The Weekly... Volume 3

Welcome Back!

The 3rd Edition of the weekly is a day late... courtesy of it being my birthday yesterday, so I gave myself the night off. Notice there I said night and not day - a reference to my more than impressive knack of leaving the "weekly" till the very last moments of "the week" (ie late Sunday evening) before I actually think about typing anything. Well not this time, I just let the deadline sail right past! In fact I think I was out having a beer somewhere... but enough of all that... I don’t mind being a year older - I’m cool with that.... and I am taking the extra year on the road to celebrate:

WED 9TH APRIL - SOLO @ GRACE EMILY, ADELAIDE

ON STAGE 8.30PM - FREE ENTRY!

Those of you who have been keeping track of things lately will have noticed that I am currently recording an album of some description. You may also have noticed that I am getting quite good at talking about it, but perhaps not quite so good at coming up with the final product. Well I checked the old RF Scoreboard the other day, and I think I have discovered a potential reason...

Procrastination 29

Discipline 3

So you see there is progress being made, but sadly at this stage it appears not the type of progress that would produce an entire album. Perhaps a makeshift 4-track EP with a couple of bonus scratch tracks, but that’s not really what I am going for... So April is shaping up as the month of organisation! Hoping to have a lot more of this damn thing finished before i head to Thailand, so when i get back in June I’ll be able to apply the finishing touches. That’s the plan. Whose idea was it to self-produce an album anyway...

This past week was a good one. Decent gig at The Hoey on Thursday night - must give a shout out to good friends Tammy Ingram, Brendan Maclean and Three Quarters Hazel. We had a great bill assembled. Shame about the last guy...

I had an epiphany too this week - I realised how lucky we are as musicians to be able to find so much inspiration in what we do for a living - through art, through new ideas, new approaches, new songs. I think this is the benefit of following the less certain path - maybe it’s like a risk-reward thing. But yeah - that was my epiphany, and I think it was a good one. (Not all my epiphanies are great you see... there was one about wearing a Bandana as a trademark item of clothing - not one of my best that one - I looked like a Chump - good thing there was a reverse epiphany the morning after the first Bandana gig).

Anwyay the weekly must rest for a while... I’ll leave you with the last two days of the March Walkabout. More stories next week from my quick trip to Adelaide this Wednesday, which I am really looking forward to. Who knows, I may even write another song in between nearly being arrested twice ... just like the last time I was there... (it’s a long story).

Farewell.

Renny

PS - Congratulations to Shane and Bree (you know who you are and what for). You guys rock.

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MARCH WALKABOUT CONTINUED:

Sat 15th March - Woojam @ The Blue Mountains Folk Festival.

Woojam, for those of you who didn’t know, was a great little open Mic night that some friends of mine used to run at Bar Me in the Cross. It was awesome - once a fortnight on a Monday night, and most of the time you could barely find a seat from the first act right until the end. The Woojam stage up in the Blue Mountains was basically a selection of us people who used to play at Woojam all the time (The Tragics...), and on the Saturday we got to play in the Baroque Room at the Carrington Inn - just a beautiful place to perform.

Now the trip from Wollongong was not without it’s challenges, as once again the Friday night in "The Gong" ended up keeping us awake till around 4.. which I can never understand, but that seems to be the way of things down there. It was fun, but the drive not so much... via Sydney... Lots of driving remember I just drove back from Melbourne Via Wagga 2 days earlier... Fortunately during the course of this tour I was reminded of how much your stage craft improves when you are playing every night. Not a huge thing, but little subtle differences that you notice from having to sing so much. Reminds me that it’s important to make the effort to tour more often. So I will. Has anyone got some suggestions? I will come to you!

The Saturday night at the music festival was good value (Great value in fact - especially with the performers pass!). Higlights for me were Brett Hunt, The Fumes, and the Ukalele guy - Joe? Jake? I can’t remember, but he was a you-tube sensation, so you can find him on there, and he can play a mean Uke! Some others were less impressive, but it all made sense with apple sponge cake at 11pm.

Woo to that!

Sun 16th March @ Will and Tobys, Sydney

And with the final leg of the tour negotiated safely, it was back to Will and Toby’s for the last show. Nice to be back in the room actualy- it will always hold fond memories because of our show there last October. I hadn’t done a band gig in over a year, and I locked one just for the hell of it... In many ways, that show renewed my faith in music - it made me realise how great it was to have a full new set of songs to play, and how important it is to set yourself new challenges creatively. So with this in mind, I was really looking forward to this gig - the last one on Walkabout. Plus I had again managed to organise a little bevy of musicians to help me out - namely Matt Field Drums, Pat Savina bass, Simon Rudston-Brown Guitar, Sarah Humphreys backing vox, Tom Trathen trumpet and Kent Eastwood accordion. Always fun with a few different players on the stage throughout the night.

For this show, we were joined again by our friends Cookie and Jaan from Adelaide, who played great. Really dig the tunes. Nice to share the stage also with Lyall Adonis and his band The House of Kings. Great band, and hopefully we’ll get to do another show soon together. Makes me think I should have a "and the....." name for my band. But they are always different players... Any suggestions? Tammy’s band was good the other night - Tammy Ingram and the Sound - I liked that one. Maybe I could be Renny Field and the ... and the ... and the .. and the NFI.

The main part of the night wasn’t till right at the end - where I had arranged a crowd sing-a-long for one of the songs on the New Album - "Our Time" (I think you can hear a live version at www.triplejunearthed.com/rennyfield). (You see this is all part of the limited progress I was talking about earlier...). Anyway we all had a sing, and it was great that so may stuck around to help out so late on a Sunday night. Turns out I got exaclty what I needed, and i think it’ll sound great when I finish the rest of the track. So thanks to everyone who was a part of it - you are all now officially the "Our Time Choir". Almost caused myself heart failure trying to set up all the recording gear, but I think it was worth it.

And that, my friends, was the end of that. The end of the tour. Thanks to everyone that offered me a show, thanks to those of you who helped my along the way, and thanks to anyone who took the time to tune in.

And I’d like to write something profound here, but from memory I already tried a couple of times this blog and it didn’t quite work...

So for now - farewell, and I’ll catch you soon. I’ll leave you with my favourite quote....

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
~Theodore Roosevelt