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‘Community Hall’ is the second release from our Sugar Creek Road sessions in 2019. Unlike ‘Headland’, we’d played it live a few times before recorded it, and it seemed to go over well. It’s a strange song in a way, because it sounds triumphant but is about people living at breaking point and and on the edges of society. It was at least partly inspired by the story of the fugitive Malcolm Naden (“…sleeping rough in the wildlife park”). Artwork by Rory Toomey. Special mention must be made of Gavin Waring’s electric guitar work on this one.

‘Community Hall’ is now available on Spotify and most other streaming services.

In late 2019 we spent a few days in a house up the coast recording songs. We planned to release them as an album in 2020, but that didn’t work out. When the lockdowns eased, we got back to playing and writing together, and the album – working title ‘Sugar Creek Road’ – was put to one side. Then other stuff happened, and for most of 2023 we didn’t play at all. That sucked. Late last year we started jamming together, and talk got to those recordings, and we decided they deserved to be heard. So, the plan is to release the songs as singles at (more or less) regular intervals. Anyway, the first one is ‘Headland’, which was inspired in part by memories of walks at La Perouse and Cape Solander. The cover was painted by our drummer, Rory Toomey.

Our new single ‘Headland’ is now available on Spotify and most other streaming services.

When we lived in Erskineville, we did our shopping at Marrickville Metro – I spent a lot of time there hanging out with my daughter in the indoor playground.

So it’s a real honour for the band to be included in Richard Brigg’s vast & rambling mural at the Met – I look forward to seeing it in person at some point. (photos courtesy of the artist)

From the artist’s instagram post:

“The floor is clean and i still have holes in my shoes; Its been a long project, but the finishing line is very close. I’ll be down at the @marrickvillemetro (just off smidmore street under the new bridge) from around 11am this coming Sunday putting some finishing touches to the wall drawing, all about community stories, people, place and landscape.

“Come on down and say hello if you are in the area; many locals have inspired and been part of this process and it would be nice to share some of the beautiful and amazing experiences that this artwork embraces.”

Pic by Kirsty Sue Elliott

Thanks to everyone who came out last night. Our first gig in 21 months was pretty special. Sold out both sessions (that’s 95 bums on seats), played a solid hour of music each session (half of which was new songs), and the audiences were fantastic.

The band is sounding better than ever, and it was a treat to have Gav Waring join us for a few songs. We’d really put a lot of time into the new material, and some of it is pretty out there (a friend of Rory’s said we’d moved “from Nashville to Detroit”), and it was gratifying to see people digging it.

Big thanks to Elmo from Gasoline Pony, who was very helpful.

We had a gig – our first since Covid – scheduled for July 10 at the Gasoline Pony. But then Sydney went into lockdown again, and that gig has been postponed until August 28.

It’s frustrating. We’ve been jamming regularly, most weeks, and we’re keen to share the new songs. There’s a lot of them. And we want to put out the new album (we’re calling it ‘Your Lights Still Rise’), but we feel like we need to get some momentum happening. It would feel weird, just putting out an album, in the middle of all this.

But we’ll get there. People need to get vaccinated, then vaccinated again, and then we’ll be on our way. In the meantime, we’ll keep writing songs, and playing them, and arranging them. Working on harmonies. What else can you do?