Slow coach.

Well, it's been a while- their launch tour for "The Rise And Fall Of Goodtown" started back on 8th May- but I am finally catching the excellent Wagons for the first time since summer on Friday night.

The Oakleigh Bowls Club may not be the hippest place in town, but it's friendly, cosy (only 240 capacity, all sold out) and cheap. "Goodtown" is a great record, too, by the way- but don't just take my word for it.

And then on Saturday, there's this, at the Corner Hotel:

Please join Charles Jenkins and The Zhivagos for the
Blue Atlas Winter Ball, an epic night of entertainment as we welcome our special guests Clare Bowditch, Rebecca Barnard, Anna Burley, Abby Dobson, Spencer P Jones, Davey Lane,Tim Rogers, Ron Peno, Kerri Simpson, Cal and Van Walker along with the Blue Atlas Strings performing songs from the Charles Jenkins and the Zhivagos magnum opus "Blue Atlas".

Although I have an awful feeling that at a mere $20, that's sold out too.

If you have nothing to do on Sunday, why not head over to the Old Bar for their monthly garage sale? Admission is free, you can drink a couple of $10 jugs, and buy some crap that someone else is trying to get rid of.

God knows I still haven't listened to the four $1.00 CDs I got there last month.

High praise for Darling Downs

That they didn’t, in fact, rise from the dusty roads of America’s heartland or the slippery banks of the Appalachian Mountains could come as a surprise for some upon first hearing their music. But, it soon becomes inconsequential where the duo hails from; no need to put a regional tag on the soulful sincerity found in such a plain and true collection of songs.

That's Crawdaddy online talking about The Darling Downs, the backwoods music duo of Ron Peno (Died Pretty) and Kim Salmon (Scientists, Surrealists, Beasts of Bourbon.) Read more here.

Tidying up, odds and ends, etc

Well, I got knocked out of the Mess & Noise scrabble competition in the first round on Sunday afternoon, playing up in the Corner Hotel beer garden, but was cheered up by heading downstairs afterwards to see the Good Shepherd Circus Pie Classic- a charity event featuring a long list of local musos and others having a crack at competitive cooking. I missed out on getting a taste of Bob Log III's special chicken & breastmilk dish, but among many other highlights, it was worth going just to see Ron Peno at work:

And I didn't get to see Sixfthick at the Espy the night before(due to an unfortunate and stupid incident I don't want to go into here) so it was good to see them, down on the floor:

In other leisure time news- my pool game is getting better, pub trivia is going OK (second, third & last from three attempts), I'm stuck in a never-ending game of punch buggyand it looks like I may crank up the homebrewing again soon. And this week a parcel arrived from my pal Grrtch, which included a very fine Garagepunk.com t-shirt, amongst other goodies: Thanks, Grrtch!

This stuff is all just a distraction from what I should be writing, of course, a bit of a wrap up of Lobby Loyde's memorial service, which I attended on Saturday- that I am finding very hard going.

Thanks to Tim Chuma for the use of those pics, too.