Open mic night 25/10

Last Friday, after my last day of work before a couple weeks on holiday, I headed in to the city. I had put my name down to take part in the QMuSo (QUT Music Society) Open Mic Nigbt, something they put on at a uni bar once a month.

After finding the bar (not difficult, but it is over ten years since I was a student there), I put my guitar in the backstage store room and settled in to listen to the acts before me.

Board of artist times.

Metallica: Through The Never

This film wasn't even on my radar until fairly recently, when the trailer popped up as one of the three at the top of the IMDb homepage. It's only showing for a limited season - at our closest cinemas it was on once a night for one week only, which finished on Wednesday. It's still showing (but still only once a night) at a different (and more expensive) cinema chain, so I headed off to Garden City on Friday afternoon to do some shopping and see that evening's session.

Theatrical poster.

Directed by Nimród Antal (who also co-wrote the film with the band), it's meant to be part concert film, part narrative.

Albums of 2013: Part 2

Nearly three-quarters of the way through the year, here's some more albums I've enjoyed listening to in 2013.

More must-listen albums of 2013 so far... (in release order)

APRIL:

The Black Angels - Indigo Meadow

Killswitch Engage - Disarm The Descent

My new guitar is here!

Working overtime last fortnight paid off this payday, as I was able to go in to my local music store and pay off the balance of the lay-by on my new guitar.

The new guitar!

It's a Takamine EG363SC, and was part of the store's 50% off Factory Seconds sale. The staff told me most of them had minor blemishes in the finish, but I really can't find anything wrong with it. It's my first guitar with a solid wood top, and it sounds great.

I would love to do some recording straight away, but that's probably going to have to wait till mid-next-week at the earliest. I've got this coming weekend off, but tomorrow is our sixth wedding anniversary. We have a day out at the movies planned, with "Monsters University" and "Man Of Steel" on the short list. "World War Z" is perhaps not a date movie...

The home studio begins

I use the term "studio" rather loosely.

I bought some microphones online last week, and they arrived today, so I've had some fun putting together the various audio components I have and setting up a working recording setup.

Music Month Wrap-Up

So my Music Month is over, and I go back to work this coming week. I'm a little bit concerted out...

Music Month (March 9 - April 3) contained:

• 2 festivals
• 3 concerts with international headliners
• 1 concert with local headliner
• 54 individual artists/groups (20 of them Aussie)

Music month in collage form.

Birdy @ The Tivoli

After getting home from WOMADelaide, I got an email from the festival, part of which included a competition to win one double pass for each city of Birdy's Australian tour. I sent off my email, with my details and city of choice. I then promptly forgot about it.

On Wednesday morning I got a phonecall from a SA area code, and answered to find that I had won the Brisbane double pass - for the same evening. Kara wasn't that interested, so I headed off to the Tivoli on my own.

Easterfest 2013: Day 4

Sunday 31 March

Our Sunday started with another of the panel sessions in the Forum, this time hosted by SPARC. The topic was "Breaking the Barriers: Do we need more Christian artists in the mainstream of culture?", and guests included Evermore, Rowan Brand, Tigertown and Bec Laughton.

When this finished, the interview with Lecrae in the Arena was already underway, so I headed over there. Kara stayed to watch the sound and light show in the Entrance Tent. The music from that was loud enough to almost drown out all sound in the Arena venue. It was really hard to hear the questions or answers in the interview, until the light show stopped. When question time was over, Lecrae left the stage, and United Pursuit Band came straight on for their interview, as they had a Mainstage sound check to get to afterward.

Easterfest 2013: Day 3

Saturday 30 March

Our Saturday started at 10 am with the Audio Adrenaline interview. Bassist Will McGinniss talked about the history of the band, its breakup in 2007 (and Easterfest-only reunion in 2009), and the formation of the new lineup - Audio "2.0".

Audio Adrenaline 2.0
L to R: Jared Byers (ex-Bleach & Relient K), Kevin Max (ex-dc Talk and solo), Will McGinniss (founding member), Jason Walker (member of Know Hope Collective), Dave Ghazarian (ex-Superchick).

For those of you who don't know, original lead singer Mark Stuart is unable to sing anymore, due to vocal cord damage (look up spasmodic dysphonia). With a heavy focus on the band's ongoing orphanage project in Haiti, Mark and Will recently put the band back together with the same name but new lineup. Kevin Max, formerly of dc Talk (and as a solo artist one of my all-time favourite vocalists), is their new frontman. The only original member playing and touring is Will McGinniss (bass guitar), but Mark Stuart remains active behind the scenes with "Audio A 2.0".

Easterfest 2013: Day 2 - Demon Hunter

Friday, 29 March

Yes, this gets its own blog post.

I've been a Demon Hunter fan for at least 10 years, so I wasn't going to miss a chance to be front-row at their Easterfest gig. This was their first visit to Australia, and they did an incredible (considering travel time) four shows (Sydney, Toowoomba, Melbourne, Adelaide) in four nights before jetting back to the US. At the end of this month they're also playing South America for the first time.

And now, pictures! Lots of pictures. There's a bit of haze and pixelly stuff going on, because my camera's not that great in dark venues, but I was really close, which helped.

Easterfest 2013: Day 2

Friday 29 March

Good Friday was the first full day of Easterfest. We slept in, and headed down the hill to Queen's Park just after noon.

