Back In The Saddle... Sort Of.

Again, I have been largely absent from the blogging scene of late, what with the Anubis website, new Anubis album in the works, flogging off a old Anubis albums and rehearsing new songs and old ones alike for gigs. It's been hard to even come up for air.

As followers of Facebook will be no-doubt fully aware, things have been nuts with reviews and orders flying in from all over the planet for 230503, and although it's still shifting modest numbers, the fan base is widespread, and seems to be very enthusiastic. The album has gotten some very good press which we're indebted to the lovely people who have had really nothing but kind words to say about it. I can only guess that the thread of emotion that runs through it is strong enough to hold it together and not become too pretentious, even though it is at times a bit overblown... but it's at least overblown how I want it.

I guess the most recent success must be Progfest, and that was really one of those 'wow' gigs... I know for a fact it looked amazing and we seemed to keep the audience onside through the lengthier pieces. I guess they couldn't have expected anything other than lengthy, surely? From the video and audio, the band was pretty hot from the off, and held up a standard. Robbie gets better at every show. Not that I've ever had reason to doubt him, but he's growing in confidence and becoming more of a frontman, as a focal point, rather than looking a little static and uncomfortable up there. Dougie's stint away from us with Hemina has undoubtedly brought his confidence up and our three-part harmonies seem to be better than ever. Dean is more integrated and having debuted the Tower Of Silence material, he is as integral a part in the arrangement. Not to say that he didn't find a place to exist comfortably within the existing material, given his involvement in it from the off, but this is on equal footing. I know I find the dual guitar quite exhilarating.

As the next album's concept comes together, I find myself, aided and abetted by Robbie, traversing the socio-economic hierarchy of 18th and 19th century Britain, back to the days of the Union Workhouses, and mixing it fairly liberally with an interest in the hypothesis of the supernatural. All in all it makes a fairly dour but utterly compelling story that the flesh and muscle of the next album (called A Tower Of Silence) will hang on. The new lyrics have a fairly spiritual bent, albeit from the perspective of the protagonist of the story, the shade of a 12 year old girl called Sarah. Having spent my childhood in a house that I believed very strongly to have been haunted and having had a number of unexplainable psycho-spiritual experiences over the years, it was undoubtedly an atmosphere I felt compelled to explore. Robbie was, when we first met a total skeptic but has since been more open to the matter after being party to, and indeed present with some form of 'vibe' that is inexplicably present. The lyrics are, by the way, quite outstanding.

So every Tuesday, the boys and I have been chiseling away at these new pieces, refining arrangements and getting notes under fingers/into larynxes. For the most part it's been a largely painless process, interrupted by outbursts of Steve's monolithic temper. Not for no reason is he well known for it. The 'Tower' pieces are, on the whole, more musically intricate than the ones on 230503, with some have multiple time changes per song. With Doug's excellent writing also on a much more level footing with 'the old firm' of Rob and I, there seem to be a lot more notes to contend with, especially in riffs and runs, where his speed and dexterity has upped the ante a little.

The recording process began a couple of weeks ago with a new piece entitled 'Archway Of Tears', which came initially from Doug, that Rob and I edited and arranged further, adding the chords in the middle section that has become a guitar solo. As the tracks were put down, Rob and I found it sounding very like UK - something unexpected as Nick and Steve - who initially improvised the original repetitive rhythmic figure - have, to the best of my knowledge, never heard 'In The Dead Of Night', which it resembles fleetingly. Doug's solo channels Alan Holdsworth, but he indicates thats more intentional. Regardless, it's a stunning solo.

The other piece that we've begun tracking is the concluding epic, the 12-minute 'All That Is'. Now this, I know, to be far and away Steve's favourite Anubis song, and it is a bit of a classic prog track in a Genesis meandering sort of way, with elements of Muse creeping in with the drums, bass, guitar and keyboards all playing figures in different time to form one common whole. It's got a great melody and one of Rob's best lyrics. It is fairly heavy and breaks from a sweet, very Breaking Water-esque Piano intro into the body of the song. The song is also very much the way Rob and I write together these days, as the first bit is entirely his and the second, more anthemic and slower section was mine. But with his melody, naturally.

The lyrics seem to be shaping up in a similar way to the last record, where the initial idea comes up and we throw it back and forth until we're both satisfied with it. We're 4/9ths of the way there.

