On The Road Again.....

As a song writer mate said to me on the weekend, "Sometimes life gets in the way/" In my case, this has meant packing up a house, a couple gigs falling through and a second job.

I once read that when you finally decide to change tack and walk a path that seems truer to your inclinations, a test appears that beckons distraction and u-turns. I guess, if you believe that stuff, road blocks and detours do seem to appear. But, I reckon that we create them ourselves because most of the time we're just shit scared of what's up ahead. And, the rest of the time, we're sitting on the side of the road having a little rest and a play. Maybe we stop at the local cafe or pub for a drink and we make some new friends who tell us about a job that we should take and then suggest we move in next door and before you know it, time has marched on and the road becomes less travelled.

Last Saturday night, I took a new road to a party at a friend's house. I had to drive out to Woodend and then take back roads through giant forests and rolling hills to end up in a place called Spring Hill. This friend of mine is a song writer of some note. She has a radiant smile and sings of hopefulness and light. I didn't know who would be at the party and almost didn't go because I secretly (not anymore) suffer from social anxiety. So, walking into a room full of strangers by myself is enough to send me diving for a paper bag to stop from hyperventilating. But, being an experienced social-phobe, I also know the antidote is to show up without expectation and have an exit plan if things go awry.

So, I arrived in the dark, parked in the paddock and made my way to the front door. First person I saw was a song writing mate who maybe one of the best folk writers in the country, sitting at the food laden table. Then I shook hands with a fiddle player who suggested we go and play some songs, immediately. I said hello to some well known Malmsbury musos(I know I'm giving hints and no names but I didn't ask them if I could write about them so you'll just have to guess who they are) on the way through to the music room, who was speaking with my mate Luke, who plays on the "West Brunswick" album.  When I learned Luke's partner Cass was there as well, I knew this was going to be a great night. Then I turned around and another lovely song writer appeared and another and another. The whole place was wall to wall song writers and musicians, and I knew most of them.

Well bloody hallelujah I said to myself. Guess that dirty old road has brought me home. The night was spent passing round new songs and old favourites, sharing stories, exchanging ideas, and talking about that silly old road out there and where it might take us next.

My experience of the party confirmed that although "life" can get in the way when we put down the guitar and stop off for a piss that turns into a picnic which turns into a camping holiday which turns into a sort of stop gap life, you can still see the road from your makeshift house. Sometimes, it just takes an invitation to a party to get you on the musical track again.

My only suggestion is that when you leave the party at 2.30 in the morning, you drive like a grandma so that when you hit the kangaroo that hops out in front of you without warning, you only hit it at about 5km's an hour. In which case, no harm will befall either you or the 'roo.

Oh, and here's some fine song writers for you to listen to on the road:

ENDA KENNY:

CHLOE HALL AND SILAS PALMER

MANDY CONNELL

LUKE R DAVIES RECYCLED STRING BAND

MICHELLE CHANDLER AND JO JO SMITH

A March through Moreland.

There's an added poignancy to presenting suburban songs in their suburb of origin. You know that the people sitting in a lounge room in North Coburg or gathered around a breakfast bar in the living room of a West Brunswick house or sitting amongst the books at a Coburg library are going to understand the song about The Road to Sydney or West Brunswick Star more so than other audiences. They're going to understand the images in the song called West Brunswick and know the Number 55 tram ride intimately. They're going to understand exactly what it's like on Moonee Valley race nights and they'll get the eccentricity of trying to navigate a clipper along the Moonee Ponds Creek.

March brought me into the houses of Richard and Rachel in North Coburg, Andrea and Glen in West Brunswick and the Coburg library. Singing about home in the local lounge rooms of these newest "patrons of the arts" as Rachel observed, accompanied by the sweetest harmonies from my best mate Emily Hayes, and my gorgeous daughter, Ella Sidal, was just a bit special. The girls surprised and delighted everyone, including me, with their harmonic entries while they remain seated amongst the audience. Their inspired idea of singing from their seats created a warm, we're-all-in-this-together, atmosphere. 

