Hey everyone

I released an album a few weeks ago and am only just realising now that I should tell people. It’s called ‘A fool who’ll’ and you can buy it physically or digitally here:

http://chaptermusic.com.au/releases/a-fool-wholl-cd/

So far it’s getting great reviews! Rolling Stone said it was an uncompromising triumph. Can’t say I agree 100 per cent, but the sentiment is good, all the same.

Here are the tour dates:

Tickets on sale now
November
Friday 4 - The Grand Poobah, Hobart, Tasmania
Tix from http://mobileindustries.oztix.com.au/

Saturday 5 - The Toff In Town, Melbourne, Vic
Tix from http://www.thetoffintown.com/

Friday 11 - Petersham Bowls Club, Petersham,NSW
Tix from http://mobileindustries.oztix.com.au/

Friday 18 - Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley, QLD
FREE GIG! GOLD COIN DONATION!

Enough of that, let’s talk about something else.

It’s really windy today. As I was jogging around the park with my dog Dusty, I thought about how funny it is that wind is completely invisible. The only evidence is from the matter it stirs up. No wonder people get so freaked out by the wind. Who wouldn’t be freaked out by a creepy invisible force that at best gives you hayfever and at worst wipes out cities? My friend Will Hindmarsh from the band Go-Go Sapien once had a band called Hatewind as a vehicle to discuss this very topic. Sometimes when I am riding my bike in a headwind I desperately wish for a reformation so I could listen to them on my walkman as I battle the breath of the devil.

But other times, I enjoy the wind. I like how it makes fools of us. You can’t be cool in the wind, just like you can’t be cool when a dog smiles at you. Anyone that tries to be cool in these situations is immediately sprung. And yet, why is it that on stage a well placed fan can make the lead singer more charismatic? Singing has to be the daggiest thing in the world, so I suppose the addition of wind creates a double negative.

The only way to deal with the wind is to make friends with it. Laugh as it blows your allergic sneeze into the face of your new friend. If it blows you into a wall, hang out there for a bit and study the brickwork. Put up a dolphin wind chime. Record it, release it under a name made up of consonants and watch the blogosphere be blown away. Make the wind your annoying psychotic friend.

Love Laura

Regular Jean #8 is a video edition. A little song I made for Sam and Dusty. It’s the Kelpie Blues… Heheh.

As you may have noticed the title of this blog has become completely ironic. I thank you for your understanding.

I have been doing a lot of pondering but not a lot of writing lately. Song-wise I am dry. Every idea I dredge up seems a gumboot in place of a fish. There are so many amazing storytellers in this world, and so many words have been written. My words just seem to add to the commotion.

Words, to me, are increasingly empty. A shaped mewl with the lips parted, pops added accordingly, we impart to our fellow chimp a buzz from our fleshy lobes. A buzz born of some base fear, twisting and mutating through the tubes until it has found letters and legs.

Every animate being feels fear. Every emotion we have is from fear, yet we treat our reptilian brothers with a pompous scorn at their lack of complexity. What’s the difference? A few more neural pathways perhaps, but we run on the same juice.

The idea that love and other complex pleasures are born of fear needn’t be depressing. Fear is beautiful and wild. It’s the vibrating force from the back of our skull that reverberates our organs unpleasantly, forcing us to contemplate our crudely miraculous bodies.

It’s the fear of finding no mate that makes a pigeon dance, a moment of elegant genius in an otherwise primal grind of a life.

My dog snuffles adorably in the crook of my arm, hungry and afraid of starvation.

I marry someone who turns me on and makes me laugh, and who I can spend a long time with before getting annoyed. I am afraid of bad sex, losing my sense of humour and being alone.

I write a song in response to a powerful un-nameable atmosphere that would envelope me unless I funnel it into a tiny, manageable physical form. I am afraid of being swallowed by magic.

I sit down and write to you to keep my phantom persona alive in your mind. I am afraid of disappearing.

Love Laura

Hey Babes

What’s going on? I seriously would love to know, feel free to reply to these ramblings. The ones that have - thank you.

Me? After years of waiting for my gardening genes to kick in, (My Mum and Granny are both green thumbs) it finally happened. Yesterday.
I was weeding. Not just regular pull out bindies with a pincer and a glass of iced tea by your side weeding. I am talking digging out massive bulb networks, sore wristed, confronting earthworms, HARDCORE weeding. I pulled so hard that a couple of times I rolled onto my back and rocked back and forth like some kind of super gardening turtle. I really hoped the neighbours weren’t watching, but by their grimaces this morning I am guessing they did witness a few roll-backs.