The other thing, which has been quite fun, has been the idea of videoing all our recording sessions. One of my regrets is that nothing exists from the period where Rob and I wrote the last album, and only about 2 minutes of very shaky video exists from those long sessions at Razorback that nearly killed Dean as the three of us continually butted heads, I read many books and sniped at the other two whilst they recorded endless takes of vocals (probably because I didn't think any of them were yet good enough and likely made my point known, much to the others' chagrin). Which up until recently had been my single favourite Anubis experience. Naturally going into the studio with a new, better, largely group re-arranged album, with a band to record it instead of people we liked showing up at my house to add bits and pieces, it feels even better this time around. As much as I love gigging, and I do, it's still the studio and the process of making a few songs into a big long-form statement that gets the heart beating faster.

That said, the gigging experiences we've had lately, as I said before, have been great, and the last one we did at the Excelsior only a couple of weeks back was an immensely satisfying musical endeavour. Additional sentimentality was there to beef up the occasion as it occurred to me halfway through Waterfall (that I should have been concentrating on what I was doing...?) that it was August 26th 2010 and thus exactly 10 years to the night that Nick and I had first trod the boards together, or at least the sticky carpet, at Tattersall's Headroom in Rozelle - Department's first real gig. Had I known we might have worked up Codename: Velvet for the occasion. Or probably not.

So coming up, we probably have about two more shows for 2010. One we're pretty sure is happening at Candy's Apartments in Kings Cross at the end of October, and maybe another at the very end of Nov that may include Arcane, our friends from QLD. The studio time is probably the biggest priority right now as we have set ourselves a deadline of May 2011 to get AToS finished for release. Given that 230503 took 5 years, I think to follow it up in 10 months is bloody impressive. The other obstacle, albeit a very warm fuzzy one, is the arrival of Antoinette 2.0 (the next generation) in the first week of Nov (all being well) that could crimp musical activities slightly for a month (If we're in the studio, it'll likely not be too big an issue - but with a gig offered for the end of Nov, it's really up to Nick if he's willing to commit to that or not, we all understand his reasoning if he doesn't feel he is).

Finally, I have a new baby too. Not of the flesh, bone and nappy-wearing variety, but of the red-and-black uber-hotness of the Nord C1 organ. Since the Hammond L100 melted down spectacularly at the Wall, I have been umm-ing and ahh-ing about replacing it and the road warrior OB3 with a common organ that will sound like a B3, not weigh more than Steve and Nick in a big box, and allow me to avoid having to take rotary speaker appendages to little gigs and waste time setting it all up, and something that could double for a Farfisa co I could not have to take my old Farfisa out too. Plus, I was not about to risk taking the Hammond out again, and risk losing the whole rig to power fail. I did record the organ part for Archway or Tears with the old girl, but will likely replace the part with the C1. It's more B3-like than the L100, which has minimal keyclick, and has zero mechanical noise to boot. It's a beautiful keyboard, and I'm very much in love. It feels like an organ. Simple. I played a Hammond B3 recently and this feels almost identical. And the leslie sim is just wonderful. Can't wait to take it out for Floyd show if and when we get back into doing it.

That said, I have loved the old organs, the L100 has been a joy for me since day one and I still get excited playing it. I shall miss it most when it's gone. The OB3 has been to every gig I've played in the last 10 years bar two, when I played with my OLD Hammond at the very start of Department. Sure, it's sat out rather forlornly in the car whilst I got my jollies from some heavy piece of 1960's junk on stage, but it was always there in case the unthinkable happened at soundcheck and the Hammond gave up the ghost. The one time we didn't have a soundcheck... bingo.

It saw four Floyd shows, was a spare at another three. 52 Department gigs, 12 Anubis gigs, The Department Eponymous LP, a couple of bits on 230503, a recording session with The Saturns, and hundreds of rehearsals. Whilst sonically, it's less inspiring that Steve after a Lamb Vindaloo, it is something I've shared a lot of memories with. The Farfisa is ugly, noisy, falling to bits and nothing more than a cheap and nasty plastic low-end beginner's home organ. I bought it for the princely sum of $30 on eBay and spent more on petrol driving to St. Ives to pick the thing up. I've never liked it much, and it's been genuinely useless to me except for one thing, which is whacking it through a ton of reverb and adding vibrato for the build up in Echoes. Which is fortunate really, as it was the only reason I bought it at all. That effect, however, was stunning live, and I saw Dean visibly shudder with approval every time I raised the fader. It did get used on the Archway Of Tears demos, and was tracked for use on the final version, but will be replaced with the modelled compact duo on the C1 which is pant-wettingly good.

