More Rain. More Show. More Video

This is just a crap day. The endless enveloping heat has fled for the hills and left us with some cold, biting rain here on the coast. It’s Thursday morning and I’m just now home from a morning rehearsal at the local primary school. 8 AM, standing amongst precocious, precious kids who, when gathered in groups of three or more can really dampen one’s faith in the progress of humanity. On better days they make me smile for the very same reasons. It depends.

Surfing is shot, so at least I won’t have to feel guilty about laying around the house all day, until late this evening when I’ll for another jaunt down the coast to Sydney for our biggest and last show of the year. It’s somewhat sad, and somewhat scary, as now we have to start booking all over again. Now that our booking agency has abandoned us on the rocks (no surprises there), we’re left to flail about under our own direction, which is both liberating and daunting. Carpe diem indeed.

With that in mind, and nothing else finished to post (you should see the back-up here in the slantrhyme warehouse…), I thought I’d share this latest video. Last weekend we went North to Lismore, Toowoomba, and Brisbane. It was nice to get back there, even though the heat was oppressive. In many ways it reminds me of the South in the US, but then, in many ways it’s not the same at all. As much as I have traveled the globe (most of it), and crossed the equator (often), I’m starting to formulate a half-assed/barroom/parlour theory about heat–basically, a lot of places are hot, but they’re all hot in their own unique and painful way. Debating and describing them probably takes most of the evening and a semi-decent bottle of Scotch.

Anyways, here’s what we get up to.

So that’s pretty much it for now. I know that no one in Australia reads this, but in the off chance that they do, we’re playing on Saturday, Dec. 3rd at FBi Social in Kings Cross. FBi 94.5 FM has been one of our biggest supporters on the airwaves, so this gig is rather nice for us. Probably the best part of the whole evening is that all of the bands on the bill are ones that we like and personally invited, with the sole purpose of making the night as musically honest as possible. Besides Royal Chant, there’s Fait Accompli, Sister Jane, and Bang! Bang! Rock n Roll!, all of whom are good enough to headline their own shows. It’s nice when things are so democratic. Too bad it’s so rare. To help the cause, all the bands pitched in a single to make the AFTER BAKE EP. (After Bake refers to the fact that the venerable Home Bake Festival in on that same day. Normally it’s suicide to book a big gig on the same day as a major festival, but this year they went with Home Bake: The Classic Series, which is a roundabout way of saying that all the bands are getting on in years and they’re desperately trying to appeal to an aging demographic.)

The good news is that it’s available as a free download, so if you can’t be at the show you can check it out and play it loud.

That’s all from (not-so) sunny Port Macquarie. Stay in touch if it’s been a while…