People say hanging out with your fingers in the dirt is relaxing, but it’s really not. It’s pretty gross. There are weird, curled up insects that you have to brush away, bulbous, knobby, dead roots that look like dead shrivelled up hands, noxious weeds spitting spores in your face, stinging nettles giving you hives at the slightest touch. It’s a jungle out there in the Australian suburbs, if you put your face close enough to the ground.
Despite the hardship, I woke up this morning, put on my gloves and went so hard I broke a trowel. I am obviously addicted to the adrenaline - I am now a junkie. Watch out Costa! http://www.sbs.com.au/shows/costa/watchonline/page/i/1/show/costa

I have also been working on my album. There’s been a hold-up - I want to play saxophone on the album and am having to relearn it from when I was a kid. I promise there won’t be too many ‘sax’ moments on the album, but I AM enjoying the slight taste of cheese it’s bringing, so… my apologies.
Blame this song. It’s what made me start the sax when I was 10: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhSx8uKdD5o

Hmm… Just realised I have similar hair to Candy Dulfer now. Ok.

Jen, Biddy and I are going to be playing a residency at The Empress Hotel, Nicholson Street North Fitzroy, every Thursday in September. That’s five Thursdays folks… Here are the supports.

2nd: Yffer
9th: Lehmann Smith
16th: Carry Nation
23rd: Kieran Ryan (Kid Sam)
30th: Tired Hands (Kell from moonmilk)

YOU SHOULD COME!!! It’s 6 dollars. Supports on at 9, us at 10. I promise you will be able to get the last tram home.

Biddy, Jen and I played as ‘Sailor Days’ (Biddy’s compositions, me on bass, Jen on drums) supporting Lilith Lane the other night. She is amazing! But she’s moving to Spain now, for a year, so you will have to wait until she gets back to see her.
Meanwhile, look her up on the internet http://www.myspace.com/lilithlane.
R n B, soul, rock, she had it all really. I am constantly discovering ridiculously talented people in this town - though many people know about Lilith already. I will keep letting you know about my discoveries.

Hope you’re all well and wonderful

Laura

(not at all) Regular Jean #5

Well HELLO!

Could I be any LESS reliable? Apologies. I was supposed to do one of these every month, and it’s turned in to an almost biannual event.

Truth be told, I have been doing so much writing lately that my brain has used up a lot of its typing juice. You see, this year I started a ‘Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing’ at RMIT.

Why is it when one (or maybe it’s just me) goes back to school or starts a new job, one goes back to being 15 years old? My first couple of months were taken up with trying to make people like me, wandering the halls with a frightened look on my face, trying to avoid annoying people… I often look at teenagers chaotically loping down the street, bashing into people and trams while they clumsily negotiate their evil hormones and silently thank god/universe/higher love that I will never have to experience that again - unless I have another life, which I am hoping to karmically negotiate NOT to. Oh hang on, I forgot about menopause.
It seems, though, that we can never really escape adolescence - or any developmental stage really. When I have to do a speech I am 10 years old. When I am pre-menstrual I am 2 years old. On Saturday nights I am often 60 years old, having dinner with the wife and watching a bit of telly. But that’s getting ahead of things. It’s quite rare that I feel ‘28’.

I did a gig for the first time in 9 months the other night. I think a part of me was hoping that it would be a triumphant birth of a show, after 9 months of performance pregnancy. In my heart of hearts I wanted some kind of miraculousness to take place - perhaps a dramatic realisation that this is what I am ‘meant’ to be doing - Hooray!
Nah, it was just another show, with good moments, shaky moments, awkward moments and special moments. I guess in reality, a birth is much the same. No more miraculous then the very fact we are here, standing on this rock hurtling through space, kept in place by a tenuous scientific idea (gravity) that could warp at any moment. Let alone oxygen and shit.

I just wanted to make a little mention of some music I have been enjoying lately. Please look up these bands and go an see them live, or buy their shit.

Lost Animal - Jarrod from ‘St. Helens’, a now defunct Melbourne band. I saw some footage of a show he did and really enjoyed it -
http://messandnoise.com/tv/3938176

Magic Silver White - My long time musical collaborator Biddy Connor is a member of this excellent band (keep an eye out for Biddy’s album, coming out soonish - it’s AMAZING). Magic Silver White are wonderful! Led by Jojo Petrina, they are girl groupy, witchy, magical, silvery, slinky, but simultaneously earthy.

Otouto -Just gorgeous! Martha, Hazel and Kish create beautiful sparse pop-scapes of loveliness.

Another thought that has popped in my head - a shout out to my wonderful friends and family.

I have the most amazing friends. Sometimes I forget about someone for a few days, then I remember them and think - wow!! How awesome are they! Friends make my life worth living.
My family are so loving, humble and strange. I am grateful for them every day.

Oh, and Melbourne - I love you. I truly believe that musically, Melbourne is one of the most exciting places to be in the world right now. I can’t believe the music that comes out of this town. It’s getting better and better, year by year. It’s only a matter of time before everyone else realises this! I don’t think the rest of the world are aware. Generally, they only see Jet, The Vines, Wolfmother, bands that copy old British and American bands.
My friend Ned Collette got his album mixed in New York. The guy doing it said ‘Are there other people doing stuff like this in Australia’? Ned said something like, ‘well no but there are other people that sound like themselves over there’. The guy said something like ‘I don’t think I really know Australian music then’. This is a guy that KNOWS music. We are a Western, first world country in the East, far away from where our cultural model is. It’s a strange, strange place to be.