In which it all went a bit crazy ... (part 3)

Well... life continues to take some odd twists and turns, and of late there has been a number of those moments where one stands back, looks curiously at oneself and says 'what on Earth is happening?'

Whilst not exactly racing up the billboard top 100, our little record has done wonders again, with reviews starting to filter in here there and everywhere, and most have been remarkably positive.

Sales have been gratifyingly robust too as reviews are pointing more and more potential audients toward the group and our music, and people from far-flung corners of the planet are seemingly turning up to join the family, so to speak.

As a boy, this is all I dreamed of doing. Making a record that people would appreciate that involved no concession to commercialism. In many ways, it is a dream that can only be realised through the power of the internet - circa 2010, and its fair to say that forced to use the previous method of musical distribution and audience building, Anubis would probably not have survived, in much the same way that Department did not survive and Altered State did not survive.

Thankfully living in that age, we are gladly and proudly cultivating a fan-base that takes in Europe, Japan, America (Nth and Sth) and Asia. We took an order yesterday from the Ukraine and the very idea still makes me gasp. Especially seeing as how this guy paid for a CD- in the Ukraine, you can download a pirate copy from soundike for $1.99, and we won't see a cent. So good on him for supporting Australian music!!!

So, essentially, the word of mouth is continuing to build. Progarchives is beginning to build reviews, as we are sitting on a very healthy 4.13/5 in total. iTunes has 10 5-star reviews attached to our album, so thanks to all the family for that. I suspect a few of those would be friends though, so it's perhaps a little less exciting. An Italian webzine wrote a very favourable article and gave us essentially a 7/10, which is really good - given the rest of the stuff they reviewed!

The biggest news on that front is a review from a French magazine. I can't post the translation, as Nick has asked me to refrain for now, at least until his grandfather gives us a decent one. One that doesn't refer to me as a 'tablecloth'(?) would be nice. The gist was that 230503 had become the reviewers second 'pick of 2010', and that he absolutely loved it. A 9/10 score, followed by two other reviewers posting 8/10 scores. Wow. I always loved France.

So while the toddler is going through pre-scool, figuratively speaking, we have been busy fertilising eggs in the studio. The new album, musically, is pretty much formed, and we are now down to working out the finer details of the arrangements. A couple are about ready to do full-band demos of, and that process is something I have been anticipating for some time. I have been itching to get back to the nitty-gritty headbutting of the creative process. Whilst, naturally, it's lovely to sit back and watch cash roll in, its still far nicer to actually be engaged in making music.

The new album, when it's finished, will go by the name of 'A Tower Of Silence'. It is a 9-part song cycle, based around the story of the life and death of an 11 year old girl who died in a poor asylum in 19th century England. As communicated by her Earthbound apparition. It's a very cool concept, and one track, 'Archway of Tears', will likely be debuted very very soon on stage.

The process was different to last time in as much as all 6 of us sat around a table and discussed the concept, and developed a rough storyboard based around the songs that Rob, myself and Doug had already amassed. Taking the rough storyboard, Rob and I then went and developed the framework and put it back to the guys for their input, and hopefully approval. It was unanimously accepted and we had our second album. The songs are then, one-by-one being developed in the rehearsal studio, playing with sounds, arrangements, chord voicings and segues. Ah... that nitty-gritty.

I heard back the recording of last night earlier this evening and was genuinely astonished by the rate at which the songs are moving forward. I shall not elaborate as some of the working titles are not at all pleasant or intelligent or funny, and thus it's easier to not even mention them. However, the songs themselves will be stellar. Whilst there's no 'Disinfected' on it, there is a longer average track length, and we've not discounted the idea of making the whole thing a continuous piece and indexing the tracks as 'A Tower of Silence' parts 1 - 9 with the subtitle being the track name. I personally like the idea, as the tracks are more like movements of a single continuous piece. However, that may indict squeals of 'pretentious', and of course, we can't have that now, can we?

