You can't really see it here, but poor Mannie was SAVAGED by a terrible, fearsome, fangy, 8-inch long puppy. He was cuddling Shadow, the new baby belonging to our friends Brad and Kristie, when it decided that it would attach itself to his snozzer. It was like a baby crocodile, and no amount of screaming, slapping, pencils in the ear, fingers up the bum, Steve Irwin 'Crikeys!' or even wailing like an utter red-haired stepchild would help. He flailed around the house, knocking over vases, bookshelves, small crystal duck ornaments, the plasma TV, the rare Brett Whitely prints....Shadow clamped on his face like a heavy brown sock. Eventually the vicious, furry, cute-yet-deadly creature released him, and Mannie fell to the ground, writhing, hands to his ruined face, blood almost spurting from the incredible 3 millimeter graze on his nose. It took us a long time to coax him out of the corner he dragged himself into, whimpering and trembling with fear, hackles up. Shadow merely wandered off, licking her chops.

Well after my blogging efforts last night I promptly came down with a cold. The boys & Bridge filed an injunction against me & it is now illegal for me to come within five feet of them :) I'm on cold & flu tablets and the pseudoephidrine has kicked in, so I'm feeling no pain! We're currently sitting in a little cafe chilling out before our first gig in a few hours. Our sound check consisted of me, Paul & Bridge yelling at the sound man to turn the mando down. Unfortunately it didn't work. We're sticking to our healthy eating plan & Mannie is still on his anti-chicken crusade. It's a gorgeous day today, lovely and cool. Hopefully it won't be too windy during the gigs otherwise I'll have to invent really peculiar ways to play my flutes! Time for a drink :)

It's my turn to blog noi :) I'm bouncing around in the back of the van with Bridgey. This is through no fault of Mannie's, he's a very safe driver. It's the bloody roads! They seem to get worse the further north we go. So we're coming up to Maryborough now, and my backside has pretty much upped and left. Yay, break time! Back soon . . . ok, on the road again. Paul insists on having the window open & we're all freezing. Bridget is camped under my blanket & Mannie has been grumbling since Brisbane, so he's just stopped the van, rummaged around the back and come back wearing an All Blacks beanie. He looks like a Belfast thug! Ok, now he's pulled it off and decided to pump up his tyres. Maybe it'll look a bit suspicious :) Paul has taken this opportunity to clean the windscreen with the beanie :) Back on the road. Again. Mannie went to turn in the direction of Brisbane, leading Paul to say, 'Left, Mannie!' because left is the way the iPhone told us to go. About an hour ago the boys were geeking out to a Ricky Gervais podcast (thanks to the everpresent iPhone!), while Bridge & I turned on the iPods (listening to Eliza Carthy & Kathryn Tickell respectively). There really isn't much chance of resting back here, which is annoying as we desperately need it. It's been a long week. I think I'll settle in with some Lior and see where it takes me :) Til later, Sairey.

To quote the Levellers: white lines, red lights, black tar rivers.

We're on a rainy Bruce Highway, heading north with 2 hour old foccacia, fresh coffee (or tea in Bridge's case) and loud *loud* music. The sun has just set, leaving behind squid-ink clouds, and we have about 4 hours before we reach Bundaberg, where we're staying with friends tonight. We've already decided that this trip will be named the Súnas Health Retreat Weekend. Mannie is suffering serious chicken withdrawl, and keeps muttering "Damn you, Jamie Oliver, damn you to hell.."

The only thing I have to report so far is that Mannie already has the squirts with Bridge and Sair for them pointing out that he looks like a nodding dog when he drives. Mannie just blames it on the boogie.

Right, my turn to take the wheel for a spell...

Listening to "Wired" by Mike McGoldrick

Sent by iPhone from somewhere windswept & interesting

So, last Sunday morning I was on the phone to a friend when I realised time was creeping onwards and that I'd have to go soon to start getting ready for the gig. When she expressed surprise that I'd be getting ready for an evening gig so early, I explained about how long it took to pack, drive down there, set up, sound check etc, and it got me thinking. . .

And here it is. The Anatomy of a Gig. A Gold Coast gig to be precise.

I’ll start off with the basics. The gig was due to start at 5pm down in Surfers Paradise, and was the usual 4 hour affair.


Mr Van and his...Van

I started getting ready at 1pm, sorted out clothes (Súnas has a moderate dress standard of no gigging in jeans, T-shirts or runners. Luckily enough this is something we all agree about, so we go to an effort –you have to look at us as well as listen after all!), checked through all my gear and retuned a new string that had broken the night before. I arrived to Mannie’s place at 2pm to find he’d been a very good boy and already loaded the van. We had a quick cup of coffee, waited for the girls to arrive then managed to set off about 20 mins later. The iPod was hooked up, and a truly bizarre play list of everything from Trad Irish to Bowie to Tom Petty to Roxette to Rachid Taha was soon thumping. After a frantic phone call from Mannie’s house, we returned to pick up the forgotten bodhran (my bad) and eventually got to Surfers just after 3.


