Tour Diary

Wednesday 7 March

After a 10 hour drive, we arrive in Seppeltsfield in the Barossa Valley, a little town made up almost entirely of wineries. The road on the way to our accommodation is lined with palm trees, and across from us is a winery which has been built to resemble an old English style castle.

In stark contrast, the first thing we see at our accommodation is a junk yard to our right and to our left a dried up field full of farm animals, chickens, cows, a horse, some sheep, and two llama's (or maybe El Paca's I'm not sure).

We meet the manager, who needed to coaxed from 'the land of nod' as he put it, by his young daughter, a process which took about five minutes of the daughter yelling at her dad and her dad grunting a whole lot. He eventually came out in all his bare chested glory and showed us to our cabins.

Thursday March 8

Gig no. 1 of 11 at FAD bar. We find out that it takes 70 minutes to get into the city, not 45 like we thought. Dang.

The place is tiny, but the owners are great and are very hospitable.
I played a 40ish minute set, which was started a little timidly, possibly due to the fact that we had driven from Melbourne to play to the bar staff and other band members.

I used a lot more beats than usual and really rocked the fuck out at the end. I looked up at the end of the set and there was a crowd there. Cool.
I am also performing with Tomas Fitzgerald Band and Cue Therapy F. Both sets went fairly well, a few small hiccups, but the crowd really dug both sets.

Friday March 9

FAD bar no. 2. We play upstairs, which on one hand, looks awesome as the stage backs on to a clear window in which you can see the skyscrapers of the Adelaide CBD. We have some wicked video footage which we'll put up soon, plus some pics. On the crap side, we had to start late due to a gallery opening, and so I took one for the team and did a short half hour set. It was an easy, sweet improv which felt really good. I had the best crowd of the night, as a few parents with kids hung around to check us out. This little boy sat with his eyes wide open watching me play the whole time without moving, and by the end of the set he fell asleep! Unlike many other musicians, I take that as a compliment......

Saturday March 10

Fad gig no. 3 Downstairs. BIG turnout, the joint is chockers. I play to a packed out venue I played a really aggressive loop based based beatsy set, which I started by handing out my chime bars to all the band members. Apparently it was so loud that people were moving to the back of the bar to listen. Foolishly, this has been the only set that I failed to record.
Tomas' set went down awesome, in front of the first decent sized audience of the tour.
In Cue Therapy F, we tried a group improv thing based around Karen' koto playing, and added in chime bars. It just clicked. A fine way to end a good night.

Sunday March 11

No mousetrapreplica today. Just one 90 minute set by Tomas Fitzgerald at the Adelaide Festival centre. As opposed to every other gig we have previously done, this was a professional venue with all the right gear and a fantastic technician. I think we had 90-120 people watching us which was a welcome change! We played the gig, and as expected, didn't have enough material, so out come the chime bars!! We handed them out randomly to audience members and did this massive jam in good ol' C major.

A reviewer from the Adelaide Advertiser was there. 4 1/2 stars. Bam.

Monday 12 March

Final Fad bar gig. Being a Monday night, one can't really expect much, but we got quite a few people coming back from the Adelaide Cup who checked us out. The mousetrapreplica set is feeling better all the time, my ideas are stronger, and I'm following through on them. Not to mention that I have got my setup time to under half an hour........

Tuesday 13 March

Grace Emily gig no. 1. Our 4 1/2 star review came out today. What does a 4 1/2 bring you as far as ticket sales are concerned? 0. Big fat nuthin'. Not exactly what we expected from a gig at one of Adelaide's most renowned music venues. I kept my chin up and played the best mousetrapreplica set of the tour, even though there were only two non-band members in the audience. Tomas' set was a little booze fuelled and could've been better, and by the time Cue Therapy F stepped on stage the bottles of red and champagne had really kicked in and the set became a mixture of a lesson in French and 'let's see who can pull the most inappropriate rock move for the style of music.' Luke somehow managed to play his double bass while lying on the floor, while Tomas didn't seem to leave the floor the entire gig. Funny shit, didn't sound the greatest, but really fucking funny.

Wednesday 14 March

Grace Emily gig no. 2
mousetrapreplica fucking rocked tonight. Best set by a mile. Felt awesome. Three people in the audience. Steppin' up.......

