Oct 2007
Pointer Sisters to Punch & Judy –
all in a day’s possibility with Clermont Tours Inc !!
HI Mike, a Postcard story if you will! Hope it finds you well. You know, in all the tumbling chaos of last January, I never got to see the article you wrote in my direction. And dare I say why I’ve never written an adjectival thanks for it. Perhaps I’ll be able to grab a back issue at the Tamworth CapNews hub – I might get a chance in November! Ah the embroiled lives some lead. Hey and BackBeat, my rockin’ Bluegrass band from 17 years back (!!!) is having a re-union at the Dorrigo Bluegrass Festival this month’s end and continuing at The Supper Club next January – we’ll look at other possibilities there after. But i’ll send you a CD to give you the flavour soon- meanwhile…..
Below is largely a story I sent to Anna for the Leader but thought you might find some Cap News worth parts to it. Visiting Merritt, CM capital in Canada, and Lawrie Minson & I joining 4000 for the Guiness Book of Records for Harmonica in Southern Germany!! Any way some catch up background and pics too.
” Well there we were, once again in India(n) guise through North America, as Dya Singh World Music Group, bounding along the British Columbian freeway, snaking through the outskirts of the Rockies, when up jumped the need for lunch and general pause on the 9 hour, drive day, from Seattle, north to Salmon Arm. On reflection, I had wondered, just how, we were going to manage this leg of the North American tour given that in one moment we were the diagonal other side of the Continent one day, in Orlando, Florida, and then the entire last week ricocheting the North West quadrant and wanting to be sane and fit for the concerts there in – enter the spontaneously materializing driver, Simon Harder. Each story needs a legend and here he came in spades.
Eight years back on our first USA tour, wandering Aussie, SImon Harder had been our driver by being at he right place at the right time and agreeing to put his own peculiar life on hold! Coincidentally his Dad spent his last years in Uralla. Anyway, a number of rendezvous, years and laughs, later, he appears on email suggesting he might need a break at the time of Salmon Arm – Roots & Blues Festival and would meet us there. I rapidly replied a plead for him to be our driver again thus bringing the happy entourage back together – where he arrived just before us, to pickup the hire van, drive us to the far reaches of tour management and after dropping us at Vancouver Airport, 9 concerts and a couple of thousand miles later, return the van to Seattle airport to return to San Diego and computer programming-ville!
“The Oz Pub in Seattle” – Parvyn Josh, Simon & Andrew
Not only did we also link up with the delightful 2002 Japan tour guide, Akane (Fiddlers Festival (Feast)); The Pointer Sisters; the Aussie Pub in Seattle; Stunt Man extraordinaire via my early days in Taiwan, Justin Sain (also the Wolverine’s stunt double in the X-Men!); perform under the azure Canadian sky line with up to 4 bands (inter-linked at once!)! Yes indeed, you too might join one of Clermont’s sojourns in life but, in the meantime, it unfolds here… and man were we in need of a break!
And so we came to be on the outskirts of Merritt, the Country Music Capital of Canada! Unknowingly entering a parallel universe, to Tamworth! Though no Golden Guitar, there were the immense murals of the stars and Walks of Fame, with various shops sponsoring large plaques of gratitude to the various CM luminaries.
Tamworth has had it’s share of minimally adorned Chinese Restaurants and Merritt has trumped them. Here one appeared more like a dental surgery than Eastern cullinary venue! …But the food was still considerably good.
“Multi-cultural touring – Hindu, Sikh & beyond in the Heart of Country! Merritt, Canada”
Well the tour started near Disneyland in California – fundraising close to $100,000 for interfaith/ peace projects at one dinner function alone! Big thanks to the California Sikh Foundation. We were able to invite Joanne Lack (ex Brisbane with Michael Fix, now writing string sections out of San Francisico) who appeared in Tamworth as well with John Wibberly, The Supper Club and Texan, Colin Brooks. The night also gave opportunity to include Sax & Trumpet dude, Kevin Ray Putzier from east of Orange County – you get the idea that as with The Supper Club at home, my tours are always about gathering the fun players to then cast new magic with the resultant music. Kevin was met through a Sunday Jam in OC that we’d heard about at the local ‘hole in the wall’ bar near Tuscan Boulevard. His two at once trumpet harmony technique is freaky! Ha! And yesterday Jo Lack appears in Berlin on my last day there! Uncanny timing AND rings from just 2 blocks away – even though Berlin is such a large city!
