We're going on tour! Mitra Ellis is a drummer and he and I are going to rock the North Coast, Bellingen, Newcastle and Sydney. I've just made a new album with just about everything I've written since my last one and we're hitting the road with it. See below for stories of the gigs...

Dates:

Sunday 22nd of April
Nymboida Hall, near Grafton
Joined by Phil Wakeling on bass and John Spencer on mandolin and banjo. Supported by Gareth Thomas. 7.30pm, $5 on the door.

Friday 27th of April
South Grafton Neighbourhood Centre
Spring St, South Grafton
7pm, $5 on the door

5th and 6th of May
Hoping to play at Nimbin Mardi Grass festival and other places. Check back for more details.

Saturday 12th of May
Old Drill Hall
Dalley St, Mullumbimby
7.30pm, $8/$5

Sunday 13th of May
The Channon Hall, near Lismore
Starting 5pm, after the Channon craft market. Also playing is Terri Nicholson who plays beautifully and the well-known Jarrah.
A vegetarian meal will be available at an affordable price, raising funds for The Channon's local youth group.

Saturday 19th of May
Bellingen Memorial Hall Hyde St, Bellingen
7.30pm, $6/$4

Thursday 24th of May
The Nunnery
Community space (and several people's house)
40 Forbes St, Newtown, Sydney
7.30pm, entry by donation,
Supper available

Saturday 26th of May
AKEMI artists' collective space
40 Great Western Highway, opopsite the train station
Medlow Bath, Blue Mountains
We're playng a full set at what is otherwise the Brackets and Jam night

Friday 1st of June
The Lass O'Gowrie Hotel, Wickham, Newcastle

Thursday 7th of June
Blackheath Folk at the Ivanhoe
Ivanhoe Hotel, Great Western Highway, Blackheath, Blue Mountains
We're a booked act and there are floor spots as well.
Free entry, music from 7.30pm,
Food available from 6pm

And Here's How It Went!

Nymboida
The hall was pleasantly full, the sound was really good. Gareth Thomas and his friend Julie played first and they were great. Songs about life and things, and a lovely sound with both their voices.

We had fun, I started a few songs in the wrong key. Phil is a great bass player and that helped loads. Mitra's drumming is always just the feel that's needed and he soldiered on with a broken foot!! My father John Spencer played mandolin and banjo as well, as skillfully and creatively as always. It was a nice night.

South Grafton
The entire population of Grafton was spared the agony of an embarrassingly bad gig by not turning up. I had done absolutely rubbish publicity and my lovely new step mother was the only person to come not to perform.
An excellent family friend and great harpist Geoff Welham played harp to welcome the punters, all of them, and then we started. I was also unable to sing because of a not-yet-healed throat and had to stop after about 8 songs, by which time it was clear that we were the whole crowd, so we went home. There was a lesson in there somewhere.

Nimbin Mardi Grass
Nimbin is a very impressive town. It still has lots of very progressive and alternative projects happening, like the fod co-op, the local radio station, the prgressive technology centre, the hemp embassy and ongoing drug law reform campaign. All this after its recent dark years of hard drug troubles is a really astounding feat that deserves applause.

The Mardi Grass as I saw it was a well-organised event and managed to retain its intended focus as a drug law-reform raly, despite the police message pressed in the newspaper that "most people aren't there to make a political statement" and the harrassment. For us it was a bit of a let-down because my voice was still not fully recovered and the music side of things all up and dwon the street was in disarray because of problems with the town's grid-power. We found ourselves a busking spot but I didn't last very many songs and it was a bit of a non-event for us.

Mullumbimby
We set up and met the people from the North Coast Climate Action Group, who'd come to do a stall at the gig. I'd worked out a talk about climate politics and we just waited for people to arrive. Not one single person came. Again. It was excruciating. By going down to the pubs and telling people individually, we managed to get about five people to drop in on their way somewhere else but that's it.

Gayle from the NCCAG is a very together and on-task person and I wished the ground would open up and swallow me but she was very supportive and just did what she could to make the thing enjoyable. It was a big chalk-mark in the experience column.