Our deadline to be ready for the recording proper is November, when Nick goes on (unpaid) maternity leave.

Dean mixing the live tapes

Whilst on the subject of studios, we have began the unenviable task of mixing the live tapes from 'The Wall' in April. Given the technical hitches on the night, there were a few things I needed to repair, but that was nowhere near the task I expected and it's sounding very good. I must confess we haven't been terrifically proactive about getting these out there, and we're looking a Christmas for a digital release. We're not expecting a huge sale, but it's nice to at least give people the option of hearing the live arrangement of the album, as I have a sneaking suspicion I will enjoy it more than it's studio counterpart.

What Dean needs in order to sit through the sessions

It was a toss up between both of the 230503 shows, 'The Wall' and 'The Annandale', and although The Annandale was a practically flawless performance (one dropped drumstick and one guitar in the wrong key, both fixed without losing a beat), the drums were not recorded with an overhead microphone so we are cymbal-less. A crying shame, actually. The good point was that the Wall was the bigger crowd and the better vibe, and Steve was in extremely good form that night. Keyboard glitches aside, it was a great gig. So thats the one we have to mix.

Robert's evident interest in the whole mixing process

Anyway, thats my head clear of thought for this evening. I feel very excited for our musical adventures to come.

"grumble...It's just not fair I have to sit through this f**king record again, so soon, after

spending two years of my life trying to make the last version of it sound good. Why has

Karma taken a big dump on me, yet again. I really rue the day I phoned Eaton and invited him to join my Pink Floyd cover show.... grumble"

And then it all went a little bit madder...

As I sit here, mid June 2010, 12 months ago holding a mastered and as yet unpressed CD in my hand, ruminating on what may happen this coming year, I'd still say I would have been rather surprised at what has 'gone down' so to speak.

230503, whilst obviously not a 'Dark Side Of The Moon', has done way more than a totally unknown prog band from Western Sydney should have done and gone on to sell in Europe, America, Australia (of course) and Japan. That's just the physical CD. It's stocked by German stores, Japanese stores, CDbaby in the US, another online store in the US, can be ordered into US stores if requested (although who would??) and has been reviewed in French, Italian, and in English on ProgArchives (where as we speak, it's sitting on a 4 star rating and is called 'an excellent addition to any prog-rock collection'. What more can I ask?

Downloads have been gratifying with iTunes having

at least 7 five-star reviews. And with only 6 band members, thats... (just kidding). Torrent downloads, whilst we have absolutely no finite way to determine the actual number is looking extremely high - our strange business model of asking nothing for it in order to get it out there has still paid for our next album, in full, before we even begin making it.

The Annandale show was our best ever live performance and the version of 230503 we played that night is probably as close to the definitive version one is ever likely to hear. I get more pleasure from putting on my dodgy bootleg of it and listening to the sheer energy and wall of noise than I do (at the moment) from the subtleties and delicacies of the studio album. The good thing is that like the Wall show, we recorded the Annandale show to multitrack as well and will hopefully be putting it up for download toward the end of the year when Dean has mixed it. The plan being that that will help keep up some momentum and will see us remain visible as the next album is coming up for release.

Which brings me neatly to the next album.

What has happened is that the six of us had a meeting around the time of the Annandale show to discuss the concept and potential storyline for the second album. As usual Rob and I had a number of grand ideas which were largely embraced by the group, and Dean in particular weighed in with a number of alternative ideas which took what we had already gotten into some very exciting areas. Since then, a whole album took shape out of the early demos and now the group is in rehearsal scraping away at the foundations of the next record.

The difference could not be starker. When we made 230503, Rob and I had barely written a note together, and so the concept came first, and the music was slipped around the guidelines as much as possible. This time, we had a basic idea of what we wanted to submit to the band and a wealth of material that really needed arranging and sewing together. As the concept and mood became clearer, at least two fully formed songs that didn't fit the cut were put on the sideline, as well as about 35 bits that we didn't need or couldn't find a decent home for.

Dougie has also contributed much more in a compositional sense than last time too, which adds some different chord progressions to the mix. He had written pretty much all of one song, (with the middle bit generating from Nick and Steve) and also brought in key parts of another two tracks, several chord progressions and ostinatos that made their way into the pieces becoming verses or choruses or sections in their own right.

