Woah …thank u
First AMV found made with “Dance so Slowly”
Flattered truly I am :). And very well done
Your royal madness;
who is counting the hours to full restoration of her broadband quota.
First AMV found made with “Dance so Slowly”
Flattered truly I am :). And very well done
Your royal madness;
who is counting the hours to full restoration of her broadband quota.
*Comes out of the covers, looks left, then right…looks under the covers to double check, glances surreptiously at the demon of a flu virus that still lingers, and asks “Are we still doing this today, so many many pills…woah the colours…”*
It’s been awhile since a bout of flu has knocked me out for 2 whole weeks…well almost 2. I am guessing that my body has forgotten what flu is after what feels like an eternity of cease-fire from the beast. So *sniffles* where the hell were we?
Oh yes stories stories stories. Get these babies out of the way so we can have some new ones eh?
On catching up with old acquaintances
————————————————–
Airport Catch ups
———————–
Last minute airport catch ups with 2 long time friends before I head back to Australia. Thanks for the send off dudes! One of them professes that I used to save her head from exploding in Chinese class from time to time….with gaffer tape. Gaffer tape helps. The other is someone whom I’ve known since I was 3, somehow, we went to the same music schools, the same kindergarden the same convent school. Which really translates to…we have so sooo much dirt on each other 😛
Always good to hear that old friends are traveling well and generally being happy beings. And of course, swapping stories of our various adventures was the highlight, wish there was more time, so I’d definitely have to spend more time catching up the next time I land in that area.
Some good some bad.
———————
Some catch ups good. Some catch ups bad. Some I want to lobotomize my head so I don’t feel and don’t remember. Especially those that dissolve into lifestyle comparisons about who’s got what and how much better we’re doing than them etc… It’s funny that as you age, your tolerance level for obligatory meet ups diminish past the point of zero. Toxic meet ups like that feel like bad seafood to me, you’re sick to the stomach and you wonder why you didn’t smell it coming.
Truly, I rather be hanging around with friends and discussing the important issues like…hmmm… what kind of brain has the most fiber for a healthy zombie diet.
Ok more stories coming…but we take a break because the force has been disturbed and I have been tagged by Sofie to answer the following. 5 reasons why I blog.
1) I am paranoid. I live in the constant fear of having my brains scrambled by a psychopath with chopsticks. In my dream, he jams the chopsticks up through my nose and I forget who I am and become a psycho killer servant of destruction with no memories. This journal might be the one that saves me…or is all that is left of me.
2) I don’t know, but something about the minions here addressing me as “Mistress” and other forms of godhood is good enough to keep me here and wanting more.
3) Because the other alternative is expensive therapy sessions.
4) There’s no one else to talk to here except me, the house and the voices in my head…
5) Because my cat said, “go forth and blog”…
Now I tag thee. Why the hell do you blog…5 reasons.
Now.
I said …Go.
Second piece of popcorn. Nursing a cold at the moment. Woke up with it. Apparently, my body is just not giving me a break at the moment, might have caught the virus while packed in the Cinema watching Transformers.
Awesome mindless entertainment.
Gigs in Singapore
————————
Yeah I spoke about that before. But I didn’t actually tell u what happened in our second show in Singapore yeah? Let’s just say that there was a minor miscommunication between the organisers of the arts fest and the army and we ended up fighting for Sonic shout space with the Singapore Army who were rehearsing for their national day parade at the same time that we were performing.
I’m pretty sure the audience didn’t see/ hear much of it..or maybe they didn’t mind the remixes. But…when you are performing and your ears are like a bat’s you hear the army anthems good and it was disconcerting to hear happy, nationalistic anthems dwelling in some of my tunes.
I mean I don’t remember drums to the beat of swing in my songs and was it trumpets? and whooping cheering things…maniacal laughter yes but cheers of nationalistic joy are another tale to be told by another girl.
Then there were the army boats parked at the waterfront across where we were performing. I keep picturing a blitzkrieg of the stage via land, sea and air. Especially the sea.
I don’t think I do well with authority figure type things. Bah.
Ah well…it’s not everyday that u get to sing to a nation’s army…if they were listening.
How’s all? Again.