Back to Nth America and for 2 months we jigzagged from Winnipeg Folk Fest to California World Music Fest; Hillside and Blue Skies Fests near Toronto to St Louis and Detroit, Festival of Colours; Orlando including the Endeavour Shuttle lift off(!) and finally across to where this missive began, near Vancouver. Boy, do those rockets make a racket!!
A week in London with Tamworth’s own Tom Donald and Armidale’s Gypsy Hot Club Fiddle Champ, Willow Stahlut-Kemp, included new studio recordings from the gathering! Stay tuned for it’s release in the next while.
The Dya Singh Tour this time also included their manager, Keith Preston presenting his historic Punch & Judy Show. Naturally this required quite extensive soundscapes from yours truly and the fun of expanding puppetry with live music was eagery taken on. We also caught up merrily with Australia’s fav Guitar son, Tommy Emmanuel, following each other on stages throughout the California Fest weekend.
Canadian Festivals are a little unique in that they love to present multiple band workshops, eg Dya Singh meets The Bebop Cowboys, or Madagasgar Slim, and/or Quebec Ska Kings or… you get the idea. See the YouTube website and search for “Dya Singh Nth America Tour”. There are three videos covering the last two months of touring. Yes of course our little ensemble does love to mingle! There is also a jam in the back of the bus back from the Winnipeg Folk Fest where it all just went off!! My camcorder was rarely far away – let alone handing it to occasionally willing audient! Our final, main stage concert, for the tour was at Salmon Arm. One of those ‘BEST EVER!’ gigs. When people compliment you by saying “Lucky it was your own sound guy” when it was the festival guy all along – it means you know they were doing the right thing for you out front. Even legendary ‘impact’ man, That 1 Guy, was taken aback at the presentation. A definite going out with a Bang!
At last year’s Tam CM Fest, The Supper Club was able to welcome The Beez (very funny & theatrical) from Berlin as special guests. Last week Lawrie Minson & I became their guests at a very Retro Venue, LUX, in East Berlin. The building is a cross between a bunker, machine shop and from the inside, like a huge dark lit hippy bus! The Berliners came and filled the place and a hoot of a night was had. The Beez will return to Oz in 2009 after touring my folk funk group, Totally Gourdgeous, thoughout Europe in 2008. Not to be missed
Lawrie is here for the 150th Birthday of Hohner Harmonicas in Southern Germany – great timing that we could link up in the same week in Germany and perform as well. I’m now on a fast train from Zurich, Switzerland to rendevous with Lawrie, just south of Stuttgart – adapting my world ticket to parallel Lawrie’s path for a moment. (Loz had a somewhat long & trying trip over, so his first recovery Beer was a major moment – I’ll include that photo, too, Haha)
However the reality was, that Lawrie & I were destined to join just short of 4000 Harmonica players in Trossingen near the Black Forest for the Guiness Book of Records for Harmonica! And the biggest ‘bouncing ball’ effect above the stage to keep all in line with melody and timing! 5 minutes altogether. Imagine if you will!! A small town with mighty big central area to accomodate the throng from China & Japan to Aussies and American folk though all over Europe. And made a special batch of Harmonicas, just to use at the event!!
and a close up of the girls under the sign in the middle!
SOOOOOO cute!
It’s been a joy to catch up with cousins & new nephews/ friends babies during this Deutch sector.
Nairobi followed and a sublime beach north of Mombasa awaited for a 2 week cultural contrast, helping out, and recovery before returning to Tamworth.
See you at a Supper Club at TamFest or anyone in Thailand early Nov?
Regards in the magic of Music – tumbling our world borders, Andrew Clermont and bands Inc!”
new pics at
http://blog.myspace.com/andrewclermont
Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right. – Henry Ford
“God is a little too big for just one religion! ”
Andrew Clermont
“If you are going to strike out at someone, first walk a mile in their shoes…..that way, you’ll be a mile away from them, and you’ll have their shoes!!”
Indian ‘wisdom’