Bridge tests my theory about blue lights, right before she kicks it over....

Set up take a fair bit of time. It’s usually quite a laugh, but there’s a lot of gear to lug and plug, and this generally takes about an hour, or a bit more if we’re mucking around. Basically, there are two sets of speakers to run, the ones you hear, called front of house, and our ones, which are called foldbacks (if we didn’t have those speakers on the floor in front of us, we wouldn't be able to hear each other, even in a fairly quiet room). Four microphones and the accompanying leads and stands, then four different instrument feeds and the assorted effects boxes and gumph for them. Hang the banner, arrange the lights (running power for everything from the central box too), a round of ciders, instrument stands. . . Then it’s time for the soundcheck, and this can take anything form 15 minutes to half an hour depending if there are any gremlins. Everything needs to be clear, tone-set and levelled with everything else, with care on the fiddle (which is a twitchy instrument at best) and the vocals. These settings vary from gig to gig, so we can’t just set and leave, oh, and they sometimes have to vary between what we hear and what you do (and believe it or not this is also dependant on what’s at our backs, be it a window, a wall, or a wooden panel). It sounds really farty, but one thing a sound engineer friend told me years ago is that most audiences don’t differentiate between simply bad sound, and a bad band. That’s to say if you’re a very tight, great band, but you’re badly mixed, a lot of people will still just think you’re bad. Unless you’re Lunasa, then you can play in the Concert Tent at Woodford in the middle of a powercut and still sound shockingly good. So we always take our time. Then it’s off to get changed, put on make up (Mannie) and have another cider (Bridge and Sair). I, of course, sit in a dark corner and meditate on life, the universe and my chords.


I think that's Patrick. Mannie insulted him and now they're brothers. It's an Irish thing.

The actual gig is kind of the easy part, though down at Surfers we pretty much play flat-out for four hours, with three breaks. We used to use set-lists but these days we just call it depending on the gig. Sunday was no exception. The usual bunch of mad buggers were in the house, so it was shouts and cheers from the get-go. It was great fun though, especially seeing Connor doing his dancing again! By the time we finished we were our usual 20 minutes overtime. Don’t know how this happens. I think it’s just because we enjoy ourselves so much.


Signing stuff is fun!

So, there’s a longish period to wind down, sell cds, meet people, sign them up to the mailing list, have a drink etc, then we have to start on breaking down the gear. Unlike setting up, this only takes about half an hour. We have to make sure all the instruments are cleaned, leads are free from cider spills (baby wipes are a godsend), and anything that’s given us trouble is marked before being put away. We see that the light that Bridge punted halfway across the stage is marked for replacement, and the appropriate fee removed from her apprentice's wages.

Then, food time. In Surfers on a Sunday night, we’re spoiled for choice. As long as that choice is takeaway and involves deep-frying something of dubious origin and biological status. We opted for a grilled chicken burgers, and because it was such a mild night (for Midwinter) we walked up and ate it on the beach. Ironically, we’re all on a health kick at the moment, so most of the food went half-eaten. Even Mannie left a bit of chicken in the bag (but that might have been more because the enormous Buddha of a man in a puffy jacket and a jewelled Raj turban was making eyes at him). Then we hit Starbucks for our usual tipple and it was back to the van and the ambient music cranked up for the drive home ('Winter’s Embrace' by Altus, this time, a lovely, hour-long piece of beauty -he gives his music away for free from his site, so go and enjoy!).


Bridge reflects on a manky chicken burger. Sarah oogles seagulls.

We stopped once at the deserted Yatala Pie Shop so Mannie could ‘stretch his legs’, then it was back to his place to unload the gear. By this time it was usually way past midnight, and Bridget still had another 40 minute drive home ahead of her.

Sunday was about 12 hours. 4 of which we were paid quite well for.

Wouldn’t swap it for anything. Seriously.


Listening to 'Regret Over the Wires' by Matthew Ryan

So first of all I should apologise for the delay in this blog. Unlike some people in this band, I don’t have an iPhone attached to my hand so it has taken me a little longer to find time to sit down and write this.

Our medieval tale started quite a few weeks back, on a Saturday morning in the Queen Street Mall. We were playing at centre stage as part of Brisbane’s Fete de la Musique, a brilliant day of multicultural music all around Brisbane city. We had a fantastic time and were happy to see a few familiar faces in the crowd, as well as lots of unfamiliar ones (some who even bought CDs!). We were un-phased by the photographers and film crews... until we learnt we were being shown on a big screen somewhere in France, at their own Fete de la Musique. Bonjour to any new French Sunas fans :)

Ok, moving on to our first medieval experience. The costume shop. What a great place! We tried on just about everything slightly medieval in sight, and are please to report that the Romeos found their Juliets.

