IDLE55 – PROMOTIONAL PLUG

Idle 55 have a presence that is intoxicating.  They provide the perfect fix to those starving for a harmonious high of complex riffs and rhythmic bluesy funk – sexy, smart melodies all washed down with a hint of dancing drunk.

Like absinthe, their soundscapes blur distinction between the real and the abstract, to take you on journeys where the destination is irrelevant.  Don’t pull over, though your senses are under arrest.  Drown, submit, and enjoy the ride instead.

Fronted by classically trained pianist and vocalist diva Emily Coyle and propelled by the distinct acoustic and electronic talents of Grant Staines, Idle 55 have spiked audiences of thousands, from the stages of the Edinburgh Fringe, to the amphitheatres of Spain and the airwaves of local radio.

Forget what you think you know about genre.  This established outfit has reinvented the wheel when it comes to auditory stimulation.  Hard hitting rock, ethereal vocals and a bevy of beats that come alive in your feet, they all break the mould… Think Zeppelin, come Portishead, come George, but then don’t.  Think nothing, because free from the burden of expectation you’ll be more inclined to loose yourself in the undulating groove that’s so unique and oh so bittersweet.

‘6 Degrees of Separation’ is the first single off their thrird, self-produced album and it will leave you with a taste that lingers, but makes you long for a second round.  The song’s narrative alludes to the disillusionment that comes with existing in a foreign land, and the exhilaration that comes with finding a connection if you’re willing to persevere.  You will relate if you’ve been there, and even if you haven’t, its all about that which everyone knows.

The secondary tracks reveal the depth and breadth to the scope of their appeal.

Indulge.

Back.

The Rodeo

Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to put a microphone on the trick-rider who bolted around the rodeo-ring leaping from horse to horse. He leapt from one side of the ground to the other, all the while flicking his hat in the air, the chaps on his tight jeans streaming in the wind like the feathers on a diving bird, like his long hair free with his hat in his hand.

He called his tricks out to us: “To the left-and-up-an-o’vr the the saddle…lean-it- back-suicide in front…o’vr, back o’vr, ridin-backward, you see i’m ridin backward…” his breathing heavy through the speakers.

After a few minutes we could feel the penultimate moment coming, and as he yelled “heave up” he stood on the back of the horse and held his arms out like he was being crucified.

But the ring he was performing in was not all that big, half the size of a soccer pitch, the corners rounded out. He called this final trick out at the beginning of the straight, but by the time he started sitting himself back down the horse was already turning, trying to make the corner before hitting the fence.

And as the horse leant into the corner, digging in its hooves, the rider slid of its back and on to the red-clay ground.

Taking the reigns with him, he pulled the horse’s head sideways and down, causing it to slip, try to right itself but miss, and finally to roll over the trick-rider who was on the ground only a minute before being dragged back over the horse, his foot caught in the stirrup, flinging him into the fence, his leg twisted in the most horrible of positions.

And an almighty whoop of air came out of the speakers as his body hit the high-wooden fence, causing us all to jump – the combination of the sickening slap it made, and the painful Whop, amplified through all of us.

“Oh-boy-Oh-Boy-Oh-Boy-Oh-Boy-Oh-Boy-Oh-Boy-Oh-boy-Oh-Boy-Oh-Boy-Oh-Boy-Oh-Boy-Oh-Boy. Oh-Boy-Oh-Boy-Oh-Boy-Oh-Boy-Oh-Boy-Oh-boy-Oh-Boy-Oh-Boy-Oh-Boy-Oh-Boy-Oh-Boy,” he whispered, amplified as he lay on the ground like a pile of clothes blown off the line, clowns and riders pulling the horse aside, first-aid staff hurrying towards the man, carrying their bags and a plastic stretcher between them.

“He’s O.K. folks,” the announcer said as they took him away on a stretcher. And, as if in response to the announcers reassurances, he raised his left hand in a feeble wave, but with his fingers clenched tight, his fist a red-brown smudge under the lights.

Return Home…

Part One: East Glacier

Montana: blue, icy-cold lakes, fed in summer by glacial caps — Northern Pike chewing through your line with rows of sharp teeth — green, waist-high grass lapping at your belt as you head to the road. Big Sky Country, they call it, a name you can’t fully appreciate until you arrive.

Montana is wild. Bears and elk and moose roam the woods. It’s a place nostalgic in spirit and in reality. The sky there really is big; there are no buildings to hide it.

Clouds – monstrous, quick-running clouds – blow from the plains of the West to the mountains in the East, where they drop their loads as rain in summer and snow in winter, sending water south into the Missouri River — which provides around half the water of the Mississippi, creating, together, the fourth-longest river in the world.

