Perth! The city is Sydney backwards. As in the sun sets over the ocean. Not over the land. Backwards.
It is host this year to the first annual One Movement Festival, a sort of South By Southwest of Western Australia. That means it is kind of half industry showcase, half festival for the peoples. That means that the city of Perth is flooded with all manner of music industry types, looking to see the best that Australia / Asia / some random countries from the Commonwealth have to offer. Which makes it kind of unique, if a little strange. A bizarre bazaar of different styles, all mashed up and stirred into a tasty culture clashing soup.
Monday:
We fly in today, around six days before the actual festival. Which is actually freakin great. Its rare when touring to get more than a cursory glance at any place you visit. It’s all courtesy of APRA (the Australian Performing Rights Association, yo!), who have invited us to do a cross-cultural songwriting workshop, with a view to recording the songs and performing them at the One Movement Festival. We meet Tigarah at the hotel. She’s a Balle Funk / Baltimore rapper from Japan. She’s cool. She’s off to buy a phone. We go and hire bicycles.
Tuesday and Wednesday:
We ride to the studio were we are to write with Tigarah. We mess around for a while watching Beastie Boys on Youtube. We all play each other music we like. We kind of swan about wondering how we’re allowed to use this studio in sunny Fremantle and get away with it. We ride around on bicycles some more and eat watermelon and go to a brewery and see some dolphins. But geez, it can’t all be bikes and fruit and beer and water dwelling mammals. Time to write some music!
We undertake the first few tentative jams, playing random hip hop grooves and sharing ideas for hooks. It is our first time writing songs with other people in the room, which is kind of like having someone you dont know watching you get dressed. At first you’re like, “What the hell are you doing here?? I don’t know you, I’m not comfortable”, but then they’re like “no its cool I’m meant to watch you get dressed. We have to get dressed together soon” and then you end up getting dressed together. And you feel like you know them. And it’s okay. But we’re done for now.
Thursday:
We laugh for a while when Tigarah sings the line “everybody digging on my vocal”, which is hard for her to say in her Japanese accent. We’re such rude hosts.
Okay, so its 4am and I think we have 2 full songs. I think one is called “Killer”. I think the other one is called “Seinfield Steroids”. Nigel, our loyal driver and chaperone around Perth, drives us home shortly before sunrise. Legend.
Friday:
Tigarah gets to go to the zoo, so we get to ride around the Swan River, which is way swell. We embrace the day.
Then it’s late at night and we play the Dew Process party in Perth city. It’s in a carpark and sounds pretty wild but the people seem to have a good time. Nice.
Saturday:
We check out our friends the John Steel Singers. I go and play drums with Tigarah for her own set of songs. Konnie her producer makes me wear giant sunglasses. I am happy. We wander around the festival. We see acts from Malaysia, Thailand, South Africa, Canada… Its like a UN convention, but with more drunk people from Perth. We haven’t seen our manager Claire for days. I think she’s busy “working” or something.
There are some after the festival parties, and then there are some parties after that. But must sleep for now.
Sunday:
Show day! We play our set with Tigarah at 4pm. And it actually goes really well. People dance and smile and wave and so forth. We take a few hours to compose ourselves. We go and see our pals Dappled Cities play their dream pop to the peoples. Love those guys. Everyone’s smiling and dancing and forgetting the weary weight of this unintelligible world. Ahhh festivals.
So its around 7pm now and we’re on in 30 minutes. I pace around the backstage looking for reasons to ask people questions about the things they are doing. I’m sure it annoys them but it seems to comfort me.
And then yes showtime. Ha! Its the first time we’ve played after sunset outdoors at a festival, and wow is it good. People go crazy, throwing flippers at us and singing along. I’m starting to remember why I got into this business.
After the show Dan and I tandem ride a pushbike to the afterparty to see our friends the Philly Jays play their brand of hobo pop. Jim is there but somehow ends up at the casino with Tigarah and Konnie. We are awake to see the sunrise. Which rises over the land here you know. Backwards.
The weekend and the week before it are all a dropped jigsaw puzzle; one that is complete from some 4th dimension perspective, but to me right now seems scattered and difficult to perceive in its entirety. But I know the pieces are there. I realise that some great stuff happened. Its all in my brain somewhere. And hopefully some bands from around the globe got their chance to wow the peoples. Hopefully some industry types saw them too. Ones who can help them and maybe only take some of their money.
Goodbye Perth. See you all next time.