I have so many things to think about on stage every time I play. I have to keep my 'thinking' mind wide open every time I play, just so I can keep a grip on all the many technical processes that I employ each mousetrapreplica gig. My guitar, my effects, my loopstation, my guitar synth, ableton, the behringer foot controller, my new Korg Midi control keyboard...........

But tonight I had a good enough grip on all this crap I was able to let go and just play.

Thursday 15 March

No gigs. Sat on my arse in Seppeltsfield. Reflected on just playing 19 sets in 7 days. Normally I would do this in a span of about six months. Not sure if I really know myself at the moment. And I think that's a good thing.

Friday 16 March

Exeter Hotel gig. This place is located in the heart of Rundle st., ie the middle of almost all activity in Adelaide. There were shitloads of people out tonight. The space we had to play in was so small that every time I moved around in Tomas' set I would bump into someone, usually Luke and/or his double bass. Tomas' set went down great as always, and Cue Therapy F went well, although the set was cut short.

This sort of gig is about the worst sort of gig I could hope for with mousetrapreplica. Shitloads of people, loud, drunk, and expecting Cold Chisel covers or something. I usually like to play quiet a lot during my set, and tonight, this was just not an option. I kicked it off with some breakbeat stuff in a vain attempt to play to the audience, and but it soon became apparent that they didn't give two shits so I just did my thing as normal, well maybe a lot louder than normal. I was getting shitty and had the distinct urge to go back to my psycho noise roots and blast the audience with some Merzbow-esque savagery.

So it didn't help when some fuckknuckle threw some some soggy paper at me.

In the end, I kept my cool, decided not to melt the audiences ears off and kept doing my thing, and some really great stuff jumped out.
Even though the venue and much of the audience weren't right for what i do I'm gonna be more prepared for this sort of an audience next time. Not that I will compromise what I do in any way, but my stuff will be strong enough to grab anyones attention. i don't want to be the experimental musician who just plays to very select and small audiences, I want to be one that alerts people to the existence of this sort of music who wouldn't normally have the opportunity to hear it.

Saturday 17 March

No gig. Lots more arse sitting. Karen, Tom and Matty Bush set up a studio in an empty cabin and record some drum tracks for Cue Therapy F. Practised the guitar for the first time on tour, as opposed to sitting and working at Ableton until 4 in the morning. Recorded some guitar improvs with Audiomulch which turned out ok.

Sunday 18 March

Wrote this diary. Sat on arse. Litened to Zappa, Lhasa, Fantomas and Meshuggah. Good times.

Tuesday 20 March

After spending Monday with even more sitting around, we were back at the Grace Emily tuesday night. Unfortunately, even after the extra exposure the exeter gig gave us, and the Advertiser review, and all the other gigs we've played, our crowd size stayed the same.

My set went fine. There was literally no-one in the audience when I started, so that was a little off-putting. but I got cracking and improvised the set like I normally do. Ableton got a 'serious program error' in the final few minutes of my set but it managed not to crash and I was able to keep the show and save the recording.

I'm listening to the recording of the set now, and y'know what? It's pretty damn cool. I always stress out during my improvised sets, and think that everyone hates what I'm doing. Listening back I can hear my anxiety fuelled musical decisions. And sure, I can't assume anything about the audience, cos' whenever I play a gig, I take a huge risk by making my music on the spot.

And the audience take a huge risk by listening to it. Maybe their time could be better spent at home watching a DVD? Who knows? Not I. But what I want people to consider when considering seeing a mousetrapreplica show or any other live improvised music is that what you're hearing is being created for the first time and probably the last time. You hear connections between people which can only exist in the realm of improvised music. You hear an artists voice which has no other way of expressing itself.

And sometimes it isn't worth listening to.

But other times an audience member can come away experiencing something beautiful, something erotic, something terrifying, something sensuous, something humorous, something eerie, something painful, something ethereal, something numbing, but most of all, something new.

And I think it's worth the risk.

Anyways, back on to the whole tour diary thing like I promised, Tomas' set went well, and a few more people strayed into the venue, who really dug the music, which was great.
Cue Therapy F also played a nice set in front of a slighty diminished audience. And then we did the super fun 70 min drive back to the Barossa Valley.

