Chapter One: The prep, the launch and getting away....
27th April 2001

Only one day to go until we are on the road with the Yak Secret Technology Tour!

Imagine a small tribe of electronica artists travelling for over a month together, in a beloved bedford bus.

Performing live techno-funk dance music shows from Sydney to Melbourne, and Toowoomba to Katoomba and lots of places in between... an adventure and lots of hard work! And an opportunity to get to know each other, meet new people on the way, face challenges resourcefully, and to develop new material.

There's so MUCH to do before we leave tomorrow but I thought I should tell you what we are up to since I probably won't have time to write again until after our third show in Wagga Wagga.

I am wonderfully excited about going on this tour. To me, touring means travelling with the music that I love, taking it to places where people haven't heard it before, and getting to do what I love most - creating visuals and performing live alongside the music acts. Yay! I'm travelling with my favourite dance music, THE best techno-funk acts and I will be loving EVERY moment!

The audio acts touring as Yak Secret Technology are Meem, Deep Child, and Telemetry Orchestra, plus video artists <tesseract> - that's me (Cin, pleased to meetcha) and Justin Maynard. All of us have previously played together at events such as Freaky Loops and Clan Analogue shows in Sydney, so we already know each other well enough to be keen to take this challenge on.

meem

deepchild

Telemetry Orchestra

We will be on the road for about four and half weeks, travelling together in an old school bus that's been converted for holiday charters with bunk beds and cafe curtains. But there's nine of us and a LOT of gear! Actually <tesseract> is probably the worst for gear - we'll be lugging three mixers and a fairlight CVI in a road case (this device is an 80's video synthesiser and its rare enough to warrant a packing crate for travel). Plus there's the projector, screens, and PA, our kitchen and us! The people will include Rick (Deep Child), Michael (Meem), Charlotte + Steven + Gavin (Telemetry Orchestra) plus us tesseractians. And the driver, and Ubin for some of the way, and Fleur a journalist, and probably others too. It will be cosy - but that's probably fortunate for us with cold weather approaching.

Our driver, Hugh, has told us that we have a 90% chance that the bus will complete the tour with no problems... warning us that we should have a contingency plan for the 10% likelihood that the bus breaks down! Ha! Will we get out and push? Let's face it, we're doing this by the skin of our teeth, and our back up plan is not to need one! We'll just have to make sure we allow extra time for travel (the bus is REALLY slow) and pray LOTS! (Maybe you should keep your fingers and toes crossed for luck as well). Risk Management? What's that?

Huw: our long distance driver

Huw shows off Zahir, the magic bus

The last few weeks has been very busy for everyone. Michael has been down in Melbourne, Charlotte (Telemetry Orchestra) and I made banners and decor, our erstwhile coordinator and designer - Breanne - has been busy making promo packs to send off, including special "Funk Gum"! Justin is getting ready the tech and IT support for the tour. We've all been wrapping up our projects and day jobs. And everyone has been working on getting new material ready. Getting excited!

On Saturday night we had our first show of the tour, the launch party, at the Newtown RSL. We had lots of special guests, including Ubin, 5000 fingers of Dr T, Pempek and Quark Kent. Plus the pixel pimp (he laughs when we call him that!) MoRpH who got the evening's imagery started. We were joined briefly for a video-jam by Scott Anderson during Ubin's set. By the time the fingers started to play, our audience was having a great time, dancing and interacting with us, cheering and calling for more. It was wonderful to have such a supportive audience in our home town!!! I think that the encouragement we received on our first night will travel with us a long way. Thank you to everyone who came!!

For me, the best part about our launch party, was (as usual) getting the new material ready just in the nick of time...in fact, I added the finishing touches on my laptop just before going on... (whew). The sequences were about 4 days work, combining some well known alien contact movies with my own animations to tell a humorous story of how the yak sound has travelled from outer space to inspire us. I guess you'll need to come to a show to see it. Bent McRent, a friend who has taught me a lot about video feedback, lent me a cow head that I wore during the set for a laugh!

Well, the last preparations are underway, as we'll be on the road tomorrow! The last couple of days I have been packing our rig, labelling things with the <tesseract> colours, organising tapes, getting the kitchen and camping stuff packed... I still have to finish packing my clothes and personal things. And there's the video material to finish mastering. Let's see: there's the "body" sequence of skin and limbs, the special video feedback routine to perform with Meem, more "yak" themed sequences, some recent streetscape stuff, and abstract material to suit different moods and tempos. And there's also the "hey we're on tour" story that I am documenting in every place we travel to - and that has already started with images relating to our preparations and meeting the BUS for the first time. These images will be added to at every show we do, and form part of the visuals for the gigs.

Tonight we're cleaning the bus (a couple of dead rats were found in it recently so it is pretty pongy) and tomorrow morning packing and then setting off. Our next show will be in Canberra on Thursday night at the ANU bar (Sullivans Creek Road, Acton). Tix are $10 ($8 concession) on the door. Our itinery is online at www.yaksecrets.com To get in touch with us while we are away, email teamyak@yahoogroups.com and one of the gang will answer your questions!

Bye for now,

Cin