said that there were highlight gigs but they all were very special in their very own way and trying to pick a favourite is like trying to choose your favourite kid…impossible….well not for me because I only have one son but I kinda think I know what it would feel like. On the subject of family it was so lovely to get back home a couple of days later after a flight, air bnb in Perth and then a long coach trip back down to Denmark to be greeted by my husband, Warren and well my son found a bit of time to greet me between games.
It was at Arcadia Wines in Kendenup which is only an hour or so away from Denmark. Gaye and John are a lovely couple and they have only had the cellar door open for the past 18 months and they are doing really well. They have award winning wines and I would personally recommend the aged Riesling. Gaye and John are lovers of live music and they are really passionate about having regular live music events which is awesome. All the tickets were sold and we all had a great night. The photo isn’t brilliant but it’s just evidence that I was there lol!
Then the following week I’ll be doing a double gig with Peter Caron which means we will be at the Albany Boatshed Markets in the Morning and at The Earl of Spencer in the evening. I’m really looking forward to doing a house concert in Northam in October. I’m also busy planning another Eastern States tour for Jan/Feb or next year which is very time consuming and fun at the same time. I’ve also been busy writing songs for recording next year. That’s it for now folks! Stay warm and dry in this crazy weather if you live on this side of the planet and down this far below the equator.