The Channon
The next day we played at The Channon craft market, making no money in competition with the very slick buskers who play there, and then at the hall in the evening. That was a nice gig. My friend Terri Nicholson, who I hadn't heard play much played. She has great built in musicianship and sing swonderfully. Jarrah, another north coast musician played too and was also impressive. We nearly covered the cost of the hall there and all enjoyed ourselves.

Changes
After that, I finally realised how over-ambitious I'd been to think I could get den the work it takes to make that many separate gigs work, all in different places from where I live. In its original guise of a concert-based climate action tour, I could have called on the activists of each place to make it happen but as that got wound back I found I had to do it all and realised much too late that it was impossible.

We cancelled the Bellingen hall booking and it's been an all-busking tour from then on.

Busking
We've now played at all of the follwoing locations:
Lennox Head Our first busking gig. We were nervous of being booted out so we parke das close as we could and set up as fast and furtive as possible (with a small drum kit...) and played most of our stuff. People came out of their shops to watch. One teenage boy sat for a while and listened to the words. He seemed amazed that we could be singing such political stuff. It was great.

Ballina Not bad, lots of passers-by but lots of car traffic too.

Lismore There were loads of buskers in Lismore - one on every street corner it seemed. Stupidly, I picked the spot almost outside the shop where I'd just stocked my CDs, and annoyed them by competing with their music. Oops.

Casino I was scared in Casino but it went really well. Not much money but people mostly enjoyed it.

Grafton My home town. Not bad, but not great.

Woolgoolga It was great. Old people loved our music and people sitting across the street polled together a hnadful of money for someone to throw in the case. Someone bought us a pie each.

Coffs Harbour There is only one spot in Coffs city centre that you can busk without a licence. They don't issue licences, so that was our only choice and it's owned by Woolworths. Someone from Woolies kicked us out instead and said he would call the police. We gave him one more song just to make sure he would call them, then went on our way.

Sawtell It's a pretty quiet place but great for being heard and people actually listened to the words. Shop-owners came out to give us the thumbs up and people that went past did chuck a coin in the case.

Bellingen We busked outside a friendly cafe off the main street and they came and gave us drinks, which was lovely. People at the cafe even clapped for some of the songs and we sold a CD.

We played again at the market. You need public liability insurance to actually busk there so we had to get a stall and sell CDs and just perform as a promotion for our product. We didn't sell any CDs. As with a lot of markets, there are so many things to buy that it's really hard to get anyone to shell out any money for anything. When we'd played as much as I could manage to sing at that time in the morning, we cleared out, without making any money but withuot paying either.

Urunga We called in to see if Urunga had a town centre to speak of and it did so we played there too. People were amazed to see buskers there. It was just getting to be closing up time because it was Saturday but we were heard for a while. I recommend it for people playing enjoyable music. Having a drummer makes it so much better, and lends our performance a lot of validity too I feel. It's like if it takes that much time to set up, it must be a proper gig.

Nambucca Heads Even as we got our things out of the car, someone said "Are you going to play here? Great!" and we were quite popular.

Macksville It was hard to find a good spot to be heard because the main street is quite near the highway but we played and people enjoyed it. Someone dropped $10 in after listening to all of Unmarked Grave.

Kempsey We found a nice spot to play for a pedestrianised mall. This one was much more about the performance than the money because of our positioning and we did have quiet a good audience. People thanked us for playing.

Wauchope We didn't have high hopes for Wauchope but we were determined to play there and we did it. We even sang our forest blockading songs.

Wingham Wingham enjoyed us. I was worried about it being such a loggin town but it turned out very chilled and friendly.

Taree They ignored us pretty steadfastly in Taree but a few people enjoyed us so that's enough.

Bulahdelah We were thanked wholeheartedly by several people for taking the trouble to play in Bulahdelah. I recommend busking in tiny places.

Newtown
Another pre-organised gig. Once again the smallness of the publicity machine translated into a small gig but there were enought people to make it pleasant and we had a lovely night.

Medlow Bath It was a Brackets and Jam night and there were lots of good acts on. I had a great time and everyone else seemed to as well. It was very enjoyable.