Spanish for mountain, Montaña is home to over 70 mountain ranges which stretch their arms into Canada, and into Alaska and Wyoming. It’s a nostalgic vision for conservative-America with a population remaining one of the most homogeneous in the country, its landscape an emblem, even today, of the American Frontier.

The cowboy-life is not just a selling point for the state, though. Montana’s industry remains almost wholly agricultural. They raise cattle, wheat, barley and, because of the rustic lifestyle bring in millions of tourists each year.

The state also houses two of the United States’ most extensive national parks within its borders: Glacier National Park and three of the five entrances to Yellowstone National Park.

***

I took the train from California to Portland, Portland to East Glacier: a long journey, slow in places, winding through mountains and streams, flats and lakes.

Arriving in the morning, the train pulling up to a single, low platform, East Glacier seemed to hold secrets and adventures similar to all gateway-to-national-park-towns throughout the world.

I ate breakfast in a diner, a short walk from the station. A narrow, dusty street neatly divided rows of shops. Served by Pam — her blonde hair bobbing neatly above her tanned, lined face — breakfast consisted of eggs, moose sausage and French-toast, and was interrupted by a short skid of tires and a thump so small it was almost lost in the sound of the door creaking open, held in mid-sentence as the man in the doorway looked around too.

When we reached the road to see what happened two men were carrying on their conversation as they carried a black dog into a gutter – warm, fresh blood flowing freely into the dusty road, the dogs ears long and limp, it’s fur still shiny in the morning chill.

“Wouldn’t ya know it,” the man from the doorway said, walking over to where the dog was placed, the men turning and walking back to their truck, bending and inspecting the front bumper before driving away.

“Wouldn’t ya know it,” he said again, and kept walking, patting his back pocket, realising why he’d come this way before returning to the diner, giving the dog a sly glance as he walked past.

East Glacier’s closest lake is Lower Two Medicine, the largest of a group of three lakes reached by Looking Glass Hill Road. Northern Pike, I was told, are abundant in summer and spring, as are Rainbow Trout and Wall-eye.

Even as the state is almost empty – the fourth largest area in the U.S.A, but only the 44th highest population – it is on these old-reservations, still under the control of Indigenous Americans, where a real, untouched piece of the world remains.

I stop at a fishing store and am told I’ll need steel spinners to attach my line and hook, as Pike have teeth, “proper teeth” which cut through lines more often than they miss. I’m sold a daily-fishing-licence for $US40  and, following a map, make my way along a straight, flat road which skirts mountains like a long, black, glassy river.

The sky’s a picture of blues and whites framed only by mountain tops still covered in snow and glaciers, though it’s well into summer. Despite the man in the fish shop’s enthusiasm, and despite a few nibbles here and there and a bite right through the twisted-wire spinner he sold me, I catch no fish, only a cold from the icy water.

Continue reading part two: “I have more luck West, at Holter lake, where i meet…”

Part Two: Holter Lake

I have more luck West, at Holter lake, where I meet up with a friend from California. We take his grandfather’s boat and make our way to the cabin, a half-an-hour run if the lake is calm, an hour if it’s not.

The cabin is neat and small. A smaller boat than the one we brought over rests upside-down against a make-shift rock wall, and as I go to turn it over, Josh hands me a stick telling me there’s sometimes rattlesnakes underneath.

The boat, the tinnie he calls it, has three metal seats running horizontal against the curve of the boat. But the top one, the thickest of them all, has a perfect arse-shaped-dent in it.

“My uncle and my grandfather rode over in this one evening and the wind picked up. Uncle says he was thrown six-feet in the air before he came down. Grandpa says it was more like seven. “And he’s no small man,” Josh said, mimicking his grandfather’s voice and laugh.

We spent weeks there, fishing up and down the river and lake in the morning, locking the cabin some days and camping at spots too far to be traversed in a day. We found rock-ledges and climbed them, leaping into the icy-water as the summer beat down on us turning us brown as the weeks passed.

We found cave-paintings and bear prints, but no rattlesnakes, a matter which bothered Josh, but which certainly didn’t bother me.

Eventually, the rest of Josh’s family joined us, coming over on an ungainly two-story pontoon, waving and shouting from afar as Josh’s brothers and cousins leapt into the water, thinking they could out-swim the waddling boat but realising, fairly quickly, that they couldn’t. Montana changed then, from a harsh, almost unwelcome place, to a place of family, togetherness, relaxation, card games, books and hot-dogs.