The next bit is the development of the existing tracks and recording first band demos... we have three tracks that we will do before moving to the next stage, and learning three more.

Assuming we can all agree on what goes where, what sounds good and what fits, we could be back in the studio proper by November, which would be ideal as Nick will be off learning to be a Dad by that point, and will be able to come as and when he can.

I'm hopping onto eBay to buy some gear. I have my eye on some bass pedals :-)))

And then it all went a little mad....

It's been a hectic couple of weeks.

I have to admit I have had much to detract me from the pleasures of diary writing and the reasons for which will become abundantly clear.

As any straggling remaining readers of my utterances will know, we've just premiered 230503, and as a result, we've acquired some long-dormant momentum.

Firstly, Anubis is now on ProgArchives. That is huge. That site basically forcefeeds overblown music to it's demographic. (Overweight 30 - 40 year old men with egg-encrusted beards, living in a shed on their mother's property, and spending all day on on-line forums debating if Yes is really Yes without Jon Anderson - wait, that almost IS me, isn't it?)

ProgArchives, when you begin to get some reviews trickling in, gives you visability and that said visability gets you an international audience. And it's beginning to have an effect.

The show, whilst I'd love to say went off without a hitch, actually went off with a couple of very big ones. Firstly, one of the support bands exercised musical terrorism and ate away both our soundcheck and line check time. By taking 40 minutes to set up, possibly in protest to the imposing collection of furniture stage left (my keyboards remained set up all night), our set up and sound check time literally disappeared. They effectively hijacked our night. They also had the nerve to make some rather uncomplimentary remarks about us and our 'scale and pretention'. 

It's prog rock, you twat... what the hell did you expect?

Musically, they were supremely gifted musicians, but playing atonal free-improv alienated our audience. They didn't heckle. They just left the room. We stayed to be gracious but as their set cruised ever-closer to our start time, I confess all grace evaporated. And boy, does that put you on edge.

Next, the hammond organ shorted out the stage power. We're on stage, trying to get set up, and I'm already grinning, and then everything dies. My samples....

to re-load them takes 15 mintes. That's WHEN you get the source of the power trip isolated.

Had we had our soundcheck, I could have substituted it for the OB3 which was sitting in my car waiting for such a disaster. With no time to spare, I was forced to pull out the (quite frankly) evil inbuilt organ sounds on my roland synths. And thus became that sort of neo-prog keyboard player I loathe.

With curfew looming 65 minutes into a 70 minute set, we decided to make a go of it and hope the samples came on line before I needed them. The keyboard sounds were totally wrong, and I was constantly editing patches on the fly to make up for what I was missing. A terrible experience and absolutely no fun at all.

The first essential sample is the second half of Breaking Water. Where the sea noises and chords accompany Dean's best seagull impersonations. The samples finished loading about 4 seconds before we got there. Crisis 2 avoided.

The upside was an incendiary performance. I think the aggression, frustration and sheer dark energy surrounding the events fuelled the band, and some of those moments are positively terrifying. Anonymity is purely electric.

The performance isn't great. I wouldn't release it. A few moments are truly breathtaking in their feeling and power and others are truly breathtaking in their horror. Bad stage sound, flustering and tuning errors combined to make it truly awful in a few parts.

Yet a show is judged on it's reaction and this was by far our best. The audience stayed with us for our 65 minute set (Steve played very fast!!!!) and made The Collapse a standout track. 

The benefit as that the success of the show gave us the chance to do it properly at the next gig. We'd already been invited to do FeatherFest when Mike from Birds Robe offered us the chance to perform 230503 again. I jumped at the chance. To do it at, of all places, the Annandale, which has been a venue I have dreamed of playing for years and years, and my preferred venue to launch it anyway, is a wonderful thing and evidence that regardless how unenjoyable The Wall show actually was for me, that it had been artistically successful and resonated with people.

To put the last show into perspective, however, I heard the unmixed multitracks last night and was surprised at how good it actually was. Much of my ire had been at the poor mixing but when put into perspective it was far better that I'd given it credit for. Still no where near our best, but far far better than I'd initially thought.

We look on to the Annandale with cautious enthusiasm.

