to be back...

Having just spent the past 6 months going to concerts and music fests in oz, it was quite fascinating to see the crowd at prospect parks bandshell on tuesday night. tvor and gang gang were playing the park, and it was packed the hell out. all the things about brooklyn that i used to hate on came rushing back as quickly as it had left. dont get me wrong, i love brooklyn. i really do. i fucking live there, i better love it. i just hate a lot of the people living there. before the show, i met an old friend at a dive in park slope where its $4 for a huge foam cup of bud. we had a couple of beers, and then took teh cup for the road (all of course, gratis from two lovely old men at the bar). entering the bandshell, you couldnt escape the plaid shirts if you tried. onesies and head scarfs and gladiator sandles were in full swing, lighting up american spirits and swigging beam from a flask. ironically, i was a part of this whole bothersome scene. when did i turn into an indie loving-urban-hippie? the truth is, i have been for some years now, i dare to say even before it was a thing. moving on, the thing that was more notable and a heavy distinction between new yorkers and aussies, was that nobody was dancing! i know tvor isnt exactly the presets, but shit, you gotta move! the audience was stagnant, and security told me to watch my friend before she got kicked out. watch her? okay! she'd just come back from a month in london where she was in a modern-interpretive dance thing, and she was really...interpreting! we might have been the only people really getting into it, and so everyone assumed we were drunk or on drugs. we weren't. buzzkill nonetheless. what is everyone so worried about!? the second big difference was actually kind of awesome. people weren't snapping pictures every two seconds. in oz i learned to pose without actually posing. aussies fucking love their cameras man, and at concerts flashbulbs abound and everyones all smiles. it's like they want to show people on facebook that they were somewhere, instead of just being there. i felt sheepish and entirely uncool as i snapped a ouple picks of Kyp and Tunde. ah well. i feel like to stumbled into summer here and had forgotten how much fun nyc is in august...

You know its a good party when...

...The entire floor is covered with cardboard boxes to avoid a massive cleanup the following day
...The evening starts out with a noisy game of flip cup, seamlessly moving on to beer pong
...No one really wants to hang out in the "break room"
...Your neighbors call the cops multiple times with noise complaints
...The cops come by and tell you about aforementioned noise complaints, but see that it's such a raging party that they decide to let us enjoy
...No one wants to take a walk to the store to get ciggi's cause they're afraid of missing any action
...Every last bit of jungle juice and jello shots are consumed
...You see people trip up and fall down the stairs several times
...You almost sit in vomit. Almost.
...You hear the phrase "Ah, why not?" mentioned many times throughout the night
...There are sparklers involved
...At least one fight breaks out
...At least one girl has a drunken crying spell
...By the end of the night, most are too wasted to make it out to the bar and end up crashing
...Random people start pairing off
...At least one of those people accidentally gets peed on in their sleep
...In the morning, it looks like a tooheys tornado hit the place, and there are empties EVERYWHERE.

And lastly, and definitely most importantly - You know it's a good party when...

...You wake up from a drunken slumber only to find a pile of human - I'll say it again, HUMAN shit on the floor of your bedroom. 5 or 6 feet away from the bathroom, mind you. So, presumably, a person thought to themselves, "hmmm, this looks like a perfect place to pull down my pants and take a dump. Right next to someone's bed, awesome! Game on!"
Thank you for that, whoever you are. I will always remember the morning I awoke to a load of feces on my bedroom floor. You forever hold a place in shank book.

I know, I know

It's been ages. Ages! I've settled down in a small suburb just outside of Sydney and have been feeling, well, settled. Crows Nest is a neighborhood mostly suited for young families and professionals, and though there is a nice little strip of restaurants and shops, there's not really very much to do here. Things close early, and even without any sort of 9-5 job holding me down during the days, I've found myself hitting the sack early, as if I need to be awake for an early morning meeting. I've picked up a job at a local cafe, and between that and going to shows and hanging with friends, I've been spending much of my spare time reading, watching movies, or going to the pool. I suppose it all sounds very lax and not so exciting, and for the most part I guess you'd be right. While I've realized I'm the type of person to bore easily when I don't have enough going on, I've recently come to realize that this shit is never going to be perfect. When I'm busy, I'm fucking crying about not having enough me time, but Lord, too much me time can get exhausting - no offense to myself. The grass will always be greener. It's a common dilemma, I know, and I've been thinking a lot about how to get past it. How to keep my mind and body active and hard at work, and actually enjoy it all the while. Is it possible? Can it be? On rare occasions, I come across a person who has been able to find passion, whether it be through work or art or love or music - and who are simply grateful for possessing it in the first place. I suppose that it is asking a lot. To want a life full of friends and fun, of artistic and intellectual accomplishments, and of course the time to simply sit back and enjoy it all. The search may last a long while, but in the meantime I'll do my best to appreciate the fact that I'm able to ponder such real, intense, life-altering questions while some are stuck sitting in front of a blue screen all day long.....

PHILADELPHIA GRAND JURY

Philadelhpia Grand Jury is a band that kicks ass. I saw them play at the Annandale Hotel in Sydney the other night and they had the crowd of young, mostly uni kids, going absolutely nuts. These guys are the real deal, I assure you. Their music is as heavy as it is accessible and it should only be a short time before chuck taylored-rum and coke drinkers from all over the world are turning up the PGJ EP and blowing out their basement speakers. Get on the wagon now while they're still without management, playing shit venues, pulling the crowd on stage, and toppling over grand pianos.

