Chapter Six: Home again, home again, jiggedy jig.
9th June 2001

Ahhh, the comforts of home. A real bed, privacy, meals and cups of tea whenever you feel like... washing all those grotty lived in clothes, putting all the gear back into its right place, calling friends after weeks away.

Yes, we're back from tour! With only one show left... the finale, sometime in August.

Our gig in Newcastle went well, that was a couple of weeks ago now. Huw was able to park the bus right behind our venue, the Northern Hotel in Hamilton, and it was a very easy lug! The venue was very small though so it was a bit of squeeze to fit all the acts on stage, and the video was projected to the side. Thank you to the 5000 fingers of Dr T for being our guest acts for the show.

Newcastle is the home of the Electrofringe festival and Octapod, essential elements of a young australian artist's creative diet, so we found many festival friends and familiar faces amongst the audience. By the way, the festival preparations for this year are starting again so if you want to get involved, get in touch with the Octapod! (www.octapod.org.au)

After the Newcastle show, we hit the hay for a few hours, and wearily travelled the last couple of hours back to Sydney after breakfast. Everyone was looking forward to arriving home, but also dreading it... we didn't want to lose the feelings of achievement, adventure and camaraderie, yet desperately needed to get away from the smells of each others' feet (known affectionately as "toe-pourri"). We arrived in Wahroonga at around 3 and it took a couple of hours to unpack the bus, say our goodbyes and sadly send everyone home. We knew we would miss the bus which had been our home for four weeks.

But although the bus travels had come to an end, the tour was not over. Sydney has become the home base for the final shows, the first of which was in Katoomba, Meem's stamping ground. We made our own ways up the mountains and met at the Gearin Hotel, a charming old pub that drew a very excited group of people who wouldn't let us stop playing. We were joined by the Alphatown Collective who are a very animated threesome, playing scratchy and irresistible beats! I raced out for a few minutes to shoot a nearby mural that had caught my eye earlier, and this was received very enthusiastically by the locals. I'm really thrilled to discover how much this aspect of my work has been appreciated on tour!

It was very cold when we finished for the night, and sadly dougall my trusty postie van wouldn't start. But we were looked after by very kind friends and found ourselves having Katoomba breakfast and coffee to start the day on Sunday.

The next gig, and last one for a while, was just last Thursday in Wollongong, at the Gong Uni Bar which is a brand new venue. were joined by the professor of video feedback, Bent McRent, who taught us a couple of new lug songs. It was a fun night for the three of us, as we had three projectors at our disposal, and the others suggested we might have stolen the show! Speaking of stealing... at the end of the night, some of the punters decided that they should nick our banners as souvenirs of a fab night! We managed to trade some posters and special funk gum, and got all but one back - phew!

It was also the first ever show that my mum has been able to come to (she lives in WA) so it was a big testing time to see if she thought live visuals are a valid/worthy art form, or that I should instead just go out and get a "real job". Her biggest question was how the audio acts could be musicians, since they don't play real instruments... I explained that whenever they write a new piece of music they are inventing a new instrument from scratch, and I think she understood. Actually, even if still she doesn't quite get the groove, I'm really proud of her for making the effort to understand what we electronic acts are trying to do. And now that she's seen it she'll be able to explain it to her friends (she says that's the hardest part of having a video artist daughter).

The yak story is not yet over! We are planning to have one final, final show in Sydney, that brings everyone back together, with an installation and performance that combines all the ideas that have evolved on tour. Before we get to that I plan to edit the 15 hours of documentary material down to the essence of the yak adventure... those long lugs, those hours of endless road, those moments of inspiration, and the many sights and faces along the way. I'm wrapping up interviews with everyone, to help to tell the story. Questions that we all ponder like:

Can we electronica artists expect to make a living from our art?

What's the future for electronica, particularly in regional areas?

What can people learn from touring?

What do all places have in common, and where do you find the essence of a place?

There'll definitely be a screening before or during our final show which will be sometime in August. We'll post the date to our friends, lists and to the yaksecrets site when we know where and when that will be! Let's finish with a bang, to celebrate the freedom of the road, the passion to create, the willingness to share adventures, the ability to work together, the appreciation of new people and places, the magic of the bus, and the sights and sounds of diversity and dance!

Welcome home all yaksters! See you soon!

Ciao

Cin

PS the photos and text from the tour can be viewed on the web at www.yaksecrets.com/photos and www.yaksecrets.com/tripalogue

© 2001 cindi drennan & team yak