During the performances, I quipped that I looked forward to seeing some of the members of the audience down the street at the shops. Last week, I ran into someone from the Coburg library gig in the local supermarket and laughed at the coincidence. It's nice to be meeting new neighbours. I have promised a Big West Brunswick Neighbourhood Gig at the end of this concert series so that everyone can meet everyone and we can all singalong together.

March also brought my marching orders. I got the "you have 60 days to vacate" notice in the mail. For now, I give up. I'm tired of been moved on every time a landlord sells or their circumstances change. So, I'm taking a rest from the rental market and have chosen to house sit for a while and open myself to the generosity of friends and strangers who need their homes looked after and sung to while they're away.  

Ironically, I will be technically homeless as I sing about home. Perversely, I kinda like that idea. There is a poeticism to it that may bring new songs and ideas for the next album. 

I'm looking forward to April. It brings with it more house concerts in Moreland, including the extra special one in the West Brunswick street where it was recorded, designed and written and that I lived happily with my extraordinary neighbours for 6 years. My mates Allie and Adrian are the hosts for this concert. They even have a song written about them on the album. I'm really looking forward to singing it to them and their mates and the neighbours in their backyard. I hope the neighbour who plays steel drum turns up. 

April also takes me to Fawkner, a little gem of a suburb that nobody much visits. But, it houses my mates Amanda and Matt who have dubbed their lovely home and garden, "The Fawkner Farm House". It has fruit trees, vegetables, sheds and chooks. I'm looking forward to singing in their kitchen accompanied by the delicious smells of whatever Amanda has been whipping up. The kitchen is my favourite room of the house!

Then Canberra beckons and the backyard of Lainey and Steve. Fine musicians in their own right. I hope to play some tunes with them, which reminds me, I better send them a CD and some chord charts. And the talented young thing, who plays brilliant guitar and writes great songs, Hayley Shone, is going to play as well. I hope that my Viking Warrior can come and play his harmonica with me as well.

Autumn leaves, music making, and that aching sunshine for "When love came to Yarrabin street, an April sun shone......."beckons in the new month.

Moreland Leader 1st April 2013

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Homage to her home suburb
Suzanne Robson
Moreland Leader
1 Apr 2013
A STROLL through her ‘‘unpretentious’’ neighbourhood inspired Helen Begley to write an entire album about Brunswick West. That initial ‘‘haiku walk’’ resulted in the first song on her album and prompted her to delve deeper into the place she had...read more...

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© News Community Media

Fear and Loving in Wangaratta

Last Saturday night, the second night in March, I played my first house concert of "The West Brunswick Suburban Dream" Tour in the Wangaratta Lounge Room of Luke R Davies and his partner, writer and photographer, Cassie. Luke is a notable blues musician, leader and instrument maker for The Recycled String Band and my mate.

Luke and Cassie are amazing hosts. They fed and watered me. They put me up for the night. Luke fixed my crap banjo and made it sound as good as it's gonna get. They even organised Shannon Noll (you know, he came second in the first Australian Idol) as a support. As Shannon insisted on bringing his band, who were so loud, Luke and Cassie had to get them to play down at the local footy ground. So, at the half time mark of the Essendon versus Richmond footy match, Shannon's music was at the perfect wafting level for Luke and Cassie's backyard, where 25 of the best of Victoria's North East (and a couple of South east NSWailer's) gathered for a beer and some spectacular vegan treats lovingly prepared by Cassie, before the show.

At the end of Shannon's set, everyone drifted into the perfectly sized lounge room to take their seats.

And there they were. And there I was. Scared! I wonder if they were scared as well. I always have this moment just before a show. It's the moment I must make a decision. The decision is a choice between running screaming from the room, never to be seen or heard of again, or, to walk onto the stage, or, in this case, stand in front of the mantle piece, and play the songs that I have to offer to people I have never met before and who might not like what I do and might not like me and well, I could go on and list the rest of the fears, like:

They might not like what I look like they definitely won't like what I'm wearing, they'll hate my voice
and what about my unruly hair , not to mention the ordinary stories I was going to tell but have forgotten, and I'm not really a very good musician and I bet there's some really good guitarist in the room who'll be pulling my technique to shreds, do I have a technique?And I'm not that special because I was born in the Melbourne suburbs and not even the tough western suburbs of the 70's or the outer suburbs but not in the inner suburbs either just in the ordinary suburbs and I'm not working class and I'm a not a poor little rich girl and I'm notnotnotnotnot.............................