Driving back to California together, we passed through a small farming community near the border of Idaho. A faint smoke cloud hung above the town, the fire-front perhaps 200 metres from a small house set back from the road. Washing blowing on the line, child in her arms, toddler hanging onto her dress, a woman ran to the road, light-auburn hair blowing with the dust and wind which kicked up from the dry, fragile fields.

A neighbour’s truck pulled up and all three climbed in. She pointed to the east of the fire, behind and to the left of the house, and the truck took off down a track between fence-lines; towards, I suppose, her husband working the land some distance off in that direction, perhaps coming to meet her, perhaps oblivious, perhaps caught, perhaps…

Read The Rodeo…

A day on the road to Santiago

With scallop shell slung across the handlebars as a crude statement of purpose and unstamped credentials as cart-blanche to cheap accommodation, I leave Saint Jean-Pied-de-Port for Spain, where the cheese is harder and the wine is stronger.

I’m not a morning person and, judging by the glares I’m getting from the sleepy dishevelled hobbits I pass, I’m not alone.

The icy mountain air, hidden from the Spanish sun (which is stronger too) isn’t helping anybody as we creep up the meandering dirt path through ghostly clouds.

For many the first day is the hardest part of the entire 800- kilometre journey.

On foot, bike or horse, this 1,000 metre ascent, with luggage, is an exercise in endurance. Once you arrive at the top, there are still 770 kilometres waiting.

But for now I content myself with slowly overtaking a couple resting on the path’s edge and who appear nervous they won’t cross over the Roncesvalles pass to the monastery by nightfall.

I push on past dreary farms, my attention alternating between the loose stones on the road and the patchwork of farmland below. The knights Templar once protected this road chiselled deep into the lush mountainside. I meet a group of biking Belgians. We climb together stopping in a patch of sunburned grass to share the last of my soft French cheese and some old bread. The road opens on a fairytale valley where a shepherd watches over his grazing sheep. I ride through scattered woods, temporarily hidden from the mounting intensity of the sun, and pass over roots worn bare by the paths revived popularity.

The tree-line disappears leaving only open space resembling a child’s drawing—just green and blue.

Growing tired of counting sheep, and slightly worried I’ll drift off if I continue, I withdraw into my thoughts, contemplating deeper questions like—why am I dragging myself up this monstrosity against my body’s will?

People don’t usually haul their life in bags up mountains for no reason.You might begin to sympathise with Sisyphus, knowing the descent is only temporary and the next hill is not far off.

The incline tapers off, revealing an agreeable decent that couldn’t have come at a better time.

With no brakes, part of a longer story, I descend into Roncesvalles briefly pausing on the peak’s precipice to soak in the spot where Roland, favoured knight of Charlemagne, was ambushed by Basque tribes in the year 778.

In the valley, a well-lit dining room is packed with proud pilgrims struggling to balance satiating ravenous appetites with publicly acceptable eating habits.

The din dies temporarily as travellers find their beds and drift off into crescendo chorus of snoring no one has enough energy to fully appreciate.

Useful links:

General Camino information , History of the region, New-looking practical site

Trend forecasts from the experts

The experts say the coming season will be alive with vibrant colours, frills and the return of an Indian theme.

Marisa Yannas, owner and buyer for Melbourne fashion boutique Shuba, says this season is all about colour.

“It’s definitely about the brighter hues and within that colour palette, I feel the mixing of colours is more graded.

“There’s a lot more use of toning, with naturals put back with creams and vibrant yellows toned down with softer lemons.”

“For summer, it’s definitely a return to the 70s, with a lot of natural tones and bohemian looks.  There will be strong platform heels, loose fitting shirts and short shorts,” she says.

Fashion student, Susie Dawes, says she is excited at the return of an Indian theme.  She says the coming season will see suede-fringed sandals and handbags teamed with a jewel-inspired colour palette of ruby and emerald.

“I’ve been seeing it trickling down from the big houses for a couple of years, but not quite hitting street level in Australia yet.  It’s certainly going to be an Indian summer,” Dawes says.

Teaming heavy wooden accessories with sari-inspired cuts will also feature prominently, as seen in Oscar de la Renta’s spring summer range.

“Things are getting quite frilly, which I love,” says Dawes.

Spring summer will feature ruffles and tiers, with Lisa Ho, Nicola Finetti and Yeojin Bae incorporating cascades of frilled layers into their latest designs.

“I’m also looking forward to the maxi dress,” she says.

This floor-length, flowing creation is all about chic sophistication, as seen in the spring summer collections of Alex Perry and Fleur Wood.