First thing on my agenda was checking out the first of the Noise workshops being run by Parachute Music. These had been run last year as a separately-ticketed event, off-site. This year they were held in the park, and were one of the highlights for me. Aimed at breaking down barriers between the "headliner" and the "audience", they included Q&A sessions, interviews, and practical advice on musical topics.

The first workshop was a Guitar Clinic. According to the program, Patrick Judge of Demon Hunter and Dave Ghazarian of Audio Adrenaline were meant to be the guests. Event staff apologised on behalf of Patrick, who was still en route from the airport (not sure where Dave was), but they did have another guitarist on hand to interview - Seth Davis from worship group Ascend The Hill.

Seth runs through the various pedals in his rig.

It was an informative session, with Seth showing us how he gets various sounds out of his guitar and effects pedals.

Easterfest 2013: Day 1

Thursday 28 March

Last weekend we went up to Toowoomba for our annual music festival pilgrimage, Easterfest. Easterfest is Australia's largest festival at Easter about Easter, and annually features a wide spectrum of Christian artists, speakers and musicians from across Australia and the world. This year marked Kara's 8th Easterfest, and my 13th or 14th. I've been going since the early years when it was known as AGMF, or the Australian Gospel Music Festival, and can't remember if I went in 2004 or not.

Waiting for the first bus of the day.

It took three buses to get to Toowoomba. From our place, we caught a bus to Garden City. From there, we transferred onto one that took us to the Transit Centre in the city. That's where the Greyhound Terminal is, and we had cheap tickets thanks to a late-announced (but much appreciated!) promo deal between Greyhound and Easterfest last month.

Albums of 2013: Part 1

Well, here we are, a quarter of the way through the year already.

My must-listen albums of 2013 so far... (in release order)

JANUARY:

Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba - Jama Ko

Biffy Clyro - Opposites

Hiram's Visit

I grew up as a missionary kid in Ghana, West Africa. One of the other families we worked with over there was the Rings, from the US. Among their many children were Ethan (my age) and Hiram (my brother's age), and we've been friends pretty much ever since. When I got married in Seattle back in June 2007, Ethan flew most of the way across the country to be a groomsman, and Hiram also flew across the US to attend as a guest.

I hadn't seen Hiram (other than keeping up with his worldwide travels, and music, online) since our wedding day. He's currently spending a couple months in Canberra doing research as part of his PhD studies in Singapore, so arranged to spend a weekend up north visiting the Davies families. He's now the second Ring to stay in our house, as Ethan was here on a work visit not long after we moved in to this place.

Friday, 22 March

He's here!

Music Month continues...

Saturday, 16 March
Opeth @ The Tivoli

Opeth are a folk/metal band from Sweden. Their style encompasses acoustic guitar, haunting melodies, distorted guitars, and death growls.

Adelaide, Day 3

Monday, March 11

Monday was the final day of WOMADelaide. I liked that nothing started till noon, and ran till midnight, which meant I could sleep in and not miss out on anything.

Panoramic view from my upper bunk.

Adelaide, Day 2

Sunday, 10 March

Sunday morning I slept in. The day before, I'd seen so many of the food stalls that were operating in the park, but unfortunately they were out of my price range. I hope to go to WOMADelaide again next year, but next time I will save up for it well in advance so that I can try some different foods from around the world - at festival prices, eg 1 curry meat dish and rice $12, or 2 meat dishes for $15.

So my first stop for the day was Woolworths, in the main city mall. For $11 I got all my meals for the next two days - some fresh fruit, salami, cheese, and hamburger rolls. So perhaps not all the flavours of the world I could've had, but I definitely saved on money.

A sign posted in the mall.

Adelaide, Day 1

Saturday, 9 March

I boarded my flight out of Brisbane, and we took off on time just after 6 in the morning.

I was in a window seat, and the couple in the seats next to me were also first-time WOMADelaiders heading down to Adelaide for the world music festival. (But with thousands of people in the park, I didn't actually end up seeing them again at any of the shows.)

With a tailwind, we landed in Adelaide almost a full half-hour ahead of schedule. South Australia is in the Central Australian time zone (GMT + 9.30), so it's usually 30 minutes behind Brisbane. But since that state observes Daylight Savings, it's now half an hour ahead of Brisbane. So I flew westward, but the clock went forward... weird.

When I travel to other countries, I re-set my watch to local time. With only a half-hour difference, I kept my phone on Brisbane time for the week, and just had to remember to add 30 minutes to whatever it said.

The sign inside Adelaide Airport, welcoming me to South Australia.

Music Month

It looks like March is going to be a Music Month.

As of tomorrow, I'm on annual leave from work for 4 weeks.

My holidays start with a trip down to Adelaide (my first visit in actual - not toddler - memory) for the annual music festival WOMADelaide. With artists coming from all over Australia and the world, it's a festival I've wanted to go to for quite some time.

Top 10 (Movie) Musicals

I finally got around to seeing "Les Misérables" at the cinema on my Monday off.

For one reason or another, these are the musicals that I have enjoyed the most.

I should point out that for as is the case for every one of my top 10 lists of movies, they are movies I've seen. There are probably awesome musicals out there that I haven't seen (yet), but they won't appear on my lists just by virtue of being critically acclaimed, or Oscar-winning.

This list features:

• 3 movies that are original film musicals
• 4 movies adapted from stage musicals
• 3 movies with plots arranged around a selection of previously written songs
• 2 movies featuring both Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen

So without further ado...