10+ days away from the net felt like a lifetime. It’s a strange abyss of emptiness without the net I might add.
PS: thanks for the spam like links for your royal madness to seek help for internet addictions. You minions are real smart arses aren’t you? I told you that I can quit any damn time I want.
*Digs her claws further into her router as she says this*
Back in the land of OZ and huddled in Sydney enjoying the winter. I have just about made it through your emails…ok most of it. The newly arrived huddled masses of emails will have to wait for a bit. But I’ll get to it I promise.
Plans for the rest of the year are more shows (an anime convention in Sydney perhaps?) and then the writing of the next album. It’s about time I got to working on the next because I’m so itching to write and if I don’t soon I might spontaneously combust and my ashes would comprise of some really rude words.
More shows you say? When are you gigging in my town. Believe me when I say your royal madness is working on it. Hopefully speaking with some people who might be able to help with tours. Meanwhile I thank u for your patience and persistence, my minions who wait…and wait…and wait….gah
Damn the non-invention/ commercialised use of the TARDIS and flight taxes. Yes your royal madness has been going a little Dr Who crazy of late. I do like the geeky men.
Yes…now for the stories posted through the hours. They shall be weaved like pop corn. Of brief existences, crispy but ever so satisfying…we hope.
*Hands you the first of many miniscule but figurative pop corns.*
Birthday
———-
Recently birthday-ised. Usually I cower under the covers to wish my birthdays away. You see, there’s this warped logic that if I was never actually born then I can’t actually die or age or whatever else it is you mortals do. And if Birthdays can never find me…then I’m immortal aren’t I?
Heh…denial is a cheap drug. So you will allow me that yeah? Also parties, have I told you I fear parties?
So yes…with the exception of this year and another few couple of times I’ve been sprung birthday surprises…I’m really barely 10…maybe 15….
Still a warped thanks to the birthday ninjas who cornered me into a new age.
Signed
Your lying lying denying denying paranoid neurotic arachnid.
Hey all
China was interesting. Back in OZ now. Note the word interesting…because it’s been so very good and so very bad. I shall be uploading some piccies onto my picassa account in a jiffy.
I’m just so happy that my stomach has purged whatever alien virus I might have acquired from China. Let’s just say that the experience has been most…slimming. Yes that is a word that almost sums it up.
Back to swimming through your messages, minions, before we proceed with the stories eh. Yes, yes, your royal madness is in the house and has a little catching up to do. Not to mention unearthing my studio from under the hill of month long bills.
**Shivers**
Now where’s my psychic paper that will let me get into the world bank’s vaults to help meself with some mula while we are all at it.
ok me dears, I’m savouring the last few minutes of such delicious internet connections at the airport.. Then I’m offline for the next 10 days. Try not to break the internet while I’m gone. More episodes of in house gigs and singapore loaded when I’m back.
Forgot to bring my beautiful external drive to Singapore. Gah, feeling senile.
3 days 4 shows. It was forever when it lasted and oh so transient when it’s all over…because I am addicted to gig induced adrenalin highs and need to do it again.
Sofie and The Goat have already returned to Australia, and I’m packing for my trip to the inner regions of Jiu Zhai Gou (China)
Before that I’m soaking my legs in near boiling water and waiting for the aches to fade…
Of course, my dear minions, you are probably more interested in how the shows in Singapore went as opposed to the amount of lactic acid gathering in my joints…(which still makes for good conversation if you let me get into the gory details of things)
Ok Singapore. Sofie Loizou and I arrived in Singapore 3 days before to acclimatize and get our bearings on things. Winter loving spidey melted from the heat and was found guzzling flu preventing “horseshit tea” at every turn to keep her voice.
For those not in the know, horseshit tea is a chinese medicinal tea that is known as “ganmoucha” (directly translated…means flu tea which really works in preventing stress induced). Your royal madness only insists on calling it horseshit tea because it certainly smells like it.
Following photos are courtesy of Goat and Sofie Loizou. Your Royal Madness’ old camera is rendered nearly unusable since her batteries conked out and averages a total battery death of 5 pictures at every charge…
Pleasantly surprised to find that the Esplanade in Singapore has reserved a dressing room for us, complete with baths and toilets. Of course, back stage was a maze and spidey was hell afraid to get lost backstage…again. Which means that she is continuously trying to catch up with the crew to avoid getting permanently lost and becoming a back stage hobo.
