Soul Food

The gig last night was quite possibly one of the most soul enriching gigs I have been to since the Misery and Redemption Fun back in August. I started to write some notes about the music of the night but that is not what the night was about. It was about this eclectic mix of people enjoying a really fine night of music that all falls under the wide Reggae umbrella some was on the Hip-Hop end, others were more on the rock end and others moved about the middle. I ended the night having been exposed to a wide range of people and really just had a really good night. It was also a night of the Watussi shirt as well.

I had a poke round Newstead on my way into The Valley scoping out some places I want to take photos of, walked round the Valley/New Farm observing the street life or more likely getting some exercise since the last week of rain has killed the morning exercise. Another night in The Valley. Another night at the Step Inn. The stage lights at the Step Inn work ok for your standard rock band with three or four members, however when you start putting reggae bands up there with perhaps six, seven, eight members the light just doesn’t work. It means that you get a number of decent photos of anyone who is in the centre front of the stage and the success rate diminishes as you move away from that. Back to photos and music though as that is what we are here for.

Shisha.
A jam band that was there just to provide some background music. A guy jumped up from the audience with a Sax to join in, after a while, I realised that I knew him. It was Jonathan Sri. He was three years below me at school but we were both in the various bands at school together, although then he was playing Clarinet and I was able to hit him on the head from where I was sitting with my Bassoon (sigh I miss her). Was nice to be able to catch up and do the required high school gossip exchange/catch up. Back to Shisha, it was fun stuff and a good start to the night.
Shisha

Cool Calm Collective.
The horns section never appeared and keys lady was late. It worked though (of course). Some of those lyrics are stuck in my head again. A nice change to Don’t Mess With The Dragon that I have had up there since April. This was a “shot that I have wanted to take for a while” and given the light I am pretty happy with the result, band framed by crowd.
Cool Calm Group
Georgia
CC

De Jah Groove.
Having seen this guys a couple of times in the last few months I had a photo planned. A photo that I have attempted to take the last few times but have not been happy with the result. I was prepared for it this time. The photo was going to be Dave throwing the Shekere up in the air. I was waiting. I was 99.9% that it would happen. However they didn’t end up playing the song so I didn’t get the photo. I was talking to Dave afterwards and mentioned it, he told me that it was on the set list and they just didn’t play it. Next time I will get it.
those de jah boys
Harl
gus and will

Grass Roots Street Orchestra.
GRSO were something. It was reggae with some hip-hop elements and I really loved it, which bowled me for six.
GRSO
GRSO boys
GSRO

1:10am, the music is over and the instant mood swings security guy starts kicking anyone out who is not in a band. We all promptly step outside and some of the Poetikool Justice and some other guys start a beatboxing circle after a long while someone decides to take the next step and some words, it was really impressive. More chatting and then it was time to bid the St Pauls Terrace farewell.
jam

A crowd shot
crowd

The rest of the images are located in a gallery here.

Rock-Bottom Jackpot

Friday day. Another day in the office. Answering the phone. Doing the mail. Typing up quotes. Answering the phone. Chasing suppliers. All that fun stuff that fills my day between 8am and 4:30pm each day.

Friday night. Another night in this not so sleepy city. Relishing that sometimes mellow, sometimes rock reggae sound floating out into the night air. The Dé Jah Groove boys were in town to release their debut album Rock-Bottom Jackpot and had pulled out two of the staples of the local scene The Cool Calm Collective and Heavyweight Champions and an up and coming band The Colour who were mighty impressive.

The venue was of course The Step Inn, in some sense the little train that perhaps just could of the Brisbane venues. It used to be the Shamrock, a place on the fringe of the “The Valley” which was more of a shall we say public bar establishment than a place to go to see fine live music. The last year though the Step Inn has really “stepped up” and became almost a go to venue. They play host to a wide variety of bands from pyschobilly to reggae dub to metal and I have a feeling that after we all stop saying, it is still the Shamrock, we will realise what a treasure it just might become though it has a lot of work to go yet in improving the venue.

It doesn’t have the nicest lighting mostly due to the design of the stage and the room in general. The lighting though does change a lot depending on the band that is playing which is a lot more than can be said for some of the other live music venues round The Valley. Friday night though I was at the extremes ISO 3200, lenses wide open round the 1.8-2.2 stop and my shutter staying at 1/200 because other wise there was no hope in hell of getting crisp photos because unlike some of your more folky acts. Those boys like to move around a bit. Back to the show though. It was a nice night, talked to a few people, missed catching up with some people who I had wanted to say hi to, running into some girls from Caloundra the other weekend, taking photos and enjoying that sound. I have to give it to the Dé Jah boys for playing a nice long set which will stay in my little memory box for the weeks to come.

This is one of my favourite tracks off the album – One Drop High. Enjoy.
[audio:09%20One%20Drop%20High.mp3]

some photos of course. The rest are over here in a Flickr set
Gus, Dé Jah GrooveHarley, Dé Jah GrooveDave, Dé Jah GrooveLach, Dé Jah GrooveDelaney, Dé Jah GrooveWill, Dé Jah Groove Dé Jah Groove Dé Jah Groove

The Cool Calm Collective
Georgia, The Cool Calm CollectiveThe Cool Calm Collective

Heavyweight Champions
Heavyweight ChampionsHeavyweight Champions

The Colour
The Colour

Saturday Arvos

Nothing quite like a Saturday or more exact a Saturday Arvo. Spent the arvo picking Basil leaves for “normal” Genovese pesto and Lemon Basil leaves which I think will become a pesto with a bite to it, in the way of chillies and a decent dash of lemon juice. mmm just thinking about the idea now, I can just see a bowl of rice noodles with a bit of the pesto, some cashews and perhaps some steamed Asian greens.