Notes On Bali

I just got back from Bali yesterday, and can I say - WOW - I had no idea what I was in for. I'm always a bit wary of traveling to 3rd world countries for a holiday. I always seem to find myself stuck somewhere between the slums and paradise, between guilt and pleasure. I feel I am tearing through the community of this poor, starving country, exploiting their resources for the benefit of my luxurious hotel stay. Not so in Bali. While tourism is certainly an industry that's a necessary evil to most muslims - we all remember the bombings a few years back - I never felt as though I was pillaging the balinese people of the things they value by being there. I never felt unsafe or afraid. Most are very good at English, and I was lucky enough to hear their thoughts on foreign tourism, and what they truly thought of us encroaching on their culture. Our cab driver, Made, (who, by the way, drove us down to Dreamland, waited about 6 hours, then took us to Jimbaran for dinner, waited another 3 hours, and drove us home for 20 bucks total) said that most of the Balinese people really appreciate the tourism, and the only time it falls short is when (mostly Japanese) vacationers don't really take the time to visit local businesses, hire local taxis, or eat at local restaurants. When they buy these package deals that bring them on busses to resorts, and back to the airports, they never actually get a chance to meet locals, or to give back to the community in any way. The place I was truly struck by the beauty of not only the land, but of the Indonesian culture was in the Gili Islands. No cars, no cops, no rules, and ironically enough, no crime. Chatting with Boi, a local guy from Lombak, who dreamed of one day visiting Australia, I realized how incredibly difficult - rather, nearly impossible - it must be for people to get out. Even still, he seemed completely content, smiling and laughing and playing us Bob Marly off his cell phone. Looking out onto the clear blue waters, fisherman searching for their daily catch, hearing the guitars and the clapping, the songs in the distance, it was nice to know that this world existed for some. This world where people are simply happy to have one another. Their friends, their families. And for me, in that moment, even if for only a short while, I felt lucky to be a part of it.

Bye Bye Byron - Can't say I'm sad to leave!

I love music, I love festivals, and I love camping. But after a week of this shit, in the pissing down rain no less, I'm pretty much over it. Bluesfest has been a really cool experience, and I saw some truly amazing acts, and I'm definitely happy I came. That being said, camping in the rain, in a little tent, with nowhere to go, well it kinda sucks. It was actually even hard to enjoy the music yesterday, sopping wet, malnourished, and just out of it in general. We waded through the mud to see Xavier Rudd, Missy Higgins, Jason Mraz, and left before Ben Harper took the stage. I'd seen him play on Saturday, so I knew I wasn't missing too much. But wow, it's been a truly memorable time, one that I'm sure I'll look back on and laugh about. Hitching rides with the sanitation guys back to our little delapitaded tent, making friends backstage, bumming pretty much EVERYTHING off our neighbors (who I'm pretty sure wanted to shank us after the 3rd day) and not having clean feet for a week, well, it's been fun. I haven't looked forward to a hot shower and warm bed like this for a while now, and I would seriously give my left nut to lay around with a cup of tea, watching a movie and not having to move for a day or two. I know I'm acting like I just trudged through Vietnam, ducking bullets and dodging grenades, but hey, we're new at this! Okay, time to go meet our ride to Sydney, who from the sounds of it seems like a complete toolbox, but once again, can't be choosy when it's a free ride :)

Byron, Bluesfest, Rain, and mo....

So, here we are at Bluesfest in amazingly cool Byron Bay. This place is kinda my mecca - on the beach, cafes everywhere, people on every corner playing (or attempting to play) music, kids with shaggy hair, and long dresses, dreadlocks and bare feet covering the streets. It's been an interesting trip thus far, with rain pissing down, trying to saddle up next to jess on our twin blow up mattress that manages to deflate itself every night. Jess, not so surprisingly, has come down with whooping cough. Who, in 2009, gets fucking whooping cough. I told her she might as well find a leather strap to bite down on while we perform surgery with a butter knife out back. Thank God I get to sleep next to her in a moist, muggy tent with no ventilation for the next 5 nights. How lucky am I? Aside from that, Bluesfest has been a pretty ridiculously fun time. Honestly, the music is cool . Really cool, actually. But I'm not gonna lie and say it's what I would see or listen to if I had my choice. It's no Coachella, it's no ACL - put it that way. But shit, it is fun. Everyone is super chilled out and laid back, and there are kids everywhere and weed everywhere and I haven't seen one fight break out. Not bad so far. We've seen Blue King Brown, Michael Franti, Ayo, Xavier Rudd, Zappa's son, and Blind Boys of Alabama absolutely blew my mind. Luckily, we've also been camping with some really cool dudes, who invite us to hang under their tarp when the rain comes down, and keep us supplied with booze and joints on a regular basis. After a few, they are completely fucking hysterical, and I'm having a hard time getting over Chris's nickname - they call him Cow because all a cow eats is grass and that's how much of a stoner he is. ha! Too much. Last night, poor Jessie had to head back to the tent early due to her tuberculosis, mano-aids virus, and I was left to fend alone. I ended up running into some fellas we met in Sydney one night (who may give us a lift back, fingers crossed) and while I was shooting Franti up front, met a photog from RS Australia. We hung in the vip for a drink, and then I ended up meeting this DJ and his friend who took me to a beach party, where I helped some 14 year old kids build a bon fire, played guitar, discussed the decline of the music industry with some bloaks, and chilled under the stars till nearly 4am. These are the memories I was hoping to create and more importantly remember on this trip. Even though the weather sucks, my feet are homeless, and I am so uncomfortably broke, I can safely say that I'm having the time of my life. On to Day 3, Ben Harper, That 1 Guy, Blues Traveler, more mud, more rain, more friends, and of course, more stories.