While I'm being distracted by these fears, I get introduced by Luke, and the next thing I'm thanking him and singing the first song and some woman starts crying in the second row, and I let her cry. Everyone seems to be listening and they look pretty friendly. So I try another song on them and they let me sing again. Then I start talking to them as if we're well, sitting in someone's lounge room and they talk back and, then I sing them some more songs and Luke gets up and plays harmonica and I pick up the tin can banjo and pick away at The Boilermaker's Wife (song from The Bride album) then the fireworks get let off (Really! Luke and Cass had everything covered) and before you know it, an hour has passed and the first set is over.

But will they stick around for the second set? I excuse myself to save my voice for set number two and when I return, they all come back too and take their seats. Bloody hell, I think, and launch into the West Brunswick set.

By now, we're getting pretty close, so I tell them about my birthing story and about Adrian and Allie's wedding in Yarrabin Street and my long distance relationship with James and what it's like to have had Betty as a neighbour and I sing them the songs that go with the stories. Then, Rohan gets up and plays a valve tuba with me and then I tell about how I've enjoyed hanging out with Luke and Cassie so much I might move in.

And, then I give them some CD's to take home in the hope they might remember that Saturday night we spent in Luke and Cassie's lounge room in Wangaratta where I sang them some songs and told them some stories and ended up loving the time spent with these friends, initially disguised as fearsome strangers.

Here's a love song for those lovely Wangaratta folk from the "West Brunswick" Album:

"When Love Came to Yarrabin Street"
(Lead Vocals, Uke and Guitar: Helen Begley, Backing Vocals: Emily Hayes and Ella Sidal, Double Bass: Greg Craske)

Sunset in West Brunswick by Adrian Wood

A STUDIO IN WEST BRUNSWICK

There is a recording studio in the heart of West Brunswick that sits in the backyard of a man called Lachlan Wooden. It looks, for all intents and purposes, like a single vehicle garage; a clever suburban ruse that hides the treasures that are revealed when you walk through the door.

Lachlan, owner and engineer, has lovingly lined this garage with wood and cloth, built a sound proof booth with salvaged glass and doors from a defunct major recording studio and made and hung purpose built wooden sculptures that make sure everything recorded there sounds kind to the performer.

He has a sophisticated set up of preamps housed in shelves he's made from recycled timber, an old Yamaha mixing desk, and old a tape deck he bought online that warms everything that runs through the leads and preamps to the protools set up on his computer.

He gets hold of good microphones to record the sounds, he makes everyone feel welcome and he's on board from the word go as if he were a committed member of the band or team. He also brews a mean beer that he offers from the taps of his homemade bar. He's also a family man with a gorgeous brood of girls including his warm, friendly wife, Ange. They're currently cooking another kid due in March.

I used to live next door to Lachlan and Ange.

It's been great hanging out in West Brunswick these last three days. It always feels a little bit like visiting a mate's cubby house when I hang out with Lach in his studio. My friends Greg Craske(Double Bass) and Emily Hayes(Backing Vocals) and my daughter, Ella (Backing Vocals) joined Lach and I this weekend just gone to track what is turning out to be a pretty gorgeous album which I can't wait for you to hear.

We've recorded all the ukulele tracks, all of the guitars, all the double bass tracks, and the lead and backing vocals. Only got some overdubbing to do including a few more voices on the chorus of "The West Brunswick Boat" song, a couple of harmonica tracks, some clarinet, my "legitimate" main classical instrument all through high school, glockenspiel, piano and we're thinking about bunging a hammond organ on a track or two as well. Probably another day and a half's worth of recording work.

Then mixing, mastering and printing. I reckon it'll be ready for you at the end of February.

In the meantime, have a sneak listen to a rough mix of the title track, "West Brunswick" and enjoy some pics from our studio sessions on the weekend (I realise I'm not in any of them. Next lot, eh?!) Not the best quality of the photos - not sure why!

A SUBURBAN DREAM

I grew up in Blackburn North in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. It wasn't one of those privileged suburbs like Camberwell or Hawthorn, although people from Blackburn proper would probably argue otherwise.

