small package of food mysteriously appeared on the front steps. Some hapless Door Dash driver had delivered it to the wrong address. Of course it had no address on it, so I couldn’t get rid of it. I suspected it was someone next door, given what the order consisted of, which was a Wendy’s burger, fries, some nuggets, a large Dr Pepper and a chocolate milkshake of some kind. It had been sitting there for an hour, so it was probably even more inedible than it was when it had arrived. I wasn’t about to take it over to them, whoever they were.
Not this, just an abandoned lunch.
I called Wendy’s. They said they didn’t know what to do, and I could keep the food. I called Door Dash, and gave them the order number. They said they would re-order it and I could keep the food. I threw it in the trash. That was the highlight of Friday, but then on Saturday I got together with the band at the Fortress, and played a few songs, some old and some new. It turned out pretty good actually. I’ll post some videos on the Youtube channel when I find the time to edit them.
On Sunday I went into the city to meet up with some Australian Performing Rights Association, fellow songwriters for a brunch that the LA rep was hosting. That was quite interesting. You never know who you’re gonna meet at these things. The day before in Central Park the Australian trade commission or something had this thing called “The Great Aussie BBQ”. The press release said, “THE AUSSIE BBQ highlights some of the most exciting iconic and emerging talent from Australia, returning to SummerStage in Central Park.” I was invited to this, but I wasn’t really interested in any of the acts, much less wanting to stand around in the heat eating a meat pie and drinking a can of XXXX in the blazing sun. I vaguely knew of one of the items, a band called Spiderbait. I can’t say I’ve heard any of their music, and I’m not going to check it out either. Someone can listen to the song I’ve posted, and tell me if it’s good or not, I don’t really care.
In any case, their manager turned up at the brunch and she told me that she used to tend the bar at the Prince of Wales Hotel in St Kilda in the 80’s. Of course this meant that she knew who I was, and what band I was in, and so we got to talking about how great it was back then. It was great. Somebody knew me from 1984! Back then you could walk everywhere and there were at least half a dozen places you could go to where live music was on, 7 days a week. You just had to avoid tripping over dead junkies in the doorways sometimes. I also made acquaintance with Maria Kozic, someone I don’t think I had met before, but who had been a part of that scene too.
Maria was one of the founding members of → ↑ →. They were what you (I) might call an art wanker band who…well…. I’l just c/p what Wikipedia says about them and save myself the trouble of typing it all out. “→ ↑ → (pronounced as three clicks, often written incorrectly as Tsk Tsk Tsk or Tch Tch Tch) was an Australian music, art and performance group, best known for their experimental music. They formed in Melbourne in 1977 and were led by Philip Brophy. The group performed music, produced artwork, films, videos, live theatre, multi-media, and wrote literature.” Not pretentiously wanky at all…nooooo!
One of Maria’s photos with the band logo in the background. Not sure if the cat on sax was part of it though.
Maria and I had a good talk about the music scene, and what she was currently up to, although I can’t remember a lot of it. She lives in Brooklyn now, and does art and music projects. I told her that next time she was going up to visit her friend the bass player from Television, she should stop by the fortress and hang out. There was some other dude who had been to the Julliard School who was a jazz saxophonist, and I told him to come by as well. Who knows if I’ll ever see any of them again? I think I scare people sometimes. Not because I’m scary, but because I’m not like a lot of the people they usually hang out with, I may come across as slightly outside their expectations of how people are supposed to be.
I’m fine, really. You just need about ten years to get to know me properly, then you’ll love me.
Spiderbait..someone leave me a message and tell me if they’re any good. Thanks in advance.