Saturday arvos are also about sitting on a milk crate in the back yard listening to some fine Australian music, chopping up tomatoes and capsicums to go in the dehydrator. In a day or two we will have the most gorgeous semi-dried tomatoes. Some of which will get used to make a tomato pesto. Gee do you think I might like pesto? Really though how can you not. Just a handful of ingredients, a bit of love and tasting and you end up with the most flavoursome “sauce/paste” that can be used in/on just about anything.

Saturday arvos are also about mowing the lawn. Which I did this arvo.

Saturday arvos are also about sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper, cutting out snippets for books or exhibitions that we want to check out. Speaking of exhibitions to be checked out, it is only 22 more sleeps till the Andy Warhol retrospective opens at GOMA and to say I am excited would be an understatement :). The even cooler thing? Andy Warhol or more precisely 300 of his works are only coming to Brisbane, they are not going to those two cities down south who always talk about their capital C Culture. Yay for GOMA :D. I am so looking forward to the Andy Warhol retrospective and I have a good feeling that it won’t disappoint me as much as the Guggenheim in Melbourne did. 22 sleeps also till the big opening bash which is going to feature some of Brisbane’s finest artists including Robert Forster, Adele Pickvance & Dylan McCormack doing a bunch of Velvet Underground songs. The even better part? tickets are only $25. They go on sale on Monday – I am getting some for sure 😀

I have just finished my last run through my photos from the De Jah Groove/Cool Calm Collective/Heavyweight Champions/The Colour gig last night (which was a pretty darn decent night) before I send them off to the marvellous batcher. I started using Lightroom a month or so ago and it has sped up my processing so much. I dump the photos, walk away and let it import them/render previews (takes a while on my beast), come back flick through and mark my rejects and give a rating to the photos I have narrowed down, flick through to make sure they all look ok and then off to the batcher they go. Lightroom is nice.

For a change I am also listening to 4MBS Classic FM at the moment and the most delightful piece has has just finished playing (Brahm’s Hungarian Dancers 1-10) everything else has also been quite delightful.

CMF Sunday

The last day of a very music filled 2.5 days at Caloundra. Part of me was glad for the festival to be over but another part of me was sad, as I had heard so much great music over the course of the weekend. Will be really interesting to see how it will be run next year and what the line up will be.

Some more Dé Jah Groove photos. I had enjoyed these boys at Woodford but at Caloundra they really blew me and just about everyone else away. I am still listening to the CD every few days and looking forward to when they come up in a couple of weeks time.
Dé Jah Groove, WillDé Jah Groove, LachDé Jah Groove, DaveDé Jah Groove, GusThose Dé Jah BoysFoley, Lach, Dallas & Jeff

Another big highlight of the w/e was Kaya. Another group I had seen at Woodford and were blown away by. Kaya are four ladies who sing with such passion and soul in their voices you would think that they have been told that after this show they will not be singing anymore
The Kaya Ladies

I think it is pretty well known round these spaces that in terms of “Brisbane” bands, Women in Docs pretty much top the list for me and for the Sunday show they played Tin Roof which is always going to make me smile.
Women in Docs, ChanelWomen in Docs, RozWomen in Docs

Tijuana Cartel
These guys were pretty classy to, mixing up classical guitar with some “rap” elements.
Tijuana CartelTijuana CartelTijuana Cartel

Lisa Hunt, the last act on the main stage and by george can this lady sing.
Lisa HuntLisa Hunt

What a weekend it was, great music all weekend, fun times with my camera and of course meeting a great bunch of people 😀

Saturday

Saturday was really two sessions. There was the general festival in the day time which ended with Jimmy Barnes and the party got started again at the Kings Beach Tavern and ended when the lights came on and last drinks were served in the early morning. The day time was about a wide, wide variety of music, relaxing in the sunshine, chatting and generally just enjoying some pretty decent music.

Saturday day time was about Women in Docs, The Dé Jah Groove boys again, Tripod, sessions at Tanja’s, a variety of music on the Ramada local talent stage including Asa Broomhall, Vanessa Amorosi and Jimmy Barnes in the evening.

Women in Docs Asa Broomhall Drew Wilson & Tanja's Tripod Dé Jah Groove, Will Dé Jah Groove, Harley Dé Jah Groove, Delaney

Vanessa Amorosi Jimmy Barnes

Friday night, a few photos

I have pretty much processed all my picks from the weekend, though lightroom is starting to play silly buggers on the exporting side of things. I thought I might just post a few from Friday night 😀 Friday was pretty much spend at the Kings Beach Tavern listening/dancing/photographing some quality live music. There were two local acts to start the night, Enersha & Showpony and then two darling Victorian bands (there seemed to be quite a few Victorian bands up for the festival) in the form of Dallas Frasca and Her Gentlemen and Dé Jah Groove

Showpony Enersha Dallas Frasca Jeff Curran Dé Jah Groove, Lach Dé Jah Groove, Gus Dé Jah Groove, Delaney & Harley