Thank you, reader, for listening to my random thoughts! It’s nice to keep in touch with people that have enjoyed my music over the years. I am working away on album number three, and will update you as I go! We are about a third of the way through.. I am being very inspired by classic oz rock, british eccentric pop and as always, American folk rock. Oh, and of course, a bit of English folk, ever present.

Thanks again for reading

Laura Jean

“I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date. No time to say goodbye, hello! I’m late, I’m late, I’m late! -White Rabbit”

Hey Everyone

Yes, I said I would write every month.. But, you know, December and January goes so fast! I’m sure no-one noticed anyway. It’s Summer.

So, this tardy report comes to you in the middle of that runt of a month (and oddly spelled at that), February. February was named after the Latin term februum, which means purification, via the purification ritual ‘Februa’ held on February 15 in the old Roman calendar. Historical names for February include the Anglo-Saxon terms Solmonath (mud month) and Kale-monath (named for cabbage).

Thanks wikipedia. February is also the month that you realise you have been shot out of the calendar-canon into the new year and you’ve gone a great distance without knowing it. “It’s almost March!”

Jen S and I have just moved back to the city a few days ago, as we are starting school and needed to be closer in. There is so much stuff to do that I have decided to distract myself with greater concerns, that is: The universe can’t exist.

I know I shouldn’t be trying to get my head around quantum physics on a year 10 education (I did year 12 but only on a farcical level) but I can’t help it.

If the Universe is expanding, what is it expanding IN to? It has to be ‘something’, perhaps a universe on another plane? And what is that universe contained in?

It actually has no answer. Our existence is impossible. There was ‘the void’, but even that void had to exist first.. Did it?

So where to from here? My animal brain cannot handle such infinite concerns, and yet I feel like there’s nothing else to think about. It’s a great way to get out of doing the washing up too. Why wash up when the Universe can’t theoretically exist?

Thank God I have a dog. People like me need dogs to survive.
I may as well make the announcment now: We are adding to the family. His name is Dusty. He is an abandoned 6 month old kelpie/blue heeler from Hepburn Springs with a black coat and kind green eyes. Pictures to come.

I am still being severely pounded by Saturn (I turned 28 last year, Saturn Return time) and because I don’t know who I am anymore I can’t say when another album will be out! I have the songs, just don’t have the means or ‘fire’ right now. It will probably pop out soon though.

There is an important rally on the 23rd of Feb called Save Live Australian Music - Check out details at http://www.slamrally.org/

I suppose because our existence doesn’t make sense, all that’s left to do is fully enjoy it. Lots of love to you out there.

Laura

Ahoy there,

Sorry about the lateness of this, the third Regular Jean. I am writing to you from Daylesford Library. I have been living in Daylesford for the last 6 months or so.

You might know Daylesford from the series of tourism ads starring Isobel Lucas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdmDGVoxjIE

The extras playing locals are shown as peasants tilling the fields and stuff (that’s me in the red headscarf picking mulberries). It would have been more realistic to show the locals tending the gardens to their bed and breakfast businesses or hippy single mums running down the street after half naked children with pixie hats, but it wouldn’t have looked as good. And Isobel Lucas would more realistically be a personal assistant in her mid 50’s on a hens weekend, but that wouldn’t have looked that great either.

We’re a visual bunch, us humans.

Hrmmmmmm. Things are slow here. Lots of room for thinking, pondering, and general thought making. Oh my God, I sound like Winnie The Pooh.

I haven’t done much music in a while. It’s times like these where you forget your identity as a ‘musician’ or ‘songwriter’ and you have to look at what’s left… A silly girl that loves her friends and family, partner and dog. Could be worse eh?

I also love Christmas. It’s embarrassing, but I’m shameless. Give me a carol by candlelight, the smell of a pine tree, and some tinsel and life couldn’t get much better.

Singing carols is how I learnt to sing.. That reminds me.
At the end of year talent quest in year 6, my mate Kristy and I played (she on the clarinet, me on the tenor saxaphone) some hot renditions of some classic christmas hits, complete with santa hats for a bit of cheeky showmanship flair.

Of course the popular group won by MIMING ‘Boom Shake Shake Shake The Room’ by Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. It was a travesty.

Later that December I was voted ‘Nigel of The Year’ as my final honour at primary school. It wasn’t a good month. I was slightly comforted by the fact our school softened the blow by changing it from ‘Nigel No Friends’ (too politically incorrect) to an acronym -

Nutty
Intellegent
Gullible
Eager
Learner. 

It’s pretty funny now, and I’m quite proud to be honest.

Enjoy the scent of the pine, the cicadas, the blurry waves of heat rising from the ashphalt, wilting tinsel on plastic kmart trees, creepy dancing santas and muzak carols while you shop for last minute presents from Coles. ‘Strayan Christmas.

Signing out from Daylesford Library HQ..

Laura