"4am start today. Early starts used to mess me up, but i’m doing what I love now, the hour doesn’t matter anymore."
Loading… 50% Complete
It’s April fifteen as I write this, which means I’ve officially hit the halfway mark of my Sydney journey, and if you’ve read any posts before this you’ll know it’s been a cracker. New skill, new friends, new prospects, new outlooks, and bounds ahead in my walk with God. I’m part of amazing communities at work and at church, part of bigger things that are making a tangible difference in lives and in the world, and I’m starting to wonder if six months is enough…
Just finished up at Presence 2012, a c3 church international conference, where we were blessed with top notch music and speakers from round the world, including John Bevere, Steven Furtick, Kong Hee and Phil Pringle. Was a huge wake up for many areas of my faith where I realize I’ve been operating out of some unproductive mindsets. Chief among these was the revelation that I’ve gotta stop any single minded focus on trying to plan out my five and ten year plan future, and
begin just living in regular trust of God, going wherever He wants me to go and doing whatever it is He wants me to do. Following the guide.
Easter holidays have been brilliant, despite the lack of chocolate and family, we played a show for a bunch of disadvantaged primary school age kids this thursday out in a camp in the sticks, and mate, that had to be the funnest show I’ve ever done. So much swag in a small camp hall, I love the enthusiasm and participation of younger kids. Every song was a solid dance fest from start to finish, and our message resonated, what an honor.
Loading… 50% Complete. I feel like I’ve found my stride with the job, my skill, my crew, and my church.
So looking forward to the second half, it’s gonna be brilliant. Life’s brilliant.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
An acoustic track Hannah and I recorded the other day.
Tim and I rehashing Philosophy at a high school tour in the countryside the other week.
Wound up and down
Okay, time to post to my blag. A lot’s been going on since my last post, and i’m keen to get my write on and hit the issues.
I’m stoked with how the position’s been playing out in my life and relationships so far, i’ve met an amazing crew of people who’ve warded off any homesickness I might have experienced like a pro. I’m stoked be living in this city. My work takes me all over the place, and i’ve seen a disproportionately large amount of the city in relation to how long I’ve been here. so good.
Working in High Schools around the state is awesome. The teachers we work with are enthusiastic and inspiring, and it’s so cool to see the move and development they are making in the lives of their students as they educate and build into them. Being able to come in and effectively serve them as their guest is a remarkable privilege. Through comment cards and personal interaction with many of the students after the shows we get to grasp their take on our slant and message too. The response of the students is so cool, it’s great to hear and read about beginnings of revelations and changes students have committed to make, about minds that have been switched on to new ways of thinking, and heaps of other feedback. As performers, we get great receptions from the schools we visit, and have enjoyed fine fine hospitality from staff and home-stays.
We’ve been ripping up in the recording and practice sessions recently, and have learned a mean new song, ‘Brother’ by Matt Corby. Learning a song like that on guitar complete with vocal harmonies by memory is a testament to the growth of my abilities over the last couple of months, and i’m really excited to continue on an upward tangent from here.
We’ve got four shows this week at a High School with it’s own cafe. A High School. With an onsite cafe. About time. Also i’m gonna be putting in the hard yards on drums for an upcoming Studentlife camp this weekend, learning a whole new set in three days with all my other band commitments. Yeow.
Post-tour Reflections
Kia ora,
Back from tour last week, and contrary to my expectations, what I thought would be a pretty chilled out wind-down and debrief time ended up getting pretty choc-full of activity. I think I’m more busy than I’ve been in my life so far, but I’m liking the pace and I’m liking the activity, so it’s a really good sort of busy.
We played a show at Blaxland High out on the border of Sydney (if my knowledge is correct) where we noticed our fluency and slickness as a band from pack in to pack out is increasing. We’ve become pretty super efficient in getting in and prepared, even on a slim time-frame, which is great. Also, the set and my instrument is becoming more intuitive and comfortable for me, I feel like my growth as a musician and an adusted team player has improved hugely over a short space of time.
On Friday I got to have my first real shot at recording. We’re putting together an EP over the next couple months and it was pretty mad being able to take a crash course into some actual high quality audio recording. That’s a whole new side of music, man, and one I haven’t done at a level like that, so I learned a bunch about how to record vocals without sounding like a tool. Long way to go there. Rough cuts sounded good though, can’t wait to hear it when it’s done!
We took some time off on Thursday to do a wee bit of team building, and headed out to the Blue Mountains to get to the base of the Wentworth Falls. Had a great time (check out the pictures) and was blown away by how colossal the Blue Mountains are. It’s a larger valley than the Grand Canyon, and mostly unexplored.
At my church I am surrounded my some of the most competent and talented musicians I’ve ever met, and it’s a privilege to watch and learn from them. It also presents a monolithic hill to me, one I didn’t really see until recently, which is how far I have to go as a musician, and how much work I still need to put in. I would consider myself basically skilled, but the more I practise and watch these guys, the larger I realize the task is to get to where I need to be as a musician. Couldn’t have picked a better place to do it!
Some band pics a very fine photographer got of us the other day. Kudos!
