2002-05-19

Its getting quite a bit colder here in Newcastle town, the hot water bottle is out, the leg warmers donned and the shivering begun. It reminds me of when Dame first moved to Newcastle, at this exact time of year, and I would commute most weekends from sydney (where I still worked) to visit him. My recollection is of very cold, thin wind and walking throught the streets of Newcastle at night in the freezing air. It was a month before we got a car. So this weather reminds me of excitement at a fresh new place and the tingles of new love and missing him...

Does anyone else find it hard to feel good in this cold weather? Getting dressed has become very traumatic as I try to come up with ways to be warm that don't involved tracky dacks, slippers or pink lap blankets. So some current favourites are leg warmers (I have quite a collection), my pink PANIK beanie, some woollen trousers (yes, TROUSERS) and the Best and Less pink girls singlet. I swear, the colder it gets the daggier I become.

Last night the 'craft played at the Lass OGowrie, a nice pub in Wickham which happens to be owned by the parents of Newcastle's superest model, she's been in the paper lots cuz she was in Fashion Week in sydney. She was around, helping out with something. We also know her cuz she works at Bilo market town, and we all go there at least 5 times a week. Enough star spotting in Newie...

The gig was the Pornskas Cd launch. The Pornskas are a bit of a Newcastle institution now. Newcastle seems to have many ska-stylee institutions. The Porkers are very famous ska-ing sons, and there is a regular ska event, SkaTrek which brings ska bands form all over the country to the fest. First up tonight at the Lass, were The Torpedoes, who play cool rockin' hits like "Fishnet Stockings" and "Viva Las Vegas" and I love it.

Our turn to hit the stage, and the look was pretty hot. Nods looked a treat, Simi was full on Passion Pop so had not made the usual effort. Janice came a bit late, and you know, I don't think I was her clothes cuz she just went straight behind the kit. I had a black full-length lycra catsuit on, with a black sequin mini skirt and my gold glomesh belt on, Mmmmmmmm....Michelle is jsut staunch, though I heard she smiled and that a fan said it would wreck her "bored bassplayer' facade.

I played most craptacularly. My fingers were freezing cold and there was an AIR CONDITIONER on COLD blowing COLD air onto me. My fingers seized up even more and I just couldn't freakin' play properly. I resigned myself to this. That I would play crap the whole gig. The show went OK, with our new songs "Boys Ahoy!", "Lip Service" and "Coppin' It" really sounding good now that we have played them a bit. Poor punters, they don't know that half the time they are watching us rehearse! We've played our cover of "Touch Me I'm Sick" a few times and now it is time for a new one and it will be AC/DC "You Shook Me All Night Long"/ Yeyah!

Earlier in the night there had been a story told by The Chad, who is in matey band of Bitchcraft, Drunk By Lunchtime. The story was a funny and rediculous tale of them being banned from a local venue for a stupid misunderstanding and due in part to the psyche of the manager. Ha ha ha! We all laughed. At the completion of our set later in the night, the wonderful Doser (from Drunk by Lunchtime) got on the mic, all pissy drunk. Being pissy is the worst time to get on the mic, factoid kids. So he's ranting about this other venue, on the mic, to a disinterested crowd. But Simi was still around, with access to the mic and pissy on a bottle of Passion Pop and further beers. So she joined in. The crowd became less disinterested as she swore and cussed and made libellous comment about the venue and personal comments about its manager. I'm not sure why, so I kicked her in the butt gently to move her along. Then I think I heard someone comment about how censorship sucked, perhaps referring to my halting of Simi's rant. But she was ranting too far in the direction of stuff she had no clue about. It probably won't matter anyhow...

I immediately began to load gear into my van, as there was a fair bit of it. When I went back inside, I was approached by a woman I had seen enjoying our show. "that was great!" she said, and I kinda grimaced, cuz I knew I had played like a dickhead. "Well, CONSIDERING.." she said, and I agreed that was a better comment. Then the conversation went hella weird and I hope it was cuz she, like many that night, was pissy. Her next comment was that we need to work on our sound, or work on blah blah blah. I'm gettng very sick of ending each gig being told by someone what we need to do to become famous. Last week some guy who said he knew Nitocris hassled nadia about how we need to write more of the melodic songs with harmonies if we were to make 'it'. He also asked what we took from the Nitocris legacy. Well, considering that old bands of mine used to play with Nitocris, and that we SOUND NOTHING LIKE THEM she told him 'not the fuck alot'. What a fucking prick. I'm sick of being told we need to practise, or that we need to work on this sound or that angle. FUCK YOU ALL!! Anyhow, the woman at the Lass last night asked me if we'd considered being a four piece to which I replied "not really", especially since we'd only been a five piece for 8 months. Then she took this funny tone with me "Look, I'm 34 going on 35 and I've been managing and promoting bands for over 10 years.." I cut her off and mentioned I was 30 (well, nearly) and that I'd been playing in bands for 10 years. She didn't skip a beat. "So you know what I mean. You KNOW where I'm coming from". I looked puzzled, and I genuinely had no idea what she was on about. "C'mon THINK about it" she said "you could do better than you are as a four piece. You KNOW what i mean". I didn't. Then it was suggested I meet her for lunch, as the pub was not the time or place to discuss such things. I said that us working on our sound and all this other crap was dependent on us having time to care. She challenged "Are any of you mothers?" to imply that unless we were, we had NO CLUE what being short of time meant. To which I replied the obvious (yes).

FOR FUCKS SAKE?? firstly, people who say this stuff to us demonstrate that they have NO IDEA where we are coming from, or who we are trying to be. Its hard enough for us to get together to rehearse, let alone conquer the pop world. Second, its about friends and not fucking streamlining the band system til it reaches its full efficiency of money generating power. Its also not about a fucking SOUND. What the fuck is that, "your sound"? Bitchcraft make a fucken racket that feels good to us and is determined by the mood that we are in when we play it. As a fucking result, you get a different fucking sound each time. Kylie cross, Nadia tired and Simi pissed gets you a different sound to Kylie happy, Janice playing like a metronome cuz she's had a good shag and Nadia free of children for five seconds. Oh, I think Michelle is pretty much a constant. And dropping someone....who? AS IF you would put Simi behind an instrument. AS FUCKING IF!! It would be a crime to rock and humanity to have her holding a bass or something, unable to shake her booty and frott that microphone. And AS IF we want to go back to one guitar only. AS FUCKEN IF. Maybe she was suggesting drop Janice and get a drum machine. I don't fucking know, but AS IF someone else knows! I'm just friggin' off my tree about this one and because we get it EVERY FUCKING WEEK!!! It doesn't happen to guys bands, it just fucking doesn't. Maybe occassionally, but not several times each week. Everyone's a FUCKING expert.