Possibly as a result of the ProgArchives thing, we found our online sales have picked up. And to an exceedingly unlikely source. Japan.

So far we've sold 31 copies of the physical CD to Japan, and have been paid in full. 

I never expected that people in other parts of the world would be attracted to 230503. I still find it a little unbelievable.

Putting the online store up has been a remarkably good idea.

T-Shirt sales on the show night were gratifyingly robust and people have been spotted in Sydney wearing our beloved Pat on their chest. Lucky Pat.

So with all that happening, it seemed the perfect time to launch www.anubismusic.com. The new site is now up and looks startlingly good in it 230503 inspired theme. You can hear a couple of bits from the album, as well as the live recordings from the Lansdowne last year.

So everything is hurtling forward. 230503 is doing it's job and we're beginning to think about album #2. Demos have been swapped amongst band members and so far we're all pretty up for making something new and exciting.

In the meantime, I'm off to rehearse for the Annandale.

Chocolate and Porn is needed...

As we slide along the highway of life, some things that seem so trivial and are subsequently easily forgotten in the moment, can become such a pivotal and life-defining moment later on.

It's the early hours of March 13th 2004, and I've had too much to drink. With me is a similarly intoxicated 17-year old (I didn't buy the drink, Guv'nor) Robbie and a most gracious host, the just turned 18, keeper of the drink cabinet (yeah, I'll point the finger), Matt.

What I didn't realise at the time, as a 24 year old, was that one (albeit slightly slurred) line from the youngest in our number was to be the catalyst that would trigger the project that would subsequently occupy the next six and a half years of my life.

'Chocolate and Porn is needed'.

On route to the Quix service station, via marshland, mosquitos and unpleasant gradients (I was even less fit back then), we talked and talked. Conversation seemed to hang around the subject of Ev's recent death and more pertinently, writing a concept album based on it. Sure, if it seemed like a good idea when we'd sobered up... why not?

It is interesting to note that in the time it took to finish the record, that marshland had been turned into a fully functional, landscaped housing estate, with lawns, trees and all the trimmings. Suburbs are built quicker than Anubis records.

But this has all been described already, by me, ad nauseam. 

230503 has been downloaded across the globe, has been bought and paid for by people we don't even know, in places like Japan and the UK. This is more than I, more than we, ever dreamed of.

All those feelings, the shows, mastering day, first full playback at Dean's, playing the album in rehearsal, seeing Matt's album cover for the first time, all come flooding back as the countdown to the 230503 show continues at a fearsome pace. We have one more full-band rehearsal to do, and we've recorded the last rehearsal version of 230503 we're likely to, at least this time around. We've elected to, like most gig weeks, not record the final rehearsal.

The idea of doing this gig is something I've had in my head since that night at Matt's. I've never performed an album in it's entirety before (excluding Dark Side Of The Moon). This ticks a big box for me. It also marks the end of the map, in a sense. Everything from here on is uncharted waters, and I have no idea what lies ahead, other than what maybe illuminated by the new songs that Rob, Doug and I have been putting together. But when they become Anubis songs and the next album takes shape, the direction will be largely unfamiliar.

I know Robbie (now nearly 24 and infinitely wiser than his inebriated 17 year old self) sees this show as a means of putting this project to bed in order to get straight on with the next one. Can't pin that boy down for a second...

I, to a certain extent feel the same way, but I find that I'm dwelling more on the journey itself. Every step of the way from planning to writing to recording to rehearsing to performing has seen obstacles conquered, plans made, milestones reached.

It's a given I sometimes over-romanticise about these things, but the honeycombs of my brain are richer for having such a warm view of all these experiences. To me, 230503 cumulatively represents a personal search for what I invisaged my musical life to sound like. It has rewarded me, many times over, for taking on the challenge and when I hit the opening bars of The Deepest Wound next Saturday night, there will not be a more satisfied and proud person on this planet.

My heart has skipped a beat...

Well, I just took a look at the Bald Faced Stag's concert hall, 'The Wall'.

Anubis is playing 230503 here in April.

All I can say is WOW.

The stage is bigger than The Manning Bar, or at the very least, comparable in size. The sound reinforcement is amazing, and the lights are just, well... mindblowing.

