I did my first day at a new workplace. The digital arm of a large Australian advertising firm called The Furnace. I really liked it! The space is great, high ceilings, wooden floors, open plan. The people are also well, my kind-of people I suppose, from first impressions – music-lovers, witty-talkers. It seems like a vibrant family there. I’m not quite sure, what sort of on-going basis my work will be. I may just be there to fill the gaps over the new year. Either-way, I think I will enjoy working at The Furnace.

In other news, Winter People are playing The Basement on Tuesday, which is pretty exciting for me. We’re doing a long five hour practice on Sunday, to prepare ourselves. More on that in posts to come.

I’ve been very busy with work-work and re-design & back-end development of Riversend 8, so I haven’t worked on The East Coast manuscript for a week or two. I am hoping to finish with all redesign work before NYE, so I can re-focus my attention on The East Coast in the new year.

Winter People have booked a studio for January 10th, to record bass and drums. So hopefully we’ll have a fully mixed-mastered EP out by mid-Febuary.

OK, signing of now, till next time, be good to your gardens and they will be good to you.

Its December, and its been a very long time since I was posting regularly, so I thought I would try and sum up the creative produce of 2008.

My current position (read: creative-status) seems eerily familiar. This time last year I was working on a novel, re-designing my website and playing alot of shows. Fast forward about 345 days, and I’m working on a novel, re-designing my website and playing a-lot of shows. However, in fairness to myself, I don’t mean to suggest a stagnation has occurred, in-fact I think things have actually progressed significantly.

In December 2007, having disbanded my first real group, I had returned to playing and recording by myself. I was still pining after the established music venues in Sydney, wondering how I could get gigs there. Now, between my two bands, Winter People & I Like Cats we’ve played almost every venue I would want to have played: Oxford Art Factory, Spectrum, Manning Bar, The Annandale and next week Winter People are playing at The Basement. In December 2007, the biggest band I had performed with was a three piece, now I have two bands with eleven members between them (whoa, I hadn’t actually counted that before, that’s alot!). So I guess things have moved forward on the musical front in 08.

Now, “The East Coast”: When I abandoned the manuscript last year, I honestly thought I would never pick it up again – but slowly, with the months, confidence returned. In many ways, I (begrudgingly) admit, the grindstone of University essay writing has helped me. I wield the razor with less reluctance now. I used to agonize over four adjectives in prose writing. I couldn’t bring myself to remove a single one of them! Of course, now that I am trying to hone things down to their center, writing is quite slow, a single page is generally the outcome of my writing sessions. Often less. This new manuscript, is very different from the original, in style and also largely in content. The central characters and central plot points remain the same, but all else has undergone serious renovation. I’m certainly at the beginning of the battle with this new manuscript, but I hope 2009 is the year of “The East Coast”.

I have been rather unmotivated to paint this year, though I have produced a number of sketches. The antagonism of the art community towards aesthetically motivated painting [rather than philosophical] dulls my enthusiasm for it.

Hopefully 2009 will see some of these creative projects coming to fruition, not only as works themselves, but as works entering the wider world. Oh also, I turned 22 a few days ago, (sigh…) I’m getting old! Till next time world, eat your greens and look both ways.

I posted awhile back about doing a dynamic flash site, but unfortunately my flash skills weren’t really up to task. However, I have started working on a completely redesigned Riversend. I am going to switch over to a CMS for the first time. I’m probably going to use ModX an open source CMS that we use at my work Universal Favourite. I’ve also become quite well acquainted with JQuery in recent months – which is such a great entry point into Javascripting – so expect to see a liberal sprinkling of Ajax functions and JS animations.

In Creative News: I have started giving serious thought to re-drafting the novel I wrote last year. Most of my motivation is coming from the thought, that if I can manage to distill a worthy essence out of all its mess, I would have the courage to try again.

My band The Winter People played our very first show at Manning Bar.

In Creative News: I finished the Storm-Pilots “In The Attic” EP last week – though I have consequently rebranded the group as The Nightworks). You can get the EP by clicking here: NIGHTWORKS EP.

I awarded myself a bronze medal for that achievement.

I’ve formed a new band called The Winter People OR The December Club (we’re undecided). We boast two violin players, two guitars, bass and drums. So the sound has multiplied! We are currently trying to lock down a piano player.

I am really quite excited about this group, because it finally qualifies as a genuine musical collective, a crew, a troop, a congregation – not just an intimate gathering, but a noisy assembly, that requires comments like “Ok, come on everyone, quiet down now, lets get started” … exciting!

I have some large scale plans for the uni holidays once my exams are [finally] over. I am hoping to produce two solo EPs, one as Typewriter – “Love Songs For All The Ones Who Never Loved Me Back” (the slowest & bitterest of folk ballads) & one as Thomas North “Sawdust Stories” (A few of the faster-paced blues numbers). But my main mission is an EP for The Winter People, with which to launch us into Sydney consciousness.

Also I am hoping to forge some bonds with budding film-makers, and get a zero-dollar-budget film clip shot for track 2 from the “In The Attic EP” – “Ghost House”. I’ll update on that, if it comes to fruition.

Ok I think that about covers it for now. Till next time world, don’t get your shoelaces stuck in the train-tracks.

No its not spring in Sydney, its actually the dead of winter – but its been a time of creative rejuvenation for me. I’ve been putting the finishing touches to the music for my Storm Pilots EP – all the drumsguitarsbass has been laid down and mixed, although I’m yet to record the vocals (always the most trying part for me). I felt that I was too focused on the concept of creating an album length work with The Life and Times so my mission with this EP was to do only three or four songs, but work them until each one was sonically detailed and the arrangement was just right. It will probably track in at just under 13 minutes.

After a two-month hiatus I’m starting to reform a Thomas North group (and am looking for a better band name, than just plain old Thomas North). I’ve been playing with a very facile violinist, who I think will be a good addition to the group and am putting out feelers for other interested muso types.

On the subject of Thomas North, Top of The World has been getting some pretty good rotation on FBi radio (been playing for about a month and a half now). Plus a number of the other tracks have gotten some air-play.

I’ve also started playing guitar for a band that occupies the diametric opposite end of the spectrum – a heavy, epic, intense post-rock group; Which has been a-lot of fun. This dyed-in-the-wool folkie finally gets a chance to rock out!

University has actually been quite good. I’m (finally) enjoying my course – fingers crossed there will be work for me at the end of the line

Well I’m supposed to be writing a philosophy essay – till next time, keep your ears to the train-tracks (you might hear me a’coming!)