Back in Midnight Oil’s/Jim Moginie’s studio today doing lead vocals on Arktik Lake songs. I managed two today and will continue singing into the week. I always warm up before singing. Usually with I’m A Believer and Ticket To Ride before jamming around and making something up and playing some of my own songs, although today I was also singing Sunny Afternoon because I found a nice key to sing it in (Em with a capo on the 2nd fret). It makes the descending line flow nicely, that’s always the issue with that song. It’s a whole different vibe doing lead vocals, quite different to doing guitars, another piece of the jigsaw puzzle when you are making a record. Backing vocals will be done later, plus any other overdubs like violin and keyboards, if we want them. This is going to be a very guitar-heavy record.

On the way back from the studio tonight, the driver had a bust of Shiva on his dashboard, I recognised it but I asked him who it was anyway and he said it’s a god. I said god of what, and he said god of destruction. I said something like, “That’s quite heavy” and he said, “Who’s not attracted to power?”. Haha, he was otherwise a mellow and humble fellow, helping us with our post-studio bags. He was quite in awe of this statuette and other Indian gods. To think there are 1.38 billion people in India, they are catching up with China’s population of 1.402 billion. To think that so many on either side could see gods so differently.

I mentioned I had done an interview with Voice of America for the release of the See You In Marfa EP. It’s part of the Nashville and Dallas sessions for the ‘A Nuclear Winter’ album that will be released early next year. We now have the times when it will be broadcast. It will be on Thursday, July 7th at 11 AM Eastern Time on a show called Border Crossings, follow this link.

8 AM – Los Angeles
11 AM – New York
4 PM – London/Porto
5 PM – Stockholm/Berlin
1 AM – Sydney (8th July)

I’m not sure if the word mizzle exists in the Australian vocabulary but it certainly made an appearance last night. It’s not drizzle, and it’s not full rain, it’s another stage at one end of the scale. It’s a light floating consistent sheet that seems to be almost lighter than the air itself and if there is a hint of wind it blows sideways like a butterfly caught in a gust. The streets of Brookvale were quite empty on this unwelcoming wet chilly night. Still, at the falafel place, we just got in before a queue appeared. They are lovely there and don’t sneer when I ask for the tabouli without the tomato, allegedly just the green isn’t tabouli, it’s the tomato mixed with the green that makes it tabouli. It seemed that a lot of the queue had already ordered and were picking up what they’d phoned in. Does anybody remember the time when you didn’t do that? Does anyone remember the time when food delivery might have just been a pizza guy? Now, if you want a fricasseed truffle with essence of Hawaiian uki uki flower you get it delivered in twenty minutes.

Music today has been much forgotten Northern Irish singer-songwriter David McWilliams who some might remember for his song Days Of Pearly Spencer (1967), covered by Marc Almond in the eighties and reaching No.4 in the UK Charts. McWilliams’s song was ignored by BBC radio because of his manager and the man who started Major Minor Records, Phil Solomon’s investment in the pirate station Radio Caroline. The chorus was recorded from a phone box near the studio to get that effect. The song was No.1 in France, No.2 in Belgium and No.8 in the Netherlands. He died at the age of 56 of a heart attack in 2002.

Music Of The Daze