The task at hand........

Today:

• Applied for Uranquinty folk festival. This is the short West Brunswick bio I sent em as part of the application:

"This year, Helen Begley, releases her latest album, “West Brunswick” to Australian audiences. Set in West Brunswick, the album pays homage to 20 years spent living and working in Melbourne’s inner north. “West Brunswick” will be presented in intimate suburban spaces and concert settings and performances will be predominately unplugged. The songs on the album are set to understated arrangements that allow the poeticism of the lyrics to breath as they wrap themselves around the listener like a Northern Suburbs lullaby. As well as songs, Helen will share stories and poems inspired by West Brunswick.  Her partner in crime James Norton, makes a guest appearance during the set when harmonica playing and banjo pickin’ is required."

• Accepted the invitation to play at the Darebin Feast as part of Mrs Hemingway, a trio of us songwriters made up of me, Rose Turtle Ertler and Carolyn Connors

• Worked on a funding application for the project after West Brunswick - have to think so far ahead these days!

• Sent a nice email to the people that have so far offered to host a West Brunswick album launch tour house concert.

• Had the usual wrestle with "Self Doubt" this morning. These daily tussles keep me fighting fit for duty.

• Wrote this blog.

West Brunswick's Starry Starry nights.

Allie and I became good mates when we met as neighbours in our West Brunswick street. One afternoon, she rolled up in her car, as she was going to collect her son from school, and enquired about guitar lessons. She'd heard from another neighbour that I taught guitar. We arranged some lessons and our friendship was sealed. We got to know each other through these lessons. She'd often turn up with a "mixed tape" she'd thoughtfully put together for me. These musical treats introduced me to a lot of wonderful music that I had never heard before.

Our friendship graduated from music lessons to regular breakfasts at local cafes, and this year she invited me to sing at her and her lovely partner, Adrian's, wedding. Both she and Adrian have been great supporters of the music I write and perform. They show up for gigs, they listen carefully to rough drafts and give invaluable feedback and they encourage and believe in me and my work. Adrian even designed the gorgeous album cover for my last album, The Bride.

Allie is also a mother of a West Brunswick kid. When she read the "West Brunswick Star" blog entry the other day, she wrote this story:

"One beautiful winter day like today, I covered the ceiling of my lovers room with fluorescent stars. I stuck one up there for my lover, and for me. When I finished I sat and cut another one out, and stuck it among all those stars... And that is the afternoon I believe Otis landed in me... With his own little star winking at me while I slept. It was his star!"

Perhaps, all the kids in West Brunswick come from the stars. Perhaps, all the stars in our kids come from  West Brunswick. 

Behold, the West Brunswick Star

As some of you might know, earlier this year my father died. My family and I are still making sense of his sudden departure. Dad was a quiet man, he didn't talk a lot and chose to express the way he felt in practical rather than verbal ways. So, there are things I don't know about him and now never will, things that I didn't like to ask or didn't think to ask.  I assumed that he'd be around longer. I don't want my daughter not to know things when i'm gone. She will never know everything, of course. She knows this story, and now you do too.

When I was giving birth to Ella, I had a lot of visions. And before you ask, it was a drug free birth. In one of the visions, which felt real, I found myself transported to the edge of the universe. The universe is a silent place and I felt utterly alone in its vastness, even when I called into the stars, there was a benign indifference, or so I thought. For when I came back from the edge, I had given birth to my baby girl.

For many years after that, I was troubled by the experience. I couldn't make sense of it and didn't understand what it meant. I tended not to share it either, fearing people would think me a little unhinged. Until, one evening,when I mentioned this to a midwife who was learning guitar from me at the time. We were talking about birthing experiences and I decided to share mine. She smiled and told me that there is an old birth story that tells of women having to go and collect their babies from the stars and, it seems, this is what I had done. What a bloody relief. I was just out there collecting Ella.

Ever since I learned of this story, I've been trying to write a song that talks about the experience in a simple way. I hope this song may have done it.

It's a dodgy recording, I need a preamp and a decent microphone, but for the purpose of the arrangement exercise, what I've got suffices. It will appear in more palatable form on the West Brunswick Album later this year. I hope you can get past the hum of the computer and hear the song. (Just click on the play button and away you go - it' sounds better through head phones.)

So, about selling products and branding my hair.

Back in the 80's, I had a very odd, circular conversation about marketting music with a friend who was in first year marketting at Swinburne. He was trying to explain to me what a brand was. Admittedly, we were drinking brandy and dry at the time - I know, it was the drink of choice of the comfortable middle class, middle age, eastern suburbs liberal voter (none of which I ever was) but what else would you drink when your talking about brands but brandy?  With all that booze being throw down my recall is a little hazy, but I don't believe we ever settled on what a brand was with regards to music. We couldn't decide whether it was the performer, the performance, the album or other bits of merchandise. I still don't know, but suspect a brand is some sort of instantly recognisable selling point rather than the stuff.

Recently another friend, who's an ace publicist, suggested I may have a branding issue, well, of course I do. I still don't know which bit of me is the brand. But, if I take the definition of a brand as being the instantly recognisable selling point, then I'm going to suggest my brand is my leonine mane! So, how do you market a head of hair, and what's it got to do with music?

In an attempt to try and sort this out, I've started to create a bit of a business plan (Are you yawning already? Well, it is important if you're a musician and you are creating products). I've jotted down a few overall aims and objectives and thought I'd share em with you.

I still have shitloads of work to do to nail down some budgets, and work out how to brand my hair, but here's a copy of the first bit of the marketting/business plan for my latest products. It gives you an idea of what you can expect from me and my hair in the next little while and it shows you that musicians are a bit more pragmatic than we let on.

O.K., I'm off to wash my hair, I feel a bit dirty all of a sudden!

WEST BRUNSWICK - PLAN

AIM:

Create marketable products (sounds pretty cold, but let's be honest, that's what I'm doing) that fondly represent my experience of living in West Brunswick.

OBJECTIVES:

• ·      Produce an album of 10 original songs
• ·      Produce 20 page booklets of lyrics, poems, flash fiction and photos
• ·      Produce one hour live performance based on book and album

1.    PRODUCE ALBUM 10 ORIGINAL SONGS

      The album will reflect the relationship between West Brunswick and the songwriter. It will render the suburbs character through a landscape used as metaphor, thematic material and setting for the songwriters personal experience of living in West Brunswick.

      The sound of the album will be warm and close. The use of parlor instruments and live recorded sound will create an experience for the listener that places them in the sound world of the songwriter. This sound world will recreate an evening in a warmly lit comfortable lounge room in West Brunswick with mugs of tea or wine (or even brandy and dry) and acoustic songs that describe what has happened in and around that space. When the listener leaves the space they may still see the suburb through the songwriters eyes.

2.    PRODUCE 20 PAGE BOOKLET OF LYRICS, POEMS, FLASH FICTION & PHOTOS

The booklet is a keepsake of lyrics and written impressions of West Brunswick accompanied by some photos.  The additional forms of poetry, fiction and photography extend the songwriter’s capacity to respond to West Brunswick and it's inhabitants and gives people something to read on the tram. 

3.    PRODUCE ONE HOUR LIVE PERFORMANCE BASED ON BOOK AND ALBUM

In keeping with the idea of the album’s aims, the performance will be presented in small personal spaces such as people’s lounge rooms, and small, intimate venues. It will seek to recreate the album’s sound and intimate feel. The performance will use storytelling, songs and visual representations of West Brunswick, possibly including a shadow box and slide show. The performance will use acoustic instruments and be presented unplugged. It may require two or three performers to present the work.