Wednesday 21st March

The final Grace Emily show, and second last of the tour. We decide to mix up the order of the bands, so Cue Therapy F plays first tonight instead of mousetrapreplica.
Tonight, finally, we get a good crowd. An unusual mix, maybe 60% were over 50. Whenever you get older people into a pub you know that they are here for the music. They sit and they appreciate. And it's great.
Cue Therapy F had arguably their best gig of the tour this night, certainly the best reception anyways. I felt more comfortable than most of our other gigs. Much of the music is really hard to play, and after a mousetrapreplica set and a Tomas Fitzgerald set, I often didn't play the music as accurately as it deserves. Tonight was much better for me, and I think it was the fact that we played first.

Tomas went second, and we rocked tonight. People were loving it, the oldies were getting into it, even the heavy stuff. Twas' a wicked gig.
mousetrapreplica ended proceedings. The older part of the crowd left before I played, it was pretty late by then.
About three minutes into my set, I had every electro artists nightmare happen; my computer died. Not only did it die, it first triggered a bunch of beats which weren't remotely in time with what I was doing, and then I couldn't do anything to Ableton.

As always, I worked with what I had, I overcame the temptation to immediately turn the drum volume down so didn't sound like a 'mistake', and made it work. When it first happened I distinctly remember thinking, "This is the last time I use a computer on stage."

I have since changed my mind.

I ended up doing a dark, juicy, guitar set, which the small audience appreciated.

Thursday 22nd March

No gigs. Went to the beach at Glenelg. Played a heap of frisbee. Ate Taco's. Played mini-golf. Played Air Hockey. Spent time with all my friends.

Just what the doctor ordered.

Friday 23rd March

Planned on staying at our accommodation and working on music and getting my working life in order but Luke(Double Bass) and Matt (Drums, de facto technician, played in of, or pertaining to...) were hell bent on going back to Glenelg for some waterslide action, and I couldn't resist. Glenelg is what you get when you compress St. Kilda into about a eighth of the size. Which is cool cos' get the beach, and you get 7/8ths less wankers walking around being wankers.

We got back to our accommodation and watched Mad Max 2 and Mad Max 3, the latter not being worth the extra 2 hours sleep it cost us.

Saturday 24th March

Marion Cultural Centre. Our final gig of the tour. And aside from the Adelaide Festival Centre gig, our biggest gig of the tour. Big stage, big system, professional technician, all that sorta stuff.

After an exhaustive sound check, we scrounged up the nearest thing that resembled food, stuffed it into our bellies, and jumped on stage in front of an audience of about 60. Again, a large proportion of the audience was over 50.

Cue Therapy F went first again. The band had a tough time on the very large (10 metres wide) Marion Stage, we were miles away from each other. It felt really cold to me, but It seemed to go down very well.The audience seemed fascinated by Karen's koto. I also think the fact that it had been a very long three weeks, and that everyone was thinking about getting home to their girlfriends, families, and good ol' Melbourne made a big impact on the night.

Tomas came on, we started droning out for the first song behind the curtain, and I had to slowly open the curtain and then run back to my guitar. The first few songs felt similar to the Cue Therapy F set, without much vibe to the group, until we played a set favourite; 'Back to Dreaming' and from then on we played a rockin' show. We did a group improv thing at the end where Tom, Chris and I play djembe's at the start and Kazz plays koto. It ended up as this massive rockout thing and Tom was improvising some amazing vocal stuff which knocked me out, and I think the audience would agree.

mousetrapreplica finished the show tonight. I made a big effort tonight to engage the audience from the start, and to really perform. I tried to be worth looking at. First time for everything!!

I did a couple of set pieces, which I wove into my improvisation; Sakura-Sakura the traditional japanese piece and Vintern Var Hard by Aulis Sallinen, which I arranged from the version on Kronos Quartet album of the same name, for Girls choir. I think it went over ok. I got the rest of the band to join in with some chime bar action at the end and then they jumped on their instruments and all six of us did a massive jam out which Matty aptly described as 'Pink Floyd jamming with Sigur Ros.'

I said goodbyes to the audience and back to the barossa we went.

Sunday 25th March

Drove 10 hours back to Melbourne. The taste(?) of service station food is still very much present.............

thanks for reading......
xoxoxoxoxoxox ryan