Fashion-addict and retail sales assistant, Natalie Ferran, is eagerly anticipating splashes of electric fuchia and vibrant blues alongside softer pastel tones.

“I can’t wait to mix that edgey rocker-chick kind of look with the more feminine, girly pieces,” she says.

Sheer floral kaftans and paisley-print pantsuits, she says, will work perfectly with heavy gold accessories and gladiator heels.

Melbourne’s fashion scene

Fashion Student Susie Dawes says the fashion scene in Melbourne is evolving, with a move towards creative styling and innovative design.

“More and more, people are embracing their own style.  I think we’re steering away from being followers and starting to be creators.”

Dawes  is impressed by the innovative styles by emerging Australian designer Michelle Jank.

“I think we can expect to see amazing designs from her this season,” she says.

Fashion addict and retail sales assistant, Natalie Ferran, says the fashion scene in Melbourne is diverse and eclectic.

“Melburnians aren’t afraid to just go with what they like.  They’re willing to be a little risky with their fashion,” she says.

Tough crowds

While the rock pigs that flock to late night gigs are pivotal to the success of a show, they can kill a band’s night in the spotlight too.

Tom Cooper, drummer, The Cheats:

“You always get the drunk random guy who wants to be your manager at these late-night gigs and drunk English backpackers. We ended up giving this one guy that wanted to be our manager a lift after the gig somewhere. He had no experience managing bands and he was pretty drunk.”

Luke Godeassi, guitarist, Danna and The Changes:

“We were playing a gig at the Espy and in between songs this guy in the crowd kept throwing these condoms at me. There ended up being several of them on the stage. That’s what happens when you start playing a gig in the middle of the night.”

Nick Roe, guitarist, Telecom:

“We played this benefit gig at the Espy about 1:30am and at the time we thought it was the best thing in the world getting the headline slot. We played after some kind of world music band because it was a benefit gig for Darfur. The room was full as we were loading our gear in, but then when we got on stage everybody left – we couldn’t plug in our amps and pedals and tune up fast enough before they were gone. Nobody cares about being polite after a dozen beers. We didn’t save any lives in Darfur that night, but we did raise the bar of rock.”

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Following St James’ Way

Not all roads lead to Rome. It turns out some of the most enchanting ones go to Santiago de Compostela. Thousands of little yellow arrows guide the way along the history-steeped pilgrimage from any corner of Europe to the heart of witch-fearing Galicia.

This Iberian odyssey with more than 1000 years of pilgrim history has experienced a renaissance in the last 20 years attracting religious and secular voyagers alike. The pilgrimage keeps a firm grasp of origins, maintaining its timeless authenticity.

This mystical path across northern Spain has something for everyone with a backpack, bike or horse, free time and endurance. It has all the right ingredients for a European summer adventure. While some pilgrims begin their journey at their own doorstep, some of the most popular starting points are the medieval village Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port on the French side of the Pyrenees and Roncesvalles on the Spanish side. Picture Wizard of Oz meets Lord of the Rings with less violence – these days anyway.
Pilgrims on a budget can look forward to accommodation for under €5 a night and restaurants offering regional pilgrim menus with wine for under €15. Pilgrims can look forward to a communal atmosphere, the opportunity to meet people from all over the world and an empirical history lesson.

But be prepared for early mornings, refuges drive out all able-bodied wanderers at 8am sharp.

Arriving in Santiago de Compostela awards tired pilgrims the Compostela certificate absolving all ones worldly sins.  If you’re lucky and complete the road to Santiago on a jubilee year, when 25 July falls on a Sunday, you’re slate is wiped clear of Original Sin. Tabla Rasa.

The path crosses almost 800 kilometres through the Spain’s most famous wine region, La Rioja.

The major rush in June and July subsides to a moderate September when travellers need not race for beds in the refuges peppered all along St. James’ Way.

Continue reading A Day on the Road to Santiago…

Useful links:

General Camino information , History of the region, New-looking practical site

What happens when you snap…

Cuba’s Angel Valodia Matos decided to take things into his own hands or, more to the point, his own foot.

After being disqualified for taking too much injury time during his taekwondo quarterfinal, Matos landed one last kick.

The only trouble was, it wasn’t his opponent he aimed for.

The 31-year-old former gold medalist vented his frustrations on the referee, scoring a life ban from competition.

Despite receiving worldwide condemnation for his unsportsmanlike actions, Matos found comfort in Cuba’s former leader, Fidel Castro, who called the sports officials “corrupt” while accusing them of attempting to fix fights.

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