On Missing Live Music I’m missing live music. I open up Instagram with my morning coffee and the first thing that pops up is a video of Jacob Collier and Justin Lee Schultz, jamming together on a green room keyboard after a festival. It’s just such a joyful stretching out – two young guys with a genuine love of music playing over a tasty little chordal vamp. There’s no audience, no pressure, no end goal, just a shared exploration of music, and I love it. I know for a lot of my musician friends, the pandemic has taken away careers, income, all semblance of future plans, and I’m definitely feeling this myself, but the thing I’m mourning the most is the spontaneity of music. I miss just being able to turn up to a venue and see something happening – a group of people who’ve worked collectively on this shared thing to a point that they can get together on stage and play it live. Who knew that with enough time practicing mechanical motions we could learn to express emotions through physical vibrations. Truly amazing. Continue reading “On Missing Live Music”
On Spontaneity I find my way to a local craft brewery for a gig, pedalling through Thursday’s somnolent summer sunshine down Victoria Rd, then along the Yarra River bike path. I overtake handfuls of people: the elderly couples walking their dogs, the active-wear clad mothers with prams with who walk side by side and pull off the path as I ding ding behind them, the group of teenagers who ride BMX bikes along the side of river, hopping between stones underneath the bridge at Dights Falls. Each group is left behind as I speed past, top gear enhanced by the gentle downwards slope from Northcote towards the city. I pull up to Bodriggy, find a way to attach my bike to the fencing that lines Johnston St. My D-lock struggles to make the connection, mainly because my bike is held away from the fence by the milk crate I’ve attached to the back of it to hold my groceries, my jacket, my banjo, depending on the outing. This milk crate is a source of conversation at most social engagements oh man, I’ve been planning on doing that for years, I’ve got some milk crates somewhere, but wildly impractical. Due to the nature of the way I’ve attached it to my bike, the bike’s centre of gravity sits somewhere just behind my butt. This is totally fine if I lean forwards to ride, or if I’m rolling downhill, or if there’s nothing contained in the milk crate, but under less than ideal circumstances, ie pedalling up hill with a full contingent of canned chickpeas and silverbeet, this bike has a tendency to wheelie, front wheel floating up off the ground, Pegasus taking flight in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. The first couple of times it happened I imagined I’d mistaken the issue. Surely my front wheel was coming loose, or the handlebars had developed some fault, but then I realised this distinct lack of control was my bike subtly taking off below me, shifting from a useful mode of transport to a point of interest amongst the local kids. whoah look at that guy wheelie-ing with a banjo on his back, it looks… effortless. No effort here, just this bike and me slowly drifting away from the Earth’s gravity. Continue reading “On Spontaneity”