The drum riser is about the same size as the stage at the Sando!!! (lol)

This is just perfect in every way for Anubis to launch our baby. Performed beginning to end, the whole story, multimedia. Hell, if we get good enough in rehearsal, I will personally pay to have it pro-shot for DVD. The place is big enough.

Looking at it, it's the perfect venue and I can't believe we never saw it before.

I'm gonna push this on the Yes and Pink Floyd forums too- so many people need to see this show!

I am not going to be able to sleep tonight. Too much planning to do! Too many lists to write.

That will be the last stop on an incredible journey too. To be playing this music, on stage with Steve, and Robbie, Nicko, Dougie and now Dean, the six people who've lived and breathed this album for 4 years is more than a dream come true.

If all this works and comes to plan, it'll be my finest hour.

Do NOT Rest In Peace... The Harp.

I think to most people, when the Hopetoun closed it's doors, and subsequently boarded them up, it was denounced as the beginning of the end of Sydney's live music scene. Since my real introduction to the world of gigging around live music pubs and clubs a decade ago with Department, there have been a number of venues which just gave up the ghost either just to live music, or trading altogether. I was never fortunate to have played the Hopetoun. I was never trendy enough or in a band that was. In fact, there's a school of thought that I am perhaps the reason why any band I'm in isn't trendy, but that's another matter.

I did however, watch my former bandmates go on with the Saturns and make a second home for themselves on that deliciously dishevelled place. It did have the vibe, as the first thing some guy said to me as Rob and I walked in was "Do you want to buy a mellotron?" The omen was a good one.

The venue filled almost shoulder to shoulder, and although the then current Saturns repetoire did absolutely nothing for me in a musical sense, there was still a sense of occasion (It must be said I like the subsequent material much more, and should they ever bother to finish it, it's actually very exciting... and I played on a very small part of it). Quite often this 'occasion' helps a particular gig transcend the treadmill of playing live regularly.

Perhaps more pertinent to me was the closure, in October, of The Harp. This is much more personal. A fairly sophisticated and classy decorated Pub with a big band room at the back and a half-decent sized stage. And awful food.

I have played the Harp with all three major gigging bands I have been in. It was initially 'The Riverview Hotel', and I played it with Adam, Steve and Oli back in 1997, as ELH, Delusion or Altered State or whatever the hell we were at the time. Then I played there in 2001 with Department and that lead to us playing there 6 times over the next three years, including our last ever gig together on January 4th 2004. It was the first place Anubis ever played live together, and the first place that I ever really felt the buzz with this band. I know our peer and sometimes gigging partner Stuart does not share my view on this, having had one dodgy sound guy experience too many.

The sound quite often sucked. I have to say. The guy had no idea how to mix keyboards, and they were seldom loud enough (the Rick Rubin school of mixing?), but the place did have a vibe, and I have had some very happy times on that stage.

If I close my eyes, I really do associate it with Department, even though it's a vital place in Anubis' life. I can see myself crammed into the back corner, with Nathan's ride cymbal practically hitting my keyboards. I see over the top of Chris' head in front of me, Charlie's hair made even more red by the Par Can just to the left of his head, and Nick in his blue lab coat and silly hat directly diagonal to me,

usually stomping around pulling faces.

I hear the last line of vocals in Strange But Strong Believer, The 'La...aaa..ate' 3-part and Chris turning around to beam enthusiastically in my direction (and believe me, you remember something like that because it's not a terribly frequent occurance). Being a spiritual home to that band, and the birthplace of another, I do feel terribly attached to it.

Walking in for the first Anubis show didn't feel really any different. Characters and Script changed, but it was the same show in sprit. I put that down to the harp. I was back up in the corner, having my eardrums blasted by a drummer to my right. This time, Doug blocked my view, the par can was green, as was Robbie's skin, and Nick was coatless. But it was still the Harp.

Many bands got gigs at the Harp even when they couldn't get gigs anywhere else. We shared the stage there with some very odd characters who may have long given up musical aspiration and become a bank teller or something. Perish the thought. But for your 45 minutes, it was a place to communicate with your people, and you got bloody well paid for it too if you brought the numbers. Anubis alone averaged 75 per show. I have no idea what Department in it's prime did.

I can only hope it reopens its doors soon. It was a great place to play and reconnect with old faces and a big big part of my 20s. It would be tragic if others don't get the chance to feel the way I did.