Here’s a video courtesy of the goat.
The big poster boards are a surprise too. All this in the middle of the Central Business District area. Awesomeness
Then there’s this whole level of trying to gauge audience approval which is a whole new ball game when you are used to loud noisy minions back in Australia.
Thing is, playing to Singaporeans is well, different. It took a 2 runs for us to get past being spooked by the sheer pensiveness of the audience. No crazy minions screaming/ dancing nor do I feel safe telling everyone to “HAAAAAIL SATAN!!” Then, we kinda realised that the meer act of a listening crowd and flower offerings (minus the screaming I’m so used to in Australia) is, in itelf, a gentle compliment to your arts. Which is great, because I think this means a cosmic approval for spidey to eat the world with her music.
Grandness.
Then there’s feedback from offstage, which is a whole other level of trying to gauge if people are actually telling you that you suck gently, or that they are just genuinely concerned with trying to “improve” your shows by removing all artistic freedom. Comments include:
“Love your voice/ music, can you play more heavy metal stuff?”
“Love your voice/ music, can you do a set with less drums, they are so loud!!”
“Lenore’s Song is boring, can you play something else, I liked…er…what you call…Vandal. oh oh and can you do “You are Expendable”?
“Can you do Lenore’s Song today again?”
“Love You are Expendable (Solo piano), now can you do the one with guitars?”
And my all time favourite…
“Erhmm…can you give me your set list so I can arrange it for your band. Some parts are too quiet…I can make it more exciting”
Genuine concern yes. But it irritates the rebel in Spidey to no end. The band and I had a good laugh about it after the tears and the tantrum throwing backstage.
Humour… such a general cure for all things we do not understand. And in the end, we understood that these were all warped forms of compliments in one way or another since the overly zealous critics seemed to be returning for the music with bigger smiles each time. That was all we needed to see/ hear.
More photos here. Double click for captions.More photos from Sofie here:
Surreal news. Just got an email from Channel NINE Australia saying that they would like to play Lenore’s Song this Saturday 10.30 am on the Music Jungle.
Awesome stuff. Imagine that? A little indie clip from a couple of madhats. 🙂
For those not in the know, Channel NINE is a mainstream commercial channel in Australia. Joy o joy.
48 hours to our first overseas show in Singapore. Wired. And of course, we seemed to have brought the rain with us again.
Eps 2 of the youtubed gigs will be uploaded shortly after this week, when spidey is no longer wired about her shows. Try not to break the internet while I’m gone.
A hi from the rehearsal rooms.
It’s happening. We’re excited like little school girls. Satan is even doing a weird jiggy little thing that disturbs us because demons should not be so happy but he is. Singapore’s dates loom large. We loom close.
Here are the details
I want to take this time to thank a few old friends from a very old place of abode for spreading the word in one way or another. Lorraine, May-anne, Fern…u know who u are. Thanks heaps :). I know my career direction must surprise some very old acquaintances, but rest assured, not much has changed. Yunyu was morbid, creepy and batshit crazy then , she’s only possibly more so now…
She blames her minions who do NOTHING to stop it and EVERYTHING to encourage it . so there 🙂
Looking forward to a catch up when we leap off the stage. It’s been 10 years for most of us hasn’t it?
p.s: Shoutout to jooce for fixing and reencoding what is essentially a very very bootleg looking gig footage. He’s removed the jitters which might make watching a little more pleasant while I try and reload what we believe are slight improvements to the home gig footage.
See it here. It might actually give u less headaches, though u still can’t see that we are playing with knives 😛
Remember the youtube gigs I keep trying to post. Here is the first portion, welcome to our attempt to eliminate dealing with booking agents. Which we continually work on and will one day succeed in not getting screwed over by one. Because, really, there is only so much space on my shelf for voodoo dolls of booking agents and so much evil I have time for in a day.
Note the graininess as I don’t think it quite survived the transition from analogue camera to digital format. Running the clips by some experts tomorrow to see what can be done. Meanwhile, enjoy this really blurry blurry clip, which looks like a bootleg but really is not.