It was a suburb where dads went out to work and mums stayed home and looked after their children. It was a suburb where families went to church each Sunday and alcoholics lived in six out of the ten houses in my court.

It was a suburb where children were asked regularly to hop into stranger's cars, eccentrics wandered about the streets shaking their red Shirley Temple curls as they talked to someone only they could see and the occasional flasher unzipped their trousers to unsuspecting high school girls walking along Cootamundra Way on their way home.

It was a suburb where the occasional school boy murdered his father and got away with it until one of his 16 year old accomplices, who helped moved the body from the woodpile when it started to reek, turned himself into the police 15 years later.

It was a regular suburb in the mortgage belt of Melbourne inhabited by a mix of office and factory workers from all over the world living their suburban dream.

I was no different. I also had a suburban dream; to live in Carlton where students were educated enough to have grand thoughts and musicians played in hotels. A place where I too could be a "real" musician.

When I "grew up" I moved to a share house in Lygon street that was owned by the Catholic church. I shared the house with my sister and her partner, a chef and two actors from the VCA. Rent was $30.00 each a week. But we all know what happened to Carlton. The educated students got good jobs and bought the houses they used to rent and gentrified the place which pushed the house prices and rents up and pushed me over to West Brunswick.

Don't kid yourself by thinking West Brunswick was some hip inner city suburb 20 years ago. It wasn't. I was back in the suburbs again a little more west than Blackburn North but in a place where people from all over the world lived, where the neighbours were friendly and sometimes, if you were really lucky, you got to live in a street where you could make an album with your neighbours and fulfil your suburban dream.

My dream becomes a little more real for on December 5th, 6th, 7th and 8, myself and a group of very close mates, including my best friend Emily, my Viking Warrior, my Wangaratta mate Luke, my musical buddy Greg, sound engineer extraordinaire and mate Lachlan and my daughter Ella are going to record a homage to the suburbs, "West Brunswick".

The album will be launched in house concerts in around the Northern Suburbs of Melbourne including West Brunswick, Regional Victoria, ACT and NSW and maybe even QLD.

But first, I'd like to share a Suburban Dream at my house.

If you'd like to share a Suburban Dream at your house, drop me a line at yarrabinrecords@gmail.com, and I'll come and play a West Brunswick house concert for you and your mates.

Saturday Arvo Rewrite

Today was my first Saturday home in weeks. I ordered myself a day in bed to recuperate from the weeks of work and travel. Being innately anti-authoritarian, I decided not to listen and got up instead and had a morning of emotional housekeeping; clearing, cleaning and sorting 'til I got hungry.

After lunch, I found myself with headphones on sorting through arrangements for "West Brunswick". I spent time with my best mate last night, talking about, among other things, the progress of the album. And, although we didn't say anything significant, I did admit that I was struggling to find the sound for the album, she just sympathised and nodded her approval when I said, "I spose I should just keep it simple".  Well that fairly innocuous conversation triggered a major shift because today I know exactly what to do with the sound and arrangements.

With that sorted, it was time to tackle a rewrite on The West Brunswick Wedding Song, which only a couple of close friends have heard. It was the weakest song for all sorts of reasons so today I sat down and rewrote the whole damn thing. It's now leaner and richer than it was with a clearer emotional centre. I'm pretty pleased with the result. I hope you like it too. So here's another dodgy recording for your listening pleasure. I hope you like it Allie and Adrian.

Here are the words in case you can't understand them;

When love came to Yarrabin Street
The April sun shone
Warmed as we stood on our wedding soled feet
With our best clothes on
Adrian gave Alice a ring
And Alice promised Adrian the splendid things
Of Life and loss and smooth and rough
And sure and tough and songs of love, love

And Buddy Holly sang x3
Its alright x2

When love came to Yarrabin Street
It closed down the road
And gathered outside for a Tom Waits song
And an Irish brogue
Now with each break in the traffic their voices still ring
As they married us all to the splendid things

Of Life and loss and smooth and rough

And sure and tough and songs of love, love

And Buddy Holly sang x3

Its alright x4

When love came to Yarrabin Street
West Brunswick shone.

Here's the audio: