FROM BOB MALONE:
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Tales from a Sunburnt Country, Part 1
New York to LA, LA to Sydney. After three weeks on the East Coast, I’m home for one day. Then it’s fifteen hours in the air, crammed into another Delta coach seat, Australia bound.
I arrive at 6:30 am. At 9:30 I’m on the phone with a newspaper writer in Melbourne, pulling off charming and witty in spite of the massive time displacement. Jet lag doesn’t accurately describe what it’s like coming here. It’s more like time travel. Wheels up on Tuesday, land on Thursday. I keep moving, a nap would be deadly. Lunch at noon, then ABC radio in Sydney for a live one with Richard Glover. He’s a fan and a real pro, it went so fast and smooth I had no sense of even doing it. If only they could all be like this.
Back at the shack at 4:00, another press interview. This time I’m talking to Maria, from one of the papers in Perth. A land so exotic and far away that even most Australians have never been there. I will be there in two weeks. I’m still on, but it getting harder now.
7:00 pm. We’re at a pub watching Pugsley Buzzard sing and play the piano. We’re doing a co-bill at The Basement in Sydney on Tuesday, and I’m sitting in to promote the show. Pugs sure can play the shit out of that piano. I have met my match, and I dig the challenge. I inhale a t-bone steak, play two songs, and head out of town with Mick the bass player to his place an hour south of town.
My head meets the pillow at 11:30, and I’m gone.
Awake in the am, the ocean booms softly below, the parrots call to each other in the trees. Paradise. Mick is set up here. We eat omelettes and drink strong coffee, get ready to go. Three hours to Canberra for another radio interview. We run out of gas within sight of a gas station, just as I am telling Mick how I love being on the road with him because he never fucks up. I figure he still didn’t fuck up because he ran out of gas so close to the station. The whole incident only sets us back 15 minutes.
Radio goes nicely. I banter with the host about drop bears and such, bang on the old upright. The horn section, who will be with me for the next four shows, is in the green room when I get back there. We have a quick verbal run-through of the charts, and then we all head out to The Great Southern Blues & Rockabilly Festival in Narooma. A hypothetical three hours away. There’s torrential rain, weekend traffic, and we’re stuck on a mountain two-lane behind an old camper with one of its rear brakes throwing sparks and fire. The trip takes over four hours.
In the backstage parking lot:
Me: “Where do we get our backstage passes?”
Parking Lot Guy: “I don’t know, mate!”
At the front gate:
Me: “Where’s the Albert King Stage?”
Front Gate Woman: “I don’t know, honey!”
Everyone here is on a need-to-know basis, apparently. But very friendly…
After much wandering in the pissing rain, we find the backstage entrance. Hugs all around with my good friends Gerry and Carmen Blaine. Gerry is the MC tonight. Candye Kane is ripping it up the next tent over, I want to drop by and never get the chance to. We say hi later via MySpace instead. Ahh, the modern world. Even as you gain something, you lose something better at the same time.
As showtime looms, the six-piece band I will be doing these shows with is finally assembled in one place. Half this band I am meeting for the first time. No rehearsal. They nail it. The crowd shows much love. It is a great night.
Back in my room at the La Salle Motor Inn, I have left my book backstage, and there is no wifi. Only the TV. No cable. A soul-numbing choice between “Thank God It’s Friday” or “Best Videos of the Eighties.” 1979 through 1989: was there ever a worse time for popular culture than those years? No, there was not. Disco, followed shortly by MTV and the drum machine. The music biz shot itself in the foot, and the patient never recovered.
This will be two days old by the time you lay eyes on it. And on the road, two days is a very long time.
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