deep child and bre doing business on the bus
meem does some composition while travelling
we can queeze nine yaksters and all the gear onto the bus - but only just!
Chapter Three: Life on the Road
16th May 2001
Howdy there! Well, we've covered a lot of miles since I last wrote from Wagga Wagga. In fact, by the end of the tour we would have driven to Perth if we'd headed west!
By this time you are wondering how nine of us manage to spend so many hours on the road together without driving each other insane, particularly when you consider that the dominant gene is "messy". Fortunately we're all very easygoing and tend to laugh about things rather than get cranky. Whilst travelling we amuse ourselves reading, working on our laptops, sleeping, chatting and listening to music.
deep child and bre doing business on the bus |
meem does some composition while travelling |
we can queeze nine yaksters and all the gear onto the bus - but only just! |
The long spells of travel are interspersed with intensive work to prepare for the gigs, run the show, then pack it all down again. It's a lot of physical work to set up a show, lugging everything in and out (we are our own roadies) and then rigging projectors, screens, lighting, banners etc. We keep ourselves amused with "the lug songs" which are a medley of any song we can remember in which we can replace the word "love" with "lug". The songs include: "lug, lug me do, you know I lug you" and "what do you get when you fall in lug" and the unforgettable "lugging you is easy". We're looking forward to releasing a compilation at the end of the tour. Email me your lug song suggestions, the best one will win a copy of the tour CD!
Zahir the magic bus is really the tenth member of the group. In the mornings we chant "Zahir!" as Huw turns over the engine. It often takes ten or more attempts to get the motor going, and sometimes we fear that the battery will be flattened before the engine finally sputters to life for another day's haul. It takes a lot of faith and patience but we do believe in the magic of Zahir!
At the time of writing this email we've had eight gigs which puts us half way through the tour. Things have become much tighter since our launch show, with new audiovisual sequences being added, and the core team getting funkier. Like cultural pioneers we're taking this special brand of Sydney electronica to new places, workshopping ideas and stories, evolving the show as we travel in our mobile audiovisual hothouse.
After our final show at Wagga Wagga we made our way down to Melbourne for a few days before the next bunch of gigs, staying with Robin MacPherson, Sarah Banch and other members of the House in Elwood. The household includes electronic artists and producers of the Better Living Through Circuitry project, and the home has murals painted with suggestions from global webcam watchers. Out in the backyard are ducks, chickens and a hamster. Thanks so much to these lovely people who made all nine of us very welcome in their home!
While we were in Melbourne Meem had his 26th birthday, and Deepchild made him a surprise birthday cake with chocolate icing that had sprinkles of muesli and sherbert lollies. We also held a huge group dinner of about 15 people, enjoying an enormous baked pumpkin dish prepared by Meem. Lots of friends visited us whilst we stayed there, including video artists John Power and Kim Bounds of 2Loops, and Myvanwe.
 the sunroom at the back of the House where we spent many happy hours |
 Check out the mural, meem! |
 While we were staying there Meem had his 26th birthday: Surprise! HB2Y! |
 Hanging out with friends and visitors at the House. |
 The ducks are a source of much amusement entertainment to the yak crew! |
 John Power and Kim Bounds of 2Loops - you rock! |
We've snared some great video material down in Melbourne, including a magic deepchild and bre moment that gets screened during deepchild's set. The Yarra River, the riverside percussion fountain, and textural mosaics have also been grabbed for tour visuals. In fact, so far we've shot 6 hours worth of material and I've lots of editing to do!
Our first gig of the week was at a great aussie pub in Geelong, which turned out to be the final stop for a raucous pubcrawl! Second show was held at the Prince of Wales in St Kilda. Loading in almost killed us, commencing with driving the bus down a one way street requiring a 63 point turn to get out again, culminating with the lugging of all our gear through the long and twisty catacombs of the hotel.
Melbourne's Prince of Wales hotel was an irregularly shaped venue which would not have suited our usual set up. The team argued grumpily about our options but we eventually devised a solution that was a most innovative and successful installation of audio and video performers, stage and screen. We're planning to utilise this new format wherever the space will allow it.
The Melbourne gig was an absolutely memorable show. Our line-up included francisco foo, lava musique ensemble, clone vs dark network, 8bit, dj katy k. And an extensive video line-up involving members of the vidi-yo nexus from Melbourne: 2 Loops, Aqueous, Banchee; and guest Emile Zile. <tesseract> played the yak show and later invaded 2 Loops' set for a mad adrenalin pumping video jam.
Our third show was in Morwell - where is that I hear you ask. Its about 200k east of Melbourne in East Gippsland. We played at a nightclub called bar 148 to a weird wicked shades-wearing group of fungal ferals, who made us feel very welcome. After the show we went to Coles to buy our breakfast, before arriving at the Morwell caravan park, which nobody remembers because we barely had time to fall asleep before leaving the next morning.
Since Morwell we've been on the road travelling back up North, heading to Lismore and our Queensland shows. I've put together a web page with lots of photos from the tour, check it out at http://www.yaksecrets.com/photos
I'll write again from Brisbane!
Cin
© 2001 cindi drennan & team yak