Plain plane playin’

The album finally descended, crowned and slid into the world on Friday March 25th at Fresh Cafe, Launceston. A long labour but boys and album are doing fine.

But enough with that metaphor… Let’s try another one.

In many ways it felt more like a landing than a launch. We’d already flown the rocket across the Bass Ditch, over the City of Rain and the City of Churches, way down south and back again.

Recorded, re-recorded and re-recorded again, this thing looked for a long time as if it was going to rust itself to the launch platform. (Ground Control to Major iBoy… are you guys still alive?)

So, we landed the rocket to a full house. And we were glad to have our land legs back.

And I’ve been thinking about lyrical themes on this record.

Strangely, there are three songs that refer to the absence of lights in the sky at night. “I thought that I would see pin-prick holes in heaven’s silken floor / but the lights shone no more” (On My Death and Resurrection), “Someone stole the colours dancing in the night” (Grey Blue), “I can see no stars tonight / I could believe that they have fallen from the sky / So the world is upside-down” (Up Above is Nothing Forever).

Make of that what you will.

It sounds to me like a whole lot of disillusionment. We’re fine with that. Better to lose an illusion than live with it and think it’s real. Too bad if you lose a lot of them at the same time. Too bad if your bandmate does the same thing at the same time.

But it makes for great songs.

Thanks to Mrs Pickering (above) for his performance poetry. I heard one punter describe this guy as “prophetic”. We want to hear more.

Thanks also to Ange Pugh (below) for learning the songs and bringing the music to life. Let’s do it again.

More recently, we played Selby Folk Club. We also stayed at the house of the club president, drank his coffee, ate his ice cream and were treated like little kings for a night. Thanks to David and Lyn, Tom and Will for your hospitality, and for taking us to the train station twice so that we had that iPhone the second time.

We are happy writing new songs, swapping things around (I sing Ben’s songs, he sings mine) and singing on trains.

Get above the groove of a lonely life. And buy the album.

DT

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