From here we piled back into Mannie’s van for a trek up to Brendale, and Megan’s birthday bash. Now there are many stories to be told here... let's just say Sair and Paul were very inebriated (and quite vocal about it!). We handed over the set list to the birthday girl, made friends with the ‘balcony people’, who even ended up joining the party, heard some interesting MC work from our very own Sarah (ask Mannie about that one!), and saw a spectacular display of Paul’s strength (dropping an entire carton of Mercury cider – how very very dare you Paul!). 

So that was a typical Saturday in the life of Sunas... then one week later...

The Medieval Faire. Once again jumping into the Mannie-mobile, we headed North, this time to Caboolture. What a sight! The room was gorgeous, with long tables, banners and lots of velvet, and the high table up on the stage. Of course we figured that’s where we should be, so we wandered up (in our jeans and t-shirts) and found some tapestry-clad people to direct us to our performing area. All jokes aside, everyone looked fantastic and we met some really great people that night. And Mannie discovered that Spatchcock does taste like chicken!

We were also lucky enough to have the ever lovely Helen travelling with us, so we have her to thank for many of the pics through the night (which hopefully Paul will be putting up soon!).

Well that's the end of ye olde blog for me, and back to the real world for another week (until Childers Festival of Cultures this weekend...)

Bye for now

Listening to: 'Town of Athlone' by Karan Casey

We're getting busy.

It's been a fair while since we've been in the position where we're
having to turn down work, but at the rate our calendar is filling up
for this year, it won't be long. What's got all of us excited is the
variety of gigs. We've got the fresh local venues like the refurbished
Irish Club and Fiddler's Green down the coast, but it's the festivals
that have us excited. Next week is the Childers Festival of Cultures,
which we loved last year, then there's Neurum Creek and the Folk in
the Foothills way down on southern NSW, which will be part of our tour.

And to say we're excited about that...

Actually, while I'm here I have to point out that Bridget and Sarah
are putting the whole thing together by themselves, in a way only the
female contingent of the band could. Mannie and I are left pretending
that we know what they're doing and occasionally contributing thoughts
on poster design or miles per gallon of the van.

We're in good hands :)

After the tour comes Woodford (fingers crossed) then in January it
looks like we'll be heading down to Tasmania again for some *very*
special gigs. More on that soon.

Like I said, we're getting busy...


Listening to 'A Song for the Rosy Cross' by Sharon Shannon & Mike Scott

Sent by iPhone from...somewhere

Such a lot has happened in the past week.
 
There will be a blog posted about our experience at the Medieval Faire soon, but for now I must dedicate this blog to wholesomeness that is . . . Mannie.
 
Last Tuesday we were due to rehearse, however due to Bridget having the Black Lung we decided against it. Besides, Tasmanian legend and all-star Sunas member Helen was in Brisbane, so plans were made for Mannie, Paul & myself to catch up with her at our favourite venue, the Three Monkeys.
 
Anyone who has visited the Monkeys knows that sometimes you have Buckley’s chance of finding a vacant table. Fortunately we managed to find one in the beer garden next to the water fountain. The moment we all sat down, the laughs started. They always do. For some reason the boys are extra immature when around Helen (don’t be fooled, she’s just as naughty as they are). Our laughter attracted a lot of curious stares from people using the water fountain. Mannie gets particularly animated when retelling a story, and was in his element all night. We let him go; Mannie loves nothing better than to be the centre of attention.
 
Tonight was no different.
 
While we were waiting for our beverages, we were entertained with a dramatic retelling of naked Tassie moonlit frolicking fuelled by 8 ciders (it’s true!). Mannie paused to what appeared to be to catch his breath. But no. Instead, a look of intense concentration appeared on his mischievous face. Mannie looked directly at me, took a deep breath, leaned forward in his chair . . .
 
. . . and farted.
 
This was not your standard fart. This was a long, loud, split-your-pants-to-kingdom-come fart. We’ve never heard anything like it. As is the usual reaction to Mannie’s arse performances, we fell about laughing hysterically. What made it even more hysterical was that a man was standing directly behind Mannie at the water fountain when it happened, and without even revealing he’d heard this abomination, continued stoically filling up his cups with water while we were crying with laughter. Let me digress. This fart was so loud that several tables of people not only heard it, but laughed along with us, then stopped and watched the four of us nearly fall out of our chairs with hilarity for the next 10 minutes. One guy called out, ‘Gimme 5 minutes and I’ll match your efforts!’ Our waitress chose this exact moment to bring us our drinks – she had heard it too!
 
It took us quite a while and a second order of drinks for us to calm down.
 
I know I’ve said it before, but damn, I love this band :)
 
 
Listening to: ‘